As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I can not remember the last time I had any fun. I can not remember when I last enjoyed myself. It is a reality that work that goes on here shadows everything and it is that reality that I carry this burden with me constantly.
So for my birthday I was in zero mood for anything. Having suffered a tooth extraction which went bad and loosened other teeth, and the glorious news of a huge dentist bill, that I could have used for something else to make my life not a trial and a burden, I honestly wanted to just be left the hell alone as I was one gaping wound.
For God's reason though, I started thinking about my Grandpa. You would have liked him, as everyone liked him. He was an honest, story telling, good natured and calm man. I adored him as I was a shy child.
My Gram could not cook worth a damn. She was a woman that did not know to keep her mouth shut and I can not remember a good memory about her on the emotional connection scale.
When she died, Grandpa and my Beloved Uncle were both bachelors, and Grandpa started cooking. He was not one to skimp like Gram did on everything. His pies were piled with apples and there was no question sugar was in them, as you could see sugar in the pie after they baked. Yes there was not enough apple juice to soak up the sugar.
That got me thinking about his cookies. We all called them Grandpa's cookies as they were unique to him. He gave them away and everyone loved them. His secret was goose fat. He would have been right at home in France.
His cookies were big as saucers, I mean the desert plate saucers, almost an inch thick, and there was an abunance of peanuts and chocolate chips. They were almost as thick as the oatmeal.
The nearest I can think is he used a based oatmeal cookie recipe and then put in bags of peanuts, coconut and chocolate chips.
He always kept them in old plastic bread sacks and that is what he gave them away in. It was all going well and then my asshole godfather (Grandpa's youngest boy who never grew up) appeared one day.
Near as I can tell, it must have been Beloved Uncle who told us, as I do not know where we got the story from.
The source of this was mouse turds. Yes Grandpa had mice, everyone had mice, and there were mouse turds in the candy drawer and there sometimes mouse turds in the cookie bags. No one paid attention to the turds as it was just one of those things.
This asshole though, chewed my Grandpa out. He then went in and threw out all the cookies and the things he made cookies with. I was probably 14 at the time and you did not make waves, but it was just one more thing this asshole did. He was the one who told me my Beloved Uncle on the day we buried him, stole the things he gave me, and did not have the right to give them, so I had to give them back.
That shattered me even if it was all a lie.
So that ended Grandpa's cooking. I don't think he baked again. The cookies were gone and I can imagine the hurt that old man had in being treated that way.
So I got it into my head to make his cookies for my birthday. It was the first time I really laughed in mixing them up and had a good time. I enjoyed myself.
TL was good about picking up the ingredients. I figure the big cookies I ended up with were about 3 dollars a piece. I did not want German chocolate of Bavarian cake this year as I was not in any mood to cook. These cookies though pleased me.
TL told me they were the best cookies TL ever had. They were not Grandpas though as we had to use hog lard, so that goose lard flavor was not there. They were really good cookies though and it pleased me. I asked God to tell Grandpa that I made his cookies for my birthday. Not as good as his, but I tried.
As I was thinking about all of this in that asshole, it came to my mind by the Holy Ghost what had happened. Grandpa was forever stuck babysitting the asshole's two little girls. They were always over there, and he did love them as did Beloved Uncle.
I am betting that Grandpa gave cookies to those kids and the asshole or his asshole wife spotted mouse turds in the bag and went nuts. 'How dare he feed mouse turds to my cherubs!"
His cherubs both dress out at around 350 pounds, so mouse turds do no harm to the intake of fat ass food.
Normal people would have just tossed the cookies. Well I am abnormal as I ate the cookies and tossed the turds and was just careful about eating things over at Grandpas. If people would consider the Goddamn meal worms, rat shit and whatever that is in their bread, pastas and cereals, you eat a hell of allot worse than what my Grandpa ever exposed us to.
I loved that old man, and I regret as a kid not going over and telling him, even if it was embarrassing for him, that I missed his cookies and I hoped that he would start baking again. That would have made him fell good.
It took all these years since he died to revisit this. Someday I hope to get real goose lard and do this again. The thing is my cookies are huge, but the fixings seem sparse. I doubled my batch, so I think Grandpa put all that into single batches. In my current experience, he must have made 4 batches of cookies to get the bread sack full he used to give away.
That was my birthday in the thing that pleased me, in one of Grandpa's cookies. I never knew the pleasure I would receive or the peace in that baking event. I'm so grateful to God for that gift.
PS: I saw the mouse chewed a hole in my flour bag. No shit, just the hole. It was a wonderful present.
Nuff Said
agtG
