Good One, Mom.

What is it about young humans that makes them reluctant to give their mother any credit regarding her sense of humor? We mothers laugh at our kids’ dumb jokes. Why can’t they laugh at ours? When our children still lived under our roof, if they felt particularly generous, they might grant me one “Good one, Mom” every six months or so.

It hasn’t improved much. Last time we were together, I told my family I had a question for them: “How did the radish get its name?”

“Is this a joke?” my youngest asked. I guess he needed to know so that he could better prepare to roll his eyes instead of laugh.

“I don’t know,” one grandson said. “How did the radish get its name?”

“Because it’s sort of rad and sort of not rad,” I said.

Funny, right? 

They stared at me. Except for Nate, the tall one in the corner who appeared to ignore me as he scrolled on his phone.

“You know,” I explained. “It’s like saying, ‘Nate is attentive-ish.’”

Without even looking up, Nate said, “It’s more like saying Mom is funny-ish.”

The brat.

Do your kids do this? I know I’d probably have better luck if I stopped trying so hard, but I can’t seem to help myself. We’ve all heard of Dad jokes. I think Mom jokes deserve a place in society too.

I find my own mother pretty funny but perhaps this is simply an indication of how successfully I’ve matured. At 91, my mother still cracks jokes. As we drove west on Crescent Road one April day, we noticed more ice remaining on the southwest end of the lake than we’d seen further back. “I guess that’s because it’s further south,” she quipped.

Mom’s favorite answer when asked how she’s doing is, “From the ankles up, I’m doing great!” (Sure beats from the ankles down!)

On Easter weekend, I gave her a wee Easter basket. On the ride back to her place, Mom held my childish gift in her lap. It tickled my funny bone to hear her smacking away on jellybeans from her basket. If, at that age, I’m finally successful at making my kids laugh, I sure hope it’s because of something cute like that and not because I’ve fallen and can’t get up.

Given the choice, I suppose there are far more important things I hope my children remember me for than being funny. You too? Like every mom, I want my kids to be able to say I encouraged them, comforted them, supported, and loved them unconditionally—even when I lost my cool. I want them to cherish fond memories of home as a safe place where they felt free to be who they are. A place where Mom humbled herself enough to ask forgiveness when she blew it. I want them to know I’m still here for them should they feel they need me. I want them to know their mother prayed for them every day of their lives whether they believed in prayer or not.

You know what’s truly funny? Any of those things could be accomplished without once cracking a joke.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Mom and Me in 2021

 

Food, Glorious Food!

Whether it’s my nature, my nurture, or a little of both, I’m someone who can’t stand to waste food. I’d go nuts if I worked where throwing out food was a regular part of the routine. While I understand the reasoning, it still drives me crazy when health regulations restrict restaurants or grocers from giving unsold food to homeless shelters or soup kitchens.

So when milk goes bad, muffins get baked. When bananas turn black, into the freezer they go until nine bananas accumulate, enough for three loaves of banana bread. When vegetables begin to wilt, they’re thrown into the soup pot. Mold can be scraped off a block of cheese. Shred what’s left and throw it on pizza. (If you find that disgusting, remember cheese is basically mold to begin with.) Bread crusts get turned into crumbs for meatloaf. Lunch in our home is generally an odd assortment of reheated leftovers.

I suspect this comes from being raised by people who lived through the Great Depression. I cheered when I heard that food manufacturers are changing their labeling practices because too many consumers toss out food unnecessarily after interpreting the “Best Before” date as the “You’ll die if this touches your lips after” date.

When I heard a younger person talking about tossing stuff from her fridge into the garbage every week, I realized not everyone received the skills to maximize their food purchases. With recent soaring prices, a surge of desire for this knowledge is becoming apparent.

So, I’d like to do my part. Here are three tips and two recipes to help minimize food waste.

Tip 1: Plan your meals for the week and make a list of what you’ll need before you shop. Stick to the list and the plan.

Tip 2: Shop once a week or less. If you’ve run out of something, make do. You’ll develop better planning habits if you refuse to enter a grocery store more than once a week.

Tip 3: If you have a freezer, use a small magnetic whiteboard on the door to keep track of what’s inside. Add and delete items from the list every time you add or remove something from the freezer.

Recipe 1: Muffins
1 cup oats
1 cup sour milk
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
½ tsp. salt
¾ cup sugar
1 beaten egg
¼ cup melted margarine or butter (or use half applesauce)
1 cup fruit (blueberries, saskatoons, raisins, or chopped apples work well)

Combine oats and milk in small bowl, let stand. Combine flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, and sugar in large bowl. Stir well. Add egg and butter/applesauce to oat mixture. Mix well. Add wet all at once to dry. Stir just enough to moisten. Gently fold in fruit. Fill well-greased muffin cups ¾ full. Bake at 400 F about 15 minutes. Makes 12.

Recipe 2: Soup Stock
Leftover bones from a roast chicken or other meat make great soup stock, but you can make an excellent stock from only vegetables, too. In a large pot, place a peeled and quartered onion, two or three stalks of celery with leaves, a washed and cut-up carrot, 6 peppercorns and a tsp. of salt. The beauty of this is, you can toss in bits of any vegetables past their prime. Broccoli, cabbage, potatoes, etc. Fill the pot with water, bring to a boil, then simmer for one to three hours. Strain and use the stock in any soup recipe. Use it right away or freeze it. 

If you’re a bit of a homesteader, you’ll feed those drained vegetables to the chickens, pigs, or compost pile. But hey, even if you have none of those, you can toss them out with the satisfaction of knowing you’ve gleaned more nutrition out of them before they hit your trash can, and you’ve stretched your food budget as well. 

 

The Teacher Learns Her Lessons

Last fall, I wrote about being invited to teach a creative writing course at our local Red River College campus. On March 30, we began Level 2 and will finish before the May long weekend. One day during her daily check-in call, my mother asked me an interesting question, especially intriguing coming from someone who taught school for at least two decades. “How do you teach writing?”

Darned if I know.

My students are all adults who learned to read and write as children, from trained teachers who actually understood how to teach. They’re avid readers. They generally remember basic grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure from high school. So what could I bring to the table, really?

Well, it turns out that writing, like many things, is as much about motivation, inspiration, determination, and dedication as about writing. Bringing all those “nations” together has been my goal. In a last-class letter to my Level 1 students, I wrote, “I can’t make you a writer. Your Creator already did that.”

My task involves challenging them to turn on the tap to start and to keep words flowing. Providing creative exercises that push them to new ideas. Assigning an increasing number of words to write every day so they can discern their personal limits and then set their own goals in Level 2. Offering constructive feedback to help them edit their work as well as the work of their classmates. Showing how to carve out time and space, set goals, and plan a project. I’ve caught myself giggling with gleeful anticipation when I dream up a fun writing exercise. I’ve seen that same exercise go swimmingly, only to see it quickly flush itself down the drain with my next group, taking my confidence with it.

You’ve heard about teaching a man to fish and feeding him for a lifetime? In our class, the joke is, “Give someone a book and they’ll read for a day. Teach someone to write a book and they’ll spend a lifetime mired in paralyzing self-doubt.”

There’s truth in that. I’ve shared with my students the ups and downs of the writing world, the process of getting published, living with the agony of rejection, and overcoming writer’s block. We’ve discussed genre, memoir-writing, novel-plotting, character development, and more. Each lesson is truly the tip of the proverbial iceberg as there’s always more to learn.

I know this because I’m learning along with them. I sure can’t provide all the answers. But we’ve laughed a lot, cried a little, and thought some new thoughts—all elements of a good day. I’m learning that I gain more through a humble “Great question, I don’t know,” than by faking my way through a half-baked answer. Disclosing my failures goes as far as sharing my successes. Providing others a chance to share their work, to take that risk and bare their souls even a little can prove incredibly rewarding.

In his 1902 play, Man and Superman, George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” This becomes the fear of every artist, that their work won’t be good enough to stand on its own merit. Teaching their craft to others is often seen as a last resort. A consolation prize. I hope to prove Shaw wrong. Maybe, by God’s grace, I can have my writing and my students, too.

 

Extra, Extra! Read All About It! Part 2

Along with my friends Nettie and Sara, I’m seated in a Winnipeg church sanctuary as an extra in the new TV sitcom, “Maria and the Mennos.” Lucy, the Artistic Director, rearranges us numerous times before she’s satisfied. The Director, Paul, instructs us to mouth conversations but not release so much as a whisper. Every sound will be picked up by the boom mic and only the main actors’ voices should be recorded. We repeat the same short scene about four times and are sent downstairs again.

Over the next four hours, we wait—going dead silent whenever we hear the command, “Rolling!”

Once the scene is captured, they holler down the stairs again. “Cut!” and we are free to speak. The longest of these silences lasts perhaps three minutes, but by the sighs of relief around the room, you’d think we’d been asked to hold our breath the entire time.

The craft services crew feeds us a fantastic Mennonite lunch of borscht, perogies, farmer sausage, coleslaw, and pie. The cast and crew join us, and we get to chat with Erna, who plays Sarah, Maria’s mother-in-law. Erna fills us in on some of the joys and challenges of making a TV show. After only nine weeks of shooting, they’re already starting their final week of filming 13 episodes. I guess that’s how it works on a shoestring budget. Director Paul is a lovely man who repeatedly expresses his appreciation to us.

We wait some more. I finish reading my book. Someone finds a Crokinole board. Other extras get their chance to go upstairs. Finally, around 3:30, they call us all up. This time, we will stay for a full singing session. We’re rearranged based on the colors we wear and our height while seated (I assume. No reasons are offered). In some cases, extras need to straddle two chairs to get the shot just right. I’m impressed by how tightly all the people and equipment are squished together. How do they shoot the scene without capturing any of the other cameras, light stands, or mics? It’s an art, for sure.

After being moved four times, I end up in the front row of the congregation. I’m not privy to the camera’s view, so who knows whether I’m in the shot? One crew member reads out the scene and “take” numbers. Another responds in what sounds like their own filmmaker’s language. I hear words called out like “Set” and “Rolling.” The slate claps. And finally, “Action!”

I’m relieved when the first hymn we’re asked to sing is familiar but surprised when they provide no opportunity to rehearse or even warm up our voices. They simply roll the camera and the piano player starts in.

I needn’t worry. The crowd of Mennonites surrounding me can pull off four-part harmony at the drop of a bonnet, apparently. Clearly, I’m in the midst of experienced choir members. The second song is new to me, and I’m more grateful than ever for the ability to sight-read, weak though it is. I mostly lip-sync my way through the first take. 

On the set of Maria and the Mennos

Because they might splice together clips from different takes, it’s imperative that the tempo of the songs be exactly the same on every take. To accomplish this, a real-life music director stands slightly to the side, off-camera. Using a metronome app, she holds her phone to her ear with one hand while directing us with the other. She wraps that hand in fluorescent tape to make it easier for us to see in our peripheral vision. We pretend to focus on the actor who fake-leads us. We sing both songs four times each, interspersed with the actors’ bits.

Our day ends around five o’clock. Nettie’s excited to be in one additional scene on the sidewalk before we pack up and head home. How cool will it be if Nettie appears in the show’s opening title sequence?

I’m glad I said “yo” to this opportunity, but I’m not eager to be an extra again. That much waiting around felt too unproductive—even if I did get two columns out of it! However, if you ever have the opportunity (and you’re confident the show won’t compromise your morals) I say go for it! At the very least, you’ll eat some great food, maybe learn a new song, and finish whatever book you’re reading.

That’s a wrap!

Extra, extra! Read all about it!

What happens when a Filipino-Canadian woman marries into a Mennonite family and moves in with her new in-laws? You’ll find out when you watch the new TV sitcom series being filmed in Manitoba called Maria and the Mennos, coming to Yes TV in the fall.

I first heard about this show from my friend Nettie Neudorf, whose sister-in-law, Erna, portrays Sarah, the Mennonite mom in the series. When a call went out for “extras” to appear in an episode, Nettie approached me.

“Hey! Want to do this with me?”

I can’t truthfully say I have a bucket list. But if I did, being an extra in a movie or TV show would be on it. I’ve often thought playing the same character for years might be the best job in the world, especially if the character was much-loved by a loyal audience. But since that’s not going to happen, I saw this as an opportunity to taste what happens on set. Naturally, I said, “Sure.”

I clicked on the link Nettie sent me, filled out the form, and waited.

When a positive reply came, I learned we’d need to commit to the entire day of filming and that we’d be part of a church congregation. I may not be a Mennonite, but I have decades of experience sitting in church and singing hymns, so how big a stretch could this be? We were told to bring three or four changes of outfits, arrive with our hair and makeup done, bring along our makeup bag labeled with our name and hand it off to the makeup person, and come prepared for a lot of waiting around. From others’ experiences, I knew that any clips in which I might appear could easily land on the virtual cutting room floor, but at least I could cross something off my invisible bucket list. The night before, I packed my outfits and makeup bag. I also took a rapid Covid test and emailed a photo of the negative result, as requested.

Following are the details of our day, in two parts.

Nettie picks me up at 7:00 a.m. and then her friend, Sara. The three of us enjoy a great visit on the ride to Winnipeg and easily make it to the church on time. Inside, we’re directed downstairs. Our “green room” is the church fellowship hall, where several chairs surrounding round tables will soon fill with around 40 people waiting for their chance in the spotlight. Soon all the things we weren’t told become evident. We’ll be required to wear masks all day except when eating, drinking, or being filmed. Some confusion about Covid testing occurs when one person insists we must take tests on the spot. Some do, some don’t. The makeup person goes around and merely looks at our faces, declaring us good to go. As for alternate outfits, they want only what we can change on set, such as adding or removing a sweater. No one makes it clear whether or not this entire day of filming represents a single day in the show.

Coffee, tea, juice, and plenty of snacks await our enjoyment. The room quickly buzzes with lively conversation. Finally, after half an hour or more, the director and others come down to introduce themselves and share a bit of info before leaving us to wait again. 

Me, Sara, Erna, and Nettie

Around 11:00, the Artistic Director, Lucy, comes downstairs. “This table, this table, and that table,” she announces. We are in! We file upstairs to the sanctuary where we each grab a blue hymnbook from the pile.

“You two, over here,” Lucy directs us where to sit. “You two… you two…”

“U2 is here?” the man beside me quips.

“You can’t always get what you want,” I quip back.

“That’s the Rolling Stones,” the man beside me corrects.

Oh yeah. Wrong band. Embarrassed and with my confidence deflated, I sit quietly and do as I’m told.

Watch for Part 2 next week.