… evidenced when later in life my kids talk about my cooking to their spouses, all wistfully. “My mom used to make…” Blah blah. I had a boyfriend who used to do this: “You know, when my mom made that, she’d stir up a roux with the flour first…” My cooking, of course, paled in comparisons to hers. One day I told him he was blessed to have someone cook for him at all, and if he didn’t stop comparing me to the madre I’d settle for merely warming up a hot dog in my armpit, so shut it.
Home after Ralph and my trip to Portland (where we spent time with my siblings, enjoyed an excellent concert, fabulous cuisine and coffee, and stayed at a beautiful B & B) my daughter and I take a brief bike ride down Cherry Street. She, of course, wants a long bike ride; I cite the gathering darkness and my weariness as reasons to keep it short. While biking Sophe’s eyes are stripes; predator eyes. Her wit is quick and her company marvelous. I remind her of our impending visit from company and the wee friend who will be here soon. “Olivia’s just learning to ride her bike,” I tell my daughter. She immediately intuits the relevance: “Should I let her borrow my little red and yellow bike?” We discuss plans for this. I ask her the street names and numbers as we approach them. There are some very cute houses on Queets Avenue; as I pass one I suddenly remember while working in high school at an Animal Rescue – picking up a litter of baby possums from the basement.
Back to my cooking: tonight I’m making an Italian vegetable soup. Upon Nels’ and Ralph’s arrival from out on the town (Ralph went out to buy me a new steam iron and – I mean this – it is the coolest iron I’ve ever seen!) Nels enters the house, stops and exits, grabs a biking flag from outside, comes back inside and throws this down and yells, “It smells SO GOOD!”