From the Caregiver Kitchen

The house is quite. For now. Within the hour Don will be up and he’ll be bellowing out, “Jean!” every few minutes. Can’t get his foot started in his pants. “Jean!” Got his arm caught in his shirt. “Jean!” Can’t put on his sock. “Jean!” Of course I could save myself a lot of walking back and forth if I just stayed by his side and helped him get dressed but that would enable him to be even more dependent and give me less opportunities to complain under my breath about my role as a caregiver/spouse. Somehow doing the latter seems to cancel out my fears of total dependency on his part. He does try his best before bellowing out like a cow overdue for milking.

When my husband finally comes rolling out of the bedroom he’ll pull up to the table and starting eating cereal from the bowl before putting the milk in. The carton will be sitting right next to his bowl, but no, I’ll have to pour it in or he’d eat the entire bowl of cereal dry. This, of course, annoys me to no end. It’s bad enough that he's served cereal for breakfast day after day but to eat it dry is an ultimate embarrassment to the kitchen staff---that would be me.

Preparing breakfast is not my forte but just this past week I fried bacon for the second time in my entire life. It only took me hours of watching the Food Network to get up the courage to try. The first time I fried bacon---56 years ago---grease spit at my face and burned my eye. Every since I’ve been buying my bacon served along side of scrambled eggs and toast. Is it any wonder that I consider bacon frying as the crowning achievement in my otherwise lack lust world of cutlery arts? I came. I conquered. I climbed the mountain. Where's my trophy?

When I was a teenager and my mother was trying to teach me to cook she’d often say, “You’d better marry a man rich enough to go to restaurants every night!” I was just not catching on. In my defense she was no Rachel Ray when it came to teaching technique. I learned more from watching chefs Anne and Robert’s TV show, Worst Cook in America, than in my mother’s kitchen. But I did follow Mom’s advice about finding a man who loved going out to restaurants, thus for decades I had a cooking-free kitchen until recent years when Don became wheelchair dependent. Now, I struggle to do what other women take for granted. Oh, well, I have a back up plan, if needed. I can always sign us up for Jenny Craig just so we can get three meals a day delivered to our doorstep. ©