Grandma was one of 16 children…

In her pantry squeezed between cinder block walls of adjoining apartments were magic ingredients hidden inside ordinary cans. Everything tasted like a treat covered in tomato sauce.

I would sit in a pale green wooden chair at her kitchen table facing the living room and its view of factory smoke stacks beyond a baseball field. From his easy chair grandpa's pipe smoke swirled in its own shifting plume. Mysterious and pungent.

Sometimes I got to sit on the other side of the table and would look at the kitchen's front windows. Grandma had taken regular bath towels, red, embossed with roses, and sewn them into curtains.

In New York we visited grandma's house where she grew up. I stepped inside and saw a king-size bed covered with a white summer comforter of thin cotton. It was wall-to-wall hand-made raviolis on that bed, no room for pillows.

A bed covered in drying, cheese-filled pasta made me wonder. In the foyer as I poked through a glass candy dish and peeked at strange adults in the den, I asked, where did everyone sleep as kids?

Four to a bed, she said.

---------------------

Lily has her head on my lap and grumbles as her eyes shift to the doggy door.

We should get her fixed, Jerry said.

Well, I always want to have her with me though.

Puppies? You want her to have puppies? What if she has like, eight?

--------------------

Maybe that's why I am thinking of my grandmother. If her mother could happily raise 16 children, what's a few puppies?

But seriously, I have enough trouble remembering to stop for gas.