Ah Thursday

Tomorrow is my last day of broken ankle disability. I will have to hop around work for four days until they give me a walking cast. Gosh I hope that means "walking" and not some cruel joke. The doctor will probably tell me it is not any different than a cast and to keep using the crutches not to apply any pressure.

Well today is the first day I have cooked a dish from scratch in four weeks. Pork with a cream sauce, Campbell's cream of mushroom soup very "souped" up Amber style, bring on the spices etc. I hardly ever follow a recipe. I started cooking French cuisine at nineteen. I figured if you can cook French you can cook anything and I like to think I am living proof. Most women told me to get the trusted Betty Crocker cookbook and I would learn how to cook. No way have you seen those recipes? Yuck!!

In addition I was trying banish all thoughts of my mother's cooking, pick up the book continuing the tradition of bad family meals at my table. Like a lot of her choices in life, she put those meals in front of us nightly and told to swallow it.

Her first choice I remember first hand (not second hand from relatives as I was too young) was her decision to go back to school the first time at the local community college. School was not the bad choice but what she did there. She meant my little brother's father while married to my stepfather. Up until then life was pretty good and I dare say normal. There was the occasional fight between them but nothing too bad.

My mother was this other man's "tutor" and obviously did not stop with the books. He actually came to our house one evening for tutoring while my siblings and I were there. We had to wait patiently until the tutoring session ended so we could go meet my stepfather for dinner. He stayed a long time outside the house talking with my mother that evening. At the time I did not put two and two together until later I found out my stepfather did not father my brother then the light bulb went off burning at 100 watts.

My stepfather knew he was not the father but wanted my brother so my brother did not find out about their antics until he turned eighteen. I have no idea until this day who this guy is and either does my brother. My mother told my brother it was none of his business. Cute huh.