A time to break and a time to mend...
Yesterday I broke a little glass bowl that used to belong to Grandma M. I was trying to pull an avocado pit out and it wouldn't come and wouldn't come and my slim grip with the tips of my fingernails was slipping and then -- POP! Out it flew and broke the dish. Strange.
I received many kitchen type things from Grandma after she died and I've been using them regularly. This little dish didn't quite fit with the other set of 8 Mom got me in Edmonton, but it was pretty and we used it all the same. It often held dollops of ice cream or snack sized carrots, or sometimes it held jam or pudding or kiwi slices. But no matter what it held, I was always aware that it was Grandma's and it caused me to think of her.
Later on, Dave was trying to reach above the fridge to the awkward cupboard for the cookbooks we don't use very often, but he neglected to move our candles and holders first, thinking he could noodle his arm around. Well... crash! And the Lennox candle holder from the Bogner's of Germany went the way of the Christmas angel that used to live up there. (Now she's lost her wings.) Dave felt bad. Obviously. --I didn't even know it was a "Lennox" until he said so. He didn't like posing with the broken pieces, but I felt a blog coming after my broken dish episode. That candle holder had been with us since our wedding: 16 1/2 years! I have almost all but lost contact with the generous Bogner's of Filderstaadt, south of Stuttgart. I stayed with them part of one summer when I was 16, after their daughter Bettina had stayed with me in Eugene on a mini exchange. Strange, how in the breaking of a gift you think more of the giver than in the using it. I chose not to see it as symbolic of the breaking of a relationship, but as a breaking from the past and unused clutter. Dave and I are really feeling the need for spring cleaning around here and we're chipping away at it slowly. It's time to see what we have and evaluate our need for it.
Later, after my class I came home to a smoky smell in the house. I couldn't place it at first, but I checked the stove and burners anyway: all off. Then I saw the red teapot. My favorite burst of red in the kitchen found at a steal at a discount store. The bottom was all blackened and it had licked black up the sides too. Apparently, Dave, who also felt compelled to SAW OFF the top of a pillar candle that hasn't held it's light in years, turned on the pot and forgot about it, claiming, "It never whistled!" This was a true disappointment as I actually use this teapot all the time and it lives on the back left burner. In fact, our stove top looks off balance without it sitting on its home. So alas, another companion from the initiation of our marriage has been tarnished. What is going on?
Once again, I'm being asked to see the temporary as temporary and hang on to what's true; but after three occurances in one day, I was waiting for the roof to cave in. I checked my current wedding ring: another hand-me-down from Grandma that looks like a ruby, but I'm pretty sure it isn't anything close. I'm embarrassed to admit that my other TWO wedding rings (all from my first and only marriage) are sitting broken in a special box waiting for a day when I have the gumption, patience, money and time to put them into a new setting or necklace. That's the problem with me and rings: I only like the colorful ones. Diamonds bore me. But I bet diamonds don't chip and break on ceramic tile counter tops! Sigh.
Ah, well. I know better than to fret. These things don't really matter. I can still function, and the thought process of the "passing" is a kind of gift.
Then we cooked our last free turkey we won from buying SO MANY groceries back in December. Believe it our not, that big bird sat outside in our cooler until now, and finally thawed. That cracks me up! I've often thought I could use a bigger freezer, but in the winter -- the outdoors IS my freezer, and it works! So... We cooked [OK, I cooked] the bird and Weston watched me smear the garlic/butter/sage rub under it's skin and said, "Wow, Mom. Are we having a feast?" "Yes" I answered. "Who are we inviting?" "I don't know; maybe it'll just be us." Weston's scrunched nose told me he did not like that idea. He wanted the whole Lewandowski family. I hesitated on that one... seemed too much on a class night. "Let's invite them over when we have time to talk or watch a movie after" I said.
In the end we invited Travis and Dan and Weston helped Daddy make a SUPER chocolate fudge cake, and then he helped me make FRESH squeezed orange, lemon, grapefruit juice with cinnamon and maple syrup. YUM YUM! I made homemade chocolate frosting (following the recipe for the first time) and it was INCREDIBLE! I let the boys go at it with frosting the cake. They were lavish and rash, and it was perfect. Then of course they wanted to add sprinkles. That frosting on our warm, moist cake really brought out the kid in me. I loved it and wanted more. We all had seconds!
So, in the end, we really did have a feast. And today I made broth for soup tomorrow.
So, even when things break or let you down, you can still be inventive and make cake on a day that is not your birthday. Just remember to add sprinkles. Those rainbow flecks of sugar have a magic ingredient that makes every kid [including the one deep inside adults] say "EAT ME!"
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