Mashed Potatoes -- A Different Look

Okay, this was inspired by looking at the list on this blog. Currently a Mashed Potatoes entry is the tenth most read selection.

Once, in my writing group, we were doing a writing exercise, and the theme was mashed potatoes. It was amazing how many different takes we came up with! Who knew mashed potatoes was such a diverse subject?

There were recipes.
There were descriptions.
There was nutritional information. (I think. It was a long time ago.)
There were memories.
There was wishful thinking.

And--

There was dancing.

Yes, dancing.

To one of our members, mashed potatoes were not food nor family.
Mashed potatoes were not facts and feelings. (maybe some of the latter.)

The Mashed Potato was a dance.
A joy.
A cherishment.
A love.

I try to remember this different outlook on the mashed potato when I am writing. Others may refer to it as Thinking Outside the Box.

I think of it as doing the mashed potato while others are cooking and eating.

There is more than one kind of nourishment provided by Mashed Potato.

They keep coming, and we can't stop it

The damn tornadoes, that's what I'm talking about. Out in Oklahoma, throughout the whole region, they just keep coming.
And there's not a damned thing anyone can do to stop them, or avoid them, or do anything but stand by helplessly while Mother Nature runs her vacuum.
Afterwards, yes, we CAN, and should, and DO rush in to help. It's what we'd hope for, were we the victims.
And we could indeed be the victims, anywhere, any time, any one of us.

Tornadoes are less a regional phenomenon than some disasters. Hurricanes hit shorelines, floods occur near rivers, mudslides are usually in hill country (slide implying gravity), forest fires happen in forests.
Tornadoes, like earthquakes, can happen anywhere.
Therefore, they can happen to you.

Now, they do have preferred playgrounds, like the Great Plains for tornadoes and the San Andreas in California, but they can happen anywhere.

The one advantage in the Plains is that usually one can see (if one is looking) from miles away and hopefully take shelter before the twister gets to you.

Last night, because of heavy rains, many, many people could not see because of the heavy rains and the preternatural darkness of the storm. Many, many people are today still shaking, still fearful, and still looking for loved ones. I hope that everyone locates one another, and that losses stay low. I wish that no one would die in these horrific storms, but that has already happened, and there's nothing I can do to change it.

I wish I could.

I haven't had a close encounter with a twister, although members of my family have. Heck, I have a brother in Kansas. My sister played tag with one last spring.(She won.)A long time ago, one collapsed my grandfather's barn. Then there was the Thanksgiving tornado, mid 90s. I went outside because it was so hot and humid, and heard the trains about a mile away, cane inside and said, "It's still and sticky, and I heard a train. Think we should hide?"
A tornado took down a garage and damaged some trees approximately a mile away.

I still shake at the memory.
The Menace that roars out of the night.
Out of the nowhere.

I can't help you, Oklahoma. Not in the preventive, sheltering, protecting ways you are so in need of.
I wish I could.
I will do what I can to help afterwards, but it will never be enough. It can never be enough.
And there's always going to be guilt that I can be so grateful it wasn't me or mine, and I feel bad about that, too.

Because I know it could have been.
May someday be.
It's good to know you will understand, if that time ever comes.

But for now, I think we would all like to put this into the past.

We are trying to help do just that.

Little Girl Gone (Home)

Last night was difficult for me. I took my granddaughter to the library with me, then took her back home to her mommy.

This is not the usual order of things.  Usually, if I pick her up at her house to go to the library, I take her home with me. It's not anything we talk about, it's just how it works. It will only work that way for another year, at best. Next August she will turn five and have to start school.

"I want to go home with you," she said. She said it when she first got in the car. She said it when she got back in the car after her sojourn at the library. She said it when I pulled up in front of her house.

I hugged her and kissed her and hugged her again and just kept saying "Not this time. Not today."


When I got home the first thing my husband did was look for her. Then he asked why she wasn't there. Then he proceeded, throughout the evening, to tell me how much he had been looking forward to her.

I feel like I let them both down, badly. I hate to do that. Like I said, too soon I won't be able to bring her along as often. (Although I do hope we will someday move closer so it won't be as much a problem.)

Too soon, I'm afraid, her pappaw won't be able to enjoy her company.

I already know it will be too soon that he probably won't be able to be there foir her.

Have I cheated them both out of a memory-making moment?

Well, every moment should be made for memory, although we'd all have our heads so stuffed full of the past that we'd have no room for thoughts of the future, if we all lived that way.

Maybe, just maybe, the next visit will be more cherished because of the visit that wasn't.

Or perhaps we'll sneak off from our ordinary life and pay a surprise visit to her.