Editor’s note: This is the 2nd in a series on our theme of Laughter is Often the Best Medicine. We often find it difficult to laugh at situations when we blunder if we are struggling to find our equilibrium of adjusting to life’s demands along with vision loss. In time, we realize one of the best therapies for learning to accept and value our visually impaired selves is to laugh at our faux pas. Read, enjoy, share….
Baby Claire’s Night Out!
As a visually-impaired and inexperienced mother I was petrified that I would accidentally hurt my newborn baby, especially when changing her cloth diapers with sharp pins. I had to feel my way carefully into motherhood. My daughter’s crying settled more and more as she grew older, giving us the confidence, as parents, to attempt going out for regular outings.
One night at a local restaurant, we were enjoying our dinner with bubba-Claire sitting between us. Feeding her little portions from my plate, my fingers guiding me like an arrow to the target. All was going well, or so I thought, until her father calmly said, “You know you are putting the potato salad in her ear?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” I responded. “What sort of mother do you think I am?”
He leaned back into the chair, smiling, and took a swig from his glass of beer. I checked Claire’s face and almost died from embarrassment. It was true! Gooey mayonnaise lined the outside of her ear lobe because she had turned her head just at the crucial moment.
“You do it, then,” I growled, tossing the spoon in his direction and planning my escape underneath the table.
Breakfast for Dad
Years ago I decided to cook a big breakfast for my dad and me. I grabbed the skillet; reached for the cooking oil; poured some in; added some bacon and waited till it was done. Remove the bacon; added hash browns; then dumped in the eggs. Grab the bacon; cut it up; added it to the hash browns and eggs like an omelet. I was so proud of myself. Didn’t burn a thing!
My dad divided up the food and put it onto a couple of plates. Then we sat down to eat. Dad took the first bite and said, “I think you used vinegar…” That was the end of my perfect breakfast. Had to go out to McDonald’s.
Apparently, when someone helped me clean up, the vinegar was put in the place where the cooking oil belongs. Lesson learned? Everything has a place and everything has to be in its place. Translation: if you don’t want to laugh at yourself or go out to McDonald’s, put EVERYTHING away yourself!
Brandy Alexander Anyone?
By Mary Hiland
Recently, I had a guest for dinner. After we ate, I got out the ingredients to make us a special after dinner drink—a Brandy Alexander—the perfect drink for a warm summer evening and one of my favorites! YUM!!
Several months ago, my daughter Kara talked me into buying an emersion blender. “It’s great for making smoothies and soups,” she said. So I made a smoothie with it once or twice. Mostly I ignored it, not being a fan of smoothies and not wanting to make soup in this hot weather. But, making a Brandy Alexander called for getting out the blender and magically creating a delectable treat. I carefully measured out the cream de cacao, the brandy, and the vanilla ice cream into the special blender cup. I plugged in the “Blender thingy,” stuck it down into the cup, pushed the button, and away it went! It seemed to be working okay at first, but it felt like there was something solid in the bottom of the cup. We guessed that maybe the ice cream had become packed and stuck on the bottom. So…I pushed down harder and held the button down longer, and still that blob remained. Then Dan took a look. What he pulled up from the bottom was a hunk of something unrecognizable. Well, duh! I had forgotten to remove the “cardboard thingy” from the bottom of the blender cup that holds the blender thingy in place when it’s not in use.
When you prepare the ingredients for your Brandy Alexander, it works a whole lot better if you take the cardboard out first. The cardboard thingy looked pretty chewed up, which meant there probably were shreds of cardboard in our would-be delectable dessert drink. So I poured it down the drain. How sad to waste all that wonderful stuff, but it’s just one of those blindness moments. Wait! There’s a happy ending to this story. Because we had plenty of the 3 ingredients, we started over, this time without the cardboard, and it was indeed delicious.