Diaspora in Reverse: Doing Laundry at Mom's

Washing machine still isn't hooked up (because, until this weekend, it was basically inaccessible), so I have been going to Mom's to do laundry.  Kind of makes me feel like I'm in college again, only at least at my current age I have the decency to be both apologetic and grateful.  And, as a gesture of that gratitude, when she asked me to locate another bottle of the sparkling pink moscato that I bought for my grandmother for Mother's Day, I purchased said bottle and resolved to give it to her gratis.  With bottle in hand, I headed over to her house on Sunday afternoon to retrieve one load of laundry and drop off another.  Called en route, and the convo went something like this:

Hey, I'm heading over to get the laundry.

Are you stopping anywhere on the way? 

Like, where?  You're three miles down the road.  There's not a whole lot of options.

Well, I was just wondering if you were stopping at the store and could get me a can of whole berry cranberry sauce.

I do NEED to go to Super Target.  I could backtrack, get the closet organization stuff that I need and get you your sauce.  By the way, you DO know that it isn't November, don't you?

I'm making that fluffy cranberry salad stuff.  Well, I'm TRYING to, but all I have is the jelly kind of cranberry sauce.  How long will it take you at Target?

Forty five minutes?

Never mind.  I'll just go.

No, no, no.  I'll do Target later.  I'll stop at the grocery store on the way to your house and buy cranberries.  [It's the least I can do for the woman who birthed me and continues to separate my darks from my whites, right?]

[Twenty seconds later.]

RIIIIIIIING.

Hello?

Can you also get me a small container of ricotta?  Part-skim or low-fat.  Sorry, but it's an emergency.

Got it.  Emergency.  Cranberries and ricotta.

Arrived at Mom's with sparkling pink moscato, cranberries (I bought her an extra can, to forestall future cranberry-related emergencies and ricotta.  Sat with my grandmother for awhile and watched Tiger Woods make a miracle birdie on 16 at the Memorial.  Mom stuffed manicotti and fluffed cranberries in the other room.  And then I went to make my exit, at which point Mom announced:

I think we'll go to Olive Garden.

When?  We had just discussed plans for my uncle's birthday dinner and for my parents' anniversary.

Tonight.

Ummmmmmm . . . so what, exactly, was all of the to-do about the cranberries and ricotta?

Oh, that's just freezer food.  We were never planning on eating any of that today.

I love my mother.