The Jobless Goddess

   I was staying at my daughter’s apartment on a recent visit and guess what she said?    “Who left an empty milk carton in the refrigerator?”    It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it. Do you know how many years I’ve lived going to the refrigerator, opening the door bleary-eyed at 6 a.m., picking up the milk carton and then watching as the milk dribbles out into my coffee mug? Decades people, not years.    I have actually gone to sleep at night resting assured that there was more than enough milk for me to use in the morning only to wake up to a splash left in the carton. A splash. Not enough for cereal, not enough for my coffee, not enough for an ant to swallow.    Do kids think that by leaving the empty carton in the refrigerator overnight some kind of milk fairy will come and put enough in so their mothers won’t shriek at them first thing in the morning? What are they thinking? And it’s no use yelling at them ...

    Why does it take the prospect of company coming to motivate me to do some real housecleaning? I need a notarized copy of a trip itinerary before I get out the furniture polish. Until I see proof, I’m sticking with the Swiffer duster.      As soon as the goods are produced though, I’m on it. I’m talking moving furniture to vacuum underneath, running a cloth on a couple of window sills and sometimes even a few spritzes of air freshener. I go all out. Then when it’s all over, I’m wiped out and I sit in the living room and ask myself, “What just happened?”   I love the way a clean house looks and feels. I just don’t like getting it there.    On an ordinary day without guests, which is pretty much every single day, I’m content to wash the dishes and do some laundry. Oh, I’ll pick up the empty cups around the house and straighten a cushion or two in the living room but then I call it quits. If my feet stick to the kitchen floor, I migh...

That speck in the distance is our current house guest, my son James

   As I write this I’m getting ready to go to Syracuse to pick up my two oldest, James and Cate, so they can come visit us on Martha’s Vineyard for a few days. It will take about three seconds before one of them says, “Where’s Baby Jesus going to sit on the way there?”   They are going to say this because in our family it’s a tradition to call the favored male child “Baby Jesus”. I believe this extends to my cousins as well. In our family, they all think my youngest son, Danny, is my Baby Jesus. I’m pretty sure my cousin Jeffrey is my Aunt Sally’s Baby Jesus. At least that’s what his brothers say. My brothers, Eric and Steve, were my mom’s dual Baby Jesuses. It worked out for them because they’re about a dozen years apart.    I’d argue with James and Cate but they have cited so many examples of me lavishing attention on their brother it’s hard to defend myself so I just hug them all the tighter, causing them physical discomfort so they’ll be distracted. I...

My little brother Eric and me a few years ago. I think he's holding a box of candy. He probably got it because he was special. Notice I do not have one. Wait, I probably already ate mine. Curlers are always a nice touch.

   I love looking up recipes on the internet and trying them out. There are so many great websites. You can try everything from boiling a mean pot of water to saffron-laced portobello-stuffed squid. I’ve tried my share of new culinary delights. Oh, there have been a few duds. Like the spaghetti pie crust filled with spinach and five kinds of cheese. The salt levels rivaled the Atlantic on that one. You know it’s pretty bad when your husband asks you not to make that one again, or if you do, he’ll have a peanut butter sandwich instead. I like to think that my cooking skills have improved over time. And from where they first began, they could only get better.    Where I grew up outside of St. Louis, Missouri you had mostaccioli, not penne. I tried once to create a creamy red sauce to go with the noodles and it came out the color of fresh cut lavender. I don’t know how it happened but nobody would eat it. Then there was the time I prepared a recipe that came wit...