If I was lucky, her supply of schmaltz had been used up frying onions, and my poultice was Vicks Vaporub. Vicks had a piney scent of menthol that came off after a couple of days of steady bathing before and after meals. Your choice, bubbele. And gimme a bowl to go for my little brother. This symbiotic relationship between Bubbes and the chicken species I understood even then.
Grandmothers cull the herds.
If chickens were left alone, they'd overpopulate their natural range, thereby reducing drumsticks to the size of match sticks. Unlike the bubbes of today who read Cosmopolitan and have not time for chickens, my grandmother never took me to a baseball game or fast food restaurant. Ah, how the years work their transformations. Now, I have neither a grandmother or bubbe, but I'm married to one. Of course, the only thing worse than being the hubby of a Bubbe is the title of Zayde.