The Toxic Housewife

(November 2006) My Thanksgiving this year will be another Sick And Twisted affair. That’s what I call those occasions where I do loving family-type things with those family members not related to me. These people aren’t even related to my husband. They are related to my husband’s ex-wife. How sick is that? 

Last night marked our very first Emergency Room visit with Mr. C.  And, NO, it wasn't brought on by my cooking, thank you very much.

  Ta-DAAAHH! Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than my homemade grape jelly? I think it's pretty much perfect. And I don't even like jelly. This gorgeous set of seven jars is only my second attempt at making grape jelly. My first attempt did not turn out. After consulting two professional cookbooks and getting differing expert opinions on the proper way to make grape jelly, I promptly overcooked my first batch, causing it to have a delightfully unspreadable 'taffy' consistency.

Remember those stories your parents always told you about how hard they had it as kids? How they had to walk miles to school, and didn't have a TV, and worked two jobs in the summer to save up for college? You know, those wonderful stories of invention, perseverance, and triumph over adversity? All those stories that, if you were anything like me, you thought were sooo boring ? I have this mental picture of me as a stringy-haired, gawky pre-teen, rolling my eyes behind my huge 80's owl glasses – the ones with the three-inch-thick lenses, due to my terrible nearsightedness – trying (but not trying too hard) to stifle a yawn at the commencement of another such story by one or the other of my parental units. Of all the ways to make me work, I thought, boasting about how hard they had it was not very effective. I didn't understand why they felt the need to keep bringing up their woe stories when my eyes clearly glazed over each time it happened.