Perspective: elephant tears and shaking things up.
As I was easing the car out of the parking slot at the grocery store, I paused because a mom and her two small kids around her basket had stopped. I wondered if I had not seen them. Then I realized one of them was in tears. Not tantrum tears but the sad or hurt type of tears. My husband and I used to call them elephant tears. So big, so watery, so genuine. I watched as she wrapped her arms around the older of the two and just held her. I finished backing out and headed home. About an hour later I was using what I'd bought at the store to make a new beef chili recipe that had unsweetened chocolate and cinnamon in it. I'd heard about it on the radio that morning. It's 'Cincinnati Chile'. I was browning the beef and dicing lots of onions. The phone rang. I would have never believed I'd be playing the part of the mom in the parking lot. But I was in a kitchen, not a parking lot, and the frantic, melt-down voice was not close enough to wrap in my ar