Chapter 26

All this had taken place on my Saturday ... my Saturday to cook breakfast. When it had first began ... my Saturday ... it was exploratory. What do they like? But more important ... what gets left on the plate?

Sunny side up was the cats favorite leftover. The buttered oven browned, thymed potatoes were well received for a few months. The capers weren’t ... in anything. Kippers ... not so much either, I loved them but the girls? Another tidbit for the cats.

What eventually became my staple breakfast were Omelets. Omelets allowed me all manner of leeway. Crumbled sausage, bacon, mushrooms, red and green bell peppers, diced. Jalapeño in moderation, and cheese ... whatever was in the cheese drawer ... didn’t matter ... sometimes it was just cheese. What really made the difference was the grease ... butter ... not margarine. No olive oil. no canola, peanut, or soy. Just butter ... and there had better be enough to drizzle on the hash browns.

Soft oven baked bacon ... or sausage, not heavily seasoned with sage. Once a year mild Italian sausage fried in the skillet was well received ... as long as I peeled the casing first.

Orange juice, milk or ... in later years; coffee ... not just any coffee ... Jamaican mountain grown. Kona in a pinch ... times were rough when we had Hawaiian Kona. Kona meant Myndee was sick and I didn’t follow instructions ... or failed to remember the list. The Kona came from the freezer ... something I had bought a bunch of because I liked the smell. Smell and taste are not necessarily inclusive.

When I dabbled with tobacco ... I took up the pipe. I took up the pipe because she said I should; a pipe was dignified. She? Damned if I remember.

If the tobacco smelled awful ... it tasted pretty good. If the smell was pleasant? Eww!

Back to coffee. If anyone figures out how to make coffee taste as good as it smells? I understand the Germans are working on it.

But breakfast? I suppose it was my fault. It started in Michigan. Mom was sick and I was being helpful ... she ate it. I don’t know how ... I wouldn’t. She did. When she recovered ... which I think the breakfast had a lot to do with ... she called all us kids in the kitchen and said, “You need to learn to cook. I might not be here and you need to now how to feed yourselves,” here she looked me squarely in the eye, “and not poison your eaters.”

Jumping ahead fifteen years ... or maybe 20 ... Myndee went on strike. She didn’t need to work ... she had the proceeds from her nugget. She stayed anyway.

We were a messy pair, Abby and I. It was when I finally noticed a build-up of a weeks worth of dirty clothes in the general vicinity of where I took them off that I planned to ask Myndee what that was all about. She was in the kitchen, butt perched on the sink counter corner, with a cup of coffee in hand ... both hands.

“That smells good,” I said. And then the straw. “pour me a cup.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I’m busy. Get your own.”

Hmmm ... busy? Leaning against the sink is busy?

So ... I got up from the table and wandered over to the cupboard, reached for my favorite cup ... and it wasn’t there. I looked around. Myndee moved over to the stove. I found my cup. It was sitting in the sink ... growing lab experiments. My cup was unwashed. I can do that.

Washed and rinsed, I headed for the coffee pot.

Myndee poured the last drop in her cup.

“Drat! I wanted that.”

“Let me introduce you to Mr. Coffee.”