Saturday, April 10

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April 10, Saturday - Took Jean to hospital - did clean-up job. Should be home tomorrow.

April 11, Sunday - Went to Mom's for dinner - real good. Windy all day. Paul and Linda and Joyce were at Mom's too. Felt pretty good.

April 12, Monday - Went to Jean's. She's feeling pretty good - rather pale. I'm so tired. Going to cut down on tranquilizers.

More doctors, pills and hospitals. Jean's pills obviously didn't do the trick.

Paul is mom's oldest brother, his wife Linda, and my cousin Joyce.

Dinner at her mom's was always an adventure. While mom classified it as real good, my dad was afraid to eat Pansy's cooking. Her housekeeping skills were suspect, and her food was, well, inconsistent to say the least. Her kitchen had a particular smell to it. Dad once got so sick from Pansy's brisket that we almost had to take him to the hospital.

Grandma's kitchen was a collection of works-in-progress, as well as medieval cooking instruments - pressure cookers, vacuum coffee makers, and assorted Mason jars full of god-only-knows what. At the end of the kitchen was a rickety set of narrow stairs that led to the basement. The walls were lined with jars that grandma said contained tomatoes, green beans, and peaches, but they looked like they could have come from The Island of Doctor Moreau. One jar of tomatoes had eyes! I swear!

Her Norge refrigerator, situated out on the porch contained dark green bottles that had once contained prune juice, but that had been repurposed for "ice water". Ice water that tasted vaguely like prunes. Joy.

There always seemed to be a thin, sticky, film of some kind over everything in her kitchen, and if I could, I'd go back to that time and place and have it tested. I'm probably better off not knowing. The house no longer exists, and I'm told it burned. I truly believe it was a Superfund site that was razed and buried.

When I see an advertiser claim "Tastes Just Like Grandma's!" I run as fast as I can in the opposite direction.

Mom can't keep up with her drug habit, and nixes the tranks.