Hot Chocolate and English Muffins

Another reposting. I'm almost through with these. Hope folks aren't getting bored.

I'm sitting here drinking a yummy hot chocolate and munching on a toasted English muffin with butter and grape jelly and thinking of what I should reminisce about and the memories of sitting in coffeeshops eating the same snack come to mind. On days in my teens and twenties when I was out shopping with friends or my mother, when we'd stop to eat, I would either have a burger, fries, and chocolate malted, or, if I wasn't that hungry, I'd snack on the aforementioned English muffin and either a malted or hot chocolate, depending on the time of year. Comfort food.

I love to shop, but the actual purchasing of things is not required. Shopping was a social event, like going to the movies, only we could talk the entire time. We'd try on clothes and comment on how each other looked. When I went shopping with friends, we'd make a pact that we each had to buy somethin, anything, before we went home. Which is why I ended up with a fairly extensive collection of costume jewelry, though I often was able to find a record or book I really wanted, too. There was a lot of kidding around and then making a lot of noise with girlish laugher as the three or four or five of us descended on a coffeeshop, usually a Chock Full of Nuts, and made the older folks there nervous at seeing so many teens invading their space.

When I was shopping with my mother, however, it meant quality time. We talked and caught up with things (I'd already moved out on my own by then). If I bought clothes, I knew they looked good on me. My mother was my best critic and would tell me honestly if something looked good on me or not. And then we'd stop for something to eat and continue to talk about the important and not so important things in our lives.

Nowadays, I shop with my best friend when we get the chance to visit or by myself. And when I'm by myself, I take the ghosts of the past with me. My mother is usually there, looking over my shoulder as I try on skirts or sweater tops or jeans, giving me her assessment, and as she was when she was alive, she's always right.

Feeling:

memories