Holy Mother of Chocolate

We did a massive deep cleaning a week ago because J's mom is visiting for an extended weekend. And I truly mean that our house has never been so clean. Not that you can tell, because we have one of those houses that looks the same after you clean it as it did before and can amass a thick layer of dust on the table top the day after you dusted the entire house and cleaned the vents. And the day she got here, I was already spot-vaccing little dust bunnies that were floating around the kitchen floor. Spot-vaccing, mind you, the DAY AFTER I HAD DUSTED AND CLEANED THAT FLOOR LIKE IT HAD NEVER BEEN CLEANED BEFORE. There is an injustice there, I tell you.

Anyway, the reason for such cleansing - albeit relatively pointless - was not just for the sake of being gracious hosts...trust me, we're not that good at being hosts. The main reason was simply that the MIL is acutely allergic to dust. And pet dander (did I mention that we have 2 cats and a dog and IT'S SHEDDING SEASON???). And perfumes or scents of most any kind. And shellfish. And car fumes (for which she has a handicapped parking permit that we get to use while she's here - SU-WEET). Oh, and she's hypoglycemic, has a malfunctioning thyroid, battles motion sickness and mercury poisoning and has currently been placed on an "all protein, and non-starchy veggies" diet by her doctor. And has to take upward of 30 pills daily, along with liquid supplements that have an aroma resembling turpentine.

The point of the above paragraph was not just to make you wonder why the good woman is still alive (and make you think twice about complaining about those crooked teeth or contacts). The real point was to point out the irony that this weekend, it was my mom, rather than my MIL, who had some sort of a blood sugar episode at dinner on Mother's Day. Kind of like watching a marionette when somebody drops the strings.

Anyway, our non-professional diagnosis is either hypoglycemia or diabetes, and if those are indeed the choices, I think we're all hoping for the hypoglycemia for one reason: CHOCOLATE.

A little history here. My mom, for most of my growing up years, had an allergy to chocolate that resulted in a life-threatening migrane upon consumption. If you've never heard of a life-threatening migrane, here's how it works: Mom succumbs to the temptation and eats a total of 2 M&Ms. Subsequently, she gets laid up in bed with a migrane and any child caught playing too loudly has his or her life severely threatened. Further infractions on the 2-decibel noise limit will result in penalty of death, several times over.

Sometime between my last years of highschool and going away to college, Mom was suddenly cured of her disabling allergy. Thus, chocolate was reinstated in it's previous most-favored-food status and continues today to be found in little stashes around the house.

Enter pre-dinner blood-sugar-attack yesterday. I have a feeling that if diabetes is in the diagnosis pot, the doctor will undoubtedly mention something to the effect of sugar limitations...i.e. CHOCOLATE LIMITATIONS.

And suddenly we will be dealing not only with the original illness, but a gross onslaught of severe depression because seriously, what woman could have chocolate taken away from her TWICE in one lifetime???

PS: Reading through the house entry I just linked to made me smirk. I'd forgotten about the statement on the timing of having children. Ha. Life is a big fat joker sometimes.