Eating Like a Queen

Without fail, I prepare the same breakfast for myself every morning.  I love a big bowl of rolled oats, prepared with plump blueberries, ground flax seed and a heavy powdering of cinnamon.  That breakfast keeps my batteries charged until early afternoon when I finally have the time to take a lunch break.  One recent morning, however, I wasn't in the mood for my regular breakfast.  Instead, I wanted slices of sprouted-grain bread with a drizzle of honey.  As I was eating my slices of bread and honey, I started humming the children's nursery rhyme song, "Sing a Song of Sixpence," for I was eating like the queen! I wasn't in my parlour, however, but at our dining room table.  As I drove to work that day, I thought some more about the lyrics of that song and wondered just what they meant.  Why would someone want a pocketful of rye (other than to sow the seeds)?  For what reason would someone bake four and twenty live blackbirds in a pie?  Doesn't that seem barbaric?  And what kind of a children's song is it that requires a doctor to sew back on the maid's nose after it was pecked off by a blackbird (perhaps one that had flown off and missed being baked in the pie)? I read several interpretations of the poem online and found that there may be a lot of symbolism in it that could only have been understood and laughed at some 300 years ago. I guess I won't worry about.  Instead, I'll feel quite like a queen the next time I sit down to bread and honey.

Some Hummin' Oatmeal

My friend Mary Ellen told me recently that her husband, now retired, gets up with her every weekday morning and prepares oatmeal for her as she gets ready for work.  Hearing her endearing story made me think of how my dad, when he was retired, did the same thing for my mom as she got ready for work and for both Mom and me on the weekend when I was home from college.  These were pre-microwave oven days so he prepared his oatmeal on the stovetop, always getting the consistency just right.  My dad wasn't a singer.  He was a hummer.  So, as he prepared the oatmeal, he'd hum.  There was nothing so happy as to enter our kitchen for a hot, wholesome oatmeal breakfast lovingly prepared by my loving, humming dad.  Not too long ago, as I was slowly awakening, I could hear Larry preparing his morning oatmeal in the kitchen and guess what he was doing?  Humming.  Delicious!