December 2, 2018

            I won’t say that cooking with my mom was a great success, but I think she feels better since I tried. It’s hard to re-connect with someone when you try to force the interaction. I also feel that I needed to try and force the interaction for us to make any progress. We cooked two meals together last week. One meal was only grilled cheese and bean and bacon soup, where I really only helped with the soup, and the other meal we baked some parmesan crusted Tilapia. My mother preaches that Tilapia is the fish that even people who don’t like fish will like. I couldn’t speak for that opinion since I’ve always enjoyed fish. Sushi seemed to be a staple meal while I went to college. The nice thing about college towns is that most sushi places have 50% off all the time. This made it a more realistic cost for those of us skimping by on minimum wage. I can’t believe that I went from college to living with my mom in such a short time. I don’t even know if I’ll go back to school anytime soon. It’s too late for me to get back in this semester. Anyways, back to the point, our conversation stayed mild and uninteresting during the first meal preparation. I mean, Grilled Cheese isn’t the most invigorating conversation starter. I could sense that my mom relaxed a little with that interaction. The second meal provided the most opportunity for conversation.

            My mother asked me if I remembered the time that she joined me and her second husband, George, on a fishing trip. I did remember that trip, probably the only eventful fishing trip I ever had growing up, and it ended in a fight between George and my mother. The last fish that we caught for the day was the first one that my mother caught ever. Once she reeled it in and showed it off to George he frowned. The fish was too small to keep and wouldn’t provide much meat even if we did keep the little guy. George took the fish off the hook and then tossed the fish back into the lake. Mom became infuriated and started to scream at George. I can’t remember what she said, but I do remember multiple “F Bombs” and other forms of curse words directed towards George. I wondered why she brought up that situation. It didn’t seem like a happy day to her, but she smiled at the mention of it. Two weeks later George died in a car accident. My mom said the Police told her that George fell asleep at the wheel and ran into the center barrier going 80, only 15 mph over the speed limit. Somehow damage to other cars was minimized due to pure luck of the other drivers. My poor mom has the worst luck with husbands dying. I just realized that. It’s not like they are plants that my mother forgot to water daily, but her husbands seem to die off like they were discarded plants.

A SL and PoS post.