It has been a couple of weeks now since Mother packed up and headed home. (Or somewhere around there. It takes me about a week to get my balance back,lol.)

Mom always has a "mission" that has to be accomplished when she comes to town. This time it was to buy and bring back some Cal-King sheets for my sister's bed since she can't seem to find them in Texas. Also to buy some Stagg Laredo Chili in cans since she can't seem to find this in Texas either. I find this ironic because isn't that a city there? After running around town,both missions were accomplished. Sheets? Check. Chili,check!

Oops! We forgot the eyeliners! A special kind my sister likes.

Off to the local Rite Aid to pick those up. My mother never needs an excuse to run over to Rite Aid as soon as she arrives. It's just down the block and according to her they have the absolute BEST milk,Berkeley Farms. She just HAS to get a half gallon on arrival.

After awhile I wonder if she really came to visit or if this was a disguised shopping trip.

"Can't you find ANYTHING in Texas? What the heck DO they sell over there?" I ask.

Seeing as my mom and sis are transplanted Californians I suppose they are still getting used to it even though it's been a few years. Sis moved there because of her job and mom soon followed. Even to this day it's hard for me to believe they live there. They seem to fit in,they say people are so much nicer there but the weather is pretty strange. It can be 80 degrees one day and 30 the next. THAT,for me,would take some getting used to :0

But,anyway,the question at hand was how to shove all this stuff in the suitcase?

"I'll just arrange a few things" my mother says.

3 cans of chili are heavier then you think. So are sheets. How much arranging can you do to fit all THAT in?

We came to the conclusion that I would just ship it to her after she left.

"That sounds good. Now....What's for dinner?" Mom says.

My mother will never come out and say what she wants to eat. I start throwing out suggestions. I said do you want a baked potato or mashed potato?

"Baked potato sounds good."

Okay,I say. I usually start them out in the microwave and then throw them in the oven to crisp up the skin.

"I always wrap them in foil and put them in the oven" says guess-who.

I do all the cooking when mom is here. Since I have a hundred and one other things I'm always in the middle of doing there are times when short-cuts in the kitchen are necessary. But these are the little "messages" mom always sends me. I tell her how I do something...she tells me how SHE does it. Since she's only here for a couple of weeks at a time HER way usually wins. 

So into the oven with the potatoes wrapped in foil.

Another one of HER ways is to tie up any loose packages in the kitchen with Bread Ties.

"That'll get STALE if you don't close it up!" Mother's famous words. 

I don't know about you but I never "tie up" the bag in the cereal box.

A box of cereal is gone around here before it ever has the CHANCE to get STALE. Plus it takes so much time to undo that little twisty tie when you're starving for breakfast!

Whenever we go to the grocery store,my mother turns into the "Tie Thief". In the produce section it doesn't take long for her little fingers to dig into the bag tie cup and swipe a whole crapload of those things.

She'll hold them up to show me and PLUNK....into her purse they go.

My mother is a "thief" of sorts anyway. I believe this comes from her childhood. She didn't exactly grow up in poverty but she wasn't well off either. My grandpa was a cook in the navy and as a child they moved all over the country.

I always remember my grandmother telling me one day they didn't have anything to eat while they were on the road travelling somewhere and all of a sudden a box fell off of a truck driving in front of them. They stopped and got out to see what it was and it was a box full of shrimp! Grandma said it was "manna from heaven" and they ate it all up.

So when I used to find things in my mother's purse that really shouldn't be there, I chock it up to that. Things like handfuls of paper napkins,ketchup and mustard packets....the salt,pepper and sugar packets too...yeesh. Toilet seat covers,straws...mounds of them!   

"They're free anyway!" she says. 

She can also stash away cookies from a buffet faster then anyone I've ever seen. She'll come back with them on her plate and before I know it....now you see them,now you don't.

The problem I have with this is that she doesn't NEED to do it. She HAS napkins at home along with sugar and salt and etc,etc. It runs deeper. Didn't really understand it when I was younger but now I do. It's that "filling-up" problem that a lot of people have. Whether it's love or attention or food...some of us just can't get filled up or feel we "have enough".

Meanwhile...during lunch today,I was trying to do a little "filling up" of my own. I decided on some spinach to go along with a piece of chicken so I reached into the freezer to find the bag.

Wouldn't you know! Mother's still here in spirit. Another attack of the bread ties! Even my frozen spinach wasn't safe.

As I was twisting it off I just had to shake my head.

No matter where we are....we are always "tied" to our mothers.

And the best part is..... it never gets stale!