Describe your ideal partner.

[IndiReloaded]

You have an issue with me. Great, it's been noted.... repeatedly, from your offerings.

Either move on, or face off appropriately.

I can't shield you from myself much longer. My charity does have bounds.

Please. You made an assertion about running a household that was completely ridiculous. I made a very good point about use of modern tools toward a goal & you simply responded by calling me 'one of those'. LOL.

Are you perhaps one of those folks who actually needed to take an argumentation course but never actually understood the content?

[Doc Durian]

Please. You made an assertion about running a household that was completely ridiculous. I made a very good point about use of modern tools toward a goal & you simply responded by calling me 'one of those'. LOL.

Though you've yet to query or correctly nor instinctually comprehend what I meant by "one of those".

Are you perhaps one of those folks who actually needed to take an argumentation course but never actually understood the content?

You were saying?

[IndiReloaded]

Though you've yet to query or correctly nor instinctually comprehend what I meant by "one of those".

I don't need to. It was a diversion and irrelevant to my point. You dropped the argument ball, not me.

You were saying?

Logic, math, science >>> any artsy argumentation course. But that's me. You didn't actually answer.

Anyway, clearly you are avoiding an answer. Yawn. Guess I win & call it a day?

[IndiReloaded]

Oh, come on Doc. Don't be that way (all silent). I *like* arguing with you. You just gotta argue better if you want to butt heads with me.

Here was I, preparing for your final cutting blow... e-bowl in hand, ready to chuck at your head. Now I am so very, very sad.

Question: when 2 docs play, who gets to be the patient??

[Doc Durian]

I don't need to. It was a diversion and irrelevant to my point. You dropped the argument ball, not me.

So, in effect, what you're saying is that over 200 years of my frugal ancestry's lineage and common bonds/upbringing is in your opinion.... false.... by way of slandering my proposed yet un-promoted knowledge of canning fruits, vegetables, or meats.... but without any substantiation on your part as yet.

That what I implied with the comment, "You're one of those" (paraphrased) was anything other than the subtle suggestion that your sole insistance of being consumer/service society oriented and not a hands on/practical/educated woman/man in the basic staples of frugality and industry.

That comments such as:

Logic, math, science >>> any artsy argumentation course. But that's me. You didn't actually answer.

Anyway, clearly you are avoiding an answer. Yawn. Guess I win & call it a day?

...continue to showcase where your motives lie and not where you upbringing, intellect, nor conscience can bolster or otherwise aid in your white knuckled dissention for dissent's sake.


Aka: Two sugars, one milk, Ceylon... now.

[IndiReloaded]

Actually, if you must know, its a special blend of French Earl Grey that has to be special ordered...

Dude, any woman that does canning & the like for any reason other than she enjoys it as a treat for her family is, frankly stupid. It is not the most efficient way to live. Anymore than your getting to work on a horse makes sense. Or treating your patients by trepanning.

Modern women (and men) in our society have more resources available to them than ever before. And yes, I will grant you, more reason than ever to be happy b/c life is so relatively easy. So, I ask again: what is your problem with that? Why so down on a 'career woman'? I've got a family, and a career I like. Everyone seems to do quite well on it. So, don't you agree that one of the benefits of our modern conveniences is that ALL of society can benefit from things like an education to stimulate our minds & curiosity?

PS - you kind of remind me of Cam a bit. That's a good thing.

[IndiReloaded]

That what I implied with the comment, "You're one of those" (paraphrased) was anything other than the subtle suggestion that your sole insistance of being consumer/service society oriented and not a hands on/practical/educated woman/man in the basic staples of frugality and industry.

Doc, this statement above is ambiguous. Are you saying I am, or am not, a 'hands on' type woman? I'm quite prepared to disabuse you of the latter, and describe to you a 'career woman' who is certainly such (if you are nice I might even tell you how), but you have to first make up your mind what you are actually trying to say.

Let me know when you figure it out.

For the sake of moving the argument forward, tho, I will tell you I enjoy simple, well made things. Our home is simply decorated but every piece is quality. I have a lush flower garden b/c I happen to enjoy Japanese flower arranging. I know how to fix drywall & install electrical sockets when required. I also know how to order airline tickets and internet bank online so I don't have to waste my time driving all over the city. We only eat out about 1x a month, but we cook in quantity and use a huge freezer/pantry to store aliquots of the things we make. If I owned stock in Ziplock storage, I'd make myself rich.

I simply make use of the best tools available to me to ensure quality & efficiency. This is as true of my family & home as my career. Its only good sense, don't you think?

[Doc Durian]

Actually, if you must know, its a special blend of French Earl Grey that has to be special ordered...

Dude, any woman that does canning & the like for any reason other than she enjoys it as a treat for her family is, frankly stupid. It is not the most efficient way to live. Anymore than your getting to work on a horse makes sense. Or treating your patients by trepanning.

So my mother.... a woman who invited the sport hunters with no real taste for anything other than tenderloin, to dump their carcasses on her doorstep and allow her sons to carve them up, slice roasts where roasts remained, and mince the rest in a hand grinder.... all destined for deep freeze... was a financial idiot?

And the 2 plus middle high school years I sprawled my lanky legs in an asparagus picker 5 plus hours a day each night, and took home minimum wage, albeit in adult cash rates, but snared all the tough shoots not worthy of sale to the botique restaurants?

Or how about the neighbour across the way, with his 25 acres of black, golden, and tart cherries.... as well as plums, peaches, apples, and pears? Our families went way back, and the favour was always ready to be returned to them at a seconds notice. Usually with an odd beer at the local.

And what about the Chinook which Uncle Chip couldn't eat quick enough, or Uncle Dave couldn't stop smoking? I tell you, to this day....I've seen store bought and vac sealed bacon that goes off faster than that sweet molassis, brown sugar, and soy soaked paper bag's worth of once fish candy.

What about our deep freeze growing up? Never without at least 15 loaves of bread, 10 liters of milk, blueberries, asparagus, dehydrated apple and pear chips, venison, tomato sauce, ready made meals, stews, soups, flour, and ice cream... amongst more exotic things mum hid deep within.

What of the basement? I recall when the family trust finally approved the sale of great grandpa's homestead to mom and dad, 8 years after his death (mineral rights, the stickler) and we walked into great grandmother's huge dirt floored basement jelly cabinet to witness 1970's fruits and vegies galore staring at us with the same candid colour as the day they were picked... I recall the fear of us brothers in tasting them. We thought we were poor, or going to die... Little did we know at the time that while defunct in Vitamin C, there was plenty of sugar and fiber in those well preserved treats we almost cried over when they eventually disappeared.

But mum filled those shelves right back up, and with more variety, alongside her Shurfine Sale slabs of tuna, apple juice, or anything else she could grab from the bulk caterers. Have you ever seen a head sized tin of beetroot or pineapple?

Have you ever seen a dozen antique dairy milk tins filled to the brim with long grained rice and bay leaves?

But that was what she bought. She grew much more. She never had less than 6 rows of tomatoes, 2 of cucumber, 3 of peppers, 3 of carrots, 1 of onion, or 9 of potato... and we learnt to check the green tomatoes winter weekly in their boxes to see which started gassing and infecting the others. We also occasionally checked the trap door of the disused chicken coop for the root vegetables.... but once winter set upon us, we were assured that nothing would go off.

We lived on beer stew, chile con carne, lasagna, roast chicken and vegetables, roast venison and vegetables, homemade pizza, casseroles, and a number of sweet after dinner fruit treats.

Our pipes never froze because she kept great grandpa's kerosene heaters (and I took them apart and fixed them serviceably up)

The thermostat never sunk below 65 F, but we were okay as she didn't believe in buying crap and believed in handing down mock turtlenecks and longjohns from LL Bean and Lands End as well as twice yearly trips to the Salvation Army Superstore in Muskegon where she's scoop up a carload of grab bags at a buck a piece and sell the remainder at cost to the migrant workers in garage sales. (Sometimes, for nothing.... she had a great heart and used to encourage their thefts by looking the other way for minutes at a time. Us boys used to get angry and try to pressure her to look at the crimes.)

But don't get me started about her and garage sales.

Being the oldest, my closest brother and I used to be the muscle behind her furniture purchases.... We kept an old 1984 job site F150 in the yard... and it barely ran, but always started. So in her excursions on Saturdays and Sundays, she'd come across something painted in lead or latex white or pink paint, ugly as hell, but bearing the signs of mahagony, oak, or maple in her clandestine car key scratches.... thus requiring a drive to a payphone, and her instance that we jump in grey thunder and meet her there. Never more than 50 bucks USD, but never selling for less than 500.00 USD after the putty knife, heat gun, and the endless hours her and ourselves sat out in the garage, deer dangling in the spreader bars Uncle D made at work, and often freezing our tits off and groaning about mum.

I could go on and on about how I was raised. But it would fall upon deaf or obstinate ears.

Although I see the wisdom, the sacrifice, the ingenuity, and the love which frugality brought us children and I try to mimic it to this day.

So when someone suggests that searching the internet for one off purchases, and various other slight gains... with nothing practical incorporated into daily life... I'm offended.

I hated garage sales as a kid.... but I stop at every one without fail.

Modern women (and men) in our society have more resources available to them than ever before.

No, they don't. They have less inspirations to search for resource.

And yes, I will grant you, more reason than ever to be happy b/c life is so relatively easy.

You don't plan for the Garden of Eden, you plan for the snow squall.

So, I ask again: what is your problem with that? Why so down on a 'career woman'? I've got a family, and a career I like.

I'm not down on anyone. I'm suspect on anyone who tries to buy their way through raising children.

Everyone seems to do quite well on it. So, don't you agree that one of the benefits of our modern conveniences is that ALL of society can benefit from things like an education to stimulate our minds & curiosity?

Red herring again noted.

PS - you kind of remind me of Cam a bit. That's a good thing.

Thank you. You remind me of my first girlfriend.

[Doc Durian]

Doc, this statement above is ambiguous. Are you saying I am, or am not, a 'hands on' type woman? I'm quite prepared to disabuse you of the latter, and describe to you a 'career woman' who is certainly such (if you are nice I might even tell you how), but you have to first make up your mind what you are actually trying to say.

Let me know when you figure it out.

That's my fault.... I should have, in my editing of my initial statement duly employed the word "but"... "but" you got the drift, irregardless.

For the sake of moving the argument forward, tho, I will tell you I enjoy simple, well made things. Our home is simply decorated but every piece is quality. I have a lush flower garden b/c I happen to enjoy Japanese flower arranging.

Anything edible in that?

I know how to fix drywall & install electrical sockets when required.

Wow

I also know how to order airline tickets and internet bank online so I don't have to waste my time driving all over the city.

Double wow.

We only eat out about 1x a month, but we cook in quantity and use a huge freezer/pantry to store aliquots of the things we make. If I owned stock in Ziplock storage, I'd make myself rich.

Mum was on that same path, but then she discovered that she could soak the bags in the sink with unscented Clorox and save a fortune, not to mention cut down on her trips to the distant recycle centre.

I simply make use of the best tools available to me to ensure quality & efficiency. This is as true of my family & home as my career. Its only good sense, don't you think?

A smidgeon of it...

[IndiReloaded]

So my mother.... a woman who invited the sport hunters with no real taste for anything other than tenderloin, to dump their carcasses on her doorstep and allow her sons to carve them up, slice roasts where roasts remained, and mince the rest in a hand grinder.... all destined for deep freeze... was a financial idiot?

And the 2 plus middle high school years I sprawled my lanky legs in an asparagus picker 5 plus hours a day each night, and took home minimum wage, albeit in adult cash rates, but snared all the tough shoots not worthy of sale to the botique restaurants?

Or how about the neighbour across the way, with his 25 acres of black, golden, and tart cherries.... as well as plums, peaches, apples, and pears? Our families went way back, and the favour was always ready to be returned to them at a seconds notice. Usually with an odd beer at the local.

LOL. Look Doc, 98% of us come from farmer stock more than a couple generations back. My relatives own farming property in the Niagara area of Canada, which should have some meaning to you. Wine & fruit.

I've got cherry trees on my property. Blackberry bushes. We grow lettuce, tomatoes (try anyway), asparagus, beans or snow peas each season... but not nearly enough land to actually sustain our family independent of purchased food. Tho its something we have discussed, actually. Right now, tho, its for pleasure, and to teach our son food doesn't come from a grocery store. He also gets to learn was a partially slug-eaten, pesticide-free artichoke looks like. Happy?

Your mother wasn't stupid if she was using the resources she had the best she could. But to suggest we should all go back a century when it simply isn't necessary is just silly. Even farmers today make use of combines & other kinds of technology. Check crop prices on the internet. And still barely get by (or don't w/o government incentives). Why do you think so many have turned to maize production for fuel?

I'm desperately trying to understand your argument? What are you saying? That society needs to go back to the days when men farmed & women bore sons to keep the farm running? Where people died at 30-40 and died from poor hygiene or childbirth?

Move to India or Africa, man. I hear you can still live the good life there.

And hey, can YOU install drywall or an electrical socket? You'd be surprised the guys out there that don't know what a voltmetre is, much less own one. Or a screwdriver.

[Indignant]

Indi, most guys are jealous of career / successful women. i think we covered it in another thread. Doc is a great example of it.

[IndiReloaded]

What confuses me is this: if the country life is so great, why didn't he just stay a farmer? Why 'do the doc'?

I smell double standard.

[Doc Durian]

LOL. Look Doc, 98% of us come from farmer stock more than a couple generations back. My relatives own farming property in the Niagara area of Canada, which should have some meaning to you. Wine & fruit.

And some of us continue growing ourselves, or sublet the 50-100 acres to someone willing to till the soil and alternate crops for the yearly property tax bill...

I've got cherry trees on my property. Blackberry bushes. We grow lettuce, tomatoes (try anyway), asparagus, beans or snow peas each season... but not nearly enough land to actually sustain our family independent of purchased food.

Who does have every climate in the palm of their hand? You work with what you've got, trade inbetween, and make do with what you can't acquire.

Tho its something we have discussed, actually. Right now, tho, its for pleasure, and to teach our son food doesn't come from a grocery store. He also gets to learn was a partially slug-eaten, pesticide-free artichoke looks like. Happy?

Sweet! Have you tried boiled artichoke with lemon, salt, oil, and water dipping sauce.... very simple, very nice.

Your mother wasn't stupid if she was using the resources she had the best she could. But to suggest we should all go back a century when it simply isn't necessary is just silly.

So grandma was silly for keeping 24 Hi-C cans as her stands for the guest bedroom's box spring mattress elevator?

The great depression wasn't in her time, but she remembered the lore.... and her husband and his brothers wearing their uniforms down to the rationing lines in order to get that little extra bit of sugar and salt to get great grandma and grandpas' produce tinned/canned for the winter.

Even farmers today make use of combines & other kinds of technology. Check crop prices on the internet. And still barely get by (or don't w/o government incentives). Why do you think so many have turned to maize production for fuel?

Because they're greedy, and those who own the land they till for a price don't have standards regarding Monsanto.

I'm desperately trying to understand your argument? What are you saying? That society needs to go back to the days when men farmed & women bore sons to keep the farm running?

No, for people to be frugal and industrious, irregardless of gender roles, feminism, and any associated damage.

Where people died at 30-40 and died from poor hygiene or childbirth?

You're speaking of the 16th or 17th century?

Move to India or Africa, man. I hear you can still live the good life there.

Lived in one, been to both, but your sort continue to buy instead of grow, foster, cherish...

I feel more akin to third world nation folk than I do to my own supposed brethren now.

In fact, I find the flag to be offensive.

Nothing short of the "Don't tread on me" flag, in it's historical context keeps me from revoking all the false truths my countrymen purport these days.

[Doc Durian]

Indi, most guys are jealous of career / successful women. i think we covered it in another thread. Doc is a great example of it.

And you've deduced this how such?

[IndiReloaded]

Lived in one, been to both, but your sort continue to buy instead of grow, foster, cherish...

"My sort". LOL, what a hypocrite you are, on your laptop computer typing on LoveForum into the evening...

I grant you, there is a 'disconnect' between our modern technological society & what actually feeds us. So, what do you propose beyond what I already mentioned regards my summer gardening? Should I really get out there and make possum pie for supper tomorrow?

Alright, I'm going to push you here: how far back should we go? Do you want to push it back to pre-Sumeria before the end of the hunter-gather society? I mean, things got really interesting once humans started farming & living in villages, right? I wonder if the hunter-gather folk complained bitterly like you about this 'newfangled farming thing'?

I hear one can still get a really cheap cave in parts of northern South America. Bring your own chloroquinine, tho.