I just got back from a wonderful week visiting my Mom. It’s been a long time since we spent that much time together and I am very, very grateful for this opportunity. Of course I also spent the week “unplugged” - no smart phone, no computer, no internet. It was just me and Mom, and we came up with our own amusements. She is 87 now so we scheduled one or two outings each day and spent the rest of the time at home. Randy had the GPS with him in St. Louis but that didn’t matter because we weren’t going anywhere we hadn’t been before. We started at The Busy Corner in Goodfield, where they are justifiably famous for their pie. We shopped at Goodwill in Washington and Ecetera in Eureka, plus several yard sales and the St. Patrick’s rummage sale. We did go to Walmart but just once, which is a record low for us. Plus we got to visit family - Theresa, Kathy and Ruth.
At home we worked a little in her garden where I discovered a thriving colony of Japanese Beetles, so I set up a Japanese Beetle trap. The bait for Japanese Beetle traps is called a “sex lure”, so I informed my sister that in the future she will need to take care of the sex trap in Mom's backyard.
Every afternoon Mom takes a 2-3 hour break, sometimes napping but usually just resting. During this time I read everything on Mom’s bookshelves, most of which were published before I was born. So I read The Old Grey Homestead (published in 1919), Children of the Covered Wagon (1934), The Long Winter (1940), Mrs. Mike (1945) and The Egg and I (1945) - and they are all pretty good books.
Some evenings we played Rummy, using Mom’s rules; you don’t count points so the first one who goes out, wins. Other nights we watched movies. Mom’s hearing aids don’t quite do the job for TV, so she only watches shows or DVDs with closed captions. This week we watched the complete Thin Man series (made from 1934 through 1947), Random Harvest (1942) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954).
Mom loves to cook; my tastes have changed in the 38 years I've been married to Randy so we looked for some common culinary ground. This included biscuits and gravy, omelets, mac and cheese, baloney, chicken fingers and pineapple cream pie. Plus we went to her favorite restaurant - DQ.
Mom is a very modest lady. I discovered that when a magazine includes ads to "enhance your sex life”, Mom tears out the page so her granddaughter won’t see it. I mentioned that her granddaughter is 30 years old and completing her nursing degree, but that doesn’t really matter; Mom does not want her to see “that sort of thing” in her home. And yet she has accepted, with surprising grace, the fact that her youngest daughter will wander around the house in her underwear, moaning about how hot it is. That occurred either because said daughter has hot flashes or perhaps because Mom sets her air conditioning at 80 ยบ.
We had such a wonderful time together and it was hard to leave. Mom’s hearing aids give a little feedback so when I hug her, it is a sweet memory that includes a little high-pitched squeal that is uniquely hers.
My beautiful Mom, circa 1944:
Three years ago: Watching an Alaskan bear catch salmon
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