It's Like They're Not Adults

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January 2, 2017

So much food.
Dinner for the birthday girl went well, but her mom came.
The same mom that "borrowed" money from the Matriarch to buy a car so she could drive her son to school every day now asked if that son could stay with us (of course he can, his bedroom is here; he has a permanent home until he graduates; why is this so hard for a homeless woman to understand?)

There were awkward moments where the Matriarch had to change her diaper and the door to her room has been removed because her motorized wheelchair wouldn't go through. She changes her own diapers.

But we survived the company, and the dinner, and people are getting more comfortable sitting around her new bed on stools to chat about their day, their goals, and events of the world.

I had set aside one serving of dinner so she could have leftovers. It's so hard to know what she will or will not eat, but I am almost positive every time we have a homemade dinner, she'll eat leftovers from that if we bring it.

She builds a grocery list the length of my arm and then doesn't know what she has. It's all not very good, anyway. Things like canned soups, microwave dinners, salty and sweet snacks. She will eat sweets and pie and then everything else she'll bury in Tabasco sauce and pepper. Studies show that you have 1/3 your peak number of sensing cells for taste by the time you're 60, and it just continues to decrease. Add to that the amount of effort necessary to chew food, and you have a recipe for "I might as well just drink the sauce from the bottle" for experience and effectiveness.

The leftovers, the other leftovers, were planned into future meals. The cheese plate will become macaroni and cheese casserole. The vegetables and remaining beef from the bread dip will become pasta sauce. She won't care about the pasta but she'll be real excited to have the macaroni and cheese.

So perhaps my nephew will return home tomorrow, and start school on Wednesday for the first time all year. And there is food in the future.



drama , food , Matriarch , nephew