We were one big team of PMA's. PMA stands for Positive Mental Attitude. During my brother's last hospitalization, he had a couple of less-than-enthusiastic-to-be-doing-their-job nurses and when they left the room he turned to my sister and said something like, "make a sign that says, 'Positive Mental Attitude: If you don't have it, get out!'" Well, Kris left the second part off so we didn't get kicked out of the hospital but she did ask the nurses for a pair of scissors and got right to work on a Positive Mental Attitude sign made out of the white paper towels (I think) that were in the hospital room. We put the sign up across the wall of his room. When he came home with hospice, we put those same make-shift letters in his bedroom and made another sign out of construction paper for the living room/kitchen/dining room area so we could all see them and be reminded of what was expected of us.
It was a lovely little meal. Ashlee and her friend Christina did an amazing job putting it all together. Ashlee's Chili was made with venison steak and ground turkey and some kind of huge flat white bean -- were they lima beans? And, Christina made the most amazing cilantro vinaigrette for the salad! Lucy picked the tomatoes for the salad fresh from Ashlee's little urban garden. And, her friend Jessica made the most ridiculously gorgeous desert (made mostly of crushed oreos and cream cheese dipped in chocolate -- what???) I may have ever tasted in my life. They were so good that it felt sort of illicit eating them. I told Ashlee I felt like I should be alone while I bit into them.
I, happily, did no cooking at all -- just eating that day! I even took a bunch of pictures of all the food for the blog but in light of everything else I've written here, I think even Mo could agree that sometimes food just isn't as important as the other stuff.
Namaste.