The Leanover.

On Sundays, my mother begins dinner preparations at three o'clock in the afternoon. She comes home from church with my aunt and a large trip to the grocery store. As soon as she steps into the door, she grabs the remote that most likely rests on my lap in the kitchen and flips to the Lifetime Channel.

"Do you even know what's happening in this story?" I ask.

"It doesn't matter," she begins, "I gotta see my Lifetime."

And so she does.

While I store the extra bottles of soda and juice in the closet next to the counter or throw luminous red apples into the drawers of the refrigerator, she sits on a bench next to the oven and watches the television. Right below the bench is the vent that blows hot air through the home. My mother is constantly cold and so she sits there, with her white University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa sweatshirt, beige socks and leopard print slippers sipping a cup of hot chocolate and watching Lifetime.

On Sunday nights, I rest my heavy body on the longest couch in the television room catching brand new episodes of Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy. My stomach is gargantuan. I am always full from the meals she prepares earlier.

The meals, which, even as I sit cross-legged on my two comforters in my bedroom, make my mouth water, consist on classic soul food.

Ribs. Chicken. Macaroni and Cheese. Cornbread.

Sunday is not the night for diets.

Before the meal is finished, I often join my mother in the kitchen. I become enthralled in the movie she is watching on her favorite network.

"Who did she kill?" I ask.

"Oh, she didn't kill anyone," my mother says.

"Okay...then who is attacking her?" I continue.

"I think it's that crazy looking broad," my mother answers.

Besides the fact that my mother still uses the word "broad", I am astounded by the fact that we can still sit and talk and dissect the actions of the characters from a Lifetime movie. I always say:

Everything I know about life, I learned from Lifetime.

And it's true.

The wisdom consumed with the conversations that my mother and I create during a film on Lifetime only remind how truly lucky I am in the world.