Cape [& Cookie] Fever

Today I followed the recipe that calls for butter-flavor Crisco and brown sugar, not white.

My friend Anne loves Cape Cod as much as I do, and so does her young daughter, N. They love Great Pond, the Hot Chocolate Sparrow, the beach in Wellfleet. They think nothing of driving 300 miles to get there for a few days. Anne started working recently, but has a four-day weekend. So guess where she wants to drive, with me in the passenger seat of her little fuel-efficient car, Sug nestled on my lap? 


Cape Cod.


We're leaving tomorrow with N. and our friend Elly. All three of us are leaving our husbands home with our teens.....none of them are eager to go this trip. We'll be back Tuesday. I'm a little nervous, because I have a big work deadline next week, but I trust I can carry it off with hard work and scheduling. And I plan to set up some interview leads before we leave tomorrow at 3.


Also, Will is back from the Cape and will see Dad tomorrow and Sis is coming back from Chicago and will see Dad on Sunday. H. can probably drop in for a visit or two also. That's the great thing about Dad being in Montclair.


Cookies in the Dark of Night
I've started reading the 1969 book On Death and Dying, by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D. It's all about the stages of dying: denial and isolation; anger; bargaining; depression; and acceptance. I'd heard about it for years, and bought a copy last Sunday in Hudson, NY. It caught my eye in a crowded bookstore, so I took that as a sign.


The good doctor says that "old-fashioned customs" help a dying patient and his family accept the loss of a loved one. His own family knows him well enough to replace a sedative with a glass of his favorite wine; or the smell of a home-cooked soup may give him the appetite to sip a few spoons of fluid which, I think, is still more enjoyable than an infusion.


So I stopped at Van Dyk to deliver a small tin of warm chocolate-chip cookies to Dad in room 111 tonight. The place was dark by 8 P.M.; almost everyone was in bed, as though it were a day care center and this was officially naptime.


I chose my little Godiva Easter tin with bunnies on it, because Dad had a pet rabbit as a boy in the Bronx. He loved that bunny. Sadly, his parents eventually made him kill it, for dinner. He has repeated that story often over the years.


I asked him if he wanted a cookie.


Yeah, he said.


I clicked up the head part of his bed and waved the open tin under his nose so he could smell them. I had made a triple batch for Figgy's birthday party tonight.


For some reason he couldn't seem to hold the cookie in his hand, so I broke it into fourths and put it in his mouth, one piece at a time. He really liked it. He had three of the pieces. I was glad his teeth were still working and he could chew them. He doesn't even have dentures. Then he wanted some water.


The man in the bed next to him, who is 91 and has one leg, was going to sleep with a teddy bear. It reminded me of when I went to visit my grandmother [Dad's mother] in a nursing home, and one of the ladies had a doll and I asked why. It seemed so strange. To my young eyes, it was scary and weird. Not so tonight. I know better now.


Dad, I said. Anne wants to drive up to Cape Cod for a few days so I'm going, too. Can you believe it? I'm going again. But I'll be back by Tuesday.


'Can you believe it' is right, he said. I know it makes him happy.


I want to see nature again, while I have the chance.


That's a good idea. We don't do that enough. How's your work?


Pretty good. I'm working on an article about how to avoid holiday stress. You know, how to plan when you're entertaining or having a party.


That's a good idea.


That's my Dad. He has always cared about me and my siblings, worried about us, tracked our well-being, followed our work. His many roles have encompassed caring husband, considerate friend, good neighbor, devoted son and son-in-law, loyal brother and brother-in-law, compassionate and funny grandfather, patient father-in-law, kind uncle and smart godfather. But most of all, he's been a doting Dad. It makes me cry right now to think that I will one day lose him as my own personal advocate. But right now I have my Dad.


Right now I still do.


The photo above is from ashleywhiting.com. The recipe I like best is at http://www.crisco.com/recipes/details.aspx?recipeid=2102. I omit the pecans because Figgy doesn't like them, but add an extra 1/2 cup of Tollhouse chips instead. Do not overbake; they harden as they cool. Leave in oven about 8 to 10 minutes. The triple batch of dough I made was too much, so I froze some raw in waxed-paper-lined Tupperware.