Today I drove the hour-and-a-half into the big valley to Lulu’s dorm to pick up the cacti and dirty laundry that are coming home for Christmas break.
When I arrived, the building was spitting out a stream of young people as alarms blared and corridor lights flashed. The exiting kids looked at me funny as I marched on in. They don’t yet know that no one can stop a mother in search her child or a bathroom. I found the former one flight up, heading down.
To her dismay we couldn’t stop long enough to see if the building was going to burn down. We were late for her doctor’s appointment.
Next we made quick visits to old friends I hadn’t seen for a long time. I stopped by the design firm of my old (I mean former) Irish dance partner Lila, with whom I won first place in the North American Irish dance championship a few years back, thank you very much for asking. Then to the hippie grocery store where I had ten wonderful minutes with my other old dance partner, Cheryl.
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We broke into an impromptu reel in the parking lot. (Sorry, but I accidentally deleted the photos from my camera.)
Back on campus, Lulu took me to lunch at the DC which is the fanciest DC I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen a DC before and I don’t know what a DC is, but this one is fancy. A bunch of sofas and glass tables off to the right as you come in. No humble menu board here, but the actual dishes on display in a tasteful pyramid (a food pyramid), adorned for the winter holiday season with fake snow and potted poinsettia. Beyond that, six or seven serving stations named things like Tomato Street Grill, Pacific Fusion, Saucy, Go Live and Plaza Sweets. Quite a contrast to the cockroach- and mouse-ridden kitchen of my freshman apartment at Pratt.
We ran into Lulu’s roomie and friends at the DC.
I asked Lulu if she was embarrassed to be seen there with an elderly mother. She said no. She recanted soon after, when I wouldn’t stop taking pictures.
She is great fun to torture.
T’was sad to bid farewell once again to my little girl, but she’ll be home next week.