#the citrus poltergeist saga

[portraitoftheoddity]

I see the oranges post about my parents is making the rounds again, so I figured I'd post an update about my parents and food.

So my folks are both in their sixties now (oranges story happened in the 1980s), and my dad is semi-retired and works part time from home. He has also become a huge foodie over the course of my parents' marriage, and is really into cooking. He now cooks every meal in that house, three times a day (if he's home and not traveling for work or out doing crazy outdoors shit or volunteering), and genuinely deeply enjoys it and loves cooking for my mom.

My mother is having a lot of anxieties about aging right now -- mainly because her father (my gramps) developed severe dementia prior to his death, and where my mom was his caretaker through much of his decline, she's terrified of going through the same thing. Any time she has a very normal lapse in memory, she panics that she's losing her mind.

So my dad started doing research. He listened to a podcast with an endocrinologist who talked about diet and brain health and work he'd done into how certain nutritional regimens can slow the progression of dementia, and he ended up reading a book on the topic and doing a lot of his own research into the science of nutrition with regards to neuroscience (he's pretty good at vetting real scientific sources and not just buying into boomer-facebook-pseudoscience).

And then he put them BOTH on a new, brain-healthy diet specifically optimized to cut out foods that have demonstrated a negative impact on cognitive function in studies, and including those that have been associated with benefits to brain health.

Now remember, my dad is a huge foodie. And he has 100% now committed to cutting out a number of his favorite foods because there was never a question in his mind that he wouldn't be doing this right beside my mom, as he cooks all their meals and they share those meals together. All to help my mom's brain and soothe her fears about her own mind and the future by working on any factor within their control.

I visited them last weekend and Dad's cooking is, as always, delicious. But even though they've cut out a lot of sugar, there's an innate sweetness in knowing just how much every meal he cooks is an act of love.

[portraitoftheoddity]

Time for another story about my parents! Ft. bonus Gramma.

So my mom's mom was... not a great mom. My dad's mom was cool as hell though, and despite usually displaying the maternal instincts of a block of wood, when she met my mom she was like one of those broody chickens who will sit on literally any baby animal and be like 'mine now.' She absolutely adored my mom when she and my dad were dating, and when they got married she pulled her aside and let her know that while she knew she was only her mother in law, she also knew (my mom)'s relationship with her own mother was rocky and if she ever needed a mom to talk to, she already considered her a daughter. My mom consistently referred to my Gramma as the best mother in law ever.

But!

Gramma was not kidding about "I consider you a daughter", apparently. She thought the whole "in-law" title was superfluous since she regarded my mom as family, and being a practical woman who didn't waste words, simply introduced her as her daughter.

This unfortunately caused some confusion.

Particularly at a gallery opening (Gramma was a painter) when my parents were fairly newly wed, where she told everyone during introductions that my mom was her daughter; they already knew my dad was her son, and thus were VERY CONFUSED by seeing my dad having PDA with who they thought was his sister.

Thankfully my mom was able to clarify she was in fact his wife and he had no sisters, but the hilarity of the situation has endured, and did get Gramma to occasionally add 'in-law' when making introductions.

[portraitoftheoddity]

So my parents (of the citrus poltergeist and mountain banana bread fame) recently got back from a retreat where they did magic mushrooms together and apparently spent a part of their time tripping realizing how much they love each other and they've been kinda insufferably adorable ever since.

[portraitoftheoddity]

Please, I beg you, tell us how your dad discovered that your mother was the citrus poltergeist?

He didn't! At least not until later.

The citrus haunting flirtation strategy was a bust so mom had to change tactics.

She low-key stalked my dad for a bit (they were in the same French class, she was extremely quiet so he was only vaguely aware she existed and that she was the reason his grade got docked because she confronted the professor about his sexism for marking down girls for not typing up their papers while letting guys turn them in hand-written, but that's another story). She figured out his favorite haunts and the bar near campus where he and his friends hung out.

So she puts on her cute blouse one night and goes there and sits at the bar, looking aloof and bored until he approaches her. He mentions he's never seen her drink there before and she lies her ass off and says she's there all the time.

Uh huh. (He's starting to catch on.)

He asks if he can buy her a glass of wine.

My mother, trying to maintain the allure of worldly aloofness, gives him withering look and asks if he knows what good wine is.

And my rich-kid wine-snob dad smirks and says I have a pretty good idea.

One thing leads to another, he asks if she wants to get out of there and go back to his place, and she asks him what time he's okay with getting up. Because she has work at the library the next morning but her car is a shitbox whose battery is on its last legs and she'll need to get up early to call AAA to have them jumpstart her dead car battery so she can get to work on time, so if he's okay with getting up really early so she can get her car jumped then yes, but if he needs to sleep in, then no.

My dad blinks and informs her that is the weirdest answer he has ever gotten to that question.

....And presumably was okay with an early morning wakeup because that's how my parents got together.

[portraitoftheoddity]

Just compiled a bunch of screenshots of people’s reactions to the orange post and sent them to my mom and she thinks the fact y’all are losing your minds over that is the FUNNIEST THING. She is forwarding it on to her whole family.

(Even funnier to me is that that is like, one of the least bonkers stories I probably have about my parents...)

[portraitoftheoddity]

Okay but important question, does your dad enjoy oranges or are they super haunted oranges

He likes them fine, though he prefers bananas.

[portraitoftheoddity]

Will you tell us the story of how your parents got together, please?

I have here! 😊