To Grandmother’s House We Go…

My mom’s an original.  Just back from a trip to visit my parents, I’m left with two things on my mind: my mom’s great cooking and her patented mom-isms.

My mom insists on serving us tasty food morning, noon, and night.  Each time we visit, we look forward to stuffing our faces with yummy Mexican food and great variations of common dishes like: spaghetti, potato salad, and meat loaf.  But her specialty, obviously, is making Mexican food.

This trip’s main food event?  Tamales!  We came home with red chili, green chili and cheese, and sweet tamales.  Oh yeah… not to mention the cooler full of home-made beans, two types of salsa, potato salad, fresh tortillas, and jalapeño chili peppers.

Now, on to my mom’s quirky ways – like…

She doesn’t have a trash can in the kitchen.  My mom collects items needing disposal in a small butter container in the sink.  She then transfers those items into plastic super-market bags, and then off they go into the trash can outside.  I see this each and every time I visit, and still, I sit in awe at this strange ritual of transferring discarded goods.

Next, I noticed her dumping about a glass worth of milk from a gallon down the sink.  My wife and I both caught this and looked at each other and smiled.

The poor milk, in want of nourishing the bones and souls of needy, hunger stricken African children with distended bellies… down the drain it went.

“Be gone with you, Milk!  You are not worthy of being consumed this fine day!  You are banished to the bowels of the sewer… damn you, straight to hell!”

In a small way I liken this to the shrieking howls sperm must make when they discover they’re shooting down the throat of a generous taker as apposed to crashing against the walls of a uterus – its destination nowhere near the intended mark.

Well… maybe not.

I’m guessing mom was *jonesing* for a fresh hit of dairy goodness?  She just *had* to open the new gallon before it expired, right?  Even though *we* (my wife and I) had just seconds before checked the expiration date and smelled the previously redundant milk gallon before using it for the little one’s cereal – something you must do at my mom’s.  Case in point…

On our last trip, I trashed a jar of jelly (into the empty butter container, or course) because it just so happened to be housing a flea circus; fleas, flies, insects – who knows what they were.  But, they sure were having a grand ol’ time in there.  But, I digress…

Lastly, and this one’s the best, my mom makes a great cup of coffee!  She will ask if you want a cup of coffee.  And, she will serve you a great cup of coffee… complete with tons of cream and sugar already poured in!  But, what’s that you say?  You don’t take lots of cream and sugar?  Nonsense!  Everyone loves lots of cream and sugar!  Uhhh, don’t they?

Each time we visit, I forget this and I have to hop on the pony express to cut her off at the pass!

“Ummm, that’s ok, mommy… I’ll get it.”

Not that I don’t like being in a cream and sugar coma.  I’m just weird in that I prefer to concoct my own caffeine infused hot beverage.  I opt for one and one leveled teaspoon of said condiments in my coffee cup as an alternative to a shot glass of coffee in my cream and sugar bowl.

My mom… she’s a keeper.

Oh yeah… I got my mom drunk on my world-famous margaritas this time out.  But, that story is for another day.