| Humor Non-Fiction posted May 20, 2020 |
  |
Mother of all storms!
A Force to be Reckoned With: #1
by Elizabeth Emerald
This assigned piece was written in 1998; the teacher instructed us to consider all aspects of a person of our choice and bring our subject to life. I channeled my mother and let her loose. (Trust me; she wouldn’t have had it any other way.) My sister and her husband said my characterization was spot on. I dared not let my mother see this; she would not have been amused. Indeed, I trust that she’d be turning in her grave if she had one.
This story tells of my anticipating—and enduring—a parental visit; it is a conflation of several such visits in the early 1990’s.
The main narrative is related in the present tense and simple past tense; my not-so-fond reminiscences interspersed within harken back to previous visits and to childhood memories of Life with Mother; these are italicized.
I’ve somewhat arbitrarily broken this unwieldy offering into three segments, to be released in sequence over the course of several days; though they are preferably read in order, each in itself can be considered a “slice in the life of.”
PART ONE
This morning, when the kids eagerly asked what time grandma would get here, I carelessly replied that she was due to arrive about one o’clock.
Big mistake. I'm kicking myself for not having said two o’clock. Bad enough that every ten minutes, starting at noon, I'll be subjected to antsy inquiries; at the stroke of one I'll be pestered for minute-by-minute updates.
Please, I beg silently, don’t let this be a late-start / ran-into- traffic day. At least they won’t have stopped for lunch on the way. She better not pull that again.
I clenched my teeth, remembering. After Lauren had been born, I invited all the relatives for turkey dinner. My mother asked what she could bring. My response: An appetite.
When she arrived, it turned out that she wasn’t hungry quite yet since they “had a bite” during a stop “on the way.”
Where? At Grimsby’s, notable for its hearty portions. And for its proximity—a mere two miles from my house. Why? Because she wanted to spare me the trouble of cooking.
“But it’s already cooked! I told you we were having turkey at two. What, did you think to save me from sticking it in the oven? It’s been roasting since nine this morning. It’ll be more trouble now to put the leftovers away.”
“So, I’ll pick at it later. Don’t worry.”
“Yeah, after I first put it all away, then yank it back out. You’re the one always telling me it has to be refrigerated within the hour.”
The books say two hours, but she was always twice as careful. The books also say you can keep cooked meat for four days; she tossed it in two. She wouldn’t bend by even a day, much less bow submissively to experts’ concensus. I had tried countless times to persuade her to consign the remains of the day directly to the depths of her ever-empty freezer, but she professed not to trust that the thermostat spoke the truth. Surely it couldn’t be that she didn’t want to bother wrapping everything up, given that—during their brief respite in her refrigerated pass-this-way-station—all transients were huddled unrecognizably, each from the others, in mysterious masses of molded aluminum.
Nor did she trouble to serve up leftovers; there was no “Take Two.” After all, she’d just cooked; therefore, she deserved a night of R ‘n R (Recovery in Restaurant). We’d be lucky to grab ourselves a snack from yesterday’s supper before she snatched it away to appease that ever-growling menace: El Disposal.
In the early days, leftovers made the grade of cat fodder. (Alas, Shawn and Molly have long since expired—of natural causes, please note.) I appealed in vain to logic: If two-day-old food were bad, the cats would be puking their way to pussy heaven. The fact that they were all-too-much among us—providing companionship on both commode and communal table—meant that whatever she fed them was similarly safe for human consumption.
Notwithstanding my impeccable argument, she wasn’t having any of it; therefore, neither was I. Meatballs Two, the sequel, was already pushing it. (Hollywood should take a tip from her to keep their own stuff from stale-dom.)
Years later, living on my own, I tested my theory. My safety experiments—with me as sole subject—lasted two weeks per turkey. I may have got sick of it, but never once from it. Was she ever horrified when I told her of my discovery! She made me swear never to feed the kids anything that wasn’t completely fresh. An easy promise to keep because they didn’t eat anything anyway.
Mercifully, my musings are interrupted at 12:42.
“Grandma!” Lauren shrieks, glimpsing the familiar silver Lexus, well-rewarded for having continually bounded outdoors, persistently chasing false leads of numerous disappointing drive-bys. Lauren dashes out the door, the boys bumping belligerently behind, vying for second place.
My mother emerges from the car and, waving wildly, calls out: “We’re heeere.”
The “we” includes my father, who lags behind several paces, as he invariably does. She marches in the house with him trailing her meekly. Without pausing to take off her coat, she sets down bulging bags, bursting with beribboned boxes, and flings her arms widely enough to encompass the three clamoring kids.
They rush into her embrace, as if stuffing themselves into an expandable envelope. I marvel at how my mother manages to comfortably contain three squirming power packs.
The children dutifully greet their grandfather, accepting his stiff, one-armed hug, then turn their attention to Grandma.
“Presents!” She rattles the bag, eyes gleaming. “I’ve got presents! Soon as we get inside.”
So much for lunch. I am ravenous, but lunch will have to wait. If I preempt presents, the kids will whine miserably throughout the meal.
It's my own fault; I should have eaten a better breakfast. I’m a morning person who can barely muster the energy to abandon my bed before tanking up. Typical breakfast fare, however hearty, isn’t my preference. I feel most satisfied with a lunch or supper type meal: all the food groups. Pizza—hot or not—and a large salad. Tuna, tomato, and cheese on hearty bread. Barbecued chicken, with baked potato and corn-on-the-cob.
This eccentricity of mine harkened back to the days when house rule regarding leftovers was “Use it or lose it” (likely before next sundown). Breakfast offered me an opportunity to save good food from an undignified fate. I’d have been happiest back then to start my day with Special K and OJ, but after all these years I grew to relish my unusual morning repasts. A breakfast of cereal and juice would be a disappointment now.
Foolishly, instead of having a decent meal after having risen extra early this morning after a restless night, I told myself that I’d be indulging big time throughout the day. Given the lavish lunch I’d prepared and the inevitable restaurant dinner, I thought it best to save my appetite.
My appetite, however, would not stand by passively and patiently wait to be saved. In assertion of its independence, it rescued itself from my stinginess, stubbornly snatching at its own lifesavers in the form of Frosty-O’s, Chips Ahoy, and Cap’n Crunch. Once back on deck, I indulged in dibs-n-dabs of cookie dough in the rate of one lump per two—or worse, vice versa—that made it to the baking sheet. Followed by a spoon or ten of coffee ice cream for energy.
Despite the shameful surfeit of calories—which my brain scrambles to tally with the most creative accounting principles I can muster to justify the continual operation of my mouth—my stomach is rumbling.
Spying the pre-set table and the simmering stove, my mother asks how she can help. I assure her all was ready.
She persists. “Shall I make the salad?” She is always eager to tend salad bar. She always contrives to get salad—of garden-plot proportions—on the menu, even if I hadn’t planned to serve any. By bingeing on healthful greens, she can better justify having “just a taste” of the fattening fare. Or, conversely, by stuffing herself with salad she can avoid the other offerings; she considers my food-safety standards egregiously sub-par.
Thus stems her second purpose in volunteering as chief cucumber chopper: She is aware that I don’t trouble to wash vegetables. My food-prep philosophy is: “See no evil; fear no evil.” Besides, if there were Salmonella sleeping on my celery stalks, the only thing that would give them a rude enough awakening—rather, send them to permanent slumber—would be a blast of boiling water from an industrial hose.
Today, alas for my trepidatious mother, I'd preempted her intervention. She winces slightly as I gesture toward the salad, carefully, colorfully arranged. Indulging my creativity in composition serves as compensation for having had to chop the components. Cutting vegetables is a chore even more tedious than scrubbing; I often leave such prep-work to my mother in order to distract her from taking over the tasks I prefer. This is a win-win strategy: planning and creating inspire me; both had long since burnt her out.
Ironic, since to this day my mother is noted amongst her entourage for her marvelous meals. Remembrance of things past, in part, perhaps. Nonetheless, she cleverly accrues credit slight-of-effort and sleight-of-hand for impressive presentation of simple—often purchased—fare. The Great Entertainer is, curtain swept aside, the Great Pretender.
She has a knack for everything domestic—provided it can be accomplished quickly—though her understated elegance in décor is not my style. “Life’s too short for beige” is my motto. Her friends all rave that she should have made a career in interior design given her sharp eye for pattern, placement, and subtle shadings of earth tones. Once out of her shadowed abode, I went for bright and bold. As to furniture arrangement, I don’t pay it much mind.
My mother knows enough not to drab my palette, but can’t resist occasional suggestions phrased disingenuously as questions. She’d inquire oh so casually and ever so cheerfully why we had a bookcase there (in a place everyone would have a bookcase). Translation: it should be moved. Invariably, from the standpoints of both aesthetics and function, she would be dead center on target. But, dammit, my bookcase was going to stay right where it was. Better to miss hitting the dartboard entirely than—like a kid who is thrown a game by a condescending adult—to count her bull’s-eye toward my score.
Mental intermission accomplished; we are back at the salad bar.
My mother peeks into the over-sized bowl. “Lovely,” she effuses, whilst cross-casting her eyes for serving utensils. “Shall I toss it, dress it, make a vinaigrette?” Her inquiry is rhetorical; even as she pays lip service to requesting permission, she is hurling open cupboards, profusely excusing her intrusion into the cramped workspace as she roots for olive oil and balsamic. And for the pepper mill, presented me on her previous visit.
My mother had introduced me—attempted to seduce me—to the tang of freshly ground pepper, tried in vain to make me toss the salt-shaker over my shoulder and never look back. She cringes to contemplate the white stuff I consume with such insouciance; she rails about my flirting dangerously with high blood pressure. Last she said so, I countered quite cleverly: "In that case I’d best get down and dirty with a chaser of 200-proof soy sauce, given my BP tops out at 98 over 64."
“I already put low-fat ranch and sugar-free lemon-poppyseed on the table,” I say, pointing to the cruets in an effort to curtail her insistent rummaging. “We’ll each add what we want to our own bowl. This way the leftovers won’t turn to pickled slime. And you know that Doug only eats plain lettuce.” (Indeed, she knows very well—both by numerous occasions of condescending observation and by virtue of our having this tiresome salad-dressing exchange countless times before.)
“Besides, I don’t want to toss it all up—this way all can behold the table’s crowning glory.” I gesture to the crystal bowl jeweled with meticulously set emerald and ruby peppers, onyx olives, and pearly button mushrooms.
“It's gorgeous,” my mother says, smiling in admiration at my gem collection. Then she frowns and shakes her head. “I just hate to see you running around, doing it all. After a full week at work and no help at home from that husband of yours, I don’t know how you manage. It exhausts me to watch you, rushing back and forth like this.”
She retrieves her smile, and adds, “Well, now that I’m here, you’ll finally be able to relax.”
(Ha!)
This assigned piece was written in 1998; the teacher instructed us to consider all aspects of a person of our choice and bring our subject to life. I channeled my mother and let her loose. (Trust me; she wouldn’t have had it any other way.) My sister and her husband said my characterization was spot on. I dared not let my mother see this; she would not have been amused. Indeed, I trust that she’d be turning in her grave if she had one.
This story tells of my anticipating—and enduring—a parental visit; it is a conflation of several such visits in the early 1990’s.
The main narrative is related in the present tense and simple past tense; my not-so-fond reminiscences interspersed within harken back to previous visits and to childhood memories of Life with Mother; these are italicized.
I’ve somewhat arbitrarily broken this unwieldy offering into three segments, to be released in sequence over the course of several days; though they are preferably read in order, each in itself can be considered a “slice in the life of.”
PART ONE
This morning, when the kids eagerly asked what time grandma would get here, I carelessly replied that she was due to arrive about one o’clock.
Big mistake. I'm kicking myself for not having said two o’clock. Bad enough that every ten minutes, starting at noon, I'll be subjected to antsy inquiries; at the stroke of one I'll be pestered for minute-by-minute updates.
Please, I beg silently, don’t let this be a late-start / ran-into- traffic day. At least they won’t have stopped for lunch on the way. She better not pull that again.
I clenched my teeth, remembering. After Lauren had been born, I invited all the relatives for turkey dinner. My mother asked what she could bring. My response: An appetite.
When she arrived, it turned out that she wasn’t hungry quite yet since they “had a bite” during a stop “on the way.”
Where? At Grimsby’s, notable for its hearty portions. And for its proximity—a mere two miles from my house. Why? Because she wanted to spare me the trouble of cooking.
“But it’s already cooked! I told you we were having turkey at two. What, did you think to save me from sticking it in the oven? It’s been roasting since nine this morning. It’ll be more trouble now to put the leftovers away.”
“So, I’ll pick at it later. Don’t worry.”
“Yeah, after I first put it all away, then yank it back out. You’re the one always telling me it has to be refrigerated within the hour.”
The books say two hours, but she was always twice as careful. The books also say you can keep cooked meat for four days; she tossed it in two. She wouldn’t bend by even a day, much less bow submissively to experts’ concensus. I had tried countless times to persuade her to consign the remains of the day directly to the depths of her ever-empty freezer, but she professed not to trust that the thermostat spoke the truth. Surely it couldn’t be that she didn’t want to bother wrapping everything up, given that—during their brief respite in her refrigerated pass-this-way-station—all transients were huddled unrecognizably, each from the others, in mysterious masses of molded aluminum.
Nor did she trouble to serve up leftovers; there was no “Take Two.” After all, she’d just cooked; therefore, she deserved a night of R ‘n R (Recovery in Restaurant). We’d be lucky to grab ourselves a snack from yesterday’s supper before she snatched it away to appease that ever-growling menace: El Disposal.
In the early days, leftovers made the grade of cat fodder. (Alas, Shawn and Molly have long since expired—of natural causes, please note.) I appealed in vain to logic: If two-day-old food were bad, the cats would be puking their way to pussy heaven. The fact that they were all-too-much among us—providing companionship on both commode and communal table—meant that whatever she fed them was similarly safe for human consumption.
Notwithstanding my impeccable argument, she wasn’t having any of it; therefore, neither was I. Meatballs Two, the sequel, was already pushing it. (Hollywood should take a tip from her to keep their own stuff from stale-dom.)
Years later, living on my own, I tested my theory. My safety experiments—with me as sole subject—lasted two weeks per turkey. I may have got sick of it, but never once from it. Was she ever horrified when I told her of my discovery! She made me swear never to feed the kids anything that wasn’t completely fresh. An easy promise to keep because they didn’t eat anything anyway.
Mercifully, my musings are interrupted at 12:42.
“Grandma!” Lauren shrieks, glimpsing the familiar silver Lexus, well-rewarded for having continually bounded outdoors, persistently chasing false leads of numerous disappointing drive-bys. Lauren dashes out the door, the boys bumping belligerently behind, vying for second place.
My mother emerges from the car and, waving wildly, calls out: “We’re heeere.”
The “we” includes my father, who lags behind several paces, as he invariably does. She marches in the house with him trailing her meekly. Without pausing to take off her coat, she sets down bulging bags, bursting with beribboned boxes, and flings her arms widely enough to encompass the three clamoring kids.
They rush into her embrace, as if stuffing themselves into an expandable envelope. I marvel at how my mother manages to comfortably contain three squirming power packs.
The children dutifully greet their grandfather, accepting his stiff, one-armed hug, then turn their attention to Grandma.
“Presents!” She rattles the bag, eyes gleaming. “I’ve got presents! Soon as we get inside.”
So much for lunch. I am ravenous, but lunch will have to wait. If I preempt presents, the kids will whine miserably throughout the meal.
It's my own fault; I should have eaten a better breakfast. I’m a morning person who can barely muster the energy to abandon my bed before tanking up. Typical breakfast fare, however hearty, isn’t my preference. I feel most satisfied with a lunch or supper type meal: all the food groups. Pizza—hot or not—and a large salad. Tuna, tomato, and cheese on hearty bread. Barbecued chicken, with baked potato and corn-on-the-cob.
This eccentricity of mine harkened back to the days when house rule regarding leftovers was “Use it or lose it” (likely before next sundown). Breakfast offered me an opportunity to save good food from an undignified fate. I’d have been happiest back then to start my day with Special K and OJ, but after all these years I grew to relish my unusual morning repasts. A breakfast of cereal and juice would be a disappointment now.
Foolishly, instead of having a decent meal after having risen extra early this morning after a restless night, I told myself that I’d be indulging big time throughout the day. Given the lavish lunch I’d prepared and the inevitable restaurant dinner, I thought it best to save my appetite.
My appetite, however, would not stand by passively and patiently wait to be saved. In assertion of its independence, it rescued itself from my stinginess, stubbornly snatching at its own lifesavers in the form of Frosty-O’s, Chips Ahoy, and Cap’n Crunch. Once back on deck, I indulged in dibs-n-dabs of cookie dough in the rate of one lump per two—or worse, vice versa—that made it to the baking sheet. Followed by a spoon or ten of coffee ice cream for energy.
Despite the shameful surfeit of calories—which my brain scrambles to tally with the most creative accounting principles I can muster to justify the continual operation of my mouth—my stomach is rumbling.
Spying the pre-set table and the simmering stove, my mother asks how she can help. I assure her all was ready.
She persists. “Shall I make the salad?” She is always eager to tend salad bar. She always contrives to get salad—of garden-plot proportions—on the menu, even if I hadn’t planned to serve any. By bingeing on healthful greens, she can better justify having “just a taste” of the fattening fare. Or, conversely, by stuffing herself with salad she can avoid the other offerings; she considers my food-safety standards egregiously sub-par.
Thus stems her second purpose in volunteering as chief cucumber chopper: She is aware that I don’t trouble to wash vegetables. My food-prep philosophy is: “See no evil; fear no evil.” Besides, if there were Salmonella sleeping on my celery stalks, the only thing that would give them a rude enough awakening—rather, send them to permanent slumber—would be a blast of boiling water from an industrial hose.
Today, alas for my trepidatious mother, I'd preempted her intervention. She winces slightly as I gesture toward the salad, carefully, colorfully arranged. Indulging my creativity in composition serves as compensation for having had to chop the components. Cutting vegetables is a chore even more tedious than scrubbing; I often leave such prep-work to my mother in order to distract her from taking over the tasks I prefer. This is a win-win strategy: planning and creating inspire me; both had long since burnt her out.
Ironic, since to this day my mother is noted amongst her entourage for her marvelous meals. Remembrance of things past, in part, perhaps. Nonetheless, she cleverly accrues credit slight-of-effort and sleight-of-hand for impressive presentation of simple—often purchased—fare. The Great Entertainer is, curtain swept aside, the Great Pretender.
She has a knack for everything domestic—provided it can be accomplished quickly—though her understated elegance in décor is not my style. “Life’s too short for beige” is my motto. Her friends all rave that she should have made a career in interior design given her sharp eye for pattern, placement, and subtle shadings of earth tones. Once out of her shadowed abode, I went for bright and bold. As to furniture arrangement, I don’t pay it much mind.
My mother knows enough not to drab my palette, but can’t resist occasional suggestions phrased disingenuously as questions. She’d inquire oh so casually and ever so cheerfully why we had a bookcase there (in a place everyone would have a bookcase). Translation: it should be moved. Invariably, from the standpoints of both aesthetics and function, she would be dead center on target. But, dammit, my bookcase was going to stay right where it was. Better to miss hitting the dartboard entirely than—like a kid who is thrown a game by a condescending adult—to count her bull’s-eye toward my score.
Mental intermission accomplished; we are back at the salad bar.
My mother peeks into the over-sized bowl. “Lovely,” she effuses, whilst cross-casting her eyes for serving utensils. “Shall I toss it, dress it, make a vinaigrette?” Her inquiry is rhetorical; even as she pays lip service to requesting permission, she is hurling open cupboards, profusely excusing her intrusion into the cramped workspace as she roots for olive oil and balsamic. And for the pepper mill, presented me on her previous visit.
My mother had introduced me—attempted to seduce me—to the tang of freshly ground pepper, tried in vain to make me toss the salt-shaker over my shoulder and never look back. She cringes to contemplate the white stuff I consume with such insouciance; she rails about my flirting dangerously with high blood pressure. Last she said so, I countered quite cleverly: "In that case I’d best get down and dirty with a chaser of 200-proof soy sauce, given my BP tops out at 98 over 64."
“I already put low-fat ranch and sugar-free lemon-poppyseed on the table,” I say, pointing to the cruets in an effort to curtail her insistent rummaging. “We’ll each add what we want to our own bowl. This way the leftovers won’t turn to pickled slime. And you know that Doug only eats plain lettuce.” (Indeed, she knows very well—both by numerous occasions of condescending observation and by virtue of our having this tiresome salad-dressing exchange countless times before.)
“Besides, I don’t want to toss it all up—this way all can behold the table’s crowning glory.” I gesture to the crystal bowl jeweled with meticulously set emerald and ruby peppers, onyx olives, and pearly button mushrooms.
“It's gorgeous,” my mother says, smiling in admiration at my gem collection. Then she frowns and shakes her head. “I just hate to see you running around, doing it all. After a full week at work and no help at home from that husband of yours, I don’t know how you manage. It exhausts me to watch you, rushing back and forth like this.”
She retrieves her smile, and adds, “Well, now that I’m here, you’ll finally be able to relax.”
(Ha!)
PART ONE
This morning, when the kids eagerly asked what time grandma would get here, I carelessly replied that she was due to arrive about one o’clock.
Big mistake. I'm kicking myself for not having said two o’clock. Bad enough that every ten minutes, starting at noon, I'll be subjected to antsy inquiries; at the stroke of one I'll be pestered for minute-by-minute updates.
Please, I beg silently, don’t let this be a late-start / ran-into- traffic day. At least they won’t have stopped for lunch on the way. She better not pull that again.
I clenched my teeth, remembering. After Lauren had been born, I invited all the relatives for turkey dinner. My mother asked what she could bring. My response: An appetite.
When she arrived, it turned out that she wasn’t hungry quite yet since they “had a bite” during a stop “on the way.”
Where? At Grimsby’s, notable for its hearty portions. And for its proximity—a mere two miles from my house. Why? Because she wanted to spare me the trouble of cooking.
“But it’s already cooked! I told you we were having turkey at two. What, did you think to save me from sticking it in the oven? It’s been roasting since nine this morning. It’ll be more trouble now to put the leftovers away.”
“So, I’ll pick at it later. Don’t worry.”
“Yeah, after I first put it all away, then yank it back out. You’re the one always telling me it has to be refrigerated within the hour.”
The books say two hours, but she was always twice as careful. The books also say you can keep cooked meat for four days; she tossed it in two. She wouldn’t bend by even a day, much less bow submissively to experts’ concensus. I had tried countless times to persuade her to consign the remains of the day directly to the depths of her ever-empty freezer, but she professed not to trust that the thermostat spoke the truth. Surely it couldn’t be that she didn’t want to bother wrapping everything up, given that—during their brief respite in her refrigerated pass-this-way-station—all transients were huddled unrecognizably, each from the others, in mysterious masses of molded aluminum.
Nor did she trouble to serve up leftovers; there was no “Take Two.” After all, she’d just cooked; therefore, she deserved a night of R ‘n R (Recovery in Restaurant). We’d be lucky to grab ourselves a snack from yesterday’s supper before she snatched it away to appease that ever-growling menace: El Disposal.
In the early days, leftovers made the grade of cat fodder. (Alas, Shawn and Molly have long since expired—of natural causes, please note.) I appealed in vain to logic: If two-day-old food were bad, the cats would be puking their way to pussy heaven. The fact that they were all-too-much among us—providing companionship on both commode and communal table—meant that whatever she fed them was similarly safe for human consumption.
Notwithstanding my impeccable argument, she wasn’t having any of it; therefore, neither was I. Meatballs Two, the sequel, was already pushing it. (Hollywood should take a tip from her to keep their own stuff from stale-dom.)
Years later, living on my own, I tested my theory. My safety experiments—with me as sole subject—lasted two weeks per turkey. I may have got sick of it, but never once from it. Was she ever horrified when I told her of my discovery! She made me swear never to feed the kids anything that wasn’t completely fresh. An easy promise to keep because they didn’t eat anything anyway.
“Grandma!” Lauren shrieks, glimpsing the familiar silver Lexus, well-rewarded for having continually bounded outdoors, persistently chasing false leads of numerous disappointing drive-bys. Lauren dashes out the door, the boys bumping belligerently behind, vying for second place.
My mother emerges from the car and, waving wildly, calls out: “We’re heeere.”
The “we” includes my father, who lags behind several paces, as he invariably does. She marches in the house with him trailing her meekly. Without pausing to take off her coat, she sets down bulging bags, bursting with beribboned boxes, and flings her arms widely enough to encompass the three clamoring kids.
They rush into her embrace, as if stuffing themselves into an expandable envelope. I marvel at how my mother manages to comfortably contain three squirming power packs.
The children dutifully greet their grandfather, accepting his stiff, one-armed hug, then turn their attention to Grandma.
“Presents!” She rattles the bag, eyes gleaming. “I’ve got presents! Soon as we get inside.”
It's my own fault; I should have eaten a better breakfast. I’m a morning person who can barely muster the energy to abandon my bed before tanking up. Typical breakfast fare, however hearty, isn’t my preference. I feel most satisfied with a lunch or supper type meal: all the food groups. Pizza—hot or not—and a large salad. Tuna, tomato, and cheese on hearty bread. Barbecued chicken, with baked potato and corn-on-the-cob.
This eccentricity of mine harkened back to the days when house rule regarding leftovers was “Use it or lose it” (likely before next sundown). Breakfast offered me an opportunity to save good food from an undignified fate. I’d have been happiest back then to start my day with Special K and OJ, but after all these years I grew to relish my unusual morning repasts. A breakfast of cereal and juice would be a disappointment now.
Foolishly, instead of having a decent meal after having risen extra early this morning after a restless night, I told myself that I’d be indulging big time throughout the day. Given the lavish lunch I’d prepared and the inevitable restaurant dinner, I thought it best to save my appetite.
My appetite, however, would not stand by passively and patiently wait to be saved. In assertion of its independence, it rescued itself from my stinginess, stubbornly snatching at its own lifesavers in the form of Frosty-O’s, Chips Ahoy, and Cap’n Crunch. Once back on deck, I indulged in dibs-n-dabs of cookie dough in the rate of one lump per two—or worse, vice versa—that made it to the baking sheet. Followed by a spoon or ten of coffee ice cream for energy.
Despite the shameful surfeit of calories—which my brain scrambles to tally with the most creative accounting principles I can muster to justify the continual operation of my mouth—my stomach is rumbling.
Spying the pre-set table and the simmering stove, my mother asks how she can help. I assure her all was ready.
She persists. “Shall I make the salad?” She is always eager to tend salad bar. She always contrives to get salad—of garden-plot proportions—on the menu, even if I hadn’t planned to serve any. By bingeing on healthful greens, she can better justify having “just a taste” of the fattening fare. Or, conversely, by stuffing herself with salad she can avoid the other offerings; she considers my food-safety standards egregiously sub-par.
Thus stems her second purpose in volunteering as chief cucumber chopper: She is aware that I don’t trouble to wash vegetables. My food-prep philosophy is: “See no evil; fear no evil.” Besides, if there were Salmonella sleeping on my celery stalks, the only thing that would give them a rude enough awakening—rather, send them to permanent slumber—would be a blast of boiling water from an industrial hose.
Today, alas for my trepidatious mother, I'd preempted her intervention. She winces slightly as I gesture toward the salad, carefully, colorfully arranged. Indulging my creativity in composition serves as compensation for having had to chop the components. Cutting vegetables is a chore even more tedious than scrubbing; I often leave such prep-work to my mother in order to distract her from taking over the tasks I prefer. This is a win-win strategy: planning and creating inspire me; both had long since burnt her out.
Ironic, since to this day my mother is noted amongst her entourage for her marvelous meals. Remembrance of things past, in part, perhaps. Nonetheless, she cleverly accrues credit slight-of-effort and sleight-of-hand for impressive presentation of simple—often purchased—fare. The Great Entertainer is, curtain swept aside, the Great Pretender.
She has a knack for everything domestic—provided it can be accomplished quickly—though her understated elegance in décor is not my style. “Life’s too short for beige” is my motto. Her friends all rave that she should have made a career in interior design given her sharp eye for pattern, placement, and subtle shadings of earth tones. Once out of her shadowed abode, I went for bright and bold. As to furniture arrangement, I don’t pay it much mind.
My mother knows enough not to drab my palette, but can’t resist occasional suggestions phrased disingenuously as questions. She’d inquire oh so casually and ever so cheerfully why we had a bookcase there (in a place everyone would have a bookcase). Translation: it should be moved. Invariably, from the standpoints of both aesthetics and function, she would be dead center on target. But, dammit, my bookcase was going to stay right where it was. Better to miss hitting the dartboard entirely than—like a kid who is thrown a game by a condescending adult—to count her bull’s-eye toward my score.
Mental intermission accomplished; we are back at the salad bar.
My mother peeks into the over-sized bowl. “Lovely,” she effuses, whilst cross-casting her eyes for serving utensils. “Shall I toss it, dress it, make a vinaigrette?” Her inquiry is rhetorical; even as she pays lip service to requesting permission, she is hurling open cupboards, profusely excusing her intrusion into the cramped workspace as she roots for olive oil and balsamic. And for the pepper mill, presented me on her previous visit.
My mother had introduced me—attempted to seduce me—to the tang of freshly ground pepper, tried in vain to make me toss the salt-shaker over my shoulder and never look back. She cringes to contemplate the white stuff I consume with such insouciance; she rails about my flirting dangerously with high blood pressure. Last she said so, I countered quite cleverly: "In that case I’d best get down and dirty with a chaser of 200-proof soy sauce, given my BP tops out at 98 over 64."
“I already put low-fat ranch and sugar-free lemon-poppyseed on the table,” I say, pointing to the cruets in an effort to curtail her insistent rummaging. “We’ll each add what we want to our own bowl. This way the leftovers won’t turn to pickled slime. And you know that Doug only eats plain lettuce.” (Indeed, she knows very well—both by numerous occasions of condescending observation and by virtue of our having this tiresome salad-dressing exchange countless times before.)
“Besides, I don’t want to toss it all up—this way all can behold the table’s crowning glory.” I gesture to the crystal bowl jeweled with meticulously set emerald and ruby peppers, onyx olives, and pearly button mushrooms.
“It's gorgeous,” my mother says, smiling in admiration at my gem collection. Then she frowns and shakes her head. “I just hate to see you running around, doing it all. After a full week at work and no help at home from that husband of yours, I don’t know how you manage. It exhausts me to watch you, rushing back and forth like this.”
She retrieves her smile, and adds, “Well, now that I’m here, you’ll finally be able to relax.”
(Ha!)
 Recognized |
Thanks to Sierra Treasures for artwork: Fire Storm
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