Son #1 comes in bearing gifts on New Year’s Day – a bag of big beautiful bakery muffins.
To his credit, it isn’t a snide commentary on maternal muffin failure (see Day 23). I toss that batch out under the birdfeeder before anyone else sees it; I have my pride.
Neither the crows nor the squirrels will touch those babies.
“What’s all that crap out on the lawn?” asks Husband, a day or two later. I have to trudge back out there and pick up my trash. So much for pride.
But I digress.
Son #1 is eating a pistachio muffin on his way inside – messily. A chunk breaks off and lands on the doorstep; he kicks most of it away.
In the month since then, we’ve had snow and ice and wind. We’ve had fire and rain (OK, no fire, but I’ve never been able to resist James Taylor).
Yet the crumbs wedged in my welcome mat are still as vibrant and fresh as an Irish spring morning. Their day-glo green has not faded. They look moist and wholesome. I get down on all fours to sniff the doormat, and can still detect the scent of commercial pistachio.
I am the only person on the street out sniffing the stoop as the sun rises this morning.
The neighbors tend to give me a wide berth. Today, for instance, they somehow sense that I’m not out there scrubbing the entrance to my home like some tidy Old World huswife.
I want whatever is preserving those pistachio muffins plastered all over my face and neck. I want to rub it into my joints. I want to bathe in it. I can even deal with a tinge of green, if it leaves a youthful sheen.
Pistachio muffin mix – the fountain of youth. Who knew?
Maybe the old saying “Saints preserve us” can be updated with “Muffins” or “Pistachio” .
What goes into those? Scary thought.
“Hail Muffin, full of grace, hallowed be thy artificial ingredients . . .”
I am going to burn. My Grammy, asked if she worried about heaven and hell, always said, “It’s OK — I have friends in both places, dear.”
Shit ain’t natural! I am convinced that someday we’ll be wondering why the babies all have eleven toes and we’ll realize it was because all that ginned-up pumpkin flavor…
Sometimes I would like a “Like” button here. I wish I had met your Grammy!
Installing a LIKE button is on my list of tech challenges. What happens, though, if no-one likes anything? Would I be setting myself up for disappointment? :-)
:-) ;-) ;>) :>) ( >:<() I don't know what that last one is — it's beyond my typing interpretative skills!