mother nearly poisons family…AGAIN.

Since waking this morning, I’ve performed 3 puppet shows, watched another two, filled a dustpan, participated in a “dance party”, washed a sink full of crusty dishes, read 3 books out loud to a very small and curious audience, made cheese omelets, flipped and served butterfly molasses pancakes, read the NY times headlines, and rolled out play dough pizzas. It is now 7:50 am, Standard Parent Time.

The middle of the day progressed into a typical swirl of disparate activities… more puppet shows, a few smoothies, a cascade of books read, phone calls to undecided voters, futile cleaning, intermittent interviewing of subjects for an upcoming story, a slow run in the fragrant rain, family band practice, laundry management, and dining on wooden food at my daughters’ “cafe”. I love Saturdays. Today is that day…we are afforded the luxury of two parents on deck instead of the usual tag-team of one.

Our friend Chris arrived today from Seattle to embark on mild renovations to the new house that just became ours last week. We loaded up and whisked him immediately over to tour our lovely triple-wide on 18 acres. The ample garden at the new house is laden with bursting tomatoes, dangling eggplants, and zesty, ready peppers. The girls and I exuberantly harvested and sampled our way down the aisles of beds until we reached the corn patch where Juicy dark berries peppered a familiar looking dark and leafy plant. Into my giddy mouth a luscious berry went. It was so sweet and good. Pie dreams filled my head as I picked another. “I wonder what these yummy berries are? Blase, do you know?” I asked in his general direction. “Um, if you don’t know, I wouldn’t eat it,” was his obvious answer. We both looked at the kids and non-verbally agreed that I should not feed them the juicy berries cupped in my hand.

I emerged from that moment shocked by my own capacity to experience a complete separation from reason and common sense and realized that this separation had led me to an embarrassingly odd and stupidly dangerous act.

Whoops… no pies tonight. Some of you might remember that this was not the first time I’ve nearly poisoned my own little family as a result of my recklessly blinding appetite for something delicious….

The seductive berry was Deadly Nightshade, a relative of the tomato, potato, and wolfberry. It also bears the deceptively romantic sounding alias of “Belladonna.” I learned that the Belladonna was believed to be one of the ingredients used by witches to make their flying ointment so they could fly around and hang out with other witches.

Quick to research my prognosis, Chris found an online recommendation that I drink a cup of warm vinegar and mustard. I rustled one up and started gulping it down. The challenging flavor forced me to pause momentarily and ask, “what will this do for me?” “It will make you vomit,” he replied. I defiantly spit it out and explained that vomiting was not one of my goals

“What other ideas do you have?” I pressed. Another website recommended coffee to counteract the narcotic effects of the non-lethal dose I had naively ingested. Jumping at straws, I filled the teakettle and pulled a cold bag of ground coffee from the freezer. 4 cups of espresso later, my nightshade-induced pseudo-trippy mental viscosity morphed into caffeinated weirdness.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your opinion of “housework”, my poisoned afternoon did not impair my ability to make messy glittered collages, assemble lasagnas, wash more sinkfuls of dishes, have another dance party, and bathe my earth-covered children.