Eating in the Dining Room with the family has changed a lot over the last 30 years. When I was a kid we ate in there every single night as a family. That was back in the day when men were required to wear jackets so that meant we all had to dress up seven days a week. For a kid who windsurfed, swam and skateboarded around the resort all day long that was a pretty bitter pill to swallow! These days we might eat dinner in the dining room twice a week, but in the last couple of years even that has been a stretch. Long gone are the days where the men are required to wear jackets. The last time we had dinner in there on Labour Day weekend a father and son came in to eat dinner wearing baseball hats and they wore them through the entire meal.
One thing that hasn’t changed in the last 15 summers is the ritual of my Mom and I eating breakfast in the dining room about 4 days a week. We don’t eat in there on my day off, on Sundays (because she is at church getting a good word in for all of us) or on her ‘hair day’ - we cannot mess with ‘hair day’, after all her hair could be considered a ‘National Treasure’ it is that good!! Mom actually eats breakfast with Dad before she comes down and just has a coffee with me and I go into the kitchen and grab something quick. We aren’t there for more than 20 minutes but it gives both of us a chance to see some of the long time guests. Not a meal goes by when a guest doesn’t stop by the table to say hi on their way in or out and it is usually one of the great parts about eating in there. There are however some guests who come over and just stand there for ages. A couple of years ago we actually ate our entire dinner, salad, entree and dessert while the same couple stood beside Dad and talked. I couldn’t even look at Mom across the table because every time I did she crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at me - hilarious.
After eating breakfast with Mom four days a week for a few summers I started to notice a distinct pattern to her behaviour and enjoyment of our brief time together. When she and I go in for breakfast we always sit in the same seats. She sits in the chair closest to the kitchen facing the Dining Room door and I sit in the chair across from her facing the dining room. As I have mentioned before we are always ready for the spring conference season to end and for family season to begin, but after you read this you will understand why I have also said that we are also always ready for family season to end.
On the first Monday of family season we sit down at the table and immediately some cute 4 year old girl will come running in to get to her table and Mom will say something like ‘Ohhhhhh look at this little girl with the little pigtails coming in here, she is so pretty and look at her run by with those adorable running shoes on....’. At about week 5 some equally adorable little boy will come flying through the lobby and Mom will say something like, ‘This little boy about to run in here is really cute but jeeeeeezz I wish the managers would stop him from running through here...sigh......’ Week nine hits and the first kid that runs down the aisle gets ‘the eyebrow’ (those of you who have seen it and know what I am talking about are shaking right now - it still scares the crap out of me at 41!!!’ and she puts her fists up in front of her face and shakes them ever so slightly and she whispers ‘one of these days I am going to stick my foot out as they run by’.
The Monday of week 10 a few years ago Mom came into my office to get me and on my way by Sharon’s desk I said ‘this is it, this is the morning, Mom is going to FREAK OUT at the first kid that flies by our table, it is going to be AMAZING’. Mom and I headed over to the dining room and took our usual seats. I hear it before I see it.... coming through the lobby is some cute little kid super excited about his first full day at Clevelands House, looking forward to starting camp for the day and just as he hits warp speed beside our table Mom screams at the top of her lungs......‘SSTTTTTOOOOOPPP RUUUNNNNIIINNNNGGG!!!!! Of course the kid bursts into tears immediately and the parents rush up to little Johnny to find out what happened. Mom calmly explains that she told him to stop running because little Johnny is going to be trampled by a server carrying 12 entrees and hot coffee and that probably wouldn’t be a good thing. Now really, what sane person would look at a woman with hair that white and that fabulous and yell back!!!
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