August 29, 2006

My Boys Take Pity On Their One-Armed Mom And Learn A Little In The Process

I’m getting used to the cast, but I still can’t perform many activities around the house that I normally take for granted. I’ve enlisted the boys to perform all kinds of extra duties, which they’ve done with varying degrees of cheer according to age and personality type.

My left hand is all but useless. My fingers are still sore, so although they stick out from the cast, I can’t use them to grasp anything. But again, my boys have come to my rescue, even when I ask them to help me get dressed.

Me: Hold the dryer like a gun and point it down at the brush.

Porter: Why is your hair really dark by your skull? Do all
ladies have to do this? What if I point the dryer up? I’m getting
tired. Why does the air have to be hot? Can I have some ice cream
after I finish? Do you need me to put some squirty stuff into the
dishwasher?

Finn: Shouldn’t Daddy be buttoning your shirt, since y’all are married and all?

Me: Well, yes, I’d prefer that, but he’s at work and you have
football practice in twenty minutes and I’d rather not drive you and
your friends there naked. Just be glad I didn’t ask you for help with my bra.

Finn: That would be WAY embarrassing.

It was time for the boys to start assuming more responsibility in the kitchen anyway. Now they’re masters of scouring pans, loading and unloading the dishwasher, and wiping the counters and table.

Drew: If I can get this minuscule piece of onion off this pan, this will be the most perfect cleaning job in the history of the world and I will go to bed a happy boy.

Finn: We really should not have to clean this table after every meal. It just gets dirty again. Especially Porter’s seat. It’s a huge waste of energy, and energy is something our nation is trying to conserve.

Porter: I love it when I get to squirt the squirty stuff into the squirty hole.

Finn: Dang, I’ve broken all the wineglasses but one, and Mom is still making us load the freaking dishwasher.
Hey Drew, I bet if you fell off the counter and busted your head open and had to get stitches while you were doing this, we wouldn’t have to do these stupid chores anymore.

Drew: I think I’ll just scrub and then finish my homework.

Porter: Cool! This Palmolive stuff softens my hands while I do the dishes.

Finn: If I have to clean this pot one more time this week I’m gonna puke.

While no one has become enamored of helping me get dressed, as a result of my injury the twins have developed a new interest in cooking. Every afternoon Drew comes into the kitchen and asks, “Mom, is there anything I can help you chop for dinner?” He’s gotten so adept at it that we’ve discussed slicing versus dicing, and I’ve taken him out to the garden and shown him my herbs so he can cut them himself. Meanwhile, Porter has started cooking himself meals instead of getting snacks whenever he’s hungry, which is approximately every hour.

Drew: I don’t think Mom’s knives are as sharp as Emeril’s, but with proper technique I ought to be able to achieve just as good a result.

Drew: Porter, come watch. I am going to turn this basil into an exquisite chiffonade. I
already chopped the prosciutto for our Bowties with Peas and Prosciutto.

Porter: Yum. Bowties is one of my top fifty dinners! Mom says dinner won’t be ready for at least another hour, though, so I’m going to scramble the rest of the eggs. I don’t think I’m going to make it without more fuel, dude.

Porter: Do you want a bite?

Drew: No, thanks. Rachael Ray’s show comes on in a few minutes and I need to feed the dog, take out the recycling and set the table.

All in all, I’d say we’re doing just fine.

August 28, 2006

You’ll Regret It If You Click The Links

I sat down to write over the weekend, but I had a few emails to go through first. Several of my “friends” had sent me links which I clicked. I didn’t get a virus, but I didn’t get all that much writing done, either.

I did learn a lot about a new way to use a treadmill, so I suppose that time wasn’t entirely wasted.

The first click led me to wonder how someone could think up something so original, so I found this by the same guys. Both promote exercise, so I let the boys watch them, too.

Then my sister came over and told me about this one. When the man froze with his head in the microwave, I lost it.

I’m wondering how anyone gets anything done anymore, now that YouTube is around.

If you leave links to your favorite YouTube videos in the comments, I’ll be angry, but I bet I can’t help watching them.

August 23, 2006

How The Asparagus Fern Grew

The bad things about your mother dying far outweigh the good ones, but it does free me up to tell stories about her that I never would have dared to publish before. My mom’s friends all knew her as a wonderful cook, but my sisters and I can attest to the fact than in the 1970’s her culinary instincts were not as finely honed as they were later. I remember sitting at the table, being tickled by the fringe of the asparagus fern that grew like kudzu in the window right behind my chair, squirming before a variety of unappetizing dinners.

My mom made several meat dishes that were awful. She didn’t let us snack after 3:30 so we’d be sure and be hungry for supper. I made it a point to ask what was for dinner at 3:25 every afternoon, in case it was country fried steak, meatloaf, or hamburgers. If those dishes were on the menu, that was our cue to raid the pantry and hide whatever we could find, which was usually nothing more exciting than All-Bran or Fig Newtons, but on a good day might be Oreos, so we’d have provisions to sustain us until morning.

To make country fried steak, my mom took pieces of exceptionally gristly meat and dipped them in a slimy batter that involved lots of pepper, and fried the whole mess in a pan. The batter never got crispy; it simply adhered to the meat underneath. The result was smelly and hard to cut, and took so much effort to chew that after eating a couple of bites your gums would bleed and you wouldn’t be able to floss for a week.

I’ve met many meatloaves I detested, but none sank to the level of my mom’s. Her recipe instructed her to mix meat, ketchup, green bell peppers, eggs, and pieces of bread into a mass and bake it.

My mom wasn’t very detail oriented. She left the pieces of bell pepper in huge chunks, despite my pleas that she chop the offending vegetable just a little smaller so the finished product wouldn’t be so intimidating. Worse, she’d grab a few pieces of white bread, carelessly rip them in half and toss them into the mixture, where they’d soak up a little egg and ketchup during cooking. It was not uncommon to eat a bite of her meatloaf expecting to feel something the texture of ground beef, but have a slithery piece of ketchup-covered bread slide over your tongue instead.

My mom’s hamburgers were equally disgusting. Now I know it was a problem in the patty formation. Instead of forming the meat into something akin to the shape of my breast that would cook evenly, she’d mold it more into the shape of an egg, then grill the hell out of it so that it would be done in the middle.

One summer night in 1974, we were sitting in our orange and yellow kitchen, choking down a hamburger dinner. I bravely took a huge bite of mine, hoping that this time the meat would be flavorful and yummy. I started chewing. I tasted carbon, and dry meat, and bun, and the more I chewed the more I realized I was never going to be able to swallow that bite. I jumped from the table and ran into the den, across the green shag rug, past the aquarium and out the sliding glass doors onto the patio, and I spit the whole thing out on the grass in the backyard.

My father was right behind me, and he looked at the pile of mushed up food lying forlornly on the ground, and then he spanked me for wasting food. It was the most unfair spanking ever administered in the State of Alabama. At cookouts, I mostly eat hot dogs now.

It wasn’t just main courses that caused my mom problems. I’ll never know what possessed her to pour ketchup, mayonnaise and pickle relish into a small bowl and stir it into a pinkish, lumpy goo, which she then served on top of shredded iceberg lettuce, cheerfully declaring it “homemade Thousand Island dressing.”  Often she was too busy to mix it thoroughly, and the resulting spread was streaked with red and white, which didn’t seem to bother her or my dad at all.

We live in the south, the birthplace of sweet tea, but my mom had us fix Nestea– instant tea– every night for herself and my dad. Wikipedia is absolutely right when it notes that “instant teas are typically purchased because of their costs and convenience, and are typically of poor flavour [sic] and quality.” It was simultaneously sour and weak, because the ice cubes had always melted by the time the tea made it to the table.

We were clamoring for the instant tea, though, when we tasted our milk. I am firmly convinced that my mother poured those milks and set them on the table as her very first step in preparing the evening meal, long before she preheated the oven or got out the ketchup, mayonnaise and pickle relish. By the time we took a sip, the milk was lukewarm at best.

My mom thought she had a wonderful green thumb and that’s why the asparagus fern she displayed in its macrame holder grew so lush. I know it was the pieces of bell pepper, hunks of meatloaf and gallons of tepid milk hurled into its fronds that really made it grow. In the end, it was her cooking, not her gardening, that made the difference.

August 21, 2006

Still Alive

My entire family not only survived the Beef Balls in Red Wine Sauce, but devoured them like a pack of hungry wolves. The next night we lived through the twins’ spend the night party, which included taking eight boys to a Mexican restaurant and back home again where they jumped on the furniture, ran in dizzy circles, watched movies while reciting every line of dialogue, and ultimately fell asleep, long after Bill and I had.

It’s Finn’s snarky attitude that may send us all to the graveyard. Somewhere between “Sweet! I’m outta fourth grade!” and “Geez, I can’t believe I have to start school tomorrow,” an alien being sucked out his soul and replaced it with that of an overbearing know-it-all.

Sunday I instructed him to clean up his room, including his closets, which prevented him from using his usual method of room cleaning, which is to open the closets, toss everything in and slam the door. After fifteen minutes alone in his room, he had suddenly and mysteriously developed congested lungs, a migraine, and weakness in his back, none of which was visible upon my skeptical examination.

During the same time period, Drew and Porter each wrote four thank you notes, vacuumed two rooms, and folded the kitchen towels. Then they went outside to play basketball.

Yesterday morning before school I heard Finn calling Drew a “girlie pink leotard,” which, while nonsensical, is an insult of the highest degree in our house. I called upon him to apologize and decreed that Drew would sit in the front seat during carpool.

Finn regards the front seat as his rightful possession as the oldest son, but the child of two lawyers did not complain that the seating arrangement wasn’t fair.

“Mom, you better be very careful driving to school,” he cautioned, in the tone of a world-weary sage who has seen it all.

“It’s against the law for someone Drew’s age who weighs so little to sit in the front seat because it would be dangerous if we had a wreck. It’s really only safe for me to sit in that spot because I weigh 72 pounds and I can withstand an impact better.”

I ignored my eldest as I traveled the three minutes to school. As he got out of the car, I stared at his departing head with a mixture of love and loathing. Finn and I are alike in so many ways. It’s a miracle my mother let me survive to adulthood. I hope I can exercise the same self-restraint and let Finn achieve that milestone.

August 17, 2006

In Which I Commit A Fashion Felony And Maybe Poison My Family

I’ve progressed from a splint to a cast for my fractured wrist. Wearing a cast is not only awkward and frustrating, but can lead to a life of crime. My cast extends from the base of my fingers halfway up my arm. Theoretically I should be able to use my fingers, but they are still sore and swollen and not good for much, including:

1. Buttoning
2. Chopping
3. Holding
4. Applying makeup and beauty products
5. Anything else

Consequently, I’ve spent a lot of time this week learning to adapt and admiring the surfer girl who had her whole arm bitten off by a shark.

Some of the crimes I’ve committed have not been serious. I’ve been driving all over the road and failing to use turn signals, because I can only hold the wheel with my right hand, and it hurts to even flick the signal with my injured hand. In Alabama, though, that’s pretty much considered normal driving for all but the biggest sticklers.

My fashion crimes have been more serious. I have called a temporary truce in the Breast Wars because I am unable to fasten any bra at all by myself. Thus, I’ve gone without. That leaves me with the nipple problem, which has forced me to dress in layers to hide my headlights. Even that isn’t foolproof, so I’ve resorted to throwing on strings of beads in order to direct attention to the bright, shiny colors and away from my chest.

My fashion felony? Dressing like an Olsen twin.

Longtime readers know I’m pretty adamant about fixing a decent dinner where we all sit down and try to enjoy each other’s company. That’s been a challenge now that I can’t do much more than turn on the faucet. Last night after we finished dinner, I had Bill help me make one of his favorite dishes, Beef Balls In Red Wine Sauce, for us to eat the next night. When I say he helped me, I actually mean that I carried as many of the ingredients as I could over to the counter and coached him through the entire process.

He mixed the meat with thyme, paprika, salt and pepper, and formed it into large balls.

“A little bigger– no, not that big or they won’t brown all the way through,” I said in my nicest voice, inwardly cringing at the odd sizes of balls he was producing.

While I browned them, he chopped onions, carrots, celery and garlic and added them to the pan.

“If you could chop those just a little smaller, honey, sometimes the boys will accidentally eat a piece of vegetable without realizing it,” I hinted. Surely he wanted carrots to end up inside our boys, not pushed around on their plates.

Bill frowned at me, so I concentrated on my balls. I managed to stir the veggies a little and sprinkle a few tablespoons of flour over the mixture. Bill opened some cheap red wine, chicken broth, and a can of tomato sauce, all of which he poured into the pan while I hovered over his shoulder, making sure he got the proportions exactly right. I added a cup of water by myself and then we supervised baths and homework while the Beef Balls simmered, covered, for forty-five minutes.

I let them cool on the stove while we tucked in the boys. I was unable to lift the pot to put it into the refrigerator for the night, so I left it while I spent eleventy billion hours moving the clothes from the washer to the dryer, piece by piece. I’d get Bill to put the balls in the fridge later.

This morning the pot was still on the stove. Under normal circumstances I’d have thrown the whole thing away, for fear the Beef Balls In Red Wine Sauce had turned into the Beef Balls Of Plague And Poison.

But things are different, so we’re eating the damn beef balls anyway, in the belief that the overnight process both aged the beef and let the flavors marry in a pleasing way. I’m going to boil the hell out of it first, however, just in case my theory (and the meal) is a crock of shit.