The sky is cloudy, and the day feels damp. It is a blah day, a day for staying home cozy and warm. I did go out to pick up my Mother’s Day dinner, the only item on my to-do list. I am treating myself. Dinner tomorrow will be steamers, fish chowder, salad, cole slaw and the crowning glory, lobster. Did I mention cheese cake is dessert?
For Mother’s Day, I always gave my mother a gift certificate to the nursery. She had window boxes below the front windows and filled them every year. I remember the red flowers and the trailing ivy. My mother also had a small garden next to the house, below the kitchen windows. A statue of St. Francis held seeds for the small birds. We used to kid my mother because her Bird feeders attracted pigeons and crows, city birds we told her. Her squirrels were tight rope walkers. They walked across the clothesline to get to the bird feeders hanging off the line. My mother threw out food for the crows. Her backyard was food central for crows, squirrels and pigeons. She got really excited when a different bird flew into the yard. She loved watching my birds with not a pigeon or a crow among them.
When I am traveling, my favorite part of the day is the morning. I love watching places wake up. Mornings Smell different. Here this time of year mornings smell green. In Ghana mornings smell of charcoal smoke. In Europe I liked to walk before breakfast. I could smell the exhausts of all the trucks lined up on the street for delivery to the stores before they open. White exhaust smoke was in the air. If I happened on a bakery, I’d buy a croissant and munch as I walked. Back at the hotel it was breakfast time, coffee time.
My father hated European breakfasts except for Ireland and England. My mother loved them. She was a seagull. She always ate odd things together. She loved cucumber sandwiches and cold hot dogs. At our hotels, the different cold cuts and breads put out for breakfast were perfect for her and me. My father said it was lunch. He wanted eggs. He didn’t get them except for hard-boiled. That always disappointed him.
