At last I was successfully disentangling from a bad relationship with an incipiently psychotic partner and needed to move out, now.  A colleague at work turned out to be the landlady of an available place, not far from our community health clinic, and I grabbed it.
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The process of preparing our house to go on the market felt like peeling an onion – layer by layer, my life there disappeared.
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Washed Apple

My father was a wonderful guy and I’ve shared many loving memories of him.  (See My Father, the Outsider Artist,  My Dad and the Word Processor, Saying Farewell to a Special Guy,  and Six Pack)

But he did have some strange food-related tastes and habits.   Apples were his favorite fruit,  and when my mother offered to bring him a snack he’d often ask for a “washed apple”.  Did he think she would bring him a dirty one?

And he had a rather uncouth way of eating an apple –  he’d bite into it,  chew,  and then somehow spit out just the skin!   I have no idea how he did that,  but I wonder – if he didn’t like the skin,  why didn’t he ask my mom for a “peeled apple”?

I also love apples and unlike my dad,  I eat them skin and all,  altho I do have my own idiosyncrasy –  I  must core and slice the fruit before I eat it!

But there is another of my father’s idiosyncratic tastes that I have acquired.  It was his habit of cracking chicken bones with his teeth and sucking out the marrow.

I refrain from doing it in public,  or when dinner guests are at the table,  but alone with family,  and despite their avowed disgust,  I happily chomp away!

– Dana Susan Lehrman

There, we learn profanity before we learn of the adventures of Dick and Jane. Letting fly a string of curses when angry or hurt is to us as natural as breathing.
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