A Recipe for... What???

I am periodically reminded of my mother’s rather quirky sense of humor, and it happened again today.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving meal and fellowship with our friends, and we came home with turkey and some dressing. I thought I had a recipe for leftover turkey that my mother had sent me, so I started looking through the old recipe box for it. And when I say “old recipe box,” I really do mean “old.”

Once when we were there on vacation, my mother decided to go through her recipes and get rid of the ones she no longer wanted. She also decided to replace the old metal recipe box that she had used for years and years with a new and improved model.

Well, I wasn’t about to let that old recipe box go out with the trash, so I rescued it and brought it home.

Now it really did need to be thrown out. It was in bad shape then and it is in even worse shape now...

with lots of rust spots and flaking paint, but it is one of those things inexorably linked to my mom and adventures with her in the kitchen. It is precious to me, and so it stays and I use it.

I have quite a few recipes from her, written in her beautiful handwriting, and so I started
trolling through these recipe cards looking for the turkey recipe, and to my surprise, I found a recipe for Stuffed Roast Raccoon. I am almost positive she sent it to me as a joke.
 
Stuffed Roast Raccoon
1 lb sweet potatoes, mashed
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup bread crumbs
2 apples, peeled and chopped
1/4 cup butter, melted;
Salt and pepper
4-5 pound young raccoon

Mix stuffing and set aside. Wash raccoon, dry, cut off extra fat, stuff, and sew opening shut. Bake 325 for 3-4 hours.

Here are some young raccoons getting into trouble.

They are very cute when they are little, but we have had some unhappy experiences with adult raccoons, and it wouldn’t bother me if Richard were to shoot one. I’m not sure I would want to eat it though.

Now on the other side of the raccoon recipe is a recipe for stewed squirrel. I did cook a squirrel once, and it was good, if one doesn’t mind picking through tiny bones and is careful not to bite into the bullet. But getting the skin off was so hard that I never wanted to do it again. I have since learned there is an easy way to get the skin off – if I can believe the You-Tube video I saw. We are overrun with squirrels this year, so I just may try that recipe.

Giving Thanks

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.― Melody Beattie

With the approach of Thanksgiving, our pastor’s sermon not unexpectedly touched on being thankful and the importance of cultivating a grateful spirit, and about how important gratitude and thanksgiving are in our relationship with God. She also talked briefly about the remarkable story of John Kralik, who, in the midst of a life that seemed to be falling apart, resolved to write 365 thank you notes–one a day for a year. It took him a little more than a year to actually accomplish this, but he did, and it changed his life.

She gave us a homework assignment at the end of the service. She asked us to choose a thank you note from an assortment in a basket and use it to thank someone.

During the 5 years that the Mollywog was an integral part of in our lives, I regularly took her to the aerobics class with me (if I was able to go), which meets 3 times a week, and I took her for a walk during the first part of the class.

Shortly after she died in early September, I went to California, and when I came home, I decided I was not going back to the aerobics class. I had weights, I was already walking for exercise, and I thought I could do without going.

In October I went to the County Health Department’s satellite clinic to get a flu shot, and I saw Kathleen, a woman who is also in the class. “Oh,” she said, “We miss you so much. Please come back to the class!”

What she said touched my heart. So I did. And I am glad I did. I seem to have gotten over whatever it was that made me not want to go to the class after the dog died, and I am once again enjoying the hour I spend there 3 times a week.

I am very grateful to Kathleen for that word of encouragement, and so she got the thank you note. I have also sent cards to a few other people thanking them for their involvement in my life.

I believe this might be a very good habit to keep.

Light Shining Bright

This little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine

This little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Our pastor’s sermon on Sunday was about saints. She quoted the story, of which there are several versions (which leads me to think that perhaps the story was created to prove a point), about the little boy (or girl) who explains that a saint is “someone who the light shines through” after seeing beautiful stained glass windows in a cathedral.

Even if the story is not a true story, it is true. That is exactly what a saint is--someone who the light of God shines through--and it could be the man next door, or the Sunday School teacher you had as a child, or your very own father.

On Wednesday I bought a birthday card for my dad’s 93rd birthday on Monday. I thanked him for being a wonderful father and for the wonderful memories he left me. I wrote that I sometimes wished I could be daddy’s little girl again, and go fishing with him, or have him take me to school on the bicycle, or hang out with him in the garage while he worked on a car, or even making sure he had exactly 5 ice cubes in his iced tea. I put $10 in the card and sent it to my sister to buy some treats for him when she saw him on Monday. I would have told him all of that when one of my siblings called from the small party they were planning for him so I could sing Happy Birthday to him.

Yesterday morning, my youngest brother went to the group home where Dad was being cared for to wheel him to the hospital, which was within easy walking distance. Dad had an appointment with the eye doctor.  As they were getting him ready to go, my brother said Dad just stopped breathing and he died. Just like that. He died.

If he had agreed to the pacemaker the doctor wanted to implant a year ago, he probably could have lived quite a bit longer, but he refused. He had spent years visiting people in the nursing home, and he did not want to end his days as an invalid because of other medical problems but kept alive by a device. Knowing he was refusing treatment was hard to accept at the time, but now I see that it was a good decision.

I remember telling a friend in September how important it was for me to make the annual trip to California because I never knew for sure when our Dad was going to die and every visit could be the last one. This time it was the last one.

I have hundreds of picture of him at various stages of his life and with various family members, so picking a couple is rather hard.

I especially love this picture, which was taken in 1970. 

He had a very mobile face and the knack for making crazy faces and making everyone laugh. He was so much fun.  

And another side of him in a picture taken in 2008: 

He read the paper. He didn’t just skim the headlines, he actually read all of the articles and did the crossword, and although he never bet on a horse race, he loved horse racing and he picked the horses he thought might win at the area race tracks, depending on the time of year. Every day he cut out certain comics that he knew I liked. and he mailed them to me in  letter once a week.

He was the song leader at church for many years, and he loved the old hymns. And even though he could not remember what he had for breakfast, he remembered the words to those hymns.

Hey Dad, you're "gathering with the saints at the river that flows by the throne of God" and it was a glad morning yesterday when this life was o'er for you and you got to "fly away to a land where joy shall never end." You're there now! Someday I'll be flying away myself and joining you and Mom and Nathaniel "in the sweet by and by..."

I love you!