A Visit

When your mother announces she's coming to visit you two weeks before she arrives, you tend to do crazy things. Like plan the right outfits, pray your pimples go away, and purge your vocabulary of "Holy Crap!" and other unacceptable phrases. And clean out your car. Which is what I did today.
Now, this may not sound like that big of a project, but you must understand that I haven't really cleaned out my car at all since I got it a year and a half ago. And I haven't removed excess paperwork/crap since basically last spring, or at least last August. So, ummm, there was a lot of stuff. And a lot of grime (L.A. SMOG, people - the dashboard was coated with this disgusting black layer) and a lot of coffee stains. So I got the vacuum cleaner and hooked up the attachments and vacuumed the whole dadgum thing, and scrubbed with the carpet cleaner, and used Windex, and . . . went through all the Stuff. Old tupperware (ewww), empty waterbottles, and paperwork galore. Receipts from my old therapist, confidentiality documents from my new therapist, maps of the Grand Canyon, maps of LA, worksheets, notices from school, wedding catalogs, you name it, it was there. (The kitchen sink was happily absent.)
The little compartment over the radio, where the tape player would go, if I had one, was espescially full. Full of stuff, and full of memories. There was a receipt from Steak and Shake in Texas, two shakes and one order of fries - we often went there late at night. A receipt from a Smoothie King in Picayune, Mississippi for a mocha - you always put up with my coffee cravings so patiently, giving into my whims and driving us all over to find me a Starbucks! And the little 'growing dinosaurs', the little capsules that when you put them in water, it grows into a sponge in the shape of some wild animal. Remember how we used to bring those home from the grocery store and pop them in warm water, waiting to see what they were? Some special fortunes from special fortune cookies, from a special night. Do you remember your fortune, baby? Do you remember that night? You always had such funny rules about opening fortune cookies! And, in the backseat, a grocery list. Which seems so simple, but I nearly started crying. We went to the grocery store together, every week. I loved so much to shop with you, even something so mundane was fun with you. We went up and down the aisles together, you hiding from me, or telling jokes, or stealing a kiss - in the middle of the freaking grocery store. ;-) I miss that simple weekly ritual, I miss the joking smile, I miss you and I love you.
Just in case either of us had forgotten.