Dad has forgotten how to make oatmeal, and Al never learned. I wonder, sometimes, how they would survive without me here to feed them both like baby birds.
When I discover two, large, failed attempts at bowls of oatmeal, Al says to me, pointing at the oatmeal box, "That's how you make it, 2 to 1, right?" How do I tell him that you have to follow the spirit of the instructions, not the letter? He wouldn't understand. "Yes, dear, that's the recipe."
I scrape the glop from one bowl into the glob in the other bowl and path out to feed it to the chickens. When I return to the kitchen, I add oatmeal to the grocery list. *sigh*
By the fire one should drink ale, one should slide over the ice.
