Mother’s Day and Father’s Day demand our attention
Is there more to these days than gifts and cards and Sunday brunch?
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day can be confusing holidays.
Actually, they aren’t holidays at all because no one gets the day off.
In the old-fashioned traditional “family” of a husband and a wife and their 1.6 children, there is definitely a mom and a dad who presumably should be honored on their designated days.
However, the husband is not the wife’s father, and the wife is not the husband’s mother.
But the wife is definitely a mom and the husband is definitely a dad.
So it’s up to those 1.6 kids to do the honoring of each of their parents on the appropriate day.
The Red-Headed Girl of My Dreams, who turned my world upside down when we met in a steamy Northern Idaho laundromat 30 years ago, is a great mom, immensely loved by her kids.
I try to be a good dad.
But long ago we decided we would no longer line Hallmark’s pockets by purchasing outrageously expensive cards with sappy words that weren’t even our own.
We do try to pull the family together on these two days, with the complete understanding that as kids become adults themselves, all of us being together at the same time is not always possible.
We haven’t banned gifts, but they’re simply not a part of either day.
That has not stopped folks from trying to sell us stuff they guarantee will make Mom’s or Dad’s day.
Such as the extremely trendy Popcorn Bowl with Kernel Sifter. Act now before it sells out at 50 dollars flat.
Look, I like getting popcorn stuck in my teeth as much as the next guy. I guess that’s why God invented dental floss.
But never in my wildest dreams did I think someone would invent a bowl that would automatically sift out those annoying kernels that simply refused to do what they were born to do.
Says the ad copy under a bowl of fresh-popped popcorn that looks so yummy I can actually smell the butter and taste the salt, “The clever colander-inspired bottom of this glazed stoneware bowl filters out unpopped popcorn kernels.”
The colander apparently has holes large enough for the unpopped to escape, but small enough to keep the properly popped product where it belongs.
Genius.
“Keep rogue kernels from ruining your batch of popcorn with this innovative bowl.”
Honey, I love the Rogue River, but I hate rogue kernels.
“The clever colander-inspired bottom filters out all the kernels that just couldn’t get their act together. A secret compartment catches the kernels for convenient disposal.”
And who doesn’t like the intrigue of a secret compartment full of rogue popcorn kernels?
Warning: “The Popcorn Bowl is for serving, not popping.”
The attorneys made them add that line.
“Made in Thailand.”
Clearly the popcorn capital of the world.
But wait, there’s more.
“How about the Cast-Iron Potato Baker?”
And who knew there’s a better way to bake a russet than just punching a few holes in its skin and popping it in the oven for 45 minutes at 450 degrees?
Turns out “The use of cast-iron cookware dates back to the Han Dynasty in China, around 220 AD.”
But of course it does. I mean, they didn’t eat popcorn back then because the kernel sifter hadn’t been invented, so that pretty much left potatoes as the only thing to survive on.
I’m pretty sure my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother in Ireland had one of these potato bakers back in the day and it was passed down through generations until my own mother mistook it for a broken vacuum cleaner part and put it out for collection on Bulky Waste Day, never to be seen again.
Too bad, because it’s supposed to produce “crispy skins, tender insides and mouthwatering aromas.”
I’ve always thought of potatoes in the oven as producing a sort of damp, earthy smell that is not particularly appetizing.
Which explains why absolutely no one eats baked potatoes unadorned.
However, I wonder if you can pop popcorn in this cast-iron beauty.
Once we get through Mother’s Day, there are certain to be “64 Best Gifts for Dad” lists featuring all sorts of gadgets designed to trim nose hair.
Yet another good reason that in our family we don’t do gifts.
Dad. Give me the keys. You’ve had too much popcorn.
Those are Hallmark Holidays. Our family doesn't do gifts for those, but we do give cards: the daughters love 'em, so I give 'em. But they're not always Hallmark cards...
My mother and two grandmothers have been gone for a while, and my daughter's mother has been gone nearly 16 years, so not much activity on Mother's Day here.
Likewise for Father's Day, I'm the end of the line. My girls are usually good for a card and/or a call. One lives in town; the other one is 500 miles away so we're all together two or three times a year. We have a 3 way text group, and if I don't respond after a few hours, I usually get a call. It's all good.