Forced to eat chocolate ice cream

Dad did not want to awaken from his nap to eat the dip of ice cream, so I had to keep it from going to waste.  Sitting on the uncomfy chair in the corner reading about the Cherokees and the Trail of Tears, I licked the plastic spoon.

Good to get out of the condo with the dripping bathtub faucet after working through an online training course about recognizing child abuse. Dripping faucets are bad.  Catching drips = good.  Using caught drips to refill toilet tank or water houseplants is not such a bad thing.

Child abuse is bad.  Getting credit for doing free online training is good, especially while wearing my jammies and polar bear slippers.  Nuking the leftover spaghetti and meat sauce for breakfast is neither good nor bad.  It is just easy and comforting on the day off from school honoring Martin Luther King.

Moral or immoral? Legal or illegal?  Black/white clarity seems just the stuff of  fabric arrangements for my grandbaby play mat.

In 1977 we considered the world far too doomed to bring a child into.  We fretted about the demise of small towns in the Walmart invasion, acid rain, the inequality in our economic system, the dang military-industrial complex, quality of life issues, whether using a crockpot to make lentil soup was selling out, and the inherent evil of polyester double-knit. We put henna rinses in our hair, grew alfalfa sprouts on the window sill, and gagged down carob chips.  We read Wendell Berry poems.

Carob chips will never be chocolate.  Few puzzles have the answers on the back page.  Being an adult was not what we expected.  It was soooo gray and blurry!

Being a parent was unexpectedly wonderful.  Maybe being a grandparent will be as well.

I'm into cole slaw.  Cabbage.  Down to basics.  Stone Soup!  No frills, except:

Dad eventually awoke to swallow his afternoon meds and drink a 4 oz. protein shake.  His new roommate groaned about cold lotion being applied to his itchy diaper region.

"Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts."

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Wendell Berry (1973)

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder