Mother Mary is visiting and daughter Francesca has come down from New York, so three generations of Scottoline women are under the same roof. Some call this a family staycation, but I call it a slow death.

With excellent meatballs.

The problem is that we spend the first few days staying inside and watching only my mother's favorite TV shows, Law & Order, CSI, NCIS, and Cold Case. Bottom line, she loves anything with a corpse, and I begin to feel like one. Then one night at dinner, a miracle happens.

Wait. Let me back up.

Most people have a list of Things To Do, but Mother Mary has a list of Things Not To Do. Or more accurately, Things Never To Do. At the top of the list is Don't Go To The Movies. Other entries include Don't Eat Outside With The Bugs and Don't Walk All Over This Cockamamie Mall.

To stay on point, the last movie she went to was Fantastic Voyage, which came out in 1966. I'm not making this up. She took Brother Frank and me, and I remember nothing about the movie except Raquel Welch, who wore a cleavage-baring jumpsuit that caused my mother to pronounce the movie "dirty."

We up and left.

In any event, since then I've asked my mother to approximately 3,937,476 movies, but she always says no. Nobody knows why Mother Mary doesn't do the things she doesn't do, and to inquire is to end up in a tautological trap, like a Möbius strip of conversational hell. For example, I did ask her, and the conversation went exactly like this:

"Ma, why don't you go to the movies?"

"Because I don't."

"But what's the reason?"

"The reason is, I don't."

"That's not a reason. I want to know the reason."

"Why?"

"I just do."

"Why is that a reason for you, but not for me?"

Honestly, I couldn't reply. I may have a law degree, but my mother is Perry Mason.

In time, I stopped asking about the movies, and it was daughter Francesca who popped the question, over a meal of overcooked broccoli, since also on my mother's list is Don't Eat Vegetables That Retain A Hint Of Color.

Francesca said, "Hey, why don't we go see Julie & Julia? It's supposed to be good."

Mother Mary answered, "OK."

I thought I'd heard her wrong. "What?"

My mother looked over. "So?"

We eyed each other warily, but Francesca is no dummy, so she got up, grabbed a wallet and car keys, and hustled my mother out of the house with the speed of a kidnapper.

In no time, we were sitting in the theater with popcorn, soda, and Raisinets. I kept checking, and Mother Mary was laughing away. She's only 4-foot-11, so the big seat seemed to swallow her whole and her feet didn't touch the floor. The flickering lights danced across her bifocals, and her white hair was a tiny cloud in the dark theater.

I leaned over. "So, Ma, it turns out that going to the movies is fun, huh?"

My mother looked over. "You couldn't leave it alone, could you?"

I said nothing, because she was absolutely right. I couldn't leave it alone. In fact, I never leave it alone. All of a sudden, at the movie, I realized that I have my own list of Things Not To Do, and well, you know where this is going.

Then, a day later, we were back at the dinner table over barely green beans, and my mother remarked that her cell phone got bad reception. I agreed, and Francesca asked, "So why don't we go to the mall and get a new phone?"

My mother answered, "OK."

I looked over at my mother, and she looked back at me, playing mother-daughter eye-chicken. We both knew that she never went to the cockamamie mall, but her eyes dared me to leave it alone.

And for once, I did.

Lisa Scottoline is a best-selling author of 15 novels. Her latest, "Look Again," is in stores now. Contact her at www.lisascottoline.com.