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Has the Mother’s Day brunch gone the way of the salad bar? Multiple commitments, responsibilities, and yes even gardening and lawn work. But painting on mom’s day? (And not art on an easel.) Welcome Wendy’s wonders and other take-out for dine-in, often done earlier. But no decked-out waffles.

This is a hunch that Mother’s Day brunch was out to lunch, not to be munched in a bunch.
Maybe substitute by using the coming weekend … But don’t do Wendy’s again.
From sitting in nursing home, to alternate times and days for take-in, to hitting more than one garden or lawn, this was not one for the usual books — though that had been part of her work. At least in this case, mom didn’t have to do it. At least in most instances.
We start with Friday night, on the eve of the eve of Mother’s Day, when one couple in my family got together with the kids, most of them, and brought in the basically basic grub they had bought from a kinda fast food place. This was the closest the family got to a brunch, as like in most all families, everyone was busy with commitments. Almost to the point, I might say, of needing to be committed? Do we see a theme here, of alternate ways to celebrate, in my various posts?

— Mom always said don’t be tardy or torporous, or use too many suffixes. But her day was late in coming around, so there …
Now a last Mother’s Day moment.
My New Favorite Clerk said this, about the presence of all the flowers and candles and cake, before coming to work at 5 p.m. “She’s not even my kids’ momma!” Had to think about that one for again, a moment.
But those ladies out and about around that time were wearing sensible shoes and such dresses, or in a few cases such shorts, and in one case jeans that weren’t too tight or short around the tummy. Mom apparently thought herself too late in years for such attire.
But you still rock, mom. See the Picks Of The Week department for listening options, that have now included a.m. time slots too. And psst, in that regard, hey buddy, another buddy just told me his old band is looking for new rehearsal space, somewhere in the population center between Prescott and New Richmond. So where to go and ask, if you’re an early riser. —

For her turn, mom was stuck in the nursing home with dad, and with his new lack of mobility, this is the first Mother’s Day would not hold the option of going out to eat. So mom snuck out to Wendy’s, just down the block, and that was the highlight of her day. (At least she could have revisited the Cinco De Mayo theme and had one of their sizzling burgers, topped with green pepper sauce, but she comes from more of a meat and potatoes family. These days mostly potatoes. Or salad, but no quiche.)
Blocks away, my brother used the time to scatter grass seed where it was needed, as it was not dad’s day yet, and he even incorporated the family dog to chase away birds that might peck at the tiny pellets, which he gladly did. Even though going after birds was a relatively new thing, as he’s more a deer and squirrels hound. I think they were blackbirds, and it would have been fitting if they were baked in a pie. He did blaze a new trail lately, and was introduced to a frog, which he merely nosed and did not lunge at and eat.
His wife and some of those kids were off to near my end of the state, where there is family — and more gardening. One such fine son, who works for an engineering firm, traded blacktop road construction for dirt row construction, not exactly how he would normally spend a weekend. So new digs. And his sister supplied more of the same, and the family got mom her only true gift, scraping off paint and repainting back at home. So for her it would, or would not, be like watching paint dry.
But back to birds, and an apparently absentee mom. I heard a robin chirping very nearby, as I walked downtown, and it didn’t take much looking to see that there was a big nest less than basketball hoop height. Mother bird quickly flew away. Being a nuisance, I stayed for a time, but she did not return. And back the same way about ten minutes later, still no mom robin in the hood.
Back at the building, I encountered in the gathering, not gardening area, a mother who had lost her own mom about the same time last year. Camping out with her son. She was soldiering through, like another middle-aged woman out on the patio who was also bearing a loss of about the same time frame, this time of her son.

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