ahream

It’s Taco Monday.

I remember once on a drive to my grandparent’s house – I must’ve been seven or so – my mother and I were discussing dessert. We were just about to turn left at the barn-shaped Western wear store, when she said, “You think now that when you grow up, you’ll eat more than two cookies for dessert. But you won’t.”

Obviously, I had been complaining about my cookie ration, although I don’t remember doing so. And her point was that patterns formed in childhood would hold me in good stead for a lifetime of proper cookie portions. Turns out she was wrong about the cookie thing. I don’t keep them in the house because I know I can’t be trusted. I once ate an entire bag of Oreos in two days. (I’m not proud of this.)

But the pattern thing she was right about because it’s Taco Monday. And Taco Monday is a clear cousin of Hamburger Friday.

My grandmother, a child-sized woman with a fluff of gray hair that looks like a dandelion gone to seed, has been cooking my grandfather a hamburger for dinner every Friday night for more than fifty years. Every Friday and only on Fridays. (Obviously, we’re not Catholic.) And the lady doesn’t even like hamburgers.

But switch Friday for Monday and hamburger for taco, and welcome to my house. Taco Monday. Almost every Monday and almost only on Mondays. (Grandma Bert is a smidgeon more reliable than I am, but I’m catching up.)

I thought I was doing it for my husband. He likes tacos and schedules. And every Monday afternoon, I get the following instant message: “Taco Monday! Woo!”

But today, after three years of Taco Mondays, I finally realized what’s really going on. And you know what? I like it. Yes, it’s a little obsessive. But in a the-red-Christmas-ornament-always-goes-at-the-bottom-of-the-tree kind of way. It’s a little homey. A little sweet. And at least I like tacos.

Although it makes me wonder...maybe fifty years ago my grandmother liked hamburgers, too...

ahream Dispatches from the City of Angels I'm a mystery writer living in and writing about Los Angeles. You can catch my short story, "Running Venice," in the new anthology LAndmarked for Murder. Look for it in bookstores and on Amazon.com now. In the meantime, feel free to poke around. Over at my website you can find even more blog entries than I could fit here, as well as a few other ramblings. Enjoy and come back often.
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