Scrambled Grandma

Yesterday I got to pick up my granddaughter, Kaylee, at 7:30 and have her wonderful company for the day. On the way to my house the subject of imagination came up and she frowned her forehead, as only I could have done as a child, and said she had lost hers. Maybe I was ranting about screens and TV's and Ipods. She kept asking me which device was on, for pretend, my Ipod (don't have) or my phone (don't have one that does anything interesting).
So that became our theme for the day. I explained that when she pictures something in her mind, that was her imagination. She claimed she couldn't picture a thing. Which led me to Little Red Riding Hood and her basket of health food goodies. When she met the Big Bad Wolf it threatened to scramble her, according to Kaylee and it got to grandma's house and did scramble her up.
I wasn't sure if this was what she had in mind for my house, but she decided she wanted to decorate it.
She made me a new refrigerator art piece. Her work always has a structural sculptural aspect that involves string and tape. Then we made a wonderful paper chain with alternating white stock and
manilla paper. I loved its simplicity and elegance. We hung it from an old plant hook over my desk, a patch that covered where the Ashley Wood stove once sat, decades ago. She added a red string, a manilla rectangle with her name in pink, and a sticker of a bunch of grapes dangling on a smaller string. The piece moves in the air right by my computer like a little imagination ghost.
Later that day, after some Sesame Street screen time because I am human and always have important computer screen things to do myself, we had a big discussion about mortality and about every day it is important to do your best. As I was getting dressed for town I heard her singing. She sings little songs constantly. For this one was she was flipping the tiny pages of Peter Rabbit, a book with a Pittsburgh address label it is so old. I got my tape recorder and found the back of a tape that was empty and asked her to sing again. With no hesitation she opened Peter Rabbit and sang a song to go with Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail. The song was about decisions and finding your path and your home. It ended as the book ended. She almost turned inside out with joy

when we played it back, and that was the highlight of my scrambled day.
Her mom said that she has been worried about her imagination, an odd coincidence because it has been the topic of our Arts Education Committee. In fact there is a panel on imagination on June 16 at 5-7:00 at Warehouse21, Santa Fe's award winning teen center. I know some has been scrambled by the screen, but I also know, in myself and in Kaylee, that it is a strong force and that a woodsman may come and chop it out of the wolf of technology. And there they are, grandmother and child, whole and imagining.

Poet Laureate Cookies

 I thought maybe if I made cookies with Kaylee I would achieve the illusion that I was a Real Grandma. Like the "girls"of Victoria's Secret who got their wings for the TV runway show where they were all tarted up as angels, or the bell ringing in "It's a Wonderful World" which meant an angel got its wings,  I would be getting my Grandma creds.
    Now, I don't mean to use Kaylee as an ego trip or prop.  When I confessed that I didn't want to use her as a prop on Labor Day as Poet Laureate,  Matt said, "That's okay, mom,  when I go to a party I stay next to her.  I use her as a prop all the time."
    Well, hands scrubbed, helper stool at the ready, Kaylee in her apron and I in my Espanola Farmer's Market apron embarked on Cookie Day.  Like my dear sister-in-law Carol does with Lauren, my great niece, I would be a Real Grandma.  I had in mind gingerbread, sugar cookies, the ones with raspberry jam, and macaroons. It didn't occur to me to ask Carol for her recipes, which I'm sure are excellent.
    The rolling and cutting and decorating went well on batch #1.  Then Kayle got tired half way through the angels and teddy bears, the moons and stars and the big gingerbread boys.  She made herself a bed in the stairwell with every blanket and pillow she could find.  I moved on to a quick sugar sprinkle, a few raisins and red hot eyes, and baked the gingers.  Then I got the chilled sugar cookies and began on them.  This was cookie day, no resting for me. Kaylee rallied for more cookie pressing.  She wondered why there wasn't a Jesus cookie cutter which seemed a good question and gave me pause. Then Kaylee questioned the hand cookie cutter.  Then she said she knew why I had a hand.  Cause I was the..... what was I?  Our joke is that she says "Poet Gloriate" but with all the in excelsius deo, I didn't feel right about that.  So I said, "Laureate" and got the idea I would take these beauties to all my friends at the Santa Fe Arts Commission.  Hands indeed.
     Unfortunately I hadn't counted on anyone eating them.  Kaylee took one bite of a cunning gingerbread teddy bear, complete with chocolate chip eyes, a raisin nose, and sugary buttons and said it tasted weird. Maybe it was the molasses or the ginger or the cardboard hard tooth endangering texture.To the chickens it went.  Dreams of arriving at city offices with my rock hard cookies went up in smoke. But I had two no fail recipes left, surely I could pull it off.  Maybe with a little sugar glaze the others would pass.  Nobody wants to eat carbs anyhow.  Maybe I could say, these are just for the thought that surely must count and fashion a warning label, please don't eat.  These are cookies that will look the same in 2012, unless there is a recall.  I know for sure they did not select me for my baking prowess.  I am no Judyth Hill, my dear friend, who can bake.
      Kayle wanted to know if Jesus is still a baby.  This put the Jewish demi-grandma on the spot.  I say we celebrate the spirit of the baby Jesus, and than since he was God (I want to add, like you and I are with our divine consciousness) he is all things.  She glazes over a bit and I am rolling the thimble cookies, dolloping the raspberry jam, and baking.  They come out pretty good, more of a so-so that a complete disaster. Batch #3.
     Buoyed by this near success it is on to the macaroons. This is Laura Abrums' recipe, sure fire.  By now, Kaylee in into afternoon cartoons on PBS.  I am soldiering on towards dusk and listening for the peal of bells.  The macaroons seem decidely loose and indeed, after I bake them proceed, to fall completely apart.  It in unlike me to be so persistent.  I am a big giver-upper.  But I was so sure that batch #4 would do the trick.  My son comes and  I arrange a nice plate of these for him to take home.  Maybe no one will have the heart to tell me how they taste.  Maybe they will think, she's in her dotage, be kind.

   At about 2 AM I realize that I never put flour in batch #4.  I was so tired.  O Holy Night.