Monday, June 14, 2010

It's a cookie driven transportation device!

I'm sure you've experienced that moment at least once in your life. You know, when you open a box of crayons or a tub of playdoh and you're transported back in time to your first day of kindergarten.

Or you smell a salami sandwich and you remember sitting in the deli eating 63 salami sandwiches you had when you were pregnant with your 20 year old.

Oh. That was just me then?

It happened the other day again. We were at the grocery store, and Gene was hungry. This is usually a big tactical error. He bought some crackers and chips. He has this salty "thing" going on - I'm surprised he doesn't have high blood pressure.

In the same aisle as the crackers, you will find the cookies and he excitedly shows me a big package of cookies.

"They're only a dollar!"

"Uh, Well, ok then."

06-14-cookies2

We get home, put away the groceries and Tanner opens the package. I take in that deep breath of cookie preservatives and that's when it hits me... I'm transported back in time to my grandma's kitchen.

She didn't want to spend a fortune on cookies of all things, Grandma was thrifty if nothing else. Which for the record she was more than "nothing else". This is a woman that was newly divorced when women didn't do that. She didn't subscribe to Better Homes and Gardens, she subscribed to Popular Mechanics. She built my barbie doll furniture out of bits of paneling, upholstery fabric and clothespins (I still have them!!). She completely remodeled her home from a complete disaster, to a three bedroom little sweet place.

Don't get me wrong, she could do some pretty cool girl stuff too. I still have a huge pile of quilts she made for me. She loved dolls and stuffed animals, and always had one or two in her living room.

Before I started school, well, and after too (we only had half day kindergarten back then), Grandma was my other mom. She babysat me as my siblings were off in school, and mom was off at work.

In her kitchen she had one of these:

06-14-cookies

Inside was always some of these thrifty cookies. She would let me have one or two with my lunch. When my cousins came to visit in the summer, my slightly elder cousin Dianna taught me how to make ice cream sandwiches out of them.

Which for the record, they are too hard for that.

This is not my grandma's actually Kookie Kettle. My uncle has that one. It had so many fond memories of my grandma, that I found one in an antique store, and Gene bought it for me for Christmas a couple years ago. It sits on top of my cabinets, right next to the cookie jar that mom gave me. It sat on her counter for many years, and it was the first Christmas present dad ever gave her.

Anyway, these cookies might not be fancy or spendy, but they were still good in other ways. So many great memories of a childhood (slightly) long passed.

My grandma, yep, she smells like hard, cheap cookies. If you think about it, that's pretty awesome, she could, after all, smell like hard, cheap liquor.

That's not so good.


PS - Don't think this is a "Pepper" story. Grandma is alive and kicking (probably pretty hard) in a nursing home in Iowa. She has dementia and has a hard time remembering me when she sees me. However, she does think she owns the nursing home, and that the employees are her staff.

That's exactly how I wanna go out, smelling like hard, cheap cookies, living in a mansion with 60 bedrooms and a staff of 20 employees.

6 comments:

LisaDay said...

Great story. Those cookies do look familiar. Is the icing hard on top?

LisaDay

www.quackandquill.com said...

I love it! I want to be like your grandmother when I grow up!

PS ... I get the dementia thing. We have full time care of my husband's 87 year old mom who is still in her own home, practically next door to us ....

Mz-Cellaneous said...

Lisa, yes, everything about these cookies are hard! I imagine they have a very long shelf life. LOL.

Janice Grinyer said...

(((hugs)))

All sarcasm aside, sometimes we find the greatest humor & irony (to keep us going) in the things that are well, basically kind of sucky.

thats why i like you lol.

and those iced oatmeal cookies are from that store whose name rhymes with "maul fart" arent they...my hubby likes to eat those occasionally... and he had a grandma too that kind of liked to see the world through a shot glass...

(((hugs)))

Mz-Cellaneous said...

And yes, the cookies did come from the maul fart. haha.

My grandma got them from the regular old grocery store back then.. when we didn't HAVE THAT MEGA craptacular store!

Tracy said...

I love your sweet memories of your grandmother. I never got to spend time with my grandma when I was young as we lived so far away.
These stories warm my heart.

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