Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Tina looked at Angelica happily eating her breakfast of dry cereal and raised her left eyebrow at Bette, who shrugged.

Tina reached into the kitchen cabinet that held the more than half dozen brands of cereal she had purchased in attempt over the past nine weeks to coax her daughter to have some milk in the morning..

Tina was now eating from the child-friendly cereals, allegedly so that they would not go to waste. Today, her plan was to finish the last of the cocoa puffs.  As she headed to the refrigerator, to get the milk, Bette slid alongside, and whispered “T, we have to do something about this.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

“In Japan, the kids eat fish for breakfast.”

“Are you suggesting that we feed her sushi?”

“Of course not, but there must be something.”

Bette leaned around Tina to get the container of egg whites.  She thought for a second and put the container back on the shelf and grabbed three eggs and some American cheese, Angelica’s preferred fromage.

“Boo, Mama B is making an omelet.  Want some?”

“No.”

“With cheese.”

“No thank you,”

Bette sighed and began to mix the eggs when she had a strange thought.  She opened the cabinet with the assorted cereals and poured some of each into the egg mixture.  When she was done cooking, she asked Angie, “Do you want to try some?  It’s special.”

“No,” Angie replied, though she looked at her Mama N’s preparation with interest.

Bette served herself a piece of the strange concoction.  “It is a crunchelette,.” She explained to her daughter.

Angelica stared.

“It has pieces from all of your cereals.” Bette said as she chewed.

“It looks vile,” Tina whispered to Bette.

“It was worth a try.  Actually, it’s not so bad.”

“Mama B?”

With one bite, Angelica had her new breakfast. And, two days before Thanksgiving, her mothers had another thing, though small, about which to be grateful.

Tuesday, November 22, 1988

Bette groaned as the telephone rang for the fourth time. She looked at the pile of open books arrayed in front of her on her dorm room’s desk and sighed.  Her roommate had just left for the five day break from classes, and Bette had hoped that the quiet would help her make some progress on the paper due the following Monday morning.  Her plan to catch an early Thursday train to Philadelphia would give her an uninterrupted 36 hours to work.  She knew that if she answered the phone, those plans would fall apart.