Tag: Dana

Breakfast for Dinner

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20163 Comments

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Dear Will:

The thing about pancakes is that you get to douse them with syrup. Goopy, sweet, and delicious, syrup is one of the great nectars of childhood. Remember when you first discovered that—even though they were super-indulgent, dessert-like wonders—pancakes were a featured item of the Most Important Meal of the Day? Talk about beating the system! You would look at your siblings incredulously, blinking in amazement as if to say “Can you believe this?” in some sort of eyelash-flapping Morse code.

When I was growing up, I probably ate pancakes at least once a week. My mother would fry up a pound of bacon, cook a dozen or so eggs, and throw in the flapjacks just for good measure. It was both wonderful and no big deal. But then some fool invented cholesterol and spoiled an otherwise great thing for generations of kids to come. Add in the complications of over-programmed childhoods and it’s perhaps easy to understand why, one generation later, my children have pretty much subsisted on Cheerios and Quaker Oatmeal Squares for breakfast throughout their lives. It hardly seems fair.

So in order to assuage my guilt and keep them from reporting me to authorities, when they were small I began the practice of making Special Breakfast on Sunday mornings. It was an important bonding ritual for me and my kids since my wife, Dana—who has never been much of a breakfast-eater—was rarely around to cast a disapproving motherly glare at our mounds of goopy goodness. Guilt-free and giddy, we would slather and stab, forkful upon sticky forkful, unconcerned with caloric intake or the latest in nutritional science. And for one hour each week, I got to be the cool parent while eating breakfast the way it was meant to be eaten.

As a consequence, my kids and I have come to take our pancakes very seriously. We don’t use Bisquick (please) or Krusteaz (don’t insult me) or any other variety of ready-made mixes. As for me and my house, pancakes are strictly from scratch, with real buttermilk and a variety of other not-very-secret ingredients that, over the years, have turned the basic recipe from The Joy of Cooking into my own signature line against which my children judge all other so-called hotcakes. Straight from the griddle, we smear them with butter and genuine maple or homemade apple syrup. If Dana is around we’ll throw in a few blueberries so that perhaps she’ll cave in and join us.

Or at least, that’s what we used to do. These days, I’m in meetings from early to late most Sundays, and I get through the day without any breakfast, Special or otherwise. For his part, like any good teenager, Seth (the only kid left at home) would rather sleep in till noon if given the choice, so as with so many other essential family rituals, Special Breakfast now happens only once or twice a year. It’s just not the same. We’ve lost something important—and it’s not (I hasten to add) weight.

So with Dana’s complete (if unenthusiastic) acquiescence—we have declared that tonight shall be Breakfast for Dinner, an indulgent shout-out to years gone by when calories didn’t count and it was still possible for Dad to be cool.

And in so doing, we shall feel virtuous because we are fulfilling a mandate given by prophets of God, who said (and I quote): “Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, wholesome recreational activities . . . and pancakes.” At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what they said. And if not, surely it’s what they meant.

PW

Lunching with Snaggly and His Wayward Cousin

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20151 Comment

Dear Will:

As I see it, my mother had better options. She could have passed along her cheerfully unselfish disposition, for example, or the perpetual sparkle in her eye. Or maybe she could have simply given me her ability to bake the best cinnamon rolls you’ve ever tasted. (Mmmm, cinnamon rolls.) These are traits I could use. But no. Instead she passed along the bald-guy gene that has distinguished (?) our family for generations. And then, as a signature design flourish, she threw in her snaggletooth for good measure.

For those of you who like to play hygienist in your off-hours, I refer specifically to my right central incisor, which, like the runt of the litter, finds itself behind my other teeth trying to push and shove its way into line. The problem is, there just isn’t room for li’l Snaggly, so mostly he just pushes and shoves, creating the kind of premolar disorder that has financed the boats of many an orthodontist and the college educations of his children. Jostled thus for decades, the adjacent lateral incisor now finds itself leaning out of formation as if looking up the road to see when the parade is going to arrive.

Oh, and the parade does come—at least three times a day typically. Oatmeal Squares and bananas. Potato chips and PBJs. Countless morsels of steak and green beans, with occasional chocolate chip cookies snuck in between. (Mmmm, chocolate chip cookies.) They all come parading past my tangled toothage to be processed for swallowing, much to the delight of cuspids and bicuspids alike.

Ah, but for li’l Snaggly and his increasingly wayward cousin. Say you’re sitting at In-N-Out, scrolling through email with your left hand while fisting down a burger with your right. You’re chewing happily because you were smart enough to ask Amanda to add grilled onions and pickle to your Double-Double. The molars are really going to town now while the fangs upfront are mostly just pumping up and down as if on the most disgusting merry-go-round ever. You’re in blissful reverie until you discover that Snaggly’s cousin has taken it upon himself to hook your lower lip and add it to your midday mélange.

Now no one would ever accuse me of being a vegetarian, but I’ve always felt that adding my own flesh to a meal is taking meat-eating to an inappropriate extreme. And having chomped down on myself, over and over, in the very same spot, for 30 or 40 years, I’m a bit of an expert on the subject. In fact, I’ve now built up so much scar tissue in that one area of my mouth that I’m pretty sure that when I walk I’m starting to list slightly to the right.

Which is not a declaration of my politics but an acknowledgment of the fact that who I am—in all my bald-headed, snaggletoothed glory—is at least in part a consequence of genetic inheritance. And while my future as a male supermodel may be somewhat in jeopardy, I look at my own children and conclude that my parents passed along plenty that was worth sharing. And that I married well. Especially the marriage part.

So here’s hoping that Luke and Bryn and Seth have inherited their mother’s thick, glorious mane and her impressively bright intellect; her effortless empathy and passion for justice; her internal drive and (of course) her impeccable teeth. Also, if one of them could please master the art of their grandmother’s cinnamon rolls—sooner rather than later—I would really appreciate it.

PW

Which Makes Me Think of You

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20152 Comments

Dear Will:

I was puttering around the kitchen the other day when my wife, Dana, hollered from upstairs. She needed me. RIGHT NOW.

She was frantic. While changing the cartridge in her printer, a drop of ink had plopped onto the carpet, leaving a dark, unsightly spot. Immediately she tried to wipe it up, but all she managed was to smear it around and make things worse. So the two of us dashed around the house, pulling various cleaning products out from under various sinks until we found a couple of options that we hoped might do the trick. We weren’t successful the first time, but eventually we found just the thing. It looked like just some clear liquid, but properly applied it was magical. It took a little work, but after some vigorous rubbing with a damp cloth the blotch was gone—wiped clean, as if it had never been there before. And I thought to myself: How is that even possible?

Which, in turn, made me think of Enos.

From what we can tell, Enos was a rather sinful guy. He described a life-turning day in the wilderness when he went out to hunt but never lifted his bow. That day, as he reflected on his life and circumstances, he began to wrestle within himself, struggling perhaps with the conflict between his “natural” impulses and the enticings of the Holy Spirit that engendered in him a desire to rise up and become a better man (see: Mosiah 3:19). He began to hunger for a signal from God—some indication that he might be forgiven of his wayward ways. So racked was he, so burdened by the weight of regret, that all day and night he prayed, and yet relief would not come. Finally, after many heartwrenching hours, he heard the voice of God: “Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed.” In that very instant, Enos’s guilt was swept away—as if it had never been there before—leaving him both overjoyed and puzzled: “Lord,” he wondered,  “how is it done?”

Which, in turn, made me think of Jesus.

The promise of the Atonement is that we can be freed of our earth-stains, made clean by the blood of Christ. His blood, said John, “cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). That cleansing power is freely offered by the Savior to all—not just to Enos, but to every person on the face of the earth. And it’s a good thing: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Including me. One of the primary reasons I go to church each week is to partake of the sacrament,  a sacred representation of the cleansing blood of Christ. It is an opportunity to be made whole—unblemished—on a weekly basis. Or as the scripture says: “And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day” (D&C 59:9).

From time to time we all say or do things that we regret, make mistakes or commit transgressions for which we would like to be forgiven. So each week in the Santiago Creek Ward a big group of us sinners gather to partake of the sacrament together—to allow that clear liquid to make us clean. As we do so, we experience the renewal of spirit promised by the prophet Isaiah: “Though your sins be as scarlet,” he wrote, “they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18). I am so grateful to be blessed with such friends, so privileged to receive that weekly gift from God, so eager for others to enjoy that blessing with me.

Which, in turn, makes me think of you.

PW