Mother's Day

[naomikritzer]

When I was a kid, I always wanted to bring my mother breakfast in bed like the kids in the comic strips, but was rather forcefully discouraged from doing so by my mom, who said she didn't like eating in bed, as it got crumbs on the sheets. I found this thoroughly disappointing as a kid (Blondie liked breakfast in bed! Helga liked breakfast in bed! The Mommy in the Family Circus liked breakfast in bed! How come my own mother was such a stick-in-the-mud? because making breakfast on a tray and carrying it up sounded fun!) but completely understand this sentiment as an adult. First of all, when I get up in the morning, the first thing I want to do is pee. Then, before eating, I want to brush my teeth. After all that, why would I get back into bed when if I go downstairs I can sit at a proper table where I won't have to worry about spilling milk on my sheets? There's also the crumb issue. Also the "why are you waking me up for this? if the goal is a treat for me, let me sleep late" issue.

Fortunately, Ed is aware of this. So I think, are the girls, because today Molly proposed that they make me a special lunch, instead. I suggested a grilled cheese sandwich: we had the ingredients around, I like them, and Ed's turn out better than the ones I make myself. Then I retired upstairs to work.

When they were done, Molly summoned me downstairs to Chez Fille Très Belle. They'd cleared all the junk off the dining room table, and set one place with a fancy china plate and the silver. Resting on the plate was a menu, hand-written by Molly, in French (apparently Ed typed it out for her to copy -- Molly is very talented, but she does not speak French).

Premier Cours
Soupe à crevette
et à champignons

Deuxienne Cours
Sandwich grillé
à fromage

Trasième cours
Biscuit de morceau
de chocolat

They then served me a three-course meal. The "soup with shrimp and mushrooms" was actually leftovers, Thai hot & sour soup, which Ed had made on Friday night. This was followed by an excellent grilled cheese sandwich, with a chocolate chip cookie for dessert.

Ed was heavily involved with the stage management, but the girls performed admirably. Except for when they each leaned up on either side of me to squabble over whether to call our house "Chez Fille Très Belle" or not. It's going to be a year or two before we can hire them out to local restaurants.

We usually have dim sum with my family for Mother's Day brunch, but we didn't this year because Abi was busy in the middle of the day; we had dim sum for dinner, instead, at Jun Bo in Richfield. It's in a former Chi Chi's and is one of the least promising looking Chinese restaurants around (it's a vivid mustard yellow, grubby around the edges, with the bad Chinese restaurant font saying "Take Out" on the side -- if you drive on 494 you've probably seen it. It's at the Nicollet exit, by the Menard's). It serves excellent dim sum, however, and it serves it all day long. We finished up with a stop at Liberty Frozen Custard (also on Nicollet, by Minnehaha Parkway). Liberty has vintage pinball machines and a little vintage car ride that jiggles up and down when you stick a quarter in. On the wall is a vintage Pez vending machine that only takes Austrian schillings. You can swap 50 cents for the necessary schillings at the counter.

Comments

[notthatedburke.livejournal.com]

Oh, great. Expose my mangled French for all to see. (Let's see "cours" was probably the wrong translation for course. And there's a complete lack of articles. It's been too many decades.) But at least the misspellings are all yours (and Molly's handwriting).

[notthatedburke.livejournal.com]

Also, it will probably turn out that a chocolate chip cookie is something like "le tole-house."

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

According to the bag of chocolate chips in my kitchen cupboard, it's le biscuit à pépites de chocolat. ;^)

My kid picked out my Mother's Day flowers at the florist around the corner -- six pink roses -- and wrote her name on the little card all by herself. And made me something at daycare that is shaped like a heart and could perhaps be a fridge magnet if you, you know, glued a magnet to the back of it. Which she woke me up at 6:15 a.m. yesterday to give me. But I didn't have to eat breakfast in bed, which my brother and I always used to make my mom do on Mother's Day when we were kids, and which now does indeed seem like the worst idea in the entire world.

I like the "special lunch" idea. I may drop some hints in that direction next year...

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

what a terrific mother's day!