It’s So My Mom.

“I need to talk to you, so carve out some time.”

Those were the words that my mom greeted me with back home in Texas last Wednesday morning (my excuse for not blogging the past week).

I knew exactly what she wanted to talk about. I had never expected to hear these words from my mom after I was grown, out of the house, and on my own payroll. But then I had to go and start a damn blog about us.

The tension wouldn’t stop us from shopping. Hours later, we were standing in line at Nordstrom’s Bistro. I was trying to figure out how to broach the subject; she was unnaturally terse.

We ordered. We sat. And then I asked what she wanted to talk to me about.

She started slowly but dismissively, mentioning that she didn’t appreciate the blog. How she thought I was ridiculing her. How she had initially been struck with the thought that I harbored hate for her. How she’s not a public person, and I shouldn’t make her a public person, even if I’m quasi-public.

I assumed she was angered mostly by the very personal family info I put in the “Ice Queen” post. So I started to defend the disclosure of those specific family matters as the lens through which I view my own relationship. Her reaction to the info disclosed made it obvious: She hadn’t read the post. Oops.

None of the blog was meant to be mean-spirited, I told her, maybe a bit too defensively. I wasn’t ridiculing her but trying to recreate her persona. “A caricature,” she retorted. She referenced the “Citgo” and “Palin” posts, which I thought were harmless. She said I was making fun of her. She says I misquoted her about the white hair/kinky hair quote.

At one point I called her selfish. Oops.

Our poor waiter was approaching the table like a stray cat slinks toward a human with food. He skulked to and from our table, and apologized profusely whenever he interrupted our conversations with drinks or food.

In fact, I think the whole restaurant was staring at us.

When it was over, we hadn’t come to an agreement. We had come to a stalemate: my mother looking off with red eyes, me contemplating leaving the bistro. Maybe it would be for the better, I thought.

And then we ate some chocolate cake in silence. And then my dad called. And then there was a little more non-blog conversation. And then we left, went to the bathroom, ran into some old friends, and continued shopping, like nothing had happened.

Just in case my boyfriend wonders how I can go from bawling and chewing him out to professing my love.

I have the same hankerings now. My mom really wasn’t a big night eater, though we did both go through a late-night Doritos and Jenny Jones phase when I was quite young.

(Note: Eating at night does not necessarily make you fatter. Rather, it’s the total intake of calories in a 24-hour period that matters. Harvard Medical School doctors even recount evidence that even women who got up to eat in the middle of the night weren’t fatter than those who didn’t engage in this seemingly destructive habit.)

All this to say, I guess, that late-night noshing–-even hypothetically–hell, even not late at night-–is a powerful woman-bonder. Works with my girlfriends, too.

Martha Stewart figured this out a long time ago. She’s a bitch, yeah. But that bitch can cook.

I feel diplomats and politicians don’t harness this phenomenon enough. I would go to a Palin rally for sure if there were real, rugged Alaskan fare there. Politicians are always so keen to invite their constituents to “come on the campaign trail” to see how they really are. Well …

Palin was so gung-ho about all the native game she shot. But where was the plated reindeer? Alaskan salmon? Surely the GOP had another $150,000 lying around to support the Gov.’s local fisheries. And how about some brew from The Moose’s Tooth? A little booze goes a long way toward goodwill. Maybe in 2012.

I wouldn’t recommend Biden do the same in his presidential bid. He made Scranton sound like a hellhole.