Today I’m recovering.
I’m recovering from Mother’s Day.
Yes, mom and me celebrated it a day early and I’m quite a few dollars short.
Our plans depended on the weather:
Warm and sunny: A walk and then dinner.
Overcast and cold: Shopping and dinner.
It all started out innocently enough.
I had no idea; no real idea that my day would involve ingesting charbroiled beef, deep-fried foods and Granny Panties.
Well…I had a few ideas about the panties … it was the granny part that snuck up on me.
Saturday dawns bright, breezy and a bit cool. Walk or shop?
I go to mom’s and she’s up for a walk and since we’re both creatures of habit, I head towards the botanical gardens. Unfortunately, many other people had the same idea and I didn’t see any nearby parking spots.
I drive further down the road looking to loop back. Mom is scanning for parking. As I head down the road I recall another park.
I say, “Let’s take a little road trip.”
Mom says, “Too bad about the parking…”
“No worries. Let’s just go with the flow.”
The other park isn’t far - it’s a bit touristy but we hadn’t visited it in a while. Plenty of parking.
The Park Service had been busy; the trees had been thinned out and a lot of native plants added.
Mom and I try to identify the plants and we admire all the pollen-laden bumblebees. Mom and I like bees.
There was a bit of light hiking involved.
We’re taking our time but we manage to cover some ground and as we walked up some steps cut into the hill, she drapes an arm over one of the cabled posts and puffs, “Oh. Phew! The batteries have run out of my legs. They need to recharge.”
We stop. I am above her on the path and she looks up at me.
“I’m an old lady you know.”
After a few moments we began walking again and she says, “Rats! I gotta pee.”
A touristy restaurant with a great view wasn’t far so we headed that way.
As mom slowly walks up the paved path she asks, “Are we gonna eat there? I’m hungry…”
“Mom, how can you be hungry? You’ve been eating since we left your house.”
She shakes a small package at me. “These are dried apricots! Little things! Snacks! These aren’t food.”
“Yeah, but you’ve been eating them practically the entire time.”
“Don’t ask me why! These don’t fill me up. I’m hungry.”
We reached the restaurant and do our thing. The place offered 2 choices: bistro and fine dining. The bistro was closed. We had arrived in that between-meals hour of around 3:30pm.
I check out the fine dining menu. The prices were a bit fine as well. It wasn’t so much the money but I wasn’t in the mood for fine dining. I think about what’s available and what mom likes and as we walked outside the restaurant I ask her, “Hey…what do you think about a burger?”
Mom lit up. “Oh…I’d been wanting a burger…it’s been a while…”
She peers around the area. Swiveling at the waist, arms at her sides, scanning.
“There are burgers around here?”
“Yeah. Right up the hill there!” I point to the plain brown building with dark windows. It’s been there as long as I can remember.
She leans forward and squints. Mom is very nearsighted. I tell her, “I’ve been meaning to eat there for AGES. I heard they had great breakfasts and were a classic diner.”
Mom says, “Well, it’s close and I’m hungry. OK.”
The restaurant is a classic - brown Formica tables, vinyl booths, cash only. The place wasn’t crowded and we get a table right away. Mom and I both order a burger and fries, hers medium rare, mine medium. I hadn’t had a burger in a long time and I hadn’t touched more than 3 fries at any one time in I can’t recall how long.
Mom asked for A-1 for her burger. I stuck with your basic mustard and ketchup.
“Umm. Good burger.” she says as she forks a piece of hamburger into her mouth, lightly dipped in A-1 sauce. This is followed with a bite from a mayo’ed top bun. Mom eats her burgers in parts.
I am loving my burger - perfectly charbroiled, ketchup and mustard oozing out. A great basic burger.
“Yep.” I reply.
“This is nice,” she says.
“Yeah.”
I eat all my fries and manage to resist eating the one’s my mom left untouched. She likes her fries kinda burnt and there were quite a few pale fries on her plate.
It wasn’t even 5pm by the time we finished eating. As we get up I ask, “Do you want to go home or are you up for shopping?”
Mom stops moving. Looks up, thinking. “Hmm. My legs are recharged. I could go shopping.”
So ends the Burger portion of this story.
Coming up next …Granny Panties!
Happy Mother’s Day to Jill, Sue, Meleah and Christine!!
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