The Dinner.

Yesterday my mother and I went to our fave. Italian place for our early Mother's Day dinner, before the massive crowd. We went at a good time,too; there was hardly anyone there. We got enough to bring back home for left-overs too so the 27 YR old had some pizza,too, and my mother and I have enough left over today for both our lunches and dinner today,too. We got gourmet pizza(mushrooms, feta cheese, dried tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, mushrooms, chicken,etc.), Penne Pollo al Forno, breaded deep-fried mozerrella sticks,garlic bread, and shared a chocolate mousse cake( well, not the entire cake, but a slice) and it was 98$(plus 20$ tip) which is why we only go a couple of times a year on special occasions such as Mother's Day and birthdays. My eyesight is getting worse as well I noticed as I could hardly even read the menu; it was all fuzzy but I always order the same thing(my fave pasta dish) anyway so it doesn't really matter, and it was interesting to notice too that all the staff were wearing masks whereas at the store the other day none of them were, and it was fun as well watching the customers coming in to see who was wearing them or not, sort of like a socialology experiment and  it never failed; if they came in as pairs or in groups it was always uniform; they either all had masks on or were all unmasked; you never saw couples or groups mixed with masked and unmasked; no one wants to be different than the people they're with or stand out as an individual thinker . In the end I would say of all the customers it would probably end up being half wore them and half didn't, just like in the store.

I had the idea at the dinner to discuss old times, happy times, how it used to be when I was younger and we were closer,  to remember the good and not dwell on the bad,before I had kids and she morphed into this over-bearing controlling grandmother that over-stepped boundaries and took over, undermining me and ruining our once-close relationship but I found that we lost what we once had and there was no going back and that we had nothing to talk about; that you can never go back and she didn't really remember much anyway so what we once had is now just long gone and it's just sad, and there was just sort of an awkward silence now even though I thought trying to "relive" the Old Days and good times would be nice for our Mother's Day dinner it just wasn't there anymore and as hard as I tried I just couldn't "reignite" it.

 I hope once I'm long gone and dead that my kids have some good memories,too,(not just bad) and they'll remember  funny things I said or did that made them laugh even though we can never go back to where we were .and that my life wasn't a total waste, that I made a difference for someone and did some good, and that I was able to make someone smile, make someone laugh, cheered someone up, encouraged someone, inspired someone, etc. and that I know what the New Chapter in my life brings and what purpose and meaning I'll have in my life now; before it was having kids and being a mother for some 30-plus years and that's how I defined myself but now I'm at a new stage. My life has always been "divided" into chapters; as a kid, then a teen, and a student, and then as a mother, but now what? Where do I go from here? Who am I now  and where do I fit in and where do I go and what do I do next? How do I define myself now?

The leaves are almost all out on the trees now,too, but the bad thing about spring is that the ants(in the house) and the dandilions(they look so ghetto) are also out as well, and the house at the corner next to us(with the road separating us) is up for sale now too and I wonder what the new neighbours eventually will be like?Hopefully not terrorists or drug dealers or anything like that. I hope not troublemakers like those other ones at the old rooming house down the street before. I mind my own business and keep to myself and I don't care what they do as long as they don't bother me,and that the police aren't always over there and that they don't cause trouble or destroy things or act threatening in any way, and the funniest thing I ever did stoned was the other day I was boiling pasta in a pot on the stove and it all bubbled and boiled over even more than usual and then I realized instead of putting a capful of oil in the water I'd put in a capful of liquid dish soap! HA! It might have just also been because of my usual addled brain though and not even because of the weed, who knows.

Tune in, turn on,and drop out.-Dr.Timothy Leary.