I’m still having a blast on my #summer #weekendgetaway #trip to visit family in B’more. Yesterday after eating leftover crab cakes from Mo's Seafood Towson for breakfast (yes, for
breakfast y’all - they are so good! 🤤),
I drove “the young people”😉, my Aunts Cookie (82) and Mo (93), and Mo’s beau, Robert (who is my beau now, too, because he bought dinner yesterday; and anyone who buys me Maryland crabs/crabcakes owns a piece of my heart 🦀 😍), to Valley View Farms Garden Center & Nursery where I bought them flowers to decorate their porches.
Though we tried to beat the heat by getting a fairly early start, at 10AM it was already 92° 🥵. Mo fussed at Cookie the way only a big sister can about Cookie not wanting certain kinds of flowers on her porch. According to Cookie, Mo being 10 years older was a second mom to her and my father (her twin brother) and fussing is what she has always done since they were children. Cookie just nods at Mo and goes ahead and does what she wants regardless. (Once again, I see where all of my dispositions precede me. 😂) Yet, the love between them is clear and obvious.
By the way, I was enamored by how Robert, who recently had two knee replacement surgeries, still waits on Mo to be able to hold hands as they walk. He also always opens the car door for her and all other doors for all of us. He’s such a chivalrous gentleman. I love his care for her. 🥰🤴🏾🖤❤️
We did a little shopping at Hunt Valley Towne Centre because Aunt Mo insisted on buying me something for my birthday even though it isn’t until September 🙄, and she wanted to get Robert some new pants because he’s lost a little weight after his knee surgeries and she doesn’t like how his pants fit. I love her care for him just as much. 🥰👸🏾🖤❤️
We didn’t find anything we liked enough to buy. They had a bunch of winter clothes on clearance and it was hard to even fathom buying turtlnecks and clothes with thick fabrics in all of this heat. Nevermind that I wasn’t going to allow her to buy things that were still overpriced even though they were on clearance. $79 for a t-shirt at Eileen Fisher?! Tuh! No Ma’am. Not with my Auntie’s pension money she earned working all of those years at the Social Security Administration and whatever she has coming in from her late husband’s estate. Mo said, “But what am I gonna get you for your birthday?” I said, “What I REALLY want is some Tasteecakes!” She said with full surprise and a bit of side eye, “WHAT?!?!” 😯 Before she could start getting too revved up fussing at me about it not being a worthy gift, Robert chimed in to say that he loved Tasteecakes, too, and had a close friend whose daughter worked near the factory where they were made and would always bring him some. (His story softened her immediately. I love that for her. 🥰👸🏾🤴🏾🖤❤️) For me they were one of the special treats my grandfather would treat me to from time to time as a kid during my visits here, and they were so good 🤤 - way better than the Ding Dongs my mom would sometimes put in my school lunchboxes. Aunt Mo seemed to also better understand once I explained that they aren’t available in Michigan, because they are a B’more thing. #iykyk 😋
We walked past a Baltimore Oriole and happened upon a Tropical Smoothie Cafe and I treated them to their first ever fruit smoothies to keep them hydrated, nourished, and refreshed in the sweltering heat. They couldn’t stop talking about how good they tasted for the rest of the day even though they kept referring to them as “frosties”. 🤣
Then we made our way to the movies because the evening before as we sat around Aunt Mo’s table talking about things past and present, somehow Will Smith came up in conversation. I think it was because we were talking about Baltimore celebrities and someone mentioned Jada Smith. (Keep in mind throughout all of our conversations, as sharp as their minds are, they struggle to remember people’s names so they describe people by starting with “Whatchamacallem who <insert something memorable they’ve done>”. In this case it was “Whatachamacallem whose husband slapped that man when he was on stage at some fancy show.” 😝). I said, well he has a new movie out to which Cookie and Robert said they’d seen info about on TV, and “that’s a movie [they’d] like to see”. Robert said he used to go to the movies all of the time as a kid but hadn’t been to one in at least 20 years. Cookie echoed a similar sentiment. Say less, young people! I used my phone to buy tickets and pre-order popcorn since Aunt Cookie said she really liked movie theater popcorn, then off to Cinemark Towson and XD we went to see Bad Boys. Once there, I helped them get situated in their reclining seats which, of course, they thought were super fancy. They said the movie was great. Aunt Cookie loved Martin Lawrence’s humor. Aunt Mo couldn’t get over the alligator scene and said it nearly made her “jump clean out [her] seat”, 😮 but she “knew that sucker was gonna get him”! Robert’s commentary was the best. Keep in mind, he is a gentle, almost demur man; but his face completely lit up the room (and my heart) when he said he loved everything about it especially all of the action and that he felt like a kid again as he watched and he hadn’t felt that way in forever. 🥹😌☺️
Once we left the movie theater, we stopped by Walmart to get my @TasteeCakes and to replenish a few staples in Aunt Mo’s fridge. The selection was a bit picked over at Walmart. (No surprise about the picked over selection AND long lines because they had only 4 checkout lanes open on a busy Saturday afternoon. 🙄 I hate Walmart with the same passion that I despise airport lines.) We got what we could, but not the ones my Grandaddy used to buy me. So…Aunt Mo insisted we stop by Giant Food, too, where I struck gold. Even though I got two boxes at Walmart, she insisted I get two more of the ones I really wanted. 😂 I’ll enjoy a couple, freeze some to enjoy later, and share the rest with my sons who also fell in love with Tasteecakes on their first visir to B’more as little boys.
After a long day, we returned to Aunt Mo’s where we spent the evening around her kitchen table as we’d done the night before (and as I recall when I visited as a little girl)- reminiscing and storytelling. I secretly captured video of them as they gave what amounts to oral family histories. I learned things about them, my father (Aunt Cookie’s twin brother), their parents (who died before I was born), and other cherished family members - that I never knew. Some were major revelations. 🤯 Talk about “striking gold”! If you aren’t somehow capturing the stories of the elders in your family, consider this your prompt to begin. If you have to travel to do so, I can hardly think of a better reason. 🥰
