Sugar used as excuse to talk

My daughter Beth called yesterday evening. She wanted to know if she could substitute brown sugar for white sugar in a cookie recipe. I told her she could but the cookies would taste a little sweeter than usual.

The thing is, she is a much better cook than I am. This is probably thanks to her grandmother, Della, who was a great cook. She also has the entire internet at her disposal. She could have looked up her question and had reliable results in minutes.

She chose to call her mom instead. We talked about cooking. We talked about her youngest, Nicholas, who would play his first football game of the season soon. I learned that her other son, Jacob, was healing from his ankle injury. We talked about the minutiae of our lives.

I told her that we had stopped at a nursery to seek a slug solution. The guy went to their aisle of death and handed me a bag of something. He then asked if we had kids or pets. We said no but the neighbors’ cats visited often. He then told me to put the bag back on the shelf as that product had killed his dog. He then recommended we put used coffee grounds around the outside of the foundation. It may or may not work. We then bought a magnificent hibiscus just because it was gorgeous. I sure hope it lives.

Beth told me about one of her patients whose cancer had spread to affect almost her entire body. Beth expressed frustration that the doctors couldn’t do much for the patient except to prescribe more pills and then even more pills to counteract the side effects of the original medication.

We expect doctors to be healers. They can only do so much. There are still far too many conditions that have no cure.

The question about sugar was just an excuse to chat. Sometimes we simply need a listening ear. Sometimes we need to hear about other people’s problems. Talking to someone who has worse problems than yours can put things into their proper perspective.

The conversation circled back to her boys. One of them was selling garbage bags as a fundraiser. Beth said she goes through more garbage bags than most people. She lets the kids use them as makeshift raincoats, or at least she would let them use them as raincoats if it would rain.

I could hear her stirring cookies in the background.

She said she didn’t know how she ended up with three packages of brown sugar and very little white sugar. I have stocked up on stuff because I forgot I purchased the same product the previous week.

She eventually said she needed to get back to her cookies. We said our goodbyes. As I hung up I thought about all the times I had called my own mom just because I needed someone to talk to for a few minutes.

Our conversation reminded me of that saying, “the more things change, the more they are the same.” I hope she never stops calling me when she needs to talk. I also hope that her cookies turned out just fine.