Cleansing the Palate

photo courtesy of livingstoncooks.blogspot.com

Laughter and tears....both needed to cleanse the palate.  I'm not a crier.  Especially not in public.  The last decade of my life that has changed to tears with friends in poignant moments.  The last couple of years, have been unexpected tears on the subway, completely unexpected choking back tears at work and occasional sobbing at home, alone.  All needed to move forward in the pilgrimage of life and the unexpected path of dementia.

I used to think that crying was for touching movies, or when someone died or got cancer or something like that.  Not for day to day living.  Not to be able to move on to the next thing crossing my path.  Not a palate cleanser.  Now I know better.

Laughter.  I'm kinda serious.  And truly blessed to have friends and family who constantly poke at me and point out the irony in life.  Laughter has been my saving grace.  The gift of not taking everything so seriously and finding the humor in all things.  Yoga has been the biggest teacher of chillin' the freak out...so what if you don't nail a pose, it's about what's goin' on inside girl!  Yoga has opened me up to laughter, especially in any balancing pose, because when I think I got my shit going on, I'm off balance in tree, airplane, hell sometimes in down dog, and I laugh at myself.  It's shown me to take myself lightly...not everything is so serious.

Ok, I know y'all want to know what happened to the chicken thighs.  Well, when I came home from yoga and opened the fridge on Sunday and saw a couple of small trays with breaded chicken, I thought cool, that's done.  Although I wondered if she breaded all the chicken, so I looked in the fridge and freezer and thought, well, I normally don't eat chicken, maybe she squished them all together.  All I need to do now is help her with the timing of cooking them.

And then Voyageur comes over, sees the chicken and asks where's the rest?  Oops.  I check the basement freezer, not there.  So the uncooked chicken is not in the fridge and neither freezer.  Oh boy, that's gonna stink in a few days :)

Mom is a master at hiding stuff.  In bizarre locations.  And then buying more because she thinks she's out of whatever she has hidden.  She has bottles and bottles of poppyseed salad dressing.  A few Jiffy muffin mixes.  Random teabags throughout the kitchen.  And so it goes.

Many months ago, when I first realized she was doing this, I got sad.  As Voyageur said, Mom was a whiz in the kitchen.  Could make something wonderful out of nothing.  Had an organized kitchen.  Not anymore, although she can still make something out of nothing, just not all the time.  It's kinda haphazard now, like her organizing.  Over time, the sadness has turned into gratitude for her still being able to cook every now and then.

Back to the chicken.  Tuesday morning I came home from yoga and found the chicken thighs.  Or I should say my nose found the chicken.  I pulled into the garage, opened the car door and an odoriferous stench came wafting to my nostrils.  She threw out the chicken thighs, probably figuring they were bones.  I thought, well at least she's not eating the raw chicken and started laughing...needing both a palate and nostril cleanser.

Back at ya Voyageur.