Wind chimes
Dec. 1st, 2004 07:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguist"Is it heating up at all?"
"Yeah," I say reassuringly, "it's close to boiling." It looks the same as it has ever since the last chunks of butter melted into a uniform yellow liquid a couple of minutes ago, but I am still sure I'm right. This yellow liquid and I have developed something of a relationship over the past several minutes: I know its components and watched its formation and control its heat source.
Now I'm just shoving it around a little with my wooden spoon, fairly sure it won't scorch at this point but figuring it can't hurt and lacking anything else to do anyway. "It takes a while; you can't have it too hot or it'll burn." My mom has at least thirty years' more baking experience than I do, so I have no idea why I bother to say this. Just making conversation, I guess. "Besides," I add, "I don't mind."
"I'm impatient," she says. "So I keep turning up the heat." I can hear her slapping ground beef into patties and dicing onion, throwing together dinner as I monitor the delicate state of Christmas candy.
I'm glad the TV isn't on. I don't miss the idiotic sitcoms and game shows, but it's somewhat unusual for my mom to be working in the kitchen without their noisy company. But this is better, this way she can tell me how her job is bad and I can listen. This way I can notice when my wooden spoon clinks against the edge of the heavy kettle.
The noise reminds me of the wind chimes just outside my grandparents' house. My mom likes wind chimes, too, but tends to keep hers inside, hanging in the corners of rooms. She dusts them like other furniture. Made of simple and weatherbeaten metal and glass, my grandma's wind chimes at least got to live out their wind chime destiny.
But now they're gone, I'm sure. The red paint of the deck over which the wind chimes hung is now faded and peeling. The house is empty and cold, unloved and nearly untouched since my grandparents had to move to assisted living facilities and nursing homes, a few years ago.
My dad's brother and sister didn't want to sell the house while their parents were alive. My mom is convinced (she's not the only one, but she's the loudest) that this is because they wanted to keep all the money from it for themselves. My grandma died in April; they put the house on the market this summer.
My grandparents left the house to Dad's siblings because, their reasoning went, my dad got the farm. This meant my parents were uprooted from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where they'd spent most of their married life, to move to the farm when Dad's parents stopped being able to take care of it and had to move to town.
The first time my dad lost his job he was out of work for about two years. Somewhere in there my mom mentioned to her mother-in-law that things were rough and it'd sure help if they could delay a farm payment or two. My grandma replied, "Well, sometimes we all have to tighten our belts!"
My grandparents never had to, but they were always pretty tight anyway. They'd go out to eat at a truckstop every Sunday after church, they'd always order "the special" (generic breakfast stuff: eggs, hashbrowns, meat, toast), though I can't say it if was due to lack of imagination as well as cheapness, or just the latter, and they usually paid separately.
When my grandparents moved to nursing homes, my parents had to get a loan for the rest of the cost of the farm (I think they'd paid for about half of it by then) to get it in their own names and thus keep it from being taken to pay for my grandparents' medical bills, should such funds be necesary.
For this privilege, then, for getting the farm, my dad gets no part of the house. That money goes to the lawyer and the computer-y people, my aunts and uncle. My parents have known this for years, but my mom will still grumble about it, though.
Just as when we were going through my closet a couple of weeks ago, she saw the "collector" Barbie my grandma gave me as a high-school graduation present. "Jami [my older cousin, the only one to graduate before me] got $100, you got a Barbie," she said.
I actually have a stack of them there in my closet. I used to get at least one a year, for my birthday or Christmas. I soon knew what was coming, which gave me time to rehearse my "Thank you, Grandma" in my head. She told that if I didn't play with them and kept them in the boxes they'd be worth something one day. It wasn't hard to resist; I never liked dolls anyway.
The butter-sugar-milk mixture finally starts to boil. It's quiet and crackly, like pouring milk on Rice Krispies. I wonder how people ever thought of fudge, how did they come up with these ingredients, in this order, in these amounts, this careful cooking procedure?
We put in the chocolate chips that my mom hasn't eaten yet, the marshmallow creme, the chopped walnuts. My mom taps the spoon against the edge of the kettle and hands it to me, getting it out of her way so she can pour the proto-fudge in to the waiting cake pan. She says something I can't decipher, so I say, "What?"
"Oh ... you can lick it," she says of the spoon in a way that gives me the distinct impression that the first time she'd said to put it in the sink. I'm not one to argue, so I take the spoon and touch it with my tongue. It's hot enough to notice, but cool enough that I don't care, as long as my tongue isn't touching it for too long. I clean off the rich chocolate and the caked-on nuts in little bursts, varying my attack so as to not injure my tongue. I am still smiling when I put the spoon in the sink.
"Yeah," I say reassuringly, "it's close to boiling." It looks the same as it has ever since the last chunks of butter melted into a uniform yellow liquid a couple of minutes ago, but I am still sure I'm right. This yellow liquid and I have developed something of a relationship over the past several minutes: I know its components and watched its formation and control its heat source.
Now I'm just shoving it around a little with my wooden spoon, fairly sure it won't scorch at this point but figuring it can't hurt and lacking anything else to do anyway. "It takes a while; you can't have it too hot or it'll burn." My mom has at least thirty years' more baking experience than I do, so I have no idea why I bother to say this. Just making conversation, I guess. "Besides," I add, "I don't mind."
"I'm impatient," she says. "So I keep turning up the heat." I can hear her slapping ground beef into patties and dicing onion, throwing together dinner as I monitor the delicate state of Christmas candy.
I'm glad the TV isn't on. I don't miss the idiotic sitcoms and game shows, but it's somewhat unusual for my mom to be working in the kitchen without their noisy company. But this is better, this way she can tell me how her job is bad and I can listen. This way I can notice when my wooden spoon clinks against the edge of the heavy kettle.
The noise reminds me of the wind chimes just outside my grandparents' house. My mom likes wind chimes, too, but tends to keep hers inside, hanging in the corners of rooms. She dusts them like other furniture. Made of simple and weatherbeaten metal and glass, my grandma's wind chimes at least got to live out their wind chime destiny.
But now they're gone, I'm sure. The red paint of the deck over which the wind chimes hung is now faded and peeling. The house is empty and cold, unloved and nearly untouched since my grandparents had to move to assisted living facilities and nursing homes, a few years ago.
My dad's brother and sister didn't want to sell the house while their parents were alive. My mom is convinced (she's not the only one, but she's the loudest) that this is because they wanted to keep all the money from it for themselves. My grandma died in April; they put the house on the market this summer.
My grandparents left the house to Dad's siblings because, their reasoning went, my dad got the farm. This meant my parents were uprooted from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where they'd spent most of their married life, to move to the farm when Dad's parents stopped being able to take care of it and had to move to town.
The first time my dad lost his job he was out of work for about two years. Somewhere in there my mom mentioned to her mother-in-law that things were rough and it'd sure help if they could delay a farm payment or two. My grandma replied, "Well, sometimes we all have to tighten our belts!"
My grandparents never had to, but they were always pretty tight anyway. They'd go out to eat at a truckstop every Sunday after church, they'd always order "the special" (generic breakfast stuff: eggs, hashbrowns, meat, toast), though I can't say it if was due to lack of imagination as well as cheapness, or just the latter, and they usually paid separately.
When my grandparents moved to nursing homes, my parents had to get a loan for the rest of the cost of the farm (I think they'd paid for about half of it by then) to get it in their own names and thus keep it from being taken to pay for my grandparents' medical bills, should such funds be necesary.
For this privilege, then, for getting the farm, my dad gets no part of the house. That money goes to the lawyer and the computer-y people, my aunts and uncle. My parents have known this for years, but my mom will still grumble about it, though.
Just as when we were going through my closet a couple of weeks ago, she saw the "collector" Barbie my grandma gave me as a high-school graduation present. "Jami [my older cousin, the only one to graduate before me] got $100, you got a Barbie," she said.
I actually have a stack of them there in my closet. I used to get at least one a year, for my birthday or Christmas. I soon knew what was coming, which gave me time to rehearse my "Thank you, Grandma" in my head. She told that if I didn't play with them and kept them in the boxes they'd be worth something one day. It wasn't hard to resist; I never liked dolls anyway.
The butter-sugar-milk mixture finally starts to boil. It's quiet and crackly, like pouring milk on Rice Krispies. I wonder how people ever thought of fudge, how did they come up with these ingredients, in this order, in these amounts, this careful cooking procedure?
We put in the chocolate chips that my mom hasn't eaten yet, the marshmallow creme, the chopped walnuts. My mom taps the spoon against the edge of the kettle and hands it to me, getting it out of her way so she can pour the proto-fudge in to the waiting cake pan. She says something I can't decipher, so I say, "What?"
"Oh ... you can lick it," she says of the spoon in a way that gives me the distinct impression that the first time she'd said to put it in the sink. I'm not one to argue, so I take the spoon and touch it with my tongue. It's hot enough to notice, but cool enough that I don't care, as long as my tongue isn't touching it for too long. I clean off the rich chocolate and the caked-on nuts in little bursts, varying my attack so as to not injure my tongue. I am still smiling when I put the spoon in the sink.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-01 06:49 pm (UTC)You write very well.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-01 07:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-01 10:39 pm (UTC)well, for more than one reason.
you miss out on a lot without family.
but, also, because you're very well written.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-01 11:57 pm (UTC)And I know *alllll* about tight grandparents, trust me on that ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 09:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 12:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 12:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 07:44 am (UTC)And now I'm hungry for fudge.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 12:44 pm (UTC)It's good fudge, too, but wicked easy to make. I mean, you could get most of the recipe just from reading this, and it's a recipe off the back of the jar of marshmallow creme anyway. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 12:50 pm (UTC)Now you are tempting me to go buy a jar of marshmallow cream so I can get the recipe and make some fudge of my own. But I'm sure I would just wind up eating the marshmallow cream with a spoon, so I better not. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 09:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-03 06:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 09:59 am (UTC)Andrew can do the music thing, you can write, Damon can...do whatever he winds up wanting to do, and I can design databases and presentations for people!
And the kids can grow up happily. -=happy sigh=- We'd have the bestest family...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 12:46 pm (UTC)And, yes, the bestest. That made me smile.