Archives

Death in a Jar

Mar28

As I poured myself a cup of coffee, a woman I know who is a dietitian walked up to the counter. Although I knew that most professionals hate being asked for curbside advice, I just couldn’t help myself. After giving her a friendly greeting I said, “I hear that coconut oil is the new wonder food. What do you think about that?”

My acquaintance didn’t seem to mind the question, but she did seem to have a major problem with coconut products. With a grimace she exclaimed, “Coconut oil is very bad for a person’s cholesterol. I don’t think a person should even eat coconut flakes in baked goods!”

I looked concerned and nodded. After exchanging a few pleasantries, we turned and went our separate ways.

What I hadn’t told my dietitian acquaintance, was that I’d recently seen a nutritionist who recommended that I start using coconut oil for baking. Being given two such opposing instructions is unnerving. Which one is right? Continue reading →

Gourmet Glorp

Mar21

My brothers and I sat at their dinner table in the farmhouse’s sunny patio room. Warmed by the heated floor tiles, the sunshine and a glass of Casper’s homemade wine, our conversation flowed freely.

Billy jumped to his feet and went to the kitchen. A moment later he came back with a wedge of cheddar cheese. Dropping into his chair, he cut several slices for us to share. Savoring the creamy flavor of the cheese, then taking a sip of two-year-old plum wine, made me sigh with satisfaction.

Casper was telling funny stories about things that had happened to him while fishing with friends in Canada. The topic of foods they had brought with them somehow devolved into Mom’s attempts to feed oatmeal to Casper when he was a little boy.

He complained, “Most people call it oatmeal, but I call it vile glorp! Every time I opened my mouth, Mom would shove a spoonful of the stuff into my mouth.” To demonstrate how repulsed he felt just remembering this traumatic experience, my 78-year-old brother stuck out his tongue and gagged. Continue reading →

Selective Shedding

Mar14

I stood in the middle of the kitchen munching on apple slices and sipping a cup of tea. “This will have to do for my breakfast.” I told my daughter, Tammie. “I’m in a hurry because I didn’t allow enough time to get ready for my appointment.”

The sound of a cat pawing at the entry door prompted Tammie to get up from the dining room table to open the door. My sleek white and black cat Louie, slipped quickly into the room and made a bee-line toward me.

Taking one step backward, I said, “No. Louie, stay away…ach!” Although I didn’t want it to happen, Louie rubbed his entire silky body from nose to tail against my left leg. I looked down at my black slacks now half covered with white cat hair. He turned around to make a second swipe, this time against my right leg. I pushed him away.

Tammie said, “Mom, he’s just trying to tell you how much he loves you.”

“Yes, I know how much he loves me.” I snapped. “He loves me so much that he wants his scent to be all over me! My problem is that I’m leaving the house and don’t want to look like an unkempt fur-ball.” Continue reading →

Cabin Fever

Mar7

I opened my eyes and saw gray light filtering into the room. Pushing the blankets aside I walked to the window and lifted a curtain to peek out. My monochromic yard looked dreary. “The weatherman was wrong.” I grumbled. “The storm didn’t start at six am. Maybe he’ll also be wrong about it being icy. With any luck we’ll get nothing but snow.” I glared disdainfully at the black evergreen branches, gray tree trunks and white snow. The tracks in the snow were old and no longer interested me. I felt bored with this unchanging winter landscape.

Once a week I clean out my furnace’s ash pan. After dressing, I jogged down to the basement to shut the wood pellet burner off, the first step of the chore. Passing a window, I thought about how excited I am when I see new tracks in the snow around the house. Winter boredom, cabin fever, or whatever you want to call it, magnifies the mundane to an otherwise perfectly normal person. Continue reading →

The Last Joke

Feb28

Casper called out our brother’s name, “Billy!” I turned to look at him. He’d been drifting between reality and hallucinations since I sat down at his bedside half an hour earlier. His eyes looked dreamy, but his raised hands showed intent and concern.

I asked, “Casper, why do you need Billy?”

“The cows are out!” my brother responded. His dream shifted then, to field-dressing a deer. He asked for help lifting it and marveled, “This is a big animal”.

After quietly sleeping for several minutes Casper woke and once again called, “Billy!”

I leaned towards him and asked, “Are the cows out again?”

Casper shook his head and waved a hand, saying, “They’re in pieces.”

I flippantly teased, “Casper, when cows are in pieces, that’s called hamburger.” To my surprise, despite his mind being clouded by illness, my brother laughed! Remembering the great stories he liked to tell through the years showing the funny side of his life, I joined him in laughter. Casper had a funny, sweet sense of humor. He especially loved original one-liners, his own and others. Continue reading →

Going to Seed

Feb21

In the pine tree next to the house a small red breasted nuthatch watched for a turn at the bird feeder. On the feed tray, two chickadees pecked and scratched for the biggest seeds. Sunflower seed shells littered the dirty, half-melted snow below. I sighed and shook my head. Winter was dragging on forever.

Seeing a large flicker land on the suet cage cheered me a little. After he left, a white-breasted nuthatch took his place. Watching him made me laugh out loud. Nuthatches operate just as well upside down as upright.

Each winter I get to a point where I’m sick of snow by late January. No longer pristine, sparkling white, the snow is dirty and full of tracks. Watching fresh snow flakes drifting to the ground no longer thrills me like it did in November. February snowfalls are merely seen as a chore to shovel aside or a travel hazard.

On February 2nd the famous groundhog predicts when spring will come, but the bottom line is that no matter what he predicts, we’ll still have cold and snowy weather for at least another six weeks, or longer if you live in Wisconsin.

Restless, I walked over to a window on the backside of the house where I could see my garden hoop building. A strong hankering to see lush, green, growing plants washed over me. I watched wind sweep small, white clouds of powdery snow off the garage roof, to do a swirling dance on the snowbanks below. Continue reading →

Art of Sacrifice

Feb14

Agnes smiled as she recalled, “When we were kids, we gave up candy during Lent.” She explained, “If we were given candy, we put in a jar to be saved as a treat on Sunday afternoons or after Lent was over.”

I’ve never been very good at sacrificing the things I like and want. I tell my family, “I’m a spoiled pussy cat.” I chuckle to myself because as a child I had wanted to be a human cat. I imagined myself having fun playing, being petted, and being idle, stretched out on the sofa. The sacrifice I didn’t want to make to be a cat, was the human ability to talk.

Parents make sacrifices every day without thinking about it. Some sacrifices are huge and heroic, while others are small, humble, unnoticed ones. I remember my Mom serving dessert at Sunday dinner. She made sure she got the cracked or chipped dish. Her serving was very small if there wasn’t enough to go around, usually the first serving that crumbled and didn’t look as nice. She tried to give the family slices of pies and cakes as pretty as those featured on the covers of her woman’s magazines. Continue reading →

Going Batty

Feb7

I opened my eyes. The only light in the dark room was the soft glow coming from an electric alarm clock on the bureau; the only sound, its quiet, steady tick-tock. Waking during the night at least once isn’t uncommon for me. Happily wiggling into a more comfortable position, I prepared to drift back to sleep.

The sound of the scrabbly, scritch-scratch of a small rodent made my eyes pop open again. I thought with resignation, “I have mouse in the house. That figures. It’s exactly a year since I last had one.”

While trying to remember where I put the mouse trap I had used last January, I heard a new sound. It was the distinctive rapid, high-pitched chatter that bats make. Then I felt something swooping low over the bed. It made one pass, then a second. When my night-time visitor tried to land on the bedroom wall, its leathery wings fluttered against the textured-plaster as it tried to get a toe hold.

I debated with myself, “Do I have to get up? Maybe I can just ignore it.” With a reluctant sigh, I decided the bat might keep me awake by fluttering around, so the best thing to do was remove it from my room.

I’m not afraid of bats. Leastways, not anymore. I’m ashamed to admit there was a time I not only demanded that someone other than myself capture the creature, but that it be put to death. Continue reading →

Mad Hatter

Jan31

I loved Sundays. Everyone in our farm house bustled around getting ready to attend Mass. Those of us who didn’t do barn chores had to be out of the bathroom by the time Daddy and my brother Billy were ready to use it. Mom had me dress first. It felt nice to be wearing my best clothing and have my usually tangled hair neatly combed.

Sitting quietly on the davenport, I waited, watched and listened. My sisters were bickering over something. The shirt one of my brothers planning to wear was in the laundry basket, so Mom quickly ironed his other nice shirt.

When Daddy came out of the bathroom he had a bit of toilet paper stuck to his chin where he’d nicked himself while shaving. Betty flounced into the room with her full skirt and sat down. Mary rummaged in the hall closet for shoe polish. Daddy, Billy and Casper were the first ones ready to go.

Instead of taking care of herself, Mom spent most of the morning doing last minute things for Daddy and her seven children. Most Sunday mornings she was the last person to be ready.

There was one final preparation for attending Mass. Women had to wear something on their heads in church. For the weekday school Masses, girls wore scarves tied under our chins, but on Sundays we wore hats to church. I put on a small, ruffled curvette. Mary donned a big flower trimmed bucket style. Mom put on the new black hat she’d bought a few days before. Daddy glanced at her and witlessly commented, “Where’re the hounds and horses?” Continue reading →

Small Words Big Impact

Jan24

Swallowing hurt. I felt sorry for myself. Tears formed in my eyes as I opened wide for Dr. Kroeplein to look down my throat.

He warned Mom, “Mrs. Altmann, your daughter has a strep infection again. As I told you the last time, strep is nasty. It can damage a person’s heart, if you don’t treat it with penicillin. My advice to you is to have Kathy’s tonsils removed after school lets out this spring. If you don’t, the infection will return repeatedly.”

In a state of shock, I followed Mom out of the doctor’s office. Being unable to properly swallow pills and having to take more penicillin was like signing up for torture. I was convinced that penicillin was the worst-tasting substance in this entire world! Just thinking about it made me gag, which sent off new waves of pain. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I was going to need surgery. Surely this was the end of my life!

Already tearful that evening, a huge flood began to flow when Mom told Daddy the doctor had recommended surgery. I dramatically sobbed, “Why did this have to happen to me?”

Ten years older than me, my brother Billy quietly answered, “Why shouldn’t it happen to you? It happens to a lot of people.”

Startled, I turned to stare at him. His statement hadn’t been said in anger or scorn. My brother’s face showed nothing but sympathetic concern. Feeling stunned, I knew he was right. Like everyone else in this world, I would experience pain, fear and disappointment. Continue reading →