Musing on school lunches. Canned green beans take me away.
Open a can of green beans and faster than you can say “Jolly Green Giant,” I am transported to my grade school cafeteria.
Not only do I dip my steak in ketchup but eating (and sniffing) green beans from a can makes me happy.
I joined my daughter today for lunch.
Say "no" to the hand.
My daughter is tiring of being the subject for blog posts. Or so she protests.
Back in my day, you had to try everything on the plate and drink your milk.
I can’t drink milk. Never have, never will. (This provided lots of angst for me as child at lunch.)
If I didn’t drink most of the carton still ice cold from the chest, there was no way. If the lunch room monitor shook my carton and decided I needed to drink more of — at this point — warm milk…
Vomiteria.
I tried some of her pork and gravy.
This is the way I roll. Workout, clean out more of attic, come dusty and stinky to school for lunch.
A friend saw me at the Open House the other night said I looked pretty.
I think this was because I had showered.
After lunch, we headed to the Book Fair.
Jill Hill (who has an awesome blog) was dutifully volunteering and cheerfully ringing up sales.
While the brilliant writer and blogger Meg Ferrante was lifting the till while Jill’s back was turned.
Meg has a awesome annual blog during Advent. For those of us who love reading, she needs to think year-round or at least expand her blog by adding sacred liturgical favorites such as Lent and Halloween.
I love visiting my daughter for lunch.
I love chatting with her friends, waving at all my beautiful dutiful volunteering friends, and my daughter’s unabashed kiss goodbye.
What’s your canned green bean memory?
I’m going to get cleaned up.
Look forward to reading what made you vomit all over the mean girl. (If you had to vomit on someone, I hope it was the mean girl.)
TOTALLY with you on the milk thing…ewwwwwww! Bleck!
I know Julie, We didn’t even have option of chocolate milk. It could have been so much better with chocolate.
I just HAD to read this since I shared many of those lunch experiences at the same table with you. I remember the time Mrs. Buchannan made me eat lima beans…and guess what!!!! Poor Mrs. Anabelle had a mess to clean up in the classroom after lunch.
I was totally shocked, surprised and sort of scared when my girls ventured off to Audubon Park Elementary 30 years later and found guess who in the cafeteria…Mrs. Buchannan!!!
Oh Laura, this made night. I remember that walk to the dreaded depository of trays– wondering if my milk level would be sufficiently low, and my fake scrape of the spinach simulating a bite or two would pass inspection. This younger crowd has it pretty good.
I cannot drink milk. Ugh. Just the thought makes me gag. When I was growing up, I would have my mom fill the glass with ice and then wait for the milk to be so cold that I couldn’t taste it. I still don’t drink milk. I get my calcium other wasy…ice cream. 😉
And the green beans?!?! My mom used to open the can for dinner and before she knew it, I had eaten the entire can. 🙂
Good memories…. Well, all but the milk ones.
Hugs,
Daphne
I’m with you Daphne. Every kind of cheese in the universe ( except those that smell like dirty feet) and ice cream. I could live on those. But drink milk? It just sits there in the back of your throat. Ugh. I wish I could drink it. I really do. But no way.
You are so sneaky with that camera! I was completely lost in fuzzy math as I was trying to ring up that poor child.
(Jamie failed to mention that she looked absolutely fabulous in her workout, clean out the attic, dusty clothes.)
Go finish reading The Help so we can go and see the movie!
Go! Read! 🙂
Oh Laura, Part ll. Just walking the dog before bed, I remembered you throwing up. Then the more I thought about it, I remembered everyone that
threw up in Miss Annabelle’s first grade. Tracy Banka and Peter Schwartz did too. Tracy’s was a little yellow dollop about the size of a half dollar. I was concerned about him because that didn’t look normal. So now 40 years later like Paul Harvey, I know the rest of the story. It was the Lima beans.
Okay Jill. Going to bed now to remember where I left off in The Help.
Oh my goodness, the “vomiteria”! Ha!
I love that you joined your daughter for lunch (and she did the “no photos, Mamarazzi hand thing.”
I can’t say an open jar of green beans makes me hark back to childhood, but every time anyone feeds me canned peas (which isn’t too often, thankfully…) like you, I’m instantly transported back to my childhood – in New Zealand – in my Grandmother’s kitchen: minted lamb and (god-awful) canned peas.
Scent is such a powerful transporter.
My third grade teacher made me eat my beets before I could leave the lunch room. I ate them them, threw them back up on my tray, put my tray away and went back to class.