Mother's Day

Sunday was Mother's Day (shouldn't it be Mothers' Day?!) and I had a lot on my plate.  I had been working on a powerpoint presentation for a few days, but it had to be finished and uploaded to google docs by Sunday evening.  (The presentation was for a video conference with a first grade in Chicago.  I'll get to that in another entry.)  When I got up on Sunday, I got right to work.  I had more to do than I had wanted at this point.  I had imagined myself finished by Friday with no work for the weekend.  It looked more like the beginning on Friday!

Around 12, Alma came into my room to tell me she was going to buy some flowers for her mom, but would be back around 1 to go to her grandmother's house.  Check.  I got ready and at 1 we were out the door.  Before we left, though, I called Lori's house and got to talk to Mom, Lori, Grandmother, and Bridget on her first Mother's Day.  It was great.  It was again, a lot like Thanksgiving.  I wasn't sad to not be there, but then once I talked to everyone, it was weird realizing that yet again, life goes on without me.  How dare the world not stop for me!

We got to granny's house and she told me it was nice to meet me.  Mamá Alma told her she'd already met me and she said, "Oh!  Is this the gringa?  You look so much younger today!"

Okay.

Several of the brothers and sisters were there and we were planning on going to get Chinese with all the sisters.  Gaby was there.  She's my favorite aunt.  She's also, coincidentally, the one I know the best.  She's the youngest of all the children.  

We sat at the house for about an hour and enjoyed everyone's company before heading to the restaurant.  I sat between Gaby and Alma and across from Mamá Alma.

We waited for another sister and her three girls to get there and then we ordered four or five dishes.  There were ten of us and what we ordered was not really enough.  Mamá Alma ended up ordering a flan and it was the best I had ever tasted!

At one point, the conversation turned to me and why I was here.  What it was like; what I was like.  Mamá took that time to say what a great girl I was and how she could tell I was very independent and that that was a good thing.  And that she liked that I talked to my mom a lot and had met my mom and thought she was wonderful.  It was all really sweet.  Then another sister went around the table asking all the sisters why they loved their mom.  That was really touching.

Mamá Alma tried to pay, but Alma and I finally convinced her that it was her day and we had it covered!

The picture below does not even come close to the effect I was going for.  However, a small explanation:

This was the part where you drive through to get to the parking for the restaurant.  There were six spaces, of which 4 were already taken.  We took our spot in the shade and went into the restaurant.  After lunch, we came out to see cars parked (double- triple-) all the way to the drive through part.  I mean, it made me think of the stories I've heard from old-school Glasgow where people would double park and leave their keys in the ignition so you could move your car if you'd been blocked.

Well, someone went in to alert the staff.  For Mother's Day, they had one waiter and one chef.  Nice.  The chef got double worked and became a valet.  He came out with one set of keys and moved the first car.  Then he went in for the next set of keys.  Fifteen minutes later, he was moving the last car blocking our way.  He waited in the car in the street until we got out and then proceeded to put all the cars back.  I guess the customers would rather wait on their food than move their own cars!