A Death in the Family

June 7, 2012 ~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

Normally I write about frivolous things with smart-ass humor, or climb up on my soap box and rant good and loud. This post is different.

My sister Melanie and I said good-bye to our terminally ill mother last spring. We leaned on one another during the months we took care of her, and then as we carried out her last wishes. We had lost our father in 1993 and now it was just the two of us. Being “the writer” of the family it fell to me to write mom’s obituary. It had to be perfect. I struggled for 3 days on the thing until I couldn’t find anything more to re-write. That and I had the thing memorized.

If you have ever had the misfortune to write one, I’m sure you know exactly what I mean. How do you sum up somebody’s entire life? Especially someone you have known and loved your whole life. Writing a stranger’s obituary would be so much easier. Just the facts. No memories. No emotions.

Last month I got a phone call – Melanie died. WTF?? How could she just die in her sleep like that? She’s my younger sister. The second shock was the cause of her death. The coroner explained to me that Mel was healthy – except she had advanced stages of coronary artery disease. Her arteries were so blocked that her poor heart simply gave out. I can almost hear my mom holler, “Well, SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!”. Mom always did get to the point.

So, here I sit sweating over another obituary. Mel’s memorial will be on the 16th, and tonight is my self-inflicted deadline. At 10:08 PM (PDT) I stopped fussing with the copy, closed my eyes and sent my sister’s obit and photo to our local newspaper, and a Bay Area newspaper. Maybe some of her former classmates/co-workers/buddies will see it and drop by.

I hope so – Mel deserves that.

Happy Groundhog Day!

February 2, 2012 ~ JodiLea ~ 2 Comments

That’s right. Today, February 2nd, is the big day. Punxsutawney Phil, the official predictor of Spring, will make his annual appearance and declare 6 more weeks of winter. Or not.

I’m not going to go into the history of Groundhog Day, but if you’re curious you can visit the little rodent’s Club. Instead I will tell you a little family memory….

One year when our kids were middle school age, I decided to invent “Groundhog Pie”. Like Sheppard’s Pie, but using “groundhog meat”. It looked a lot worse than it tasted. When I cut into the crust and served the first piece, I was reminded of a childhood song that had “greasy gopher guts” in the lyrics.

They must have suspected it really wasn’t groundhog, yet everyone played along. Even my pickiest of eaters scarfed it up. These kids, who diligently removed each and every piece of onion or mushroom from their spaghetti, blindly ate groundhog pie. Go figure.

This was many years ago. I want to add the recipe to my cookbook, but I didn’t write it down in my cookbook notes. Maybe I hadn’t started the book yet. Regardless, I will let you in on what I do remember.

Groundhog Pie

1 pkg. of Pillsbury rolled pie crusts (has 2 in it)
1 pound ground meat (beef, pork, or chicken will work)
1 bunch of fresh spinach (rinse well)
3 cloves garlic, minced fine
1 small can of chopped tomatoes, drained.

Remove pie crusts from the fridge and allow them to warm to room temperature while preparing pie filling. Brown the meat in a large skillet until done. Drain and return to skillet, adding spinach, garlic and tomatoes. Stir together for 1 minute at low heat.

Line a pie pan with 1 crust, making it fit tightly to sides and bottom. Poke bottom a couple of times with a fork. Leave 1/4 to 1/2 inch of crust edge above the rim of pan. Add filling. Cover with top crust and pinch the bottom and top edges together to seal. Poke top crust a couple of times with fork.

Bake at 350° for about an hour.

You can also sprinkle cheese on the filling before covering with top crust if desired.

Things I Hope People DON’T Remember About Me

November 22, 2011November 22, 2011 ~ JodiLea

Deja Vu: Original post from Nov 2010

While pondering topic #11 “what do you most want to be remembered by”, things I did not want people to remember came to mind.

When I was a preschooler I was terrified of butterflies. They flew at me, circled me. They were glorified, day-time moths. There was something evil about them, but no one would take me seriously. My parents were embarrassed and told me I was being stupid.

In Junior High I was a nerd with horrible acne. In High School I was an older nerd with terrible acne. There were no ProActive products around then. My dermatologist could not even help me.

College flashbacks are starting to hit me now – like the time a bunch of us girls went to a party and everyone was hungry and wanted to stop somewhere. I voted not to stop because I was not feeling well and I wanted to go back to the dorm. I was outvoted. While they were inside ordering burgers and fries, I was outside barfing into the decorative planters in front of Burger King.

A different party, where I got blasted because I got dumped by my date to said party that morning because his girlfriend was in town. Surprise! I thought I was his girlfriend. I even did his laundry the night before for him. (Oh man! Did I get a severe talking to by my dorm-mates regarding this uncalled for domestic behavior) I was so out of it, that my friends, who were not ready to leave the party, entrusted a guy we all knew to take me back to the dorm. The poor guy had to practically carry me. Then, I did not have my key to the after hours door to my dorm – so I could not get in. He had his key to the boys dorm. Risking expulsion, he snuck me through the boys dorm to get me to the main entrance of girls dorm, where a gal heard him banging on the door and let me in. I wish I could remember my knight in shinning armors name.

Or how about the time my (I thought) new boyfriend took me on a camping trip. I was naive and figured we would camp under the stars, float the river on canoes, snuggle by the campfire. He had other plans that I messed up. During the entire float trip the next day he treated me like crap. Made me do all the paddling, saying (repeatedly and loudly) that virgins “needed to be good for something”. Then the jerk steers us off the main river and we broadsided a fallen log and lost the canoe. No one in our group of friends were around to hear us call for help. The water was rushing so fast it was hard to hang on. We dared not let go and swim under the log either, for there was debris and God knows what under the water.

We must have hung on for dear life over 20 minutes before a river patrol found us and pulled us to safety. Waterlogged and bruised I spent the second worse night of my life sleeping in the jerk’s car. Did I mention he was too cheap to rent a tent? Some camping trip.

My roommate was thrilled when he dumped me. She had always hated him, suspecting he was a jerk. (Yeah – He did the dumping. I don’t know where my brain was. I even wrote love poems to the guy the week before. Gag!) I wonder what he is doing now.

These are just a small sampling of incredibly stupid moments in my life. The scary thing is – there are probably some more to come. I hope I can keep my granddaughters from finding out most of them…

♥