The Metronome

On March 19, I wrote a post called a Hobby Turns To A Thriving Business. It was a post about my mother’s baking business. There was another post also that was called Friday Afternoons. It lamented the fact that I had agreed to do the dirty dishes for Mother unaware how much work it entailed.
Well, there is another story that involves Mother’s baking. Before my mother got a Kitchen Aide Heavy Duty Mixer, she kneaded all of her bread dough by hand. In the winter this particular year, my dad and mom moved the big old heavy upright piano into the dining room so it would be warm for me to practice my music. I am sure it had nothing to do with me cutting her lace curtains to shreds when I was young and rotten to the core.
The “upright” stood proudly by the kitchen door. The space heater was behind me and the kitchen stoves that mom used for cooking and baking were in front of me in the kitchen.
Mother kneaded her bread about four or five feet from me on the kitchen counter, which was a metal.
As I practiced, my mother would count. Yes, one and two and three and four, and one and two and three and four. Also she counted half steps, and one and two and three and four etc. She could count waltz beats, fox trots anything you could think of. I Hated It!!! I begged my mother for a metronome. She said that she was much better than a metronome and that she was cheaper, as well. She also said that she didn’t need to be reset. She had many many excuses for why her little girl did not need a metronome. Of course, she was right, she most generally was right. I can almost remember my little girl asking for a metronome, but unlike my mother, I may be mistaken.