"A Little Nothing"

That’s what my paternal grandmother would always call little gifts she would give my sister and I, often on the other’s birthday. She had a knack for downplaying any of her own acts, perhaps she knew if she didn’t they would overwhelm people with the consistency of kindness and thoughtfulness, b/c her ‘little nothings’ were in fact always quite something~ an ode to elegance, a study in grace, and the equivalent of a quiet smile and wink in a world of garishness and self-obsession. She did not live to see the internet explosion and I sometimes wonder what someone like her would think of the fb pages filled with “look at me”, and the comments that fill the space under just about any article on any website. Here’s a tip, if you want to like humanity, never read comments on newspaper sites~ it is so depressing. But honestly I think she’d laugh at it all because underneathe her composer she had a ready sense of humor that never missed a beat, and with four kids of her own, that certainly served her well. I find myself saying “a little nothing” these days and it is my own private smile that I enjoy, though people are probably left wondering if they misheard me. Today the phrase rang through my head when I woke up early and in the rare quiet decided to share just that; nothing much at all. Lately I’ve been trying to eat up what is in the freezer and refrigerator b/c we are headed out of town and the rotten machine makes a horrible sick-mechanical-cow kind of noise which means “defrost me” so my husband plans to do that while we are gone. In that effort I have found two packs of corn tortillas and over half a loaf of udi’s bread in the freezer which have made up quite a few of my meals lately. I either toast the bread or warm up the tortillas on the stovetop (after defrosting) and on both I add hummus, spinach, sliced cucumbers, green onions and garlic sauce. It is ridiculously simple but delicious, especially on the tortillas. So that’s my little nothing of the day, and I hope it means something to someone.