As Easy As Peanut Butter and Jelly

May 3, 2013May 3, 2013 / roughwighting / 31 Comments

We are always children to our parents.

No matter our age.

I find that comforting.

This past week I flew across country to visit my mom. I have adult children now. I have grandchildren, but my mom waits on me as if I’m still her (young) child whom she must care for and nurture.

You know how tenderly we parents watch over our 3-year- old, our 11-year-old, our 16 and 20-year-old? Well, guess what? We do the same when they’re 29, and 45, and yes, even older.

“I bought a wheat bagel for your breakfast, just what you like,” my mom chirps at 8 a.m. our first morning. I don’t eat bagels. I munch on wheat toast with organic peanut butter and blueberry jam every morning, but I so appreciate the thought that I slice the (just thawed) bagel and search for the toaster.

“I don’t own a toaster,” Mom explains five minutes into my opening and closing cabinets.

“Oh.” I turn on the oven to Broil.

“I’ve never used Broil. Do you think it works?” Mom asks, her voice tinged with wonder and curiosity.

I never use Broil either, at least not for toasting bread, so we stand in front of the oven and wait for four minutes.

I open the door. Bagel’s still soft.

Mom rinses some blueberries and raspberries, throws a few on her cereal, and makes me a bowl. “Sit down and eat,” she demands. “I’ll watch the bagel.”

I ignore her and open the oven – bagel’s still soft.

She pours milk into her bowl and I order her: “Eat before your cereal gets mushy!” She ignores me, and we check the oven.

Bagel’s still soft.

Simultaneously, we hit the Broil button off, and then I select Bake at 450 degrees. “Really, Mom, start breakfast. I’ll be right there.”

Mom stares longingly at her now soggy shredded wheat waiting for her on the dining room table but says, “Let me get the peanut butter out for your bagel,” as if I can’t reach up to the cabinet and pull out the Jiffy jar.

I check the bagel – it’s actually getting a little toasted. Nonchalantly I ask, “Do you have some jam?” but inwardly kick myself as soon as the words are out of my mouth.

Crestfallen, she opens the refrigerator and responds, “How about Seville Orange Marmalade?”

“Um, no, I really don’t like marmalade.”

“How can you NOT like marmalade? Here, try it.”

I hate marmalade. Don’t know why, but I have since I was a kid. So like a kid, I shake my head no. I probably pout too.

Mom pulls out another jar. “Oh, here’s Apricot Preserves.”

“Isn’t that like marmalade?” I ask. By now, I’ve pulled out the crispy browned bagel and start spreading it with peanut butter.

“Try it!”

“I really don’t…”

A spoon with some apricot preserves is suddenly swung in front of me, so I place a smidgen on my bagel and take one bite, making a face. “Nope, don’t like it. I’m fine with just peanut butter. Now, let’s eat.”

Her head is still in the refrigerator. “Aha! Red Current Jelly! Want to try that?”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

I walk to the table with my plate of, by now, cold toasted bagel. “Mom – come on.”

She makes a noise and produces another glass bottle from the refrigerator. “Look! Fig Butter. That could taste good…?”

“Why the heck do you have fig butter?”

She shrugs. “I bought it for a recipe. Umm, that could have been quite a while ago.”

I give her a peanut buttery smile. “Join me.” Her cereal is now indistinguishable from overcooked oatmeal that is dotted with some red and blue berries.

Giving up, my mom sits down at her place, only to pop up with an excited exclamation. She races back to the refrigerator and presents me with her find:

“CHERRY PIE JELLY!”

I groan, “Noooooooooooooo.”

She shrugs.

I begin to laugh so hard I can’t take another bite of baked bagel.

How wonderful is it to have a mom who still treats you like her special little girl, the daughter she still wants to keep happy?

But still, I don’t touch the cherry pie jelly.

My mom, making me dinner as I watch and admire.

My mom, making me dinner and still taking care of me.

Spaghetti Night

April 12, 2013 / roughwighting / 36 Comments

How many spaghetti nights have I savored in my lifetime? I shudder to think of it, particularly during these low-carb days when pasta is a no no. Shaking my head, I avoid the thoughts in my head and reach for the ingredients from the shelf.

Why Spaghetti Night, I wonder as I start rolling the ground beef (lean), eggs, chopped onion, and parmesan cheese into meatballs. What would happen if instead I made, say, meatloaf, or God forbid, chicken cacciatore?

I smile as I begin to sauté the meatballs in the large pan. I suppose one doesn’t sauté meatballs, but I’m not frying them for heaven’s sake. Browning, that’s the word. I’m browning the meatballs as I envision the horrified reaction of my family if I served something other than spaghetti on a Monday night.

It all began with my guy, of course. Although he comes from an Irish mother and an Italian father, he only acknowledges the Italian genes. He may be tall, blonde, and blue-eyed, but he’s Italian, by God, and Italians love their spaghetti.

So one of the first nights our kids were old enough to sit down at the dinner table with us and enjoy a “family conference” – I think they were 2 and 4 years old – the man explained that real Italian families eat spaghetti at least once a week, so which day should we designate as Italian night?

The meatballs smell heavenly, and as the rain beats against the kitchen skylight I’m thankful that it’s Monday. I scoop the meatballs to a platter and add chopped green and red peppers to the pan, as well as a few mushrooms.

My 4-year-old daughter, that fateful day 25+ years ago, suggested that Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays would be good spaghetti nights. She loved her dad and figured more would be better. My man’s eyes lit up and he agreed, “Okay!”

I put my foot down and replied, “Mondays. That’s it.” Thus, Monday Spaghetti Night was created.

The vegetables are sautéed and I add a bottle of Newman’s sauce. I could make my own, but Paul’s family does such a good job and the proceeds go toward charity. I add the meatballs and let everything simmer for two hours. When my guy comes home, he opens the front door, takes in a big whiff and exclaims, “Monday night!”

The kids are out of college and living on their own now. It’s just the two of us. But Monday nights are still, and always will be, Spaghetti Night.

Granddaughter Sophie wants to start the tradition with HER family.

Worth the Wait

March 22, 2013 / roughwighting / 27 Comments

We walk together, in harmony, almost as if we’re holding hands, but we’re not. However, he looks at me often, his deep brown eyes saying so much without his mouth releasing a word. Could anyone ask for a better companion? For a better friend?

But of course, there’s so much more to the relationship than that.

As we walk, he looks over his territory with pride. His name, I tease him, should be Heathcliff or Darcy. He just moves on, pointing at the Pride of Madeira in the meadow, strutting over to say hello to the horses in the pasture, urging me to run instead of walk along the paved path around the nearby farm. I sigh, then allow my thigh muscles to tighten as I follow him.

His gait is so strong and sure-footed. I run like a girl, he runs like a …. Well, he doesn’t seem to mind and, in fact, even though he can run hundreds of yards in front of me, he stops and looks behind his shoulder to make sure I’m coming along. I think that’s what endears me the most to him. He could make it on his own. He could be perfectly happy and free without me, yet he chooses to slow down, to wait, to watch me with a gleam in his eye, so I can catch up.

It’s that look in his eye that makes me feel so valued, so necessary in his life. As he stands there, still and strong, waiting for me, there is sure certainty in his expression that I am worth the wait.

I reach him, and he opens his mouth with a big wide grin. Somehow, I know I have passed a test. I stroke him, and he dashes on ahead again, ears bent back, eyes slanted from the breeze, mouth turned up into such joy my heart leaps, and I run faster.

Suddenly, I am ahead of him. He stops as quickly as he began, tail wagging, nose tilted down into the ripe lime green grass. I call, he ignores me. The smell must be from nirvana, like chocolate to a woman, diesel oil to a man. I call him, his tail wags faster, but he still focuses on the meadow grass.

I stand still. He’s worth the wait.

dog, golden retriever, friendship, woman and dog

A (wo)man’s best friend.

Tunnel Vision

March 8, 2013 / roughwighting / 24 Comments

I make it through the six-hour flight from Boston to LA. I endure the two-hour wait at LAX, a sprawling compound of too many high-stressed, higher ego-ed people, and then the hour hop to SFO.

I hold my breath, remember to release it as we wait, and wait, and wait for our baggage, which finally rolls around the moving horseshoe 45 minutes after we’ve landed.

Our driver, as roly poly as a malt ball, leads us to his small sedan. I fall back in the car seat, my guy’s briefcase sitting like a rock between us as we speed away from the airport and toward the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin County, and freedom from motion once our front door is reached.

But no, instead the car idles in stop and go, bumper-to-bumper malaise on 19^th Avenue. On this beautiful Sunday afternoon, thousands and thousands of Bay Area lovers are traveling – somewhere – and are stuck instead on a concrete highway to nowhere.

I look out the window at tiny duplexes, the commercial shops selling rubber tires and plastic flowers, the newly sprouted garden lots and dingy gas stations, and I think… uh oh.

A hundred yards from the MacArthur tunnel (the big dark hole we have to drive through to get nearer to the Golden Gate Bridge), I exclaim, loudly yet unintentionally, “Okay, I have to get OUT of here!!”

My guy’s startled glance helps me realize that I sound a bit – crazy? – and the eyes of the front-seat malt ball get rounder and bigger as he stares at me through his rearview mirror.

I open my window – car fumes, anyone? – and pray we don’t stop inside that tunnel. I could lose it – like an inmate too long in her cell. I could kick open the door and run away from the dark dangerous hole of a tunnel toward – what? Would there be light at the end of my tunnel? Or would there be…

Something is tapping my knee. Softly at first, then more insistently.

I open my eyes (not realizing they had been squeezed tightly shut) and reach for the item my guy is handing me. His cell phone? With a cord attached to it?

Oh, ear plugs.

Wordlessly, he motions for me to put the ear pieces on. I do, reluctantly. What bad news am I going to hear? The traffic report, for God’s sake?

But no, I hear flute and cello, violin and piano, harmonizing the sounds of angels singing. The music wafts into my brain and my body and my heart. Sweet soulful sounds symbolizing life on the other side of the highways and small cars and tunnels. Life full of green grass, blue skies, puffy clouds, birds soaring, lovers hugging, children laughing. joy trumpeting.

The car stops. My guy reaches for his phone and turns off his app to KDFC, the classical station, because…

Are

Home.

A PERFECTLY IMPERFECT LOVE

December 7, 2012December 7, 2012 / roughwighting / 12 Comments

I’m in 12th grade English and the teacher comes up with another ho-hum assignment.

“Write about your grandparents,” she demands.

Not so easy. My grandmother died when I was six, and my grandfather went from VA Hospital to nursing home in short order, dying five quick years later. What do I write about? Funny thing is, the one thing I know for sure is that my grandparents loved each other.

How do I know that so certainly, considering how little I knew them?

Physically, they were a mismatch. Boo-Pa was six foot two, as straight and solid as a tree, with a large, angular face and thick straight dark blonde hair that was snow white by the time I was 5.

Nanny was petite, as delicate as a tiny bird, with small wise light blue eyes that crinkled when she smiled, a small, heart-shaped mouth that was always curved upward, and tiny feet and hands.

He was gruff and quiet, with a large presence.

She was dainty and sweet with a kindness that enveloped all who came near.

My other grandmother, Marmu, proclaimed to me years later that Nanny had been a true saint.

“Not saintly, not just a nice person or any of that,” Marmu explained earnestly. “But an honest-to-God saint.”

How does a saint live with a sinner. How does a sinner live with a saint?

I saw their marriage in stark relief when I was five years old, early Christmas morning.

They were staying with us and sleeping in my brother’s bedroom. Despite my mother’s protestations, I tiptoed in their room to wake them up. I wanted to play. BooPa was snoring. They were curled up in each other’s arms. I giggled, then jumped on their bed.

They woke with a start, Nanny with a smile on her tiny face, BooPa with a snarl as he jumped out of bed.

He was naked! I’d never seen a naked man, and I was absolutely fascinated.

“Phil,” my grandmother admonished. Just that one word, spoken softly but with an edge to it, got him moving faster than I thought a big man should. He jumped into his boxer shorts and turned to look at her abashedly.

“I didn’t know she’d wake us up!” he said, ignoring me, wanting only approval from his wife.

She gave him a kiss and told him to get dressed, then allowed me to snuggle in the bed with her.