Freeze popcorn you plan to store for a long time in a sealable bag with all of the air pushed out. This will keep the popcorn fresh for a year or longer. When you are ready to pop the popcorn, pour out only what you will need and let it thaw, refreezing the rest for later use.
Read more: How to Keep Popcorn Fresh | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5794649_keep-popcorn-fresh.html#ixzz2ROLwFrpI
That's exactly what I want to do with the memories I have of her. As I look at her taking a nap on the couch reminds me of the time I took a picture of her in the hospital for a surgery she had a couple years ago. It was a female thing so I won't go into detail. But the picture I took of her looked like she was on her death bed.
She lays there like a kid taking a nap in the afternoon. And that is what she is, a kid in an older person's body. I remember the times when she used to tell me about how she played baseball. She used to play with the boys. She told me how they would get mad because she could hit the ball farther than some of them. But of course, she was thought of as a Tom-Boy and they didn't have much interest in her except for a player on the team. She said sometimes it would hurt because they liked the cheerleader type. Prissy girlie-girls that she knew she couldn't be or wouldn't. She was the type to eat meat from the bones as she held the piece in her hands. Forget the forks or napkin on the lap, she ate all hunkered down. She ate with her mouth open and would talk with her mouth full of food. Nothing really has changed with her etiquette. She is still the same.
She said sometimes girls would throw stones at her because they were jealous that she hung around the cute boys. "I knew him first and stay away from him. He's mine." the girls would yell. She had to run home every time they came after her. However, if she was in a one-to-one situation, she would just throw a punch. Yep, my mom taught me how to fight. She would tell me that her mom was the only one that could hold her back. She would be swinging her fists and my grandmother had to drag her away. But eventually as she got in her teens, and grew a rack on her chest, the boys changed their mind. Now she had to fight off both boys and girls.
Her bravery was another memory I want to seal in the freezer. Her father had left awhile to go to United States to work and make more money for the family. Well as he stayed there awhile, alone without the whole family there, he became a single man again. He was making money and only sending home $25-$50 a month back to her mother to raise the stalks of 9. It wasn't enough. Her mother went many times starving so her stalks could eat. She used to tell me that it broke her heart to watch her mother go to work as much as she did, raise the 9 and still struggle to pay the bills and put food on the table. My mom said she found out that her father had several mistresses in the states and he was having a blast without his family and throwing his money around while the stalks were starving and out growing their clothes. My mother got so mad that she went down to the mayor's office and told them about how her family was starving and her father left them to die. My mom said she was like 10 or 11 years old. Somehow, they went to the US, found her dad, dragged him back home and made him take his whole family to the states.
There was a time in which her father slapped her mother in the face. She said she was the only one in the house to jump on her father's back and try to beat him up. He pushed her off and she ran to the police to get help. They took him away. When he returned, he scoured at her and never hit her mother again. He knew that my mom wouldn't put up with that and had no problem telling on him again. At that point, my grandmother said she was so proud of my mom. She said her mother admired her strength and courage. My mom said that was a good day. Being the middle child is sometimes the hardest because there are so many others to care for. Although she also got hurt during the incident, it was worth her pain to release her mothers.
When it came to her teens, there were alot of restrictions placed on her and the other females in the house. She had to be the chaperon to her sisters who were dating. She said the bravest one was with the oldest stalk. The oldest stalk was used to make an example for the others. She said she had to sit and watch her older stalk get beaten before she left the house with friends or went on a date. "No daughter of mine will be a whore" her father said. So he would slap and beat the eldest to understand that no one should touch you or you will be punished. She would hurt so much that she couldn't enjoy herself and wasn't allowed to sleepover at friends houses. "You return home where you belong." My mom would have to chaperon her to any destination she was going to. If my mom didn't report to her father in detail what happened, then both of them would be beaten. That's how the sisters eventually became each others friends. No room for outsiders.
I think about the times in which she struggled with divorcing her second husband. I think about how this man changed my mom forever. And not for the good. My dad was her ticket to get out of the jail, I mean the house she grew up in. He was acceptable to her dad. She did the wife thing, stayed home, raised a couple of kids, did the bowling with the neighbor wives, participated in coffee-clutches and barbecues with the swimming pool in the yard. Once my dad was able to buy a house further away from the jail, my mom had it with being June Cleaver. She wanted a job of her own and making her own money and freedom. She didn't want to be with the man that her father found acceptable. Its hard for me to write this because I love my dad very much, but the fact of the matter was, he was her ticket to freedom.
The second husband came as a full disruption to the family life I once knew. This tall, long-haired hippie looking man who was by far younger than my mother by many years came home one day when my dad was at work. I felt sick when I saw him. I knew she was unhappy, and he was the definition of my destroyed home. I was only six at the time and my dad called while my mom was not within eye sight. I told my dad that this man was here. Within months later, he filed for divorce and my mother moved in with the hippie. They both worked at the brewery that she worked at. They made tons of money between the two of them. Drinking became their favorite past time. He more than her. When I came to visit her and stayed the night, I would hear arguments and her coughing alot. He became a crazy insecure man that I found out later put a gun to her head until she drank as much as he did. He also had crazy insane friends that were into guns. All of the sudden, he was filling up the gun case. A year later, I couldn't take it anymore. All I will say there was quite a few inappropriate situations that I will not go into. I moved to Texas to be with my dad. A year later she divorced him. But with him, she experienced a forbidden kind of love. He died a few years later. The alcohol caused him to have a brain aneurysm. But the damage he did still exists today. She can't escape the evil that he created. She cannot fall asleep without a drink. For that, I shed no tear for his death. But somehow in all that mess, she loved him. More than my dad. A love that no one can understand. She said she had to protect her family as well as herself. Leaving him was the hardest thing she had to do. Was it the life style? Was it the money? Was it his whole world that she never imagined being a part of? I think God spoke to her and helped her get through it. Her stalks that she grew up with in the garden came to her rescue and made sure this man was no longer her husband. For that I am grateful. Because another day, month or year, I truly believe it would of been her 6-feet in the ground instead of him. He was the serpent in the garden.
So as she lays on the couch, I know she dreams of these events I just mentioned. I know these have shaped her to be the woman she is today. Her breath stops abruptly and I say a prayer to not take her now. Seconds go on to a minute then all of a sudden it happens. Like the first loud pop in the kettle, she farts in her sleep and jumps starts her breathing and she wakes up. She looks at me with wide eyes, "What the hell was that?" she asks. "Uhhh. What do you think it was?" laughing and tearing at the same time. "I felt like I got shot." I'm still laughing to myself. "Well I think your killing me. Open a window, you farted." "Shut up, I don't smell, my farts smell like roses. You got a sensitive nose."
So much for a sentimental moment. Those are few and far between. But those stories are ones that I do want to share with my kids someday because they are what makes up her. These few incidents influence her surely demeanor today. She's not your normal tight permed, gray-haired little cookie baking nana that most kids have as a grandma today. There is some background to her and I want to freeze these memories of her and take them out when my kids have their tough days. A little at a time.
She Pops like Popcorn. She is in her Golden Buttery stage of life.
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