Keep the Saran in the fridge!
Posted by Lin Cullen on Tue, Mar 09, 2010 @ 08:50 AM
Family day in Ontario… it was an extra day off. Yahoo! Well, if you have your own business, holidays and long weekends come and go and you are no more the wiser.
This year, I was aware of the long weekend coming after several reminders and I thought, “Good, I’ll try to take advantage and do something special.” Usually that thought comes and goes, the weekend comes and goes and I never do anything special.
This year, on Family Day weekend, Lawrence and I had agreed to help my Auntie Jo-Anne move from her big rambling house. It was time for her to get something more practical, without stairs, easier to clean, no snow to shovel, no raking to do… yet accommodating to her lifestyle, which is crazy busy to say the least.
My darling aunt is in her 80s and has raised six beautiful children in that house, tragically lost her husband several years ago in that house, and has a lifetime of memories in that big, old house. Along with those memories comes a lot of stuff – all those dishes, the Doultons, the knick knacks…
So I was in charge of sandwiches, etc. for the lunch break. It’s not easy feeding the Larman crowd – trust me we are eaters – but off we went. A day of the boys moving the heavy stuff and the girls unpacking at the cute new apartment. My dear, totally organized cousin, Laurie, had been in charge of the move for the most part with all my other cousins helping as best possible. She is just a take-charge kinda gal so we happily went with it and deferred to her.
“So what’s in this box, Laurie?” someone asked. And she replied, “Well it is clearly written on the outside… in detail.” Okey-dokey. Well, not quite, but we trundled along and, oh my goodness, the memories abound! At one point Patti came to me with about 10 turkey wish bones, and Auntie Jo-Anne, with her brilliant sense of humour said, “Yes. Okay, chuck ’em.” You just knew she had been saving them for years and could probably tell which year each one was from. Of course there were giggles all around and at the end of the day everyone had taken a suitable amount of kidding and we all got set for the departure.
There I was with my Auntie Jo-Anne, tidying up the kitchen and packing up a few of the left over sandwiches for our trip back to Toronto (did I mention we are eaters in our family?). Darling Auntie Jo-Anne was leaning over the small (ha, ha) tray of sandwiches wrapping them with Saran wrap and said to me, “You know, I always keep this in the fridge.” Uh huh, I thought – she must be very tired. At which point my sense of humour jumped back in and I said, “What, the Saran wrap?” To which she replied, “Yes, it keeps it from bunching up like this. I’ve done it for years.” Well, how about that! By the way, I now keep my Saran wrap in the fridge and it truly works!
So, as I came away from that Family Day weekend, I have to say that for me it truly was a Family Day weekend – totally by accident, but a wonderful accident. A chance to be with all the people who are my family.
I have tapped in to Auntie Jo-Anne since then to send me a list of those tips she has secreted away and I will keep prodding her for them. But you know the committees, the scrap booking, the lunches with friends, the speaking engagements, keep my favourite Auntie pretty busy so don’t hold your breath!
In the meantime, did you know Coca Cola is good for cleaning tires? Seriously, check out the sites below: