Back to Earth

A dear friend told me that it's easy to get way wrapped up in the stats/analytics of blogging.  You can obsess over every new visitor and your average time on site and all that.  Considering that I've mostly limited my readership to close friends and friends of close friends, my numbers aren't exactly high.  They could be with some self-advertisement, but I'm just not there yet.  Maybe I will be one day.  Maybe not.

Anyway, regardless of my relatively small readership, I still took great pride, and great pleasure, in my regular handful of folks checking in on me, even when I hadn't posted in a while.  In fact, I felt pretty darn special.  Until the following exchange:

From: Mom

Subject: sniff

Date: January 14, 2013 10:18:26 AM CST

To: Me

Hi there, I am sad that your blog journey is over.  Guess I'll have to change my home page now :-)  You are great!

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From: Mom

Subject: hooray

Date: January 14, 2013 10:23:09 AM CST

To: Me

Oh!  I am so excited!  Just got online and there was your new posting, with more to come!  Hot doggies.  PS, you make me laugh.

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There is so much to be concerned with here, not least of which is
someone with multiple doctoral degrees using the phrase hot 
doggies, but if you were paying attention, you will have noticed
that my mom has this blog as her home page.  Which means that
everytime she goes on line to check the weather, which I can
assure you is several times a day, she hits my blog.  Which
therefore means that my mother is something like 98.2% of my
readership.  Perhaps a little bit of self-advertising is in order.

Hmmmm.

Apple. Tree. Haiku.

This was my mom's response to my Halloween Haiku:

As for Halloween
I didn't like it either
Too many children

I am not making this up.

Sins Revisited

My kid is learning to drive.  Now, I don't look like I could possibly have a child getting ready to be a licensed driver, what with my perfectly unblemished skin and girlish figure, but I do.  And it's been much easier than I thought it would be.

For me, I mean.  There is nothing better than letting your kid drive you around.  I can text with impunity, eat my breakfast on the way to school, read the newspaper, and (you people who have younger kids might want to sit down for this) drink beer when I'm at friend's house.  Or my mother-in-law's house.  Or really anywhere I damn well please because I HAVE A DESIGNATED DRIVER.  I keep hearing these parents whine and lament about being sad about having a driver, fearful that they'll be in an accident, bereft at the thought of their babies growing up.

Fuck that.  Here are the keys.  Be careful.  Your car payment is to take your sister anywhere she wants to go.  Your insurance is taking the dogs to the vet.  Your gas money is running any paltry errand I can think of.  Godspeed.  Fly, be free.

I'm not sure that it's been quite as easy for her.  You see, I tend to be just a teeny bit controlling.  I'm sure you can't tell.  And I tend to handle that by yelling "STOP!STOP!STOP!" over and over whether it's an emergency or not.  I'm trying really hard not to, but,  I'm not going to lie, I'm struggling.  And some of my passenger-seat psycho behavior I don't even know I'm doing.  For example, when she first started driving, she claimed that I do a hissing inhale every time she takes a curve too fast (or maybe not even too fast, maybe any curve, who's to say?).  Now, most of the time, I'm not even aware that I'm making this sound.  And up until about three weeks ago, I would have denied that I was doing it.

Until. . . .

Until three weeks ago, when my mom came to town.  Now, I'm 44 years old.  I got a hardship license at 15 and have been driving a car since I was 13.  I haven't had a wreck since I was in my mid-20's and in that one I was a passenger.  I haven't had a ticket since my mid-30's.  I don't reverse well.  I am an excellent parallel parker.  I think speed limits are more guidelines than hard and fast rules, and my neighbor just told me last night that he "knows who stops at the neighborhood four-way stop and who doesn't."  But all in all, I'm a pretty safe driver.

So, my mom and S and I were in the car, headed to pick up G from school.  On our route was a 90-degree left curve in a 50 mph zone.  I took that curve at a relatively judicious 35-40 mph and smoothly entered the curve, accelerating at the apex of the curve, just like my daddy taught me.  And at the moment I was executing this epic driving maneuver, my mom grabbed the "oh shit" handle and made this hissing inhale noise.

Busted.  And the worst part was that G wasn't even in the car at the time, so I could show her that it wasn't my fault.

I can't help it.  It's genetic.

Why I Cook, Part Un

My Mom


My mom is awesome.  I'm saying that because she is awesome, and also because she is reading this. She loves my blog.  She checks every day to see if I've posted anything.  I told her that there was a way to have it email her when I posted something new.  But she said that would ruin it.  She likes checking because of the possibility that something might be there.  Or at least that's what she said.  I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that she doesn't know what I'm talking about.

All of this makes me feel really good because my mom is really, really smart.  She is gentle and kind, a good listener, and a great audience.  She reads all the time, has lots of degrees, and has a very low tolerance for bad writing.  So, for her to say she loves my blog means a lot.  She is also my mom.  And moms have to be supportive of their children.  And sometimes they have to not tell them that their shirt makes them look like a hobo.  Wait.

Anyway, the fact that my mom may or may not like my blog about food and gardening and housekeeping is, to be honest, a little, teeny bit surprising.  I've had many people in my life say, "You love to cook so much, your mom must have been a great cook." "Did you learn to cook from your mom?" "You must have eaten really well as a child."

Well, here it is, in a nutshell.  I wish I could claim first dibs on this story, but my brother can claim that prize.  And no, he doesn't read my blog.  But he loves me anyway.

The Coffee Cake


It was 1993.  It was the first Thanksgiving that I had ever spent away from home.  T and I were a couple of months away from getting married, and we went up to Dallas to be with his family.  I should never have gone.  Not because I didn't enjoy myself, but because I missed the most legendary and epic story of our family.  Well, except for the one where my dad ran over me in a motorboat.  He doesn't really like me to tell that one.

Anyway, my brother, J, has always gotten to have a Sara Lee Butter Streusel Coffee Cake on holidays. I liked the pecan one because it has frosting, but my parents don't love me as much as they love him, so most of the time, they "forgot" to get the pecan one, and J. always, always got to have his Butter Streusel.

Anyway, J and my parents had to muddle through Thanksgiving without me.  I can't even remember what their Thanksgiving plans were, but J. was going to have his Butter Streusel coffee cake regardless.  So, he turned on the oven to preheat it for the coffee cake.  And probably, knowing him, went back to bed.  Afterwhile (yes, that's a word), a discernible smoky smell began to emanate from the kitchen.  J. went to investigate and found, wait for it, the remains of the Sara Lee Butter Streusel Coffee Cake from the previous Christmas.

My parents hadn't turned on the oven in 11 months.

Right Now


Right now, my mom is giggling and wiping tears from her eyes AND protesting that she fed us really well.  And she did.  She fed us whole grains and lean meats.  We sat at the table most nights and talked.  Like a real family.  We had the dearest housekeeper, Walter Lee, who would cook meals to be reheated.  And my mom had a few special dishes up her sleeves.  How you choose to interpret special is up to you, but for her, they were a sacrifice that she was willing to make for her family.

She tried.  She really did.  But my mom doesn't like cooking and never liked cooking, and that's okay.  Just because you give birth to someone doesn't change what you're good at.  What my mom is good at is back-scratching, laughing, reading, smiling, listening, comforting, singing, praying, drinking coffee and reading the paper, doing dishes, keeping her grandchildren, traveling, spa-ing, and loving.

Those are mighty fine qualities.

I love you, Mom!