The few excursions to eat out have yielded spotty results while almost every meal at home has proven memorable. I have somewhat muted our usual menu in deference to The Grand Otter’s developing palate. I doubt that she’ll ever even try lamb kidneys. She’ll always accept mac and cheese, and though she begged for some inferior boxed stuff, I insist upon making up the real stuff from scratch.

Some days, table time contains most of the time we spend together, but we always have table time together. At table, at Grandma’s Table, certain conventions get observed without even stating them. There’s no need to explain that headphones are not worn at table, for instance, for that would be unthinkable. Hunger and the slow satisfying of hunger encourage a certain civility upon our summertime family. The Grand Otter rarely needs to be called twice to come to the table.

”I don’t care for this, David,” she’ll sometimes say, but she won’t ever make a Federal case out of it. I try to provide enough variety so that if the entree doesn’t work, at least one of the side dishes should. Sometimes, she drinks her cranberry juice out of a martini glass and we toast each other’s presence even if we’re recovering from or spooling towards a spat away from the table.

I’m uncertain what to put on the table tonight. I’m at that stage of the summer where I feel as if I’ve already made everything that could be characterized as special. I’m tired of chicken and we just had beef. Seems we should have eaten up every ounce of pasta in the larder already, though there’s plenty still there. The Muse prefers pasta in moderation and more tonight would be over the edge.

Never once this OtterSummer have I pulled a pre-packaged, previously chewed for convenience frozen mystery from the freezer to microwave into submission. Not having a microwave helps. It helps slow down the proceedings, encourages us all to make the time to nourish ourselves and perhaps nourish each other, too.

Last night, The Otter silently set to cleaning the kitch’ without either The Muse or I directing her. She was anxious to resume her thumb whispers with her online cohorts, but understood her part in this little drama.

Once a day, every day, we come together to break bread, often breaking long silences, too. The Muse to recount her adventures in The Belly of the Beast, me to provide my broadening forehead to resonate her story, and The Otter to inject her perspective into our otherwise altogether too two dimensional world.

Burp!

©2013 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Granddaughter, Grandparents, Adolesence