I saw an ad for a new pizza place today and my immediate, fleeting thought was that we would go try it out. Only we can’t.
Most Saturdays for the past few years involved going out to lunch somewhere with my mom. When we first started the routine of course we didn’t know it would be our routine. It was sporadic st first. She wasn’t one for anything fancy to eat. Often it was a cafe she’d worked at eons ago or something simple like Red Robin. She wasn’t adventurous in eating and of course no food was as good as her own.
She’d get on kicks and we’d repeat the same place or same meal for weeks in a row before we moved on to the next great thing. For awhile it was artichoke dip. Always prawns or shrimp. Sometimes the roast beef open face plate. Then pizza. Then Thai. Then you never knew. She’d love it or despise it. She told us about a commercial for coconut lobster at a certain restaurant and we took her. They denied such a thing existed on their menu and she insisted — she saw the commercial a thousand times and coconut lobster was her destiny. We were at a loss and the waitress was so rude it added to the dismay of no coconut lobster! Much later we found it was at a different restaurant that we don’t have here. So funny!
When she was right there was no arguing the point!
A few months ago we took her out to a nice restaurant and she was so mad. She wanted to go to the other one down the street. She complained the whole time. She was rude. She was disgruntled. Halibut with crab Hollandaise. Too fancy. Not enough crab. Oh my gosh! I said it’s the last time we all go out together. It was.
When we were little we were quite poor. Going out to eat was unusual for us. The very few times we did were so exciting. There was a place called the Princess. My parents had gotten their disabled veterans benefits instated and suddenly a splurge.. we ate at the Princess. I was very young so not sure what we had but it was so exciting it didn’t matter.
Once we had to travel to a wedding. We got to have breakfast at a restaurant- hot chocolate! Sticks in my mind as a novelty at the time.
As we got older of course ordering pizza became a thing. Going to McDonald’s after church became a routine. Or driving to Bellingham to Dickinson’s family buffet was our most favorite adventure in eating out.
And now it’s a common everyday thing. We travel around the world eating all kinds of things my mom would hate and going out to dinner or lunch is an everyday occurrence. And now she is gone. Two months. And the two months before that we couldn’t go out but I brought her whatever she wanted. Fish and Chips from Bobs. Ribs. Pizza. Corn Dogs from Hal’s. Egg Rolls from Asian1. And finally Fresh rolls from Little Thailand. And she died. And I miss her.
©Belindabotzong2018
