Story set in a kitchen

This is unedited and needs more detail

Writers group 10/23/2024

Set a story set in a kitchen.

Thanksgiving morning. Turkey is in the oven. The familiar aroma is starting to seep out and make the house smell like a holiday. For some reason, we always have pretty much the same meal for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not sure how that started but no one complains. Maybe it started because turkeys are on sale during Thanksgiving so my parents would buy two. I wish I could ask them, but sadly, they have both passed. So many questions I wished I had asked them (side note—this could make a great writing prompt).

Casey is in the yellow room watching the parade. Traditions are important around here at holiday time.

Gene is puttering about. In the kitchen one minute and outside the next minute, doing who knows what. He is the main cook all year round but I do have specialties. I am stirring up one of those specialties right now. I have my favorite heavy, blue pot and my large wooden spoon that has a small crack in the bowl part but I still love it. It’s helped me create so many savory and sweet dishes over the years.

I’m standing at the stove stirring some fresh cranberries into the haphazardly measured sugar and water to make my famous cranberry sauce. If you didn’t know how easy it was to make, you may think that it takes a complicated recipe to make it. That’s why so many people buy the canned cranberry sauce. At least that’s what I used to think. Now I know that some people just prefer the canned jellied sauce that slide out of the can into a dish and makes that slurping sound that only cranberry sauce can make.

I’m stirring away, waiting for the water, sugar and cranberries to come back to a boil. I have the house phone next to me. I turn down the heat on the burner as it comes to a boil and then reach for the phone as it has started to ring. Pretty much on cue. It’s my dad. He and mom live in Florida now and will come up to Vermont for Christmas but they spend Thanksgiving down there.

“Sue, hi, Happy Thanksgiving.” We talk for a few minutes while I continue to constantly stir the berries that a slowly softening and popping and now the aroma in the kitchen is taken over by the luscious smell of cooking cranberries.

And then he says, as he does every single Thanksgivning since they moved down there. “How do you make the cranberry sauce? I forget. How much water, and sugar? Do the cranberries have to be room temp or can I put them in the water straight from the freezer?” Then he continues. I can’t read the recipe on the bag. The writing is too small.”

I know he knows the recipe. And I know he knows I know he knows the recipe. It’s a tradition that started back when mom stopped cooking much and Dad had to take over. That first year he really didn’t know how to make the sauce and the writing on the bag IS small. So I talked it through with him and it came out satisfactory, he claimed. The next year I was kinda surprised when he called me. It truly is an easy recipe. The next year I wasn’t so surprised when he called. And the year after. This went on until 2015 when Mom and Dad had health issues and they both moved into assisted living in Florida.

Each year I stand at the stove with the same pot and spoon, stirring away, thinking about Dad and Mom, and our family and our traditions. The sauce is done now. It’s cooling in the glass dish shaped like a chicken that Mom and Dad gave me for Christmas one year. I’m just realizing now that it’s probably meant for gravy. Why had I never realized that before? But every Thanksgiving and Christmas it holds my special cranberry sauce and sits on the table in a place of honor.

Recipe

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 12 ounce bag of cranberries

Bring water and sugar to a boil in pan. Add cranberries and bring back to a boil and gently boil for 10 minutes. Stirring frequently (although I stir continuously). I also take the back of my wooden spoon and ‘help’ the cranberries pop by pressing them against the side of the pan. I love the popping sound!

And always, always lick the spoon and the spatula! So good!

My favorite pot and wooden spoon

Scooby Halloween and Conor visited

 Gene found this sweatshirt for Casey for Halloween...

Peggy dropped Conor off at our house the other day.  He wanted to come and visit while she went to DD. He had fun with Molly, as usual, but he also enjoyed the Halloween stuff.  Casey showed him the scary monkey that he got from Spirit Halloween the other day.  Chris bought it for him.  It's so scary that it's funny!  We 'got' Peggy with the sensor activated pumpkin..."It's the one that says "Boo, did I scare you?  Happy Halloween!"  We also had fun with the haunted house that lights up and makes scary sounds.  He got his fill of DumDum lolipops :)  

What I learned today

This is our Wii set up. We also use this for TV, streaming services, DVDs and VHS tapes. We can roll it to wherever Casey is hanging out.  

Positioning can be awkward but it works!

Of course he is on his device (T) too. 

From Writers Group 10/08/2024  (unedited)

Writing prompt: What did you learn today?

Today was a just do the basics day. Eat, drink, feed and water Casey, make his food, do ONE load of laundry (leaving it for the nurse and Casey to fold tonight as it’s their thing they like to do when she works the overnight) No cleaning, organizing, making phone calls or writing emails or returning calls or emails.

It was a me and Casey day. Casey and I spend a lot of time together but I also spend part of my time with him doing the things I mentioned already so it’s kind of haphazard time. I’m up and down from the chair or couch and in and out of the room. Always trying to be productive.

But today I decided I would put all that other stuff aside and just have fun with Casey. I gave him a choice of art, Legos or Wii. He chose Wii very excitedly. We went super old school and picked a Wii game vs. a WiiU game (Wii U was a much anticipated upgrade from the regular Wii). He’s been into Halloween so he picked Ispy Haunted House. I was glad he picked something that is relatively simple and easy because some of the games we’ve played over the years a truly really hard—hard to figure out and hard to manipulate.

So from about 10AM until 3 PM we played. We played and played. He still had his device on and was doing his Googling but we also chatted while I physically played the game. I talked out loud and asked his advice and we were happily frustrated at times and also happily happy when we figured something out.

What I learned today is that I needed that. I needed to just have a little fun and be with my kid. No pressure to work on the To Do list. No nagging Gene to do things (well, except for helping me figure out what to have for lunch), no thinking about tomorrow. And guess what, I didn’t even take a nap! Usually I get that napping feeling after lunch and I go for it when I can.

I’m looking around me and seeing Casey’s room is a mess, wii games strewn about, bed unmade, medical equipment needing to be cleaned and put away, mail to go through, etc. But it will be there when Writers Group is done and it will get taken care of before bedtime. Because, I enjoyed the fun down time, but life goes on and routines need to be continued. But I will remember next time I’m feeling a little burnt out or feeling a little tightly wound that having some quality time with Casey and doing something mindless will bring me back to center and I can be a better me.

Alex’s visit to VT!

 

Best birthday gift--again

 I just got the best birthday gift!  It's not my birthday and it technically is a card, and not a gift per se.  But it was more exciting today than it was on my actual birthday back in 1984--yes, 1984.  

One of our nurses son has a radio show, well, several, shows, and one of them is called Vinyl in Your Pocket where he and his cohost play a vinyl record album and talk about the artist, songs and history.  He was running out of albums to play so I offered up some of our collection.  Gene and I haven't had a turn table in years but we have kept a bunch of records.  I gave Alek a handful of albums and he's played a couple so far (my favorite Zebra album being one of them).  

This morning, Nurse Staci came and handed me an album that Alek had played.  

Wow. I don’t even remember owning this album. But I know it is mine. I know it's mine one, because Gene never would have owned a Duran Duran album, and two, because I peeked into the sleeve and saw a jagged piece of red paper. I pulled it out and my heartrate immediately started picking up as I realized what it was.  I knew that hand writing.  

I know it’s not the best pic but can you see the writing?  That’s my best friend from childhood, Laura’s handwriting. Laura passed away from breast cancer in December of 2017.  In our later adult years, we hadn't been as close as we had in junior high and high school but we always knew that each other was out there for each other.  Laura ended up living in the Pacific Northwest far away from our childhood in Long Island, NY.  I had skipped up to Vermont after high school and have remained planted here.  She was one of the smartest people I knew.  Her dad was a chiropractor and Laura ended up becoming a chiropractor and became a naturopathic doctor.  She was pretty crunchy :)  We may have drifted apart...she getting into the things she loved and I got married and Gene and I had two kids both with a neuromuscular disease called spinal muscular atrophy, type 1.  So both Laura and I were enmeshed in our current lives but we always had our childhood and teenage memories.  Boys, friends, our twin Schwinn bikes, the park, the sleepovers, the parties, the vacations, the music.  And we were there for each other.  

I was still half asleep as I had been nurse Mom to Casey overnight and hadn't even finished brewing my French Press yet.  But I couldn't wait.  I pulled the card from the envelope and my heart skipped a couple of beats.  I had no memory of this card but I obviously had read it since it was ripped open.  

So funny!

I laughed when I pulled the card out. NOT a typical card choice for Laura to have made. 

Here is what she wrote:

7/28/84

Dear Sue-

I always get you a mushy card, the same kind all the time.  For the big 21 I decided to be different. And since this is the year to drink...

HAVE ONE (hundred) ON ME! 

Well, 

HAPPY 

BIRTHDAY!!

Love Always,

Laura

Moooch!!

......................

Oh, my heart!  Swamped with memories and feelings. 

Laura's moniker was Cow.  Actually, we didn't really call her that but MOOO was her byword, her expression, her way of saying hello and goodbye,  When I write on her Legacy Facebook page I always end with MOOOO!  

She ended this card with Moooch, which was one of the ways we'd say Love you/Smooch, etc.   

I don't know what made me peek into the album cover this morning, but I'm glad I did.