That's the second time this week someone has laughed at my face

Thanksgiving is pretty much the same every year. Although the details do vary, the basic structure remains the same. Mom comes into town on Friday night, we dine. We go out for brunch on Saturday, Mom and I go shopping and/or do various girly things during the day; we go back to my brother's house, we dine. Sunday, Mom & Danny spend the day/afternoon together and come over to my house, we dine. Mom leaves on Monday.

No matter how I feel before entering the Thanksgiving Day weekend...

I always come out on the other side feeling somewhat different.

But since this kind of eating only happens a couple/few times a year (I just wish they were a bit more spread out), overall, it's not that bad. It's worth the temporary feeling to spend time with my mom.

This year, when Mom & Danny arrived at my house, my mom told me a story about the trip over. Apparently, they had left the electronics store and were heading over to my house, when my mother's bladder filled up and she had to beg my brother to stop at a gas station.

As she was leaving the gas station she glimpsed some flowers out of the corner of her eye. She went back to the vehicle and asked Danny if he thought I'd want a bouquet of flowers. His response was that it's Thanksgiving (not exactly a flower-giving holiday) and that I won't want gas station flowers.

Mom informed me of all of this and said "Well the thought was there!". I agreed. I also agreed that this would be a good time to give her the present I had for her. I got up, walked to my freezer and pulled out a package.

Mom was skeptical, but still started the process of unwrapping. The first item she took out was a couple packs of garbage bags. Mom gets oddly excited about these garbage bags - they're the ones that come on a roll and are for a special kind of under-the-sink garbage bin. They don't have these rolls of garbage bags in Osoyoos. I pick up a couple dollars worth per year and she's ridiculously happy.

Last year for Christmas I got her a coffee grinder - she's a coffee addict so I thought she might enjoy freshly ground coffee. I shipped up some plain old coffee beans with the grinder so she could use her present right off the bat.

She was ecstatic over the coffee grinder, says the coffee tastes so much better. She was drinking Folgers before then, so of course it tastes better. (my apologies to Folgers Fans everywhere). I told her that when I was shopping for the coffee that they had a bunch of flavoured coffees and I asked if she would have liked those instead. She said no, because she doesn't want to drink Irish Cream coffee all the time because then it wouldn't be special anymore.

I asked her why she doesn't have flavoured beans in her freezer for a Sunday treat. She said that she never thought of it, but it was a great idea. I knew she would never go out and do it. So I did.

Over the past few months, every time I do my big grocery shop, I pick up half a pound or so of flavoured coffee beans. My freezer was starting to get pretty full of them. Four packages of flavoured beans were the remaining item in the care package for my mom. She reacted pretty much how I was expecting.

"Now I'll have coffee to drink at home", she said, after explaining that her last bag of beans was getting low. My response was "Only on Sundays!!". She agreed, but I'm also fairly convinced that she went home and made up a pot out of the beans I gave her. I guess that's okay... for this week.