Oh, Darling Ones, I am struggling today. It’s one of those days where I feel unappreciated, unsupported, and taken advantage of. Today I am lonely and afraid and frustrated. And I might have had a small emotional breakdown because Hy-vee forgot to give me my hamburger buns thus ruining dinner and my life and the entire universe as we know it.

Instead of whining again for 700 words, I will be fulfilling a request for the Potato Chip Taste Test story.

When it comes to certain products I’m super brand-loyal, almost to a fault. That fault being that I think anyone who doesn’t think Skippy Peanut Butter is the best of all possible peanut butters is not only taste-bud deficient, but not very smart or savvy. I have been known to question a friendship over this divisive issue.

As a born and raised Minnesotan, when you say potato chips a twin-pack box of Old Dutch pops into my head. I know Ruffles have ridges and Pringles are some sort of potato-y abomination in chip form, but like the gold standard, the ne plus ultra of potato chipdom is Old Dutch. I don’t care if they’re Original or Rip-L (though I prefer the Rip-L).

When I was a kid the surest sign that any family gathering was gonna be a good time was spying that Old Dutch box somewhere near the food table. If there was Old Dutch & Top the Tater, well hot damn there was gonna be some fun going down.

Now, for the most part I’m talking about OG OD, the chips that come in the box. But I’ll throw down for lost of Old Dutch goods. In fact, there’s some Cheddar Jalapeno Dutch Crunch in the pantry as I type (and also some of the RIP-Ls). But the pretzels? Cheese popcorn? All good. My Aunt Jackie, who lives in Las Vegas, begs for Old Dutch Dill Pickle chips whenever she’s here or someone goes there to visit her. My dad confessed that the only chips he really likes are Old Dutch Sour Cream & Onion.

What you should see that I come from Old Dutch people. On both sides of my family!

This is why, what down in 2018 or 2019 I can’t remember which year because time has ceased to have meaning, is so shocking.

Every year for Mother’s Day my mom wants to the same meal — tuna salad with potato chips. If there’s a grilled brat around she wouldn’t be mad about it, but the tuna salad is the bid deal.

She loves “my” tuna salad and every time I make it she raves about how it’s the best I’ve ever done. I put the my in quotes because:

1. She taught me how to make it.
2. I don’t even consider it cooking. It’s opening and stirring. Sure you gotta cook the noodles (small shells only. I used medium shells once and my sisters are still mad about it).
3. Here’s the recipe: box of shells cooked, two cans of tuna drained, one can of peas (gotta be canned if you use frozen my mom will know and she will be unhappy), one can of cream of mushroom soup, many many many gloppy spoonfuls of Miracle Whip (and it has to be Miracle Whip, up until I was like 22 I thought Miracle Whip and Mayonnaise were the same thing, because my mom calls MW mayo).

So what was so shocking about Mother’s Day 2018 or 2019? Uh, well, it was actually Father’s Day now that I type about it. Mother’s Day 2018 or 2019 was a debacle of ordering pizza for eight people and then having Sister #3 throw a mysterious fit and leave 30 seconds after getting here leaving four people to eat pizza for eight. I’m still a little mad about it.

So I guess that year, whatever year that was, my mom hijacked the Father’s Day meal. So anyway, it wasn’t the tuna salad request that upended this Parental Day of 2018or2019, but it was the fact that she announced she was going to bring these magical, better-tasting, not Old Dutch potato chips to go with it.

Sister #4 and I quizzed her about the chips. What brand are they? Where did they come from? What does the packaging look like? Are they special chips you can only get if you own a restaurants. ARE THEY REALLY BETTER THAN OLD DUTCH?

My mom knew nothing about the chips only that they came in a generic bag she got at The Windmill.

I was, of course, aghast, and announced that Parental Day 2018or2019 would be the grand potato chip taste test to determine which chip was indeed superior.

We had a game plan and everything about this blind taste test. My nephew was gonna be in control, people were gonna taste with their eyes closed. Shit was gonna go down.

That was until my mom showed up with her generic bag of chips from the Windmill. Sure the bag was black and white like generic chips of days gone by, but printed in black letters on that white bag was the word “Ruffles.”

When she walked in with the bag Sisters #2 & #4 tossed up their hands in exasperation.

“Those are Ruffles,” one of them said.
“No they aren’t,” my mom insisted.
“Uh, it says Ruffles right on the bag,” the other one said.

My mom held the bag out in front of here and finally read it. “Oh. I didn’t know that. They don’t look like this at the store.”

“THAT’S BECAUSE IT’S A GENERIC BAG!” Sisters #2 & #4 shouted.

So that, Dear Hessie, is the tale of how the Great Potato Chip Taste Test of 2018or2019 went down. Or didn’t.

We remain split down party lines with most of being pro-Old Dutch and my mom remaining so pro-Ruffles that when I gave her a bag of Old Dutch to go with her Mother’s Day in Quarantine Times tuna salad she left them here. The old lady turned down free chips!

The post The COVID Diaries: Old Dutch appeared first on I Will Dare.

Every year my mom comes over and does all her Christmas shopping online. She usually hates shopping, but loves this.

We eat Chinese food and then I operate the computer while she points to the things she wants to buy me, my siblings, and my niblings. It’s kind of hoot because she sighs, gasps, and rolls her eyes a lot.

“Seventy-eight dollars for jeans that already have holes in them? I throw out my jeans when they get holes. I think these ones were twelve dollars.”

It’s a lot of shopping crammed into a short amount of time and by the time we’re done I get the swirly eyes.

Today, as we were eating eggrolls, she launched into the litany of people who died. As she was going through this list of people I don’t know, I thought, I’m “my mom greets me with a list of dead people” years old. Sadly, my mom seems to know a few men who have committed suicide recently. And she lost one of her favorite customers. From the sounds of it, it’s been a rough few weeks for the baby boomers of Savage, Minnesota — especially my Uncle Wayne who lost a good friend.

The post Day 134 for 200: These Are People Who Died appeared first on I Will Dare.

You all know that Christa is my very favorite writer on the entire Internet, right? When she finally publishes a book I will have to put Mary Gaitskill and John Irving and Aimee Bender on notice.

One of the things that makes Christa my VFWotI is her ability to make the absolutely mundane funny and interesting. Nobody goes to Target like Christa goes to Target. So in homage to Christa, I will turn my awfully mundane into something, perhaps, a little less mundane. Introducing It’s Sunday & I’m Boring, a new series that will last as long as it amuses me.

Sunday mornings are my favorite of all the mornings because that’s when “Meet the Press” is on. The Sundays after I have gone to the real grocery store are the best of all possible Sundays. Real Grocery Store = Donut Holes. And Donut Holes + “Meet the Press” + Hot Coffee = all the best things in life. “Meet the Press” was kind of boring this week. . . drone strikes and sequestration. Snooze.

I was extra boring this Sunday, more boring than normal Sundays. Usually Sundays are filled with MTP and then writing and then cooking stuff for Family Dinner and then actual Family Dinner and then home again for Downton. But I bailed on Dinner because of the storm. And I bailed on most of my writing and work because of my mom. Mom’s been in the hospital since Friday night, she’s got some wicked pnemonia that wasn’t helped by a sojourn to Vegas.

Ugh.

When I saw her yesterday she looked and sounded like crap. And I could tell she was really scared. “I’ve never been this sick in my entire life,” she said. This is a woman who went through chemo and radiation two years ago because of breast cancer. And four years ago she had a shunt put into one of her arteries.

So yeah, most of the weekend has been eaten up by anxiety. When I am anxious I get ADD times about a thousand. And sleepy.

But so then I talked to my Mom on the phone today where she told me to stay home and not come visit even though I live right by the hospital. Later before I napped she called me and said, “I tried to Tweeter you but it kept ringing your phone.” She wanted to brag about how her oxygen levels were back up to 95. That’s a good sign. She might get out tomorrow.

Naps and bathing and my newest obsession Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief. If you are in my life and I start going on & on about how crazy Scientology is, I apologize in advance. But serious SO CRAZY. Read the book so we can talk about it. Please.

Twitter is freaking out because I just pointed out the fact that Carly Rae Jepsen is older than Adele and we should talk about the power of that kind of branding and how kind of creepy it is. Also, I don’t care about The Black Keys. I once cared about Mumford & Sons, but then like those times I cared about Coldplay and Bon Iver, they just keep playing the same song over and over again and that bores me.

Are you bored to death yet? Do you still have a pulse?

I made calzones for dinner. They were ridiculous delicious. However, I think I have come to the conclusion that rolling out dough is for chumps. All the flour and the rolling and the worry that there’s some sort of microscopic ick on your counter you’re rubbing right into your dinner. Not for me.

Now The Grammys, which are kind of boring, but it’s fun to watch the snark fly on Twitter.

The post It’s Sunday & I’m Boring: The Grammy’s edition appeared first on I Will Dare.

I cannot listen to The Avett Brothers’ song “Live and Die” without a few melancholy tears sliding down my face. The song will forever be associated with discovering my biological father had died.

As I drove over to Sister #2’s house Sunday night, The Current played “Live and Die.” This will become significant in a minute. When the song came on I chuckled to myself and thought “huh, they played this song the last time I was on this road.” The last time was Friday. This has no significance. I only add it because I remembered it.

On Sunday we were gathered for dinner as we always do. But that particular Sunday had the added benefit of celebrating Maxwell’s fourteenth birthday, which is why my mom was in attendance.

I hadn’t told my mother about discovering the death of the biological father I never met. It was a secret I carried around in me and burned a bit whenever I saw her. I waited for her to discern the secret on my face, in my heart, to see that I was hiding something.

It wasn’t like I wanted to keep this from her. I didn’t. I just couldn’t find the words. What would I say? How would I say it? What if she knew and kept it from me? Would I cry an ocean of hurt? Would I be angry and spew an ocean of hurt? My fear kept me silent. Until Sunday.

We were Facebook stalking Sister #4’s new boyfriend. Rather Sister #2, Sister #3, and my mom were doing the stalking. I was explaining to Nolan, age 8, what a desktop computer was. Put that on your list of obsolete technological references right next to answering machine and Kodachrome.

“Oh,” my mom gasped as she saw a picture of Sister #4’s new boyfriend. “He looks like Skip.” Skip is the nickname my biological father went by his entire life.

At the mention of his name Sister #2 whipped her head around to look at me and shot lasers from her eyes.

“Did you know he died?” I asked.
She went pale. “What? No. How do you know?”
I got nervous and started babbling everything. “I was bored a few weeks ago and so I went to see if he was on Facebook and he wasn’t so then I Googled his name and I found his obituary.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” She asked, her voice cracking.
“It’s his name and the age is right.”
“Do you still have it?” she said. “I’d like to see it.”

Sister #2 pulled up the obit. We were silent as she read it, took off her glasses, and wiped her eyes.

“I thought you would know,” I said weakly. “He lived in Savage.”
“I can’t believe nobody told me,” she said. “He was my first love. I can’t believe Brenda didn’t tell me. Someone.”

And then we all cried for a bit and she added to that handful of facts I have. Facts I’m not willing to share yet. Except for when she said this:
“You are so much like him,” she said. “He was super smart and loved music and computers^* and cats.^** You talk just like him and even things you write remind me of him.” She stopped and looked at Sister #3. “You can’t tell me personality isn’t hereditary. She’s just like him and she never met the guy.”
 
*There was a bit of a derail in the conversation when I was all “What kind of computers were there in 1972?” And she gave me a mom look of death. And Sister #2’s all imitating my mom saying “I slept with the guy for three years. I knew he liked computers!” And then she got the mom look of death.
 
**I don’t love cat’s that much and I made my sisters swear not to mention cats in my obituary and then they said they were totally going to mention cats in my obituary and then so I made Jaycie the executor of my estate until Maxwell got jealous and I added him and then neither of them could remember where I want my ashes spread, but Cade knew so he’s gonna take care of it.

The post And then it was time to break her heart Or, this is how you tell your mom your biological father is dead appeared first on I Will Dare.

Thanksgiving was pretty delightful, even though it ended too soon because the Tibbles had to go their Dad’s house. This did not go over well with Cade who shouted angrily, “I don’t want to go to Dad’s. His house doesn’t have any Legos.”

The Harry Potter Lego Castle was a huge success. If I hadn’t promised to leave it at Sister #2’s house for the Tibbles to see after school tomorrow, I’d have much better pictures*.

Sadly, on Friday we learned that my mom has to have chemo and radiation. I say sadly, only because it has kind of thrown me for a loop. I had wholly convinced myself that after the surgery we’d be done with cancer nonsense and go back to regular life. Knowing that she now has to go through chemo (everything of which I know about comes from Lucy Grealy’s amazing Autobiography of a Face) and will lose her hair and be in pain has upset me. Rationally and logically I understand the need and why the doctor is taking this course of action. But emotionally I just don’t want her to have to deal with.

It sucks, but having to deal with cancer again in five years would suck even harder. Right?

On a happier note, we had Rock & Roll Bookclub at Supergenius HQ last night. I haven’t mentioned lately but I love my bookclub with a passion. It’s so warm and comfortable. Plus, last night Wolfdogg brought back the rock.

When he pulled out the guitar all the kids filtered into the living room, filling the spots on the couch and on the floor trying to get closer to the music. We’re all shy violets when he first starts playing but after a few songs we’re all singing along.

At one point, Delilah, Wolfdogg’s twelve-year-old daughter, sat down at his feet. He launched into Murder in the City by The Avett Brothers and they sang the song together. Delilah has a beautiful voice and the song is about loving your family. It’s touching.

In the middle of the song, I happened to look over to Heather who was sitting next to me.

“Are you crying?” I asked.
She shook her head yes.
“Is it the song?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m a mushy crybaby.”
“So am I,” I said. “I cried at a Folgers’ commercial this weekend. Do you need a Kleenex?”
“You have one?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said, handing her the box. “I cry at commercials.”

Then I promptly started crying because the moment and the song and the whole thing was so beautiful. I cry just typing about it. I wish you all could have been there.

*I’ve developed a bit of an Instagram addiction. I know it doesn’t make me a photographer. If all those photography classes in college couldn’t make me a photog, or the six years I spent working in digital photography didn’t do it, you can rest assured that I realize an iPhone app isn’t gonna do it for me. I’m okay with that. I just wanted to make that clear before you got on a high horse and started yammering about it. Okay?

The post Nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share our name appeared first on I Will Dare.