Hello everyone, my name is Anagrammy and I'm an Asshole. My particular venue is typically Mother's Day, a day which for me, a mother of eight, is like St. Patrick's Day for an alcoholic. Shall we say, there are expectations. I begin checking the clock at 11:00 am. By 2:00 pm, I am irritated. By 4:00 pm, I am annoyed, by 5:00 pm, well you get the idea. The volcano did not get the virgins and she is upset.
This year as part of my recovery, I decided to create my own Mother's Day and be happy. I recreated an authentic-from-your-childhood-in-the-seventies meal.
Beverage choices:
mixed milk in canning jars (1/2 powdered milk reconstituted and 1/2 homogenized)
Tang
Country Time Lemonade mix
Orange chicken
Mashed potatoes and Mom's Famous Gravy.
Peas
Homemade cloverleaf tolls, half wheat/half white.
Nancy arrived and fell right into the theme. "I will eat this glorious meal just like I used to--and she grabbed a fistful of peas and threw them at her mashed potatoes and gravy, where they stuck. Astonished, I watched her dig in. I never knew she did that! She ignored the chicken, ladeling over another layer of gravy. Seeing my face, she said, "What? This is the good part!"
"Why are you eating so fast?" I asked, since no one else was here yet.
"It's authentic. Besides, don't you know I have puppy-at-the-trough syndrome. It's a gobble compulsion because you had to eat fast because Daniel always got the good stuff. (Daniel was the youngest of the boys, so he had to be nimble to survive)
She gobbled so fast, she had to take a break with a stomach ache, whereupon I cleared her plate. "No! I'm coming back," she objected.
I answered with a Momism: "You leave, you lose." meaning you leave the table, you forfeit your food." I reminded her that it was authentic and we laughed She said, "Left the table nothing--if you looked away and looked back, your chicken might be gone and you would never know who took it!"
This was amazing to hear because I thought the meals were peaceful, happy occasions with tons of food and everybody enjoying everything, conversing about the days events, etc, clearly I lived in the Seventies Mom Bubble.
The rest of the kids arrived one by one, because it was an Open House for Decendents of Anagrammy and I have a tiny place. The food prompted some reminiscing, which you know mothers just live for. So it was the best Mother's Day ever. I should have done this long ago instead of feeling sorry for myself.
So you might say I'm an asshole in recovery on this one
Ana
Julia also went nuts over the mashed potatoes and gravy, making me reveal my secret for Mom's Famous Gravy, which heretofore I had never revealed. But since I'll be dead in another thirty years, I figure I better tell: I use pan drippings from the PREVIOUS chicken/turkey, which I stealthily pour off and freeze.
