The big hereafter

 Motherhood has been unraveling faster than I can hold on to. 

Suddenly I have time for Yoga classes, pedicures and all the foreign movies I can watch.  No one seems to care what's for dinner anymore.  No one comes home for dinner anyway, unless it is by appointment and in between urgent text messages. 

I should be happy with my newfound freedom.  I should be reveling in long quiet evenings of literature and bubble baths.  The tub of chocolate pudding is all mine now. I don't have to curse whoever put the empty milk carton back into the refrigerator.  There's hardly a sock doughnut to be found under the living room couch.

I should be having dinner with friends and planning a return to graduate school or a trip to India or at least Seattle.  I should hop into my Honda and spend the weekend in Austin with Annette.  I should buy a better car, build a studio, drink wine with dinner, live a little.

Instead, I find myself going home to a string of frozen dinners and aimless chores.  I used to be important in this house.  I used to be Grand Command Central, Goddess of Family Dinners and Uber Organizer of All Things. 

What happened?   

Will someone ever need me again to soothe a fever in the middle of the night?  Or will the future be all cash, tuition payments and a phone call on mother's day?  Am I too old a mother-dog to learn a new trick?  Can I truly reinvent myself as everybody expects me to, and pronto? 

I have so much less energy than I had twenty years ago.  No script. 

What am I supposed to do of this big hereafter?

Cordon Bleu

Forty-five years of patience and hard-work but here I am: I've been admitted into our family's culinary hall of fame.

This is a tiny but exclusive matrilineal society which includes my great grandmother Marguerite, my grandmother Marguerite, my mom Monique Marguerite and now me (just guess what my middle name is?)

Admission into the society is both arduous and elusive. Our women are possessive about their kitchens, secretive with their recipes and notoriously closed to advice.  The cook is in charge, you don't mess with the cook.  You might dice a carrot according to instructions, but you may neither taste her sauces nor comment on her seasoning.

But mom (who was in charge) agreed to my assistance this Christmas eve.  The guests were about to arrive and the bechamel sauce was refusing to thicken. 

"It's that American butter," said my mom.  "And that flour!  You just look at it and it clumps!"

Dad who suggested I be brought in as a semi-foreign consultant.  "Let Marie help you," he said.  "She's been here a long time, she might know what to do."  I did.  I started the bechamel using the old jar method that my friend Deborah had shown me long ago: put one tablespoon of flour in a jar with water, shake well and use as a fool-proof starter for sauces and gravy.  Works every time for godawful American gravy, should be o.k. for French sauces right? 

Once the bechamel took, mom and I worked on the seasoning together.  I grounded the pepper, she added the splash of calvados.  She tasted.  I stired.  She tasted dome more.  I stirred more.  We debated the timing of roasting apples for the chestnut-filled turkey.  I demonstrated the use of my cool American broiler to "au-gratin" the ramequins of Coquilles St. Jacques.   She lavished more calvados on the roasted apples.

We toasted with champagne.

Dad took a pic for posterity.

Winners!

We did win the Whole Earth Provisions Co's coloring contest after all.  Look at us, proud artists, collecting our $50 gift certificate at the store yesterday.

We spent our prize money on Christmas gifts.  Goodness and abundance are flowing things.  No need to hang on to abundance.  We are spreaders.

We were just happy to have given our competitives little selves a joyful ride.  Actually, we are already on to our next enterprise: the Gingerbread Olympics, a feverish weekend of baking and sticky assemby selflessly dedicated to the glory of candied architecture.  Yummy-O.

Color Contest

Check this out: Isabel and I entered the Whole Earth Company coloring contest.  We labored for half an afternoon with our crayons and gold pens to create a masterpiece. 

I delivered our entry to the Post Oak blvd store this past Saturday.   Considering our 65 years of combined coloring experience and the fact that - according to the young enthusiastic store attendant I talked to - we were one of very few entries in the 19+ category, we have a serious, serious chance of winning 1st place.

What would we do with our $25 gift certificate?  Buy one mood ring each?  Squander the whole thing on a flappy hippie-looking winter hat for Isabel?  Use the gift certificate toward reducing the price of some ultra-cool outdoor gear we could pretend we'd need in the city?  Be sensible and buy socks? 

How about that bright yellow scarf that spells "DO NOT CROSS CRIME SCENE" in black letters?  I like that scarf.  So does Isabel.  Perhaps we could co-own it.  send it back and forth between Houston and San Antonio.  She would wear it one week, I would wear it the other. 

On the long odds that we should not actually win the contest, I am posting our handiwork on this blog.  Please admire.  Ooohs, aaahs and warm admirative comments welcome.  We worked hard on this.

Quilt-O-Queen

My daughter needs a quilt.

- "A big one.  Like the one at Papi's house."

That quilt, my first, must weigh ten pounds.   I cut the pieces from my ex-husband's pants and shirts and used an old blanket for batting material.  There's not a straight square in that quilt and the bright orange flannel backing is completely gone.

I am doing things right this time.  Sort of.  I've bought a mat and one of those little pizza wheels to cut my squares.   The wheel has been maginficent: it has sliced through four layers of fabric AND the back of my thumb in less effort than it would have taken to snip a single thread.

My sweetheart bandaged the thumb. 

After some deliberation I decided to use the blood-stained piece of fabric as a tribute to the travails of motherhood and creativity.  Plus, my daughter and her descendants will get to keep a record of my DNA embedded in the fabric for twenty-six generations to come.  Perhaps I could also embroider a motif using some of my hair, the way the Chinese do?  Or dip my toes in ink and print a pitty-pattern? 

Whatever the outcome, my daughter is bound to be thrilled by my ingenuity.  I am also hoping she'll be impressed with and grategul for the sheer amount of maternal effort that's being exerted. 

I have nine fingers to finish the project.  Things are looking darn good.