Washing Windows: Ode to Lil

   So earlier this week I was washing the windows of our home, a semi-annual event here on the prairie that brings about as much excitement to me as does flossing my teeth.  And while on a break from the drudgery, I received a dare from one of my Facebook pals: to write a blog about window washing.  I thinked and I thanked and I thunked and the only thing that I could sputter out of this feeble little brain of mine was to write about my grandmother, Lillian, Her Royal Highness of Vinegar.

I loved my grandmother very, very much.  My childhood years were turbulent and there were periods of time while I was growing up when I temporarily lived with her, my grandfather and my aunt.  My other aunt, uncle and cousin lived downstairs.  There are so many things that remind me of Grandma to this day, besides seeing a bottle of vinegar: 

• The Lawrence Welk Show.  I believe that she must have carried a secret torch for one of the performers, or maybe even for Larry himself, because heaven help the person or event that kept her from watching this show.  
• Thunderstorms.  Oh, how Lil hated thunder and lightning.  At the very first rumble, she would grab her purse and then wait it out in the stairwell of her home.  This wasn't a one-shot deal.  This occurred every single time.  If she was going to become a crispy critter in any electrical storm, she wanted to have her identification handy.     
• Bat Wings.  Gosh, when I think about what I put that poor woman through.  As a child, I would sneak up behind her, grab her bat wings and flap them.  I would then run away as fast as my pudgy little legs could go, screaming "Pudding arms!" at the top of my lungs.       
• Hair Nets.  As essential to the total ensemble package as her pair of shoes. 
• Doilies.  Lordie, that woman LOVED to tat.  I still have my mother's pillowcases with the tatted edges that Grandma made for her as a wedding present. 
• The Dupa.  I don't even know if this is a real word; I couldn't find it in the dictionary, but this is what the family called it.  I DO know that come Thanksgiving Day, no one dared to touch the turkey until after the dupa was ceremonially placed on the dinner plate in front of Lil.  The dupa is that little fatty triangular-shaped thing that's down there.  You know where- down THERE, at the end of the tailbone.

See those deep set eyes and that devilish little smirk?  Meet Lillian, on her wedding day.  Many people have told me that I look like her.  Ya think?  In the way I act, in my expressions, in my work ethic which just doesn't seem to want to quit, the deadpan sense of humor; it would seem that I scream of her.  God knows I have her ultra-thick naturally-wavy hair, the same bone structure that resembles a football linebacker, and yes, I was given her bat wings as payback for when I traumatized her with my childhood antics. When connections are made between my grandmother and me, I take that as a huge compliment.  She was, and still is, sky-high up there on my most sacred of pedestals. 

Lil's folks were fresh off the boat from Germany, and if there's one country that appreciates a good bottle of vinegar, it's Deutschland.  My grandmother's house smelled of the stuff, but in a good way. Her place oozed clean.  I still don't understand how she could take a bottle of vinegar and make her sinks and toilet sparkle like diamonds, and then turn around and with the same bottle, cook the most FANTASTIC sauerbraten and red cabbage that I have ever tasted.  I have tried many a time to replicate that recipe. I even inherited the bowl that she used for serving up her sauerbraten, but my gravy just never comes out quite as good as hers.  No, let's be honest; it's not even close.  I can't imagine why, what with her recipe calling for a 'chunk of beef or venison', 'some peppercorns' and to make the gravy, you take 'not too much flour'.  To this day, she remains the most fantastic cook that I have known.     

I would find little pudding cups, filled to the brim with vinegar, hidden in nooks and crannies throughout her house.   She said that the vinegar kept the place from smelling like smoke from my grandpa's cigarettes.  Ha, did my grandmother think I was born yesterday?  She was a closet smoker.  I saw the pack once, inside of her purse.  My aunt later told me that she allowed herself one cigarette a day.

She threw a cup of vinegar in with the laundry (always done on Mondays because duh, Tuesday was ironing day).  She said that it helped everything come out cleaner and kept Pa's socks smelling fresh as a daisy rather than the cow poop that was out in the garden. Grandma was a stickler for schedules.  You could set your watch to her meal times: the main meal of the day was served as the noon whistle blew, and your butt had better be at the table at 5:00 for supper.  Don't be late. 

Grandma also used vinegar to promote good health.  She would dole out spoonfuls whenever I had hiccups. I think a spoonful of sugar would have tasted better, personally.  Nothing beat the feeling of one of her homemade tatted washcloths rubbing my back down with vinegar after I found myself with a bad sunburn from the beach. Plus, she kept a bottle on the shelf in her tub, next to the Prell shampoo and the Zest soap.  She used it as a hair rinse to make her hair shine.


Pa, her husband, was a farmer and thus my grandmother became a master at the art of canning.  She taught everything that she knew about food preservation to my aunt, and in turn, my aunt taught me.  Grandma's root cellar was full of pickled beets, bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, chili sauce, sweet dilly beans, pickled relish, pickled watermelon rind and other jars of things swimming in vinegar.  She had four huge canners, a stove in the kitchen and one in the basement for those years when the crops were especially generous.  Crocks of homemade sauerkraut were down there, too.  To this day, I carry on her tradition. I  do the canning of our garden bounty, and I always think of my grandmother whenever I hear the little "ping" when the lid on the jar tells me that it has sealed properly.

Oh, and in case you haven't guessed by now: Lil also washed her windows with vinegar.  Her recipe: "Just pour some vinegar in some water.  NO, I don't know how much.  Just some.  That's how you do it.  No streaks."  And that's just how I did it, Grandma, that's just how I did it.