Bath City Grill with Grandma

One of my most favourite things to do when visiting home is to spend a day with my grandmother. Our routine rarely varies, which is fine with me: I arrive in the AM, about 10:30, we have some coffee and maybe a pastry, chat for awhile; we leave the house around noon and go somewhere for lunch; then we go shopping somewhere no one else will shop with us-- like Big Lots or TJ Maxx-- we buy a few things; we go home, examine our purchases, have some more coffee and maybe another dessert; we might play a game of Scrabble or watch some cooking programs on FoodTV. We talk more. Then I go home a little after dinner, thus bypassing rush hour traffic. Today my visit was no different, only the restaurant we went to-- the Bath City Grill-- so named because apparently Mt. Clemens was once known for its natural stinky mineral baths (conveniently now paved over)-- was out of mussels. Let me say this is a "Belgian" restaurant. Restaurants that pride themselves on their Belgian-ness should never ever run out of mussels. So we were a little disappointed on that front, because that's another thing Grandma and I have in common-- no one else we know likes to eat mussels, and so we planned on eating them together. We had a good lunch anyway, and then-- of course-- we went shopping. Another great thing about Mt. Clemens, in addition to its being a shellfish-free zone, is its abundance of thrift shops. I'm talking the three biggies: St. Vincent De Paul, Salvation Army, and Goodwill; and some smaller but equally magical ones, like Value World (formerly Value Village) and Mt Clemens Community Thrift (formerly Sunshine Thrift). And boy-oh-boy what a haul-in I got... for only $12.95 (a little spendy for a thrift shop, but I'm not complaining) a knee-length ivory 1950's mohair coat, complete with kickass decorative buttons and a fold-down rabbit (?) fur collar (also ivory). The secret now will be how to hide it from Andrew... hm ("What?! Another coat!?"). Anyway, back at Grandma's, we did the usual, and when I packed up to leave-- what I'm about to say is also usual-- I left with another bag of random loot... some hearts of romaine, a package of Light Twinkies, two jumbo muffins, and a bag of chocolate chips. I don't ask for this stuff, it just happens-- leave Grandma's, get a bag of stuff. I barely need to go shopping. In fact, I don't need to at all-- it's just something we do together because when we do it with anyone else they never think it's fun, just annoying. I love my Grandma... together our annoying tendencies become pleasures.