playing with M: day two (lyn)

A few errands in the morning, and we find ourselves in Cambridge at noon.  We pass a nondescript dumpy looking place called Charlie's Kitchen.  I go in before M (she's outside on the phone) and ask for a menu.  The guy behind the bar doesn't know where to find one, adding,  "I don't work here."  I want to ask, "Then what are you doing behind the bar?" but don't.  I ask someone else and they look at me like I'm nuts.  Finally, I ask the ancient-looking waitress who says, " I can tell already you are going to be difficult," then hands me a menu.

M comes in and we decide to stay.  Our waitress, who turns out to be 83 and named Helen, has been waitressing at Charlie's since 1954.  She's served George Bush (whom she claims was "always a gentleman"), Matt Damon "and his cute friend, you know the one... "(we figure she means Ben Affleck), Tommy Lee Jones, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, our current president, and others.  She's full of entertaining stories she would rather tell than take our order, deliver our food, and calculate our check.  She is better at chatting than at waitressing.

I get my hair blown out in Newton, while M picks up something at a nearby store.  Then, it's over to Chestnut Hill Mall to return my long-lasting Chanel lipstick I bought last week.  I decide it's an awful color for me.  M agrees.  

We come back to M's and relax for a couple of hours, then rush back to Burlington Mall with  T to pick up a desk for T’s office.  We are 20 minutes late picking up Alexander, whose bus from Ithaca makes it in record time, arriving 45 minutes early.  Good that it’s not my mom picking him up.  She’d have had a hard time recovering if she were the one who was late.

It feels good to hold my son again.  He’s been working out and looks it.  We head over for a dinner at The Cottage in Wellesley.  Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, has begun.