I grew up a finicky eater, and the most calamitous cook among five siblings. Yet I’d always bellied up ravenously to favorites like Grandma’s delicious cream soups and Mom’s homemade chili. ‘Twas during college days I began to love the art of cooking, and I oft called home for beloved recipes.

For cooking or for baking, whether Mom or Dad answered the phone, they were able to reference my request and read it to me. I envisioned the recipe cards they held, and my mom’s handwriting.

Over the years they read recipes for chili, pasta salads, cakes and cookies, spaghetti sauce, and hotdishes — as we say in Minnesota; folks outside the state call them casseroles.

I jotted the recipes on scraps of paper. During more organized times, I tapped them into a computer file — and saved them on computers that eventually crashed.

One time Mom suggested a cream of green bean soup recipe, that I didn’t take down. As much as my palate had evolved to be open for new tastes, I was still finicky about green beans.

Sometimes Mom read recipes then shared twists she made. I added twists of my own. Yet there was comfort in the base “family recipe.”

Comfort I didn’t appreciate till lately. Somewhere in the whir of my needing recipes, Mom no longer referenced the recipe box to find the card that may or may not have been in place.

“Go online and I’m sure you’ll find a recipe,” became her response. She was right. I could find recipes there. An infinite amount. Yet I had to link through several references to seek recipes I might like.

Last time I talked to Mom, I recalled Grandma’s homemade cream soups. I could actually taste them, like a dream. “Do you have Grandma’s soup recipes?” I asked.

“No,” Mom replied. “But you can go online …”

Yes, yes, I thought, I could go online to find soup recipes, yet not Grandma’s soup recipes. Would I ever taste Grandma’s soup again?

I wonder if Mom still has that recipe box. The one she doesn’t refer to anymore. If so, I’ll ask her to send it to me.

And all the base recipes that I grew up on, will be at my fingertips. Maybe even the cream of green bean soup. Perhaps it’s one Mom had jotted down while Grandma recited it, and holds the secret behind all Grandma’s delicious cream soups.

Fabulous! I said. And what were he and Mom doing for dinner tonight? Nothing in particular, he replied. He’d ask Mom what she wanted to do.

While Dad and I were talking, Mom arrived home. After my bidding ‘I love you,’ to Dad, Mom took the phone. We played a little catch-up, my goings-on in Chicago, her updating me on the family goings-on in Minnesota.

Do you still get breakfast in bed? I asked. She knew what I meant. When me and my four siblings were growing up, Mother’s Day meant presenting Mom a breakfast in bed. The making of the actual breakfast, supervised by Dad.

She and I laughed, acknowledging that the Mother’s Day breakfast in bed days were bygone. “He made the bed this morning,” she said.

“That happens once per year?” I replied.  She indicated yes. I joked, “the annual making of the bed!” and Mom and I laughed again.

“Tell Jacquee to lay off,” I heard Dad in the background. Mom repeated it to me, and we laughed again. How did he know we were joking about him?

Mom and I caught up some more. Before I bowed off the conversation I said, “Whatever you do tonight, be it a special dinner or throwing together favorite leftovers … do it by candlelight.”

She informed me that Dad just told her, “Tell Jacquee I’m getting the candles out.”

“All right!” I exclaimed. Mom and I laughed again.

“Something must have rubbed off,” Mom said, referring to my influence. I’m the noted family ‘romantic.’

I was thinking the same thing; that something of my being an avid romantic rubbed off on my dad. “Tell him that I tell everyone he’s the reason I’m a romantic,” I said.

‘Tis true. The way he loves my Mom makes me settle for nothing less. I simply acknowledge the nuances in the meantime.

I also know that candlelight dinners aren’t foreign to my parents. I recall, that as a tot, I’d crashed one of their candlelight dinners after my bedtime.

The ensuing years of raising five kids, then attending grandkids, might have put candlelight dinners in the shadows. But not tonight.

My mom and dad are celebrating Mother’s Day by candlelight tonight.

I warn myself now, to refrain. There’s a certain phase in which kids don’t want to hear about being “bundles” or babies, and that phase is most strong when kids are teens. I recall my own days being a kid when adults would begin “Why, I remember when you were a ….” and I’d tune out their words, subconsciously, as I smiled back at them. That’s when adults were most alien to me, telling me about knowing me when I was a baby, or standing only “so high.”

Back then I didn’t fathom that one day I’d be an auntie saying those words. Yet here I am. And it’s Cedar’s birthday. I already feel the tightness in my throat. “You’re 13? Why, I remember when ….”

When I first met her.  She was tiny and sleeping.  I’d arrived from Chicago to Minneapolis late at night, to my brother’s house. As soon as I’d stepped in I asked that he introduce me to her. He brought Cedar to me, such a tiny thing, and I took her in my arms and said little else to my brother than “Goodnight.”

My brother and sister-in-law went to bed, and I held little Cedar for hours, and sang to her, and rocked her, and fell asleep with her in my arms. She didn’t wake till after 6 a.m., the latest in the morning she had ever slept  so far.

I know I’ve already told her that story, aware even at the time that she would naturally put up a buffer and consider me an alien adult for speaking so.

Yet I also know, when the time is right, Cedar will recall those words and appreciate them.

So, will I refrain from telling her another “baby Cedar” story when I talk with her later? Maybe …. Maybe not.

Crazy, I feel it might last the hour, yet I prepare to re-light by the minute.

Or I could let go tonight’s flickers, say goodnight now. Flickers that suggest energy as much as they suggest rest. I take the rest; it seems to be winning . Let go tonight’s frustrations and tomorrow I might have a cinnamon roll.

That the case, all I’ll need to do at the beginning of the day is to sense the cinnamon roll.  To dream its aroma enough to wake me, so I’ll make a pot of coffee to go with it, and enjoy the duet, perhaps with strawberries at the side, before I persist in the projects that will take me through another day.

The tourist industry represents it as the end of summer, and many ‘summer’ venues follow suit by bowing out.  Yet on the universal scale, per se, the summer lasts until the autumnal equinox, September 22nd.

Some fashionists proclaim this as the last day to wear white shoes, pants or dresses, till next Memorial Day, and they exude much pressure to this affect. Yet, how worthy is that rule? Just last spring my fashion-abiding sister, Audrey, asserted wearing her gorgeous white patent leather shoes, with cork soles and high heels, to work — pre Memorial Day — and I saluted her. My guess is, those shoes remain in her wardrobe selections now as the balmy weather persists.

For many, this is outdoor-grilling day, or a last day to catch a swim at the public ‘summer’ beaches. It is a national holiday away from the office, worth celebrating.

Labor Day came  as one result of  labor disputes in the late 19th century, and was designed to honor laborers, and all workers who, one day after another, contributed to the country’s economics.

All said, it is a day of pause, across many plains, yet is most acknowledged by a lull in phones ringing, or phones left ringing, as folks take time out to celebrate.

I know exactly which gent inspired me to write “Love’s Cry,” and that’s my own secret. Yet I would not have written this poem to the gent, were it not for a few very special beaus I knew and loved before him.

Find “Love’s Cry” here.

Dad had spent the week with me in Chicago, so he could paint my condo. He was to board a train home to Minnesota. Before we left for the station, I took him to a florist to buy Mom a rose.

It seemed like leading a horse to a thistle patch. Dad didn’t understand why I was taking him there.

Once he purchased the rose, he gave an anticipatory smile. He realized this rose said more than he could in words.

Dad had done this before, expressed his love for Mom sans words — per dancing with her throughout their years together, through gestures and through his eyes tearing at sentimental occasions.

Yet when it came time to buy my mom presents — for anniversary, birthday or Christmas — he remained lost. His gauge when shopping, for example, was a bottle of perfume he found at a drugstore and that he valued by its exravagant bottle size. Such gifts remained chortle-able to today, per Mom’s recalling.

How relieved Dad was when my older sisters came of age to guide him in presents to complement my mom. Scarves, blouses, skirts, satin,  silk and cashmere.

The pampering end of practical, in retrospect. Clothing in elegant materials — and in styles that suited my mom’s boldness and elegance.

Yet now I prompted Dad to bring Mom a present sans an occasion, a simple rose, long-stemmed, red bloom. He boarded the train, ready to care for the rose.

I asked my mom about it, after Dad arrived home. O yes, he gave her the rose, she said, and she liked it. Yet per her description, he seemed more excited than she was about his giving it to her.

He had in his hand, a new way to express his love for her. It was a traditional way, and it said so much — especially because my dad was the one giving her the red rose.

I understand, I said. It’s so easy to turn on the TV and sink in.

“Yes,” he said, “I watch too much TV.”

Now, I wasn’t one for watching TV. Yet I truly understood because at one extra stressful stretch, I myself preferred to turn on the television. It started with half hour shows just for a little break, and digressed to seeking hour-long shows, and then trying to find movies.

O the shows and movies were there, yet I had to sift through shoddy programming in seeking substance. Don’t get me wrong, there are good shows out there among the bunk. Some shows are even top quality. Yet staring habitually into the blue light of a TV screen makes a lousy addiction.

I know, because I got sucked in, one stressful stint. I elected to turn on the TV rather than refer to my usual crosswords or books.

One night, when I settled for some ver-ly mediocre programming because it was the least shallow of the present selections — just so I didn’t have to turn off the TV — I realized I’d gone too far, and it was time to cross back.

I returned to my habit of reading, and returned to craving books (and crossword puzzles). I turned on music, instead of the TV, when doing household and office tasks, and thought how radio days were better days. One could get things done, while listening to the radio. They could even read.

“You should try finding a book you’d like,” I said to my hairdresser, “It’s better for the brain.”

“You’re right,” he agreed.  And we moved on to another subject.

As a Vikings fan, I used to dive right in, yet lately — say the last decade or so — I’ve approached each new season with caution. The Vikings have a history, and art, of bringing their fans’ hopes up –in some seasons higher than in others — that the team will prevail to the season’s end. Then they drop those hopes, like a rock. O, the pain!

Take this season. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to stand tall to fans of opposing teams and say, “This year we’ll make the Super Bowl!”

A couple weeks ago I could say that, with a secret pang in my throat. My pal Jack, a staunch Bears fan who enjoys razzing me about the Vikings (and vice versa), took sides with me when the Vikings played the Saints. We met at The Kerryman bar to watch it.

I knew that by the end of the game I’d be soaring high with a wide smile and grand hope that we’d win the Super Bowl, or I’d be crushed.

Well, I was crushed. Ah, pain! And worse pain than most seasons because we were so, so close.

Tonight’s the Super Bowl. I’d decided, a week and a half ago, not to watch it. Because the Vikings were so close, and yet absent from it. I would, in spirit, root for the Colts — more specifically, against the Saints.  Yet I refused to watch the game.

There’s something about the Super Bowl to a football fan. Whether or not you’re watching it, whatever you’re doing, you’re aware it’s going on. So I checked the score before I started writing this. Colts:10 / Saints: 6.  Yahoo! Maybe I could have joy after all in the Saints’ defeat.

TV off. I cautioned myself not to be susceptible to another emotional roller coaster.

And now I flicked the TV on, to check the score quick before shutting it off — like covering my face, then peeking during scary scenes of a scary movie. Colts: 17 / Saints: 16.

Trepidation. Do I spend my time watching the teams battle this out, personally feeling the blows-by- blow? Or do I go about my tasks, get things done, and check the final score later?

Such a decision for how I’ll put the season to rest. And be at peace till next year, when I’ll root for the Vikings again, watch how their season unfolds, with visions of Super Bowl in my head.