Category: Family

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Family

Does Marry Me Chicken Really Live Up To The Name?

Marry Me Chicken

Mostly True Memoirs

Marry Me Chicken

Marry Me Chicken

Everyone is talking about the Marry Me Chicken recipe.

I had to try it.

I went online and found a zillion variations.

Which one is the right one?

I put a lot of thought and effort into picking which recipe to try.

It had to fulfill two requirements:

  1. Use ingredients I already have so I don’t have to go to the store
  2. Use a minimum of dishes so there won’t be much to clean

Yes, I base most of my decisions on laziness.

The Marry Me Chicken turned out good.

But I don’t know if it was worth marriage.

I mean, come on.

Been there, done that.

Both with marriage and with chicken dinners.

We spent the entire meal poking fun of wedded bliss.

And chickens.

I guess that made it worthy after all.

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Family

A Bruised Toenail And A Serious Decision To Be Made

A bruised toenail

A bruised toenail

A Bruised Toenail

When my boys were little, they were terrified of the Tooth Fairy.

They didn’t want some crazy-a$$ fairy getting all into their business while they slept.

They decided to leave their teeth under my pillow instead of their own.

Seriously?

I didn’t want some crazy-a$$ fairy getting all into my business either.

However, this idea did present some simple logistics for the whole tooth-fairy thing.

The teeth went under my pillow.

Fast forward to today.

Bob recently injured his big toe.

The nail became horribly discolored.

Today the bruised toenail popped off of his foot in one large piece.

A callus developed underneath the nail, so it wasn’t really gross at all.

The horrible part was the actual toenail.

Bob proudly displayed his disgusting souvenir to the family.

The Grown Sons wondered if he put it under his pillow, would the Tooth Fairy bring him a quarter?

Bob guessed that the Tooth Fairy would be a little offended at this particular offering.

“I came all the way here for THAT?” is what she might say.

Before punching him in the teeth.

Bob decided that he doesn’t want some crazy-a$$ fairy getting all into his business while he sleeps.

So he’s going to leave that nasty, bruised toenail under my pillow.

Of course, he’ll have to weigh the options of a crazy-a$$ wife versus a crazy-a$$ Tooth Fairy.

It’s his call.

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Family

A Very Special Birthday Dinner With Mushrooms

Birthday Dinner

Birthday Dinner

A Special Birthday Dinner

It was my mother’s birthday.

She’s been gone a long time now.

Every year I make her a special birthday dinner.

We always have chicken tetrazzini.

It’s a pasta dish with chicken and mushrooms in a cream and wine sauce.

It’s delicious.

Mom loved it.

Every year, The Grown Sons complain bitterly about the mushrooms.

Every year I tell them that I don’t care if they don’t like it.

Grandma liked it.

That’s all that counts.

Every year, they come up with new and innovative ways to insult the mushrooms.

I guess we’re creating new family traditions.

Not, perhaps, the traditions that I had in mind.

But still.

Mom loved a well-placed insult.

She would have been greatly entertained by The Grown Sons’ vulgar descriptions of the mushrooms.

But soon she would have shut them down.

She had a terrific sense of humor.

But not a whole lot of patience.

Happy birthday, Mom, I miss you every day.

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Family

I’m An Avid Reader, And Now They Are Too!

Avid Reader

Avid Reader

Now We’re All Avid Readers

I’ve always been an avid reader.

There are usually three or four books going at the same time.

I used to be the only person in my family using the online library system.

That changed during the quarantine.

The whole family started using my account.

Today, three years later, they’re still using my account.

I couldn’t be happier.

My guys are reading books!

Today there was an argument.

Someone messed up someone else’s bookmark and lost their place.

Oh, my heart!

They’re arguing.

About books.

I have lived my entire life for this moment.

When my boys were little, I read to them religiously.

I thought that reading to your kids would make them avid readers.

It did not.

Until it finally did.

My next goal is to get them to discuss the books with me.

I know, I know, I shouldn’t get too greedy, but I can still hope, can’t I?

Covid was good for something – my guys turned into avid readers.

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Family

The Right Hook That Taught My Son A Valuable Life Lesson

Right Hook

Right Hook

That Right Hook

When the Grown Son was little, he loved to jump out and scare me.

It was adorable when he was tiny.

But it got gradually more and more annoying as he grew older.

It culminated in one disastrous evening when he was 12.

He hid, ninja style, in the hall closet, waiting for just the right moment to jump out.

He was quiet, he was stealthy, and he was as devious as only an adolescent boy can be.

Finally, he pounced.

And scared the living **** out of me.

I screamed.

And instinctively threw a right hook.

When I saw what I had done, I burst out crying.

Because I hit my baby.

Hard.

I started yelling at him through my tears.

“Quit scaring me!”

Bob ran in to investigate the commotion.

I was bawling and yelling.

The Kid was still reeling from that right hook.

Bob laughed so hard he cried.

He told The Kid that’s what he gets for jumping out at me.

That was the last time my son did that.

Lesson learned.

He thinks it’s hilarious, now, to reference, “that time you punched me.”

Yeah, nah, it’s still not funny.

Well, maybe it’s a little bit funny.

OK, I’ll agree that it’s a lot funny, but he has to promise to never scare me again.

And never tell anyone that I punched him.

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Family

The Ultimate Opportunity for some Hearty Pirate Talk

All Pirate Talk

All Pirate Talk

All Pirate Talk, All Day

Shiver me timbers!

Do you know what day it is today?

It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Arrghhh, Bob apparently forgot, the old salt.

He hasn’t pirated once today.

I’m kind of disappointed in him.

No, I take that back.

I’m very disappointed in him.

Queen Elizabeth I ruled during the Golden Age of Pirates.

Is it a coincidence that Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral was today?

There’s a historical connection.

A dubious connection, but it’s all I’ve got.

Avast, Bob, you scurvy hornswaggler, you’ve still got time to redeem yourself!

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Family

How To Resolve Your Millennial’s Problem With Bed Sheets

Bed Sheets

Bed Sheets

The Problem With Bed Sheets

I don’t understand why millennials have such a problem with bed sheets.

I just went to change the guest bed.

There were no sheets at all in the room.

Every time the Grown Son comes to visit, he makes up the bed with only the bottom sheet.

He refuses to use a top sheet.

And he takes the fitted one home with him every time.

At this point, I have about a dozen top sheets in the linen closet.

But I don’t have one single bottom sheet.

At least I know the Grown Son has linens at his place.

He has plenty of fitted sheets.

Probably a dozen.

Sigh.

I will be shopping for more bottom sheets this week.

If I bought Justin Bieber bedding, I bet he wouldn’t swipe it.

Of course, I’d never have guests again either.

Y’all will have to come and visit me to see how I resolve this issue.

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Family

How To Get A Good Grade On A Bad Poem

A Good Grade

A Good Grade

There’s a trick to getting a good grade on your writing projects.

Several years ago, my high-schooler woke me up in the middle of the night.

He had an assignment due in the morning, and he needed help.

“I have to write a sonnet,” he whined, “Will you write it for me?”

“No,” I said, “I won’t write it for you. But I’ll help.”

The first thing we had to do was define the assignment.

A sonnet is a love poem.

Seriously?

This teacher is going to have to grade 145 idiotic, teenage-angst-filled love poems.

Ugh.

I’d rather stick flaming needles in my eyes than read that drivel.

If I were the teacher, I would have assigned a limerick.

At least I’d get a laugh while I was grading papers.

I told my kid what I do when I can’t write.

I write about something else.

Writing anything at all can help to ease writer’s block.

From that first draft, you can edit and rewrite and revise and come up with something acceptable.

I had him write a sonnet about dog vomit.

He started laughing, and within just a few minutes he had his first draft complete.

We edited and rewrote and revised and came up with a poem about a boy and his dog.

A love story, of sorts.

Without the humiliation of writing an actual love poem.

It wasn’t a great piece, but it met the standards of the assignment.

He got a good grade.

But I preferred the first version.

Who knew that dog vomit, in iambic pentameter, could be so much fun?

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Dog Family

One Easy Way To Manage an Epic S**tshow

An Epic Sh**show

An Ep;ic Sh**show

It Was a S**tshow

A literal s**tshow.

Blue ate a HotHands packet.

We rushed her into the Pet Emergency Room.

They induced vomiting.

And emptied my wallet in the process.

They told us Blue’s stomach would probably be upset.

However, her stomach was not upset.

She was happy and sassy and had absolutely no regrets.

Several days later, we had some air conditioning guys in the house.

Blue was getting in their way, and I had a Zoom call, so I gave the dog to the Grown Son to watch.

His bedroom is right next to my home office.

Soon, I heard a frantic ruckus from next door.

Blue’s upset stomach had finally manifested in the Grown Son’s bedroom.

There was a lot of yelling.

It was, from what I could hear, an explosive, gigantic, horrifyingly messy episode.

The Grown Son was freaking out.

Bob didn’t know what to do.

I have always been the on-call person for this kind of disaster.

Since I was in a meeting, they had to take care of it themselves.

They figured it out.

The good news is that Blue has most certainly expelled any residual toxins that might have been in her system.

The Grown Son was furious that I was laughing so hard.

Until he finally started to laugh too.

Yeah, there’s nothing funnier than a s**tshow.

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Family

The Best Plums I Ever Ate In My Life

The Best Plums

The Best Plums

The Best Plums Ever

They were the best plums I ever ate in my life.

My mother-in-law, back in the day, had the most amazing tree in her yard.

It produced the best plums ever.

Every year in early July she would harvest the fruit.

And we would gorge.

I have never eaten a plum as good as one from that tree.

And then one year the tree stopped producing.

My mother-in-law had a green thumb.

She tried everything she could to get more fruit to grow.

But the tree was done.

It was the end of an era.

I was thinking about that tree today.

We have been eating from a big bowl of plums on the kitchen table.

They’re good.

But they’re not nearly as good as the plums that my mother-in-law grew.