I was so busy posting about Mom last week that I skipped right over Pandemic Hairs Thursday. Mom’s much more interesting than my hairs could ever be anyway, so I’m sure nobody missed seeing my ‘do last week. Hey, my pandemic hairs were fun for the most part, but I couldn’t take them anymore. My hairs felt like they weighed a ton on one side of my head. Trying to hold up my head straight was causing me severe neck pain. Beyond that, I decided it would be respectful of me to show up looking well-kempt for Mom, outside MCR’s windows Saturday when I can wave at her on her 90th Birthday.
I finally got in touch with Miss Tiffany o’ Great Clips and she was able to fit me into her schedule this morning. My hairs haven’t seen her since February, before Suzanne and I went on vacation to Nashville. I have to admit I ended up feeling bigly bad to have enlisted Miss Tiffany to cut my hairs today, however. She was glad to see me and my birdies wood Bow Tie o’ the Day, but she was hobbled by a broken foot. Apparently, she broke it in a dancing accident in Wyoming. She had attended a wedding reception there last weekend, where she was dancing around while wearing extra-high heels. Miss Tiffany’s family kept admonishing her to take off the extra-high heels while dancing, or she was bound to fall. She finally got sufficiently irritated at her family harping on her about her extra-high heels that she shed them and put on some flats. She hit the dance floor again in “safer” shoes, at which time she promptly slipped on the dance floor in her flats, ripping up the tendons in her foot. She said her foot dangled from her leg all the way home from Wyoming. I asked her if it dangled like a participle. She wasn’t sure.
‘Tis I, doing one of my many impersonations of Mom. I call this particular impression “Mom And Her Fresh CHRONICLE.” Mom and her weekly MILLARD COUNTY CHRONICLE PROGRESS, a.k.a. THE CHRONICLE, are inseparable when she gets her mitts on a new issue.
Mom has never personally subscribed to Delta’s weekly paper, because she is too impatient. She has to read it hot off the press—whole hours before it could possibly show up in her mailbox. Getting a copy in her mail on Wednesday is unacceptable to her. She gets her copy the minute they hit the local stores on Tuesday afternoons. When Mom moved in with my brother in St. George after she broke her hip, my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless bought Mom a CHRONICLE subscription to be sent to her there. Mom was forced to read her beloved hometown newspaper out of the mailbox on Wednesday’s or Thursday’s, depending on when it showed up in my brother’s mail. I am convinced Mom decided to move to MCR in Delta, just so she could somehow get her CHRONICLE on Tuesday afternoons again. Since Mom moved into MCR almost two years ago, my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless and her husband have faithfully delivered Mom her CHRONICLE every Tuesday, the minute a copy is available for purchase.
Jump back to 2017, before I sold my Delta place (a.k.a. Momo and Popo’s house), and before Mom broke her hip. Here’s what Mom’s Tuesday schedule looked like:
8:30 AM. Mom saunters over to my living room, where she sits in a puffy chair and asks, “Should we see if Pegetha wants to go for a drink today?” I don’t know why she ever asked. Of course, Peggy (Mom’s best friend) wanted to get a drink. Of course, Mom and Peggy wanted to be driven all over the county to see what’s what and who’s who. And of course, Mom would call Peggy to see for sure that she wanted to go with us.
9AM. Mom and I get in her car and I drive us to Peggy’s house. I hit the horn.
9:01 AM. Peggy gets in the passenger side of the car.
9:02 AM. I order 2 Pepsi’s and a Diet Coke from the Cardwell’s drive-up window.
9:02:45 AM. A bickering ensues about whose turn it is to pay for the drinks. We also chat with the gals working at Cardwell’s, cuz we haven’t seen them since…..yesterday at 9:02:45 AM. The car behind us at the drive-up wishes we’d pull away, but the driver waves at us cheerfully anyway. The driver knows who we are because we are sitting in either the Helenmobile or the Pegethamobile. Mom and Peggy each have their own vanity plates, and they are famous and beloved women of Delta. Because of their fame, we can get away with a lot of things others can’t. I’m just the chauffeur.
9:07 AM. I drive the two Old Girls across the valley, while we drink and once again solve the problems of the world—while catching up on whatever it is we need to catch up on since yesterday.
11:00 AM. We drop off Peggy at her place, where Mom reminds her it’s CHRONICLE day, and Peggy says to Mom, “Ours won’t be here until the mail tomorrow.” Same sentences, every Tuesday.
11:01 AM. I park us in front of Mom’s house, as close as I can get her to her front door, where she asks if I’ll drive uptown to buy her a CHRONICLE as soon as it’s out—as if I don’t already know it’s my job.
From 11:02-whenever THE CHRONICLE is available. Mom searches for a pair of reading glasses with both lenses. This is a task which usually takes Mom a bigly chunk of time.
CHRONICLE o’ clock PM. I drive to fetch a copy of THE CHRONICLE from Jubilee because it’s the closest place to get it.
30 seconds later. I’m back to hand off the paper to Helen Sr., knowing she will be happily hunkered down and glued to it for the rest of the day. Finally, I can get a nap in.
8:00 PM. Mom comes over to my house to go to sleep early on my couch, because it’s been another busy CHRONICLE day for Mom.
Half of A Bow Tie o’ the Day is better than none at all.
Hey, earlier this week, I posted this pic in a set of pix about Mom and Skitter, but it’s the perfect photo for what I’m writing about this morning, which is Mom and Suzanne. They have been chums from the beginning. I think they trade secrets about me, and they conspire against me—if only to keep me on the straight and narrow. I am not necessary to their conversations. They talk sewing and cooking and house decor. Blah, blah, blah. After one of Suzanne’s surgeries, I took her to Mom’s and dropped her off for a week of recovery, while I drove back up to Ogden with Rowan so he wouldn’t have to miss any school. Mom pampered Suzanne with lots of quiet and plenty of tasty food, as we knew she would. I wasn’t worried about either of them. When I picked up Suzanne at the end of the week, she was nearly healed.
One of the first times Suzanne and Mom met was in 1985. We were all in Mom’s kitchen, and Mom was concocting cookies—chocolate chip, I think. (No surprise there.) The three of us gabbed and guffawed about who-knows-what. Mom plopped the cookie dough on the baking sheet and put it in the oven. I think she even sat down with us for three or four minutes. (Mom rarely sat down in her kitchen: She ruled it and hovered around guests from a standing position, always at the ready to start cooking something else, or wash a dish.) So there we were—just the three of us chatting away in Mom’s kitchen kingdom, when Mom jumped up and screamed, “I forgot to finish putting all the flour in the cookie dough!”
She did not skip a beat. She flew to the oven, retrieved the cookie sheet, and scraped the partially baked cookies back into the mixing bowl. She folded-in the rest of the flour, then plopped the cookie dough back on the sheet, and stuck it back in the oven—hoping the treats might work out. OMGolly, if I—or anybody else—had tried to correct the same mistake the way Mom did, my cookies would have come out barely worthy of going into the trash. But Mom’s “ruined” cookies were sooooooooo yummerific. It was an impressive feat to see. I think it was right at that moment when Suzanne decided she better keep me, if only to be around Mom performing her miracles.
Mom has always humored my whims. She’d gladly wear a Bow Tie o’ the Day for me any time I ask. And she did. Many times. And I’m sure she will again. Many times. This photo was taken at her home on August 26, 2017.
TIE O’ THE DAY brings you a selection of pix of Mom and Skitter during some of our visits with Mom at MCR. Mom has always been kind to all of God’s creatures—except ants, flies, mosquitoes, and mice, of course. Even so, Mom has never been a petter of anybody’s pets. But for some reason, Skitter and Mom hit it off, from the get-go. I’m sure it has a lot to do with Skitter being abused prior to her life with us. Mom’s got a whole diatribe she goes into about people who abuse animals, which usually ends with, “They oughta be shot.” Hey, you’ll get no argument to the contrary from me.
Anyhoo… Last week’s devastating winds here in Centerville were a thing to behold. The tree carnage was incalculable in Davis County. The damage to homes and cars was hit-and-miss, but homes and cars that did get hit, got hit bigly. Thankfully, our home was mostly missed. Skitter was the real victim of the winds, as far as our people and things are concerned. How do you explain the sound and feel of torrential wind to a mutt who is already chronically skittish from her previous abusive life? The power was out, so there was no cranking up music or the television to cover the sound of the storm. You have to understand that our tv is always on. When Suzanne and I are out of the house, we leave the television on for Skitter so she knows we’ll come. back home. Skitter is not stoopid. She knows if the television is on, I will definitely be back. When we go out of town and Suzanne’s sister stays here with Skitter, she knows the television is to remain on if she has to leave the house. It’s the law!
Anyhoo, again… With winds gusting into hurricane range, Skitter still had to go potty. Winds can’t prevent that need. I guiltily had to push her out the patio door. Out she went, into the bluster. She stared at me with eyes that said, “What did I do wrong?” I had to turn away. When I turned back to her, she was dutifully pottying—claws clutching the grass to keep her from being blown away in the awful wind. But I noticed something that made me feel relieved. Skitter’s pee was falling almost straight down into the ground. I immediately thought, “Skitter’s got this!” I knew for a fact Skitter had braved stronger winds in her life. We had spent tons of time at our tumbleweed ranch in Delta, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain. I had seen Skitter’s pee fly sideways in the winds o’ Millard County at least a half-dozen times, and it was dropping straight down in the once-in-a-hunnerd-years storm in Centerville. After all was said and done, and despite its wrath, last week’s storm o’ wild winds was just a hullaballoo of wimpy city wind trying to blow with the bigly winds o’ Delta, Utah!
[Yesterday, I re-posted a photo of Mom slicing her cheese bread. I told about the importance of cheese bread at our family holiday meals. Today, here’s a second re-post of the recipe.]
Five red Bow Ties o’ the Day are proud to provide a recipe we think you’ll find tasty. It’s cheesy and bready. Who could find fault with that?
Actually, I really can’t call this a “recipe.” Mom’s recipes ranged from easy-peasy to intricate and near-impossible. This is a simple one. Three ingredients are all you need. You’ll also need an oven.
1 loaf of French bread. 1 stick or 1/2 stick of butter. And one jar of Kraft Old English Spread.
Lay a sheet of foil across a cookie sheet. You do not want to have to clean baked-on cheese off your cookie sheet. Use the foil.
Hand-mix the cheese spread and butter together until it’s creamy. Mom generally uses the whole stick of butter, although I’ve seen her use just half a stick. I always use just the half.
With a bread knife, skin ALL the crust off the French bread. Ditch the crust.
Cover the bottom of the skinned loaf with the cheese/butter spread, then place it on the foil-covered cookie sheet. Continue to cover the sides and top of the loaf with the cheese/butter spread. Spread the spread as evenly as you can. Since the size of French bread loaves vary, you might or might not use the entire amount of spread. Plus, you’ll definitely want to experiment with how thick you like your cheese spread layer to be. If you want a thin layer of the cheese/butter mixture on the entire loaf, you’ll probably have enough to cover two loaves.
Bake for 10-ish minutes, at 350 degrees. Ovens vary, you know. Experiment with how crusty—if at all—you like the top of your cheese bread to be. The more you experiment with the variables, the more cheese bread you’ll “have to” eat.🤤
I recommend you slice the cheese bread (an electric knife works best) while it’s still hot. And put it on the table hot. But it’s still yummy when it has cooled off.
As any good cook knows, even with an easy recipe the taste is in the details. Mom’s excellent cooking was the result of tweaking good recipes to make them better, as well as her knack for timing. Still, she cooked primarily by sight, smell, and taste. Measuring ingredients wasn’t much of a concern to her. She guesstimated a lot. That’s what makes it difficult to pin down her actual recipes.
If someone wanted a recipe, she’d give them one. She’d also invite them to come to the house to watch her make what they were asking about. Her complicated candy-type creations are especially almost impossible to re-create, even if you watched her make it and tried to write everything down. She was always changing the way she did it or adding a new twist or a different ingredient. And, of course, exact measurements were not always Mom’s way.
Oh. About the potato chips and Diet Coke in the photo. Those food staples are for you to snack on while you make the cheese bread. Substitute a bottle of wine for the Diet Coke, if you are so inclined. Chocolate is also allowed.
[The Skitter v. Wind post will have to wait until tomorrow. Here’s a repeat of a Mom post from a couple of years back. The soon-to-be Birthday Dame could cook up a storm.]
Entwined hearts Bow Tie o’ the Day is perfect for Mom. I have been told she’s having an extremely tough time missing Dad recently. Even though he’s gone, their love lives. It’s a time-space continuum thing.
This photo was taken almost 20 years ago. I think Mom is in the kitchen at the Palomar. Most likely, this was a Thanksgiving bash. Check out Mom’s attack face. She is darn well gonna conquer those two loaves of cheesebread. And note the oven burns on the back of Mom’s hand. You’ve heard of rug burn. Well, this is cheesebread burn. She burned her hands on the oven coils every time she made cheesebread. Every time, I tell you. Mom never met an oven glove she’d use.
In our house, the electric knife was used for cutting only two things: carving turkey and slicing cheesebread. It was basically used only on Thanksgiving and Christmas. And then the gadget was put back in its little 70’s original box, and into the kitchen cupboard where Mom and Dad kept the checkbook. The knife la in its skinny box all alone for 363 days a year. Poor thing. I should have put a bow tie in with it for company.
Mom’s cheesebread is a sacred food. Many of you have had the privilege of tasting Mom’s confections over the years, and you know she was an excellent all-around cook. But Mom’s cheesebread was something she made almost exclusively for family holiday dinners. It was a rare gem. And it was the key food item of those dinners. Dinner did not happen without the cheesebread. Kinds of salads changed. Different versions of potatoes joined the basic mashed potatoes. You’d think the turkey would be the star, but it was always about the cheesebread.
And it was war. The most desired slices of cheesebread are the ends, where the cheese-to-bread ratio is the highest. If you managed to score one of the ends, it was only because you managed to steal one before someone else stole it.
At some point after dinner, there was what I’ll refer to as The Semi-Annual Battle Over the Tinfoil On Which the Cheesebread Was Baked. The tinfoil was like the cherry on top. It was like the prize in the cereal box. It was covered in baked-on, cheesebread drippings. Dad usually won that war. And then he would sit at the head of the table, picking carmelized blobs of cheese off the tinfoil– obnoxiously, so we couldn’t help but watch it happen. And we drooled through the torture of witnessing the results of our defeat.
I have made this cheesebread for parties and dinners and potlucks in three states in this U.S. of A., and I can attest to its lusciousness. A couple of enemies became my friends because of this cheesebread. Its powers know no bounds. Hell, Mom’s cheesebread could probably find a way to balance the federal budget AND create world peace.
Mom has used a walker since she broke her hip in June of 2017. Here is a photo of her zipping around our house aided by her walker on one of her 2018 visits with us, a few months before she took up residence at Millard Care and Rehab. A broken hip didn’t slow Mom down much. On her post-broken hip visits with us, she took brisk daily walks through the house to keep her new hip loosened up. I asked her what she was needing to stay loose for at her age, and she wasn’t sure. But she thought it would be wise to keep her new hip loose “just in case.” Mom’s such a Boy Scout with her preparedness for whatever might lurk anywhere in her vicinity.
Note Mom is once again wearing her clip-on earrings. Also note her ever-present sunglasses. She’s as famous and beloved as a movie star. I really have seen her mobbed by her fans when they happen upon her. I’m sure Mom uses the shades as a disguise to help her lay low, to protect her privacy and her cool-osity. (Oh, and light hurts her old dame eyes.) I am, as always, in awe of Mom’s charisma.
Mom is a character. She has also been a positive example of so many of the values we try to live by as good folks upon the planet. She is a woman of action. She is compassionate, non-judgmental, resilient, loyal, generous, service-minded, patient, empathetic, principled, and on and on, into et cetera territory. I consider her life-long examples of these values to be a quiver-full of gifts to me—each one important to finding my way through my life. She’s been a stellar example of her values to anyone who has spent time with her.
One value I realize Mom taught me was a surprise. And it’s a bigly thing. I don’t know how I missed it for so many years, but I did not recognize it as a gift until I became a parent myself. And just what is that valuable gift my Mom gave me? She gave me the gift of imperfection. Some parents have a tough time letting their kids—and everyone else— see them make mistakes. They can’t admit to being/doing wrong. Mom has always openly embraced her mis-steps and weaknesses, and she has tried to learn from them and become a better person. She’s never been shy about sharing her mistakes with others, so they can benefit from her experiences. She gave me the gift of acknowledging my imperfection—as we all must do—as a necessary way to thrive and be better than I was before I messed up. And Mom has taught me that it’s not enough to learn from your imperfection; you are obligated to show others how to best live contentedly with their own inevitable foibles. Nobody’s perfect, but we often waste a ton of energy and time pretending to be. Here’s a secret: None of us is fooling anybody. Might as well learn from who we really are.
Bow Tie o’ the Day naps with Mom in 2017, on one of her last sleepovers with us in Centerville. She had been wearing Bow Tie while I was taking post photos of all of us during her visit. She suddenly needed to doze, so I took Bow Tie off her neck and she conked out on the couch immediately. I’m sure Skitter is just out of frame, because when Mom and Skitter are in the same room, Skitter is right at Mom’s side.
This is a dear photo to me because Mom looks so comfortable. This snapshot was taken just a few weeks after Mom broke her hip. The ambulance drove Mom from the Delta hospital to the hospital in Provo, where Suzanne and I were already waiting for her arrival. I was shocked to see Mom in such pain. There she was—with a broken hip and in need of surgery, and she was trying to be her usual chatty, glittery self. She was trying to be upbeat with the nurses, the ambulance crew, and me and Suzanne. But her face had an underlying grimace of pain I had never seen on her sweet face before. And I hope to never see it on her again.
Even through her pain that June night, Mom had us roaring. The nurses, the ambulance crew, and Suzanne and I were clustered around Mom’s gurney in the hall outside her hospital room waiting for the room to be ready for her. A nurse asked Mom if she needed anything. Mom thought for a second or two and said, in her best dead-serious voice, “I’d like a tall glass of morphine, please.” The nurses stood shocked. Suzanne and I laughed immediately, because we know Mom’s gift for humor. And then the nurses realized Mom had not been serious, so we all enjoyed Mom’s floorshow. Mom entertained through her pain, as is her way.
