I had volunteered to make the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. It is a simple task well within the range of my culinary talents. You boil the cranberries in water and sugar and orange juice (my recipe) and then after they are complete mush you run them through the Foley Food Mill (FFM) to squeeze out the juice and pulp from the skins. Simple. It takes less than an hour start to finish.
However, minutes after I committed and I remembered exactly where my Foley Food Mill was located, my bottom lip started to quiver. Hurricane Florence, or Flo as I call her, invaded the cabinet that housed that particular tool and soaked it with swamp cooties. My Foley Food Mill had to be trashed.
Granted, the FFM was used just a couple of times annually, but its noted demise was another reminder that my world has been rearranged. It is dopey things like this that make you tear up for 30 seconds and then vow to carry on and get over it.
Understand that I feel extremely fortunate and grateful, that I believe I have only been inconvenienced by having my home flooded, and that I know that stuff is just stuff and replaceable.
But if you are dealing with any of us who have lost our stuff, be aware that our stuff held history and memories. That homely Foley Food Mill represented a messy kitchen and giggles with my sons as we made part of a family feast. Sure, I can get another FFM, and I still have the memory, but when I held on to my now departed Foley Food Mill it was like time travel.
The new FFM, if I get one, will move me to the future.