Something's Melting in My Mouth

Baking Christmas Cookies


Gingerbread
Hot sugar
Chocolate melting in the pan.

Baking soda tang
Butterscotch smooth
Heat rising from the oven.

Batter in a bowl
Flour poofing
Stirring soft butter with a spoon.

The last time
you took pleasure
in these textures
was before you shattered.

Now they pierce
the pieces of your heart
with fine small stitches
one at a time.

*************************

Many thanks to Poetikat (http://hyggedigter.blogspot.com/) for passing this award on to me, intending that I should reveal "7 Things You Don't Know About Me."

Hmmm.

1. I once had to sing, "I'm a little teapot, short and stout," in a third-grade school play. I despised having to sing and dance that little tune, because I am short and (now) stout. It has plagued me all these years.

2. I have anxiety attacks pretty regularly, for which I take...nothing! I practice my sobriety tools, like prayer and breathing, and putting one foot in front of the other. The tools get me through it in a sane state.

3. My first name is Diana. It was penciled in on the birth certificate at the last minute because (I was told by my mother) some nurse said I had to have three names, not just two. My real name is Chris. Just Chris. I spent my educational life explaining to the teachers and classmates on the first day of class that my name is just Chris, and it traumatized me like that stupid teapot did.

4. I took my bachelor's degree in English Literature, and went right to work in Los Angeles for the skin-trade, as we called it. I have worked on magazines for both Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt. My job for seven years was to make sure all the editorial was grammatically correct. Believe it or not.

5. I've cooked the family meals from the time I was 13 years old until I was almost 50. Then my newly retired husband went to culinary school, and I've been saved from cooking dinner for nearly five years. A gift, I tell you!

6. I've been blogging since September, and now I'm addicted. Not a day goes by that I'm not in the blogland. Well, I missed some in October while I was away.

7. My favorite Christmas cookies are what we call "snowballs" made with flour, butter, vanilla and powdered sugar. My daughter insists that we bake them every year. They make a mess when you pop one in your mouth, but then they practically melt. Ah, sugar.

I'm passing this award on to our friend Jenn at http://stillorinshelp.blogspot.com/

Gingerbread photo by Mellors Ltd.