Fry Runs and Smoothies

Mothers and daughters can take a lifetime or two to decide if they are friends or they can just be friends.

When I was little my Mother was that person who was always there, always doing, forever in the service of everyone but herself.

I loved her as every child loves their Mother, it seemed we had the perfect Mother/ Daughter relationship.

Then I became a teenager.

The sisters on either side of me were both very easy going, do whatever you are told type girls. They pleased Mom and it was good for them.

I wasn’t a bad teen by any standard, I just had an opinion and expressed it. Mom still loved me and took me out for shopping and lunchs but my thoughts just didn’t coincide with hers and so we enjoyed the time talking about pretty dresses and how blue the lake was that day, or if we thought a storm might be headed our way.

After a few years away at college and a few kids of my own, and several miles apart, we found a way to have our ideas about life begin to coincide with one another. My little family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina and I had no friends yet and also incurred some health problems. Oh, if we had just had the internet back then! But we did have the phone and enormous phone bills ensued.

We later were able to make several trips across the country with just the two of us and oh the fun and the pizza and soda we devoured on the way.

As my own daughter grew older, I didn’t want that time of teenhood to cause a devisive place between she and I so I came up with a plan. Plans are good.

My plan involved fries. We had a place in town that made the best fries and fry sauce around. So, at odd times, when there was nothing seeming to do, we made Fry Runs.

If I saw her backing away from me and not wanting to talk about things we had always talked easily about: Fry Run.

If she just broke up with a boyfriend: Fry Run!!!

If I was hungry: Fry Run!

These days, she is busy with young kids and needs a pick me up, the Fry place is in our distant past, but strawberry smoothies, now they have gotten us over some rough patches of life. Her daughters have figured them out and decided smoothies for them too and so the way of women remains: Lunches, Fries or pink icecream drinks all lead to a wonderful mother and daughter relationship.