Deviled Eggs

I've no idea, really, why we call foods deviled eggs or devil's food cake.  Why does he get anything good?  I think we should call rotten meat devil's food.  Angel food cake at least makes sense.  For some reason I always thought manna was probably very close to chunks of angel food cake with maybe some honey sauce.

I made deviled eggs tonight.  My recipe is simple, and the best ever.  Mix the yolks with Hidden Valley Cole Slaw dressing and nothing else.  Use your mixer to make it smooth.  Can't be beat.

I also made rice krispy treats with coconut marshmallows.  And another batch with strawberry marshmallows.  It's pretty cool.

We moved to Pennsylvania in August 2008.  In August 2009 we went back for a visit.  For that whole year, Loretta did not have chocolate pie and her husband Scott did not have coconut.  So, I made them in her kitchen and she learned to do it with me.  Everything went fine till we got ready to beat the egg whites.

Loretta did not have a mixer.  Well, she had one, and we found two beaters, but they did not match and neither one of them fit the mixer. 

I made meringue beating egg whites by hand. 

In September, I finally got circulation back in that wrist.

I did not kill Loretta.

I've been thinking all day about sisters and trying to decide what is the best thing I've done for one of mine.  That comes pretty close. 

In July of 2009, before we went to Arkansas for our only so far visit back home, I was in JCPenney's and found a purse for Beverly, a sister here.  It's hard to buy purses for someone if you do not know what you are doing.  I can't say for sure that I could get it right for my daughters or them for me, although Carly got a 75% off bag at Target last week that we nearly fought over.  She got it, of course.  So Beverly had specified what she likes about this or that pocket, and there it was in the mall for half price.  It just so happened that I had gotten paid for summer teaching and could afford it. 

I gave it to her.  She carried it till it wore out.  A month after, we went back home to visit.  We detoured from Arkansas to go see my mother in Oklahoma. 

My mother likes purses and shoes.  She likes things.  Once she showed us a belt that was $300 and she said she saw it on Dr. Phil's wife and she just had to have it.  It had never been worn.  She has over 400 pairs of shoes, and she has an armoire that for most people would hold all their lingerie and maybe some t-shirts, but for her it is a jewelry box.

I am not kidding.  I could sit here all day and detail just what I know is in her house.  So, we got there and she goes into the "old" closet and brings out four purses and tells each one of us we can choose one of her purses she isn't using anymore.  They are all two years old.  Carly, with her eye for purses, says they each retailed for about 100-140 dollars each when new.  Keep in mind that my mother has a "new" closet full of Dooney & Bourke and Coach, and she considers the brand Tiganello okay for everyday.

So we did not get Coach, but she offered us something comparable to Tiganello.  I thought all four of them were ugly, but you know how hard it is to pick out a purse for someone else.  However, my mother never offers us anything in the way of gifts, charity, help, nothing.  So I let the girls pick a purse and I took the least ugly of the other two just to say she gave me something.

She took my brother out for dinner the day before we got there, and she had to tell us all about the restaurant and what everyone ordered.  It's comparable to TGIF or Applebee's.  The name of it is Cheddar's and everyone got Monte Cristo sandwiches.  So we go to meeting with her on Sunday morning and we come home afterwards and she makes bologna sandwiches for our lunch.

If she could only afford bologna, I would be fine.  If she could only afford bread and water, I'd buy her lunch.  But my step father left her very very comfortable when he died.  She can now buy three Dr. Phil's wife's belt in one week if she wants.

It hurt my feelings that my daughters have to hear all this about their uncle and his dinner out and then we have sandwiches.  Not even ham, just bologna. 

By 8:00 p.m. that night she is throwing us out.  She did that to me the time before when we visited and I ended up driving back to Fayetteville and arriving at 2:00 a.m.  I'm getting old and that drive hurts me.  I'm scared I'll fall asleep and kill my children, and how dare she put them at risk that way.

Here's what my last straw was.  She went into the room the girls were sharing as we were packing to leave, and she took her purses back.  Not only that, but she unceremoniously dumped their wallet and other stuff out of the purses onto the floor.

Carly says to her, "Go ahead.  You know my mother just bought a purse for a sister in our congregation, and it didn't cost that much, but she treats us like a sister.  You go to the Kingdom Hall and you don't treat us like your family and you don't even treat us like sisters.  Jehovah is marking this day down."

Well, that made her even more mad.  Evidently Kimberly was not moving fast enough on the way out, because at the top of the stairs leading to the den, about four stairs, she shoves Kimberly who thankfully didn't fall, and I didn't see it, out loading the car or I might have lost my temper.  Throughout the whole event, I never lost my cool or yelled at her.  But I can't say I would have held it through that.

So we ended up back in Arkansas two days early, which meant two extra nights in motels and eating out.  Jehovah provided.  My sisters in Arkansas seemed to invite us over enough to pick up the slack.  Jennifer had us over and also did our laundry the whole trip.  Loretta had us over, although I had to make dessert, so I'm not sure that counts!  Thea took us out and so did Pepper.  I'm probably leaving someone off the list.  I got home with a $20 bill in my pocket and it was a long month.  My mother had also told me she would pay for the gas from Arkansas to Oklahoma and back, but she did not fulfill that promise either, so I was down $80.

I know, I am whining in a way.  But I got over it.  Here's my problem.  Well, I have a lot of problems.  For one, that is her deviled egg recipe I just gave you and it's good, but I hate making them because I learned it from her.  And I love the irony that she has the best deviled egg recipe ever.  My other problem is that she treated my children with so much petty disdain.  We are her daughter and granddaughters, the only ones she has.  We are also her sisters.

I can't think of many situations in which I would dump my sister's purse out.  Loretta's mother-in-law Sandy is a diabetic.  There are some stories on her that are funny/scary.  If she needed insulin in one of those situations, I would not hesitate to dump her purse out to find her medication.

Other than that, I'm drawing a blank.  Sometime next month when I'm free of grading, I'm having some sisters over to introduce them to my coconut cream pie.  I guess I'll make them deviled eggs too.