My parents and I made a close-knit family: since I was an only child, it was just the three of us most of the time throughout my childhood. There were school days, lazy weekends, and long car voyages to California, with me reading the AAA map in the back seat of the station wagon.
When my dad was away on his occasional business trips, sometimes it would be just Mom and me. We took that time to go out to eat the kinds of food my dad doesn't like (spicy, garlicky, tomatoey), or to go shopping, and from time to time we'd take a PCL Coach Lines bus from downtown Vancouver all the way to Victoria on the ferry, just for a day trip. It's been decades since we last went, just the two of us, but I'll never forget doing that.
Today is my mom's 41st Mother's Day. Icelandic volcano permitting, her granddaughters and I will be driving her and my dad to the airport for their latest two-week trip to Germany. That, I think, is a pretty nice Mother's Day, especially on a glorious sunny Vancouver spring afternoon.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom.
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Funny, my dad won't eat tomatoey food either. I kind of understand no spicy, no garlicky -- if you're used to bland food, they're probably not very fun. But tomatoes? I guess I'm lucky to grow up in a post-WWII world, but geesh, tomatoes seem pretty vanilla.
Mind you, vanilla isn't grown around here, either.
Oh, it goes way beyond that. Among foods he doesn't like are tomatoes, garlic (usually, though he's come to enjoy Caesar salad), spicy stuff, chicken, mushrooms, and most fish (at least with bones) and shellfish. But we're all used to that by now!