God bless the clean up crew

          The book pictured is my mother's well-loved copy of the Joy of Cooking, that, although falling apart, she refuses to retire. And so it should be.

          Last night, at the end of a dinner battle that concluded with me using nearly every pot and pan in my parents' kitchen -- because the first one was two small, and then the second one was fine, but I realized I needed it for something else, so I had to bust out the third one, and then I had to get the pasta going in the fourth one, and so on -- I apologized profusely for the mess I'd made. My mother hauled the Joy off the top shelf and opened to the front page where her brother had written a Happy Birthday message, of which the final line reads: "god bless the clean up crew." The inscription is from her 29th Birthday, when he threw her a huge surprise party, and, similarly to last night, she was in fact surprised to find that she was very much a part of said clean up crew. You, Mother, are owed some take-out.