That’s cause it’s genetic. It has to do with the double helix of the DNA molecule. It’s true, I saw it on television. Peter Marshall played this microbiologist on The Love Boat and he was conducting sinister experiments on the Landers sisters.
I made dessert! It’s called gnurchen-frurgen cake. It’s an ancient recipe, but I Americanized it. But I’m not one to blow my own verturgen-furgen.
Oh, I always get tired after a long trip. I remember one time Daddy took the whole family across state on our tractor to visit great-grandfather Zingbarten. Great-grandpa Ziggy was a famous inventor. He developed the first, and to my knowledge, only low-wattage meter that could detect what kind of center a piece of candy had. Anyway, we were just a few miles out of town…
When Charlie and I started dating, I got the feeling that his folks didn’t really like me. That’s when I decided to get to the bottom of things and I found out about the ancient feud between the Nylunds and the Gorkleknabygens. That was my mother’s maiden name. Originally, it was Gorkleknabygen-Hoffstadlerfeil. But they shortened it. Cause most of my mother’s family were in show business. Anyway, when Charlie told them that we were going to get married, they forbade it. They said they’d disown him if he married a Gorkleknabygen. And he’d lose his share of the family tile-grout fortune. He didn’t care. He told them he loved me more than grout.
In the village my ancestors came from, if a man was bad company, unable to provide for his family, and not much fun under the yak skin, the women would leave him out in the snow to die.
Well, sometimes people need help making decisions. That’s the way it was with Thor, our pet lamb. From the time he was first separated from his mother he wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t sleep, he wouldn’t frolic with the other sheep… Daddy got the idea of taking this old inner tube, wrapping it in wool, and putting it next to Thor’s bed at night. We named it Brun Hilda. And believe it or not, it did the trick. Thor felt like he was back with his mother and he began eating and sleeping and frolicking, yes. But then one day, Thor got a little playful and accidentally bit Brun Hilda. Poor little guy just stood there watching his mother deflate before his very eyes. He was never the same after that. Oh sure, once in a while he’d “baaa” at the back tires of a parked car but for the most part he just kinda kept to himself.
This is not just a plate. This is a family heirloom. It’s great-great-grandmother Nylund’s ceremonial wedding plate. The Bride’s family fills the plate with fruit and then at the wedding all the guest eat from it. And when the last piece is gone that’s when the Bride and Groom leave to start their wedding night. Which takes place in a tent or a Best Western. Oh, the Vikings have always been a very progressive people. Anyway, that’s when it’s time for the Husband to symbolically offer himself to his new Bride, on the plate.
I have to confess, I hate being called a widow. It sounds so permanent and final. And I don’t believe for one minute that it is. I know some day Charlie and I are going to be together again. Probably not in the old house. We don’t need that much room. I mean, the kids are grown and we’ll both be dead.
I’m driving the book mobile for the Grief Center tonight. I usually drive it during the day but I got tied up at work and didn’t have time and now I feel so guilty. There are so many depressed people out there with nothing to read. Of course, when I’m depressed I can’t read. I knit. Maybe I should drive a Knit Mobile.
You can let two, angry mackerels fight it out in a purse but don’t ever plan on carrying that purse to a formal affair.
