August 24—Long Beach
Every time OATS cross my path, ’Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey’ rings forth. MOM! Little did you know the multitude of thises and thats that you planted in my being when I was very young would last decades and be passed along. Little do any of us know, as parents.
Flashback:
The summer between high school and college I was hired by a family friend to take care of her four children and four horses on a two hundred acre estate in the White Mountains. Besides temporarily incarnating as Maria von Trapp, complete with guitar, songs and peasanty garb, I became a horse woman extraordinaire and stable girl.
The oats that my horses loved were coated with molasses and the whole barn’s intoxicating earthy sweet aroma contributed to my willingness to spend extra time mucking around cleaning stalls, brushing and braiding manes and tails and listening to the above tune have its way with me in my head, throughout.
The Present:
Apres my surgery I have been commanded to gain weight as I am on the frail side and this is not only not acceptable to my medical team and friends, but to myself as well…hence calories…hence ice cream.
Landing in my lap with this announcement was Oat-Ly Ice Cream…and with my first bowl full, here came my mother’s voice again, whimsically dancing through the decades, but this time I paid attention. ’Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy’….and WAIT A MINUTE. Is that true?
Mare do eat oats, I have witnessed this, preferably if they are molasses coated, but does do not eat oats, they eat everything else and ruin gardens. As for little lambs and ivy? Ivy is NOT the preferred diet choice for lambs because in large amounts it as actually toxic. They like grass.
Whoever, wherever ’Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey’ came from, someone was high on something…or bored and entertaining him/her self….or simply pouring heart and soul into being playful and the world listened.
Hmmm.
Meanwhile, ICE CREAM.