MOMMIES

She started off so cute.

It takes a special kind of sociopath to be upset when her mother likes the Mother's Day gift she picked out instead of hating it.  Foghorn was certain I'd loathe her gift of a skein of powder blue yarn.  Are you kidding?  Yarn?  Me?  Just to taunt her I laid it on thick, saying I'll make a beautiful bear with a blue sweater and hoodie for a little boy in Africa and  she had picked the perfect gift.  That made her so mad she hit me with her tablet.  She was equally disgusted at my reaction to my birthday gift a couple months ago.  She had chosen a sporty headband in what she thought was a particularly ugly shade of blue.  I loved it.  Hey, I was logging lots of miles on the treadmill and this was actually a very useful gift.  She was furious. I told my own mother this past Friday, "You're lucky.  You have me as a daughter.  Look what I'm stuck with." 

Goodies from The Inmates and The Vulcan.

My son, The Professor, put in a little more effort.  Uncle Chester had taken them shopping and, as usual, he wanted to go to JoAnn's.  He started looking at the jewelry-making supplies and then decided I'd like beads, but he looked carefully to find those hideously beautiful 70s colors I love - avocado, tangerine, marigold.  He found ones he thought fit the bill, then handed them over to Chester to actually make into something.  (Luckily she makes jewelry for her own Etsy shop, so this wasn't a daunting prospect for her.)  He also went out with his father the night before and purchased flowers, again in colors that perfectly match my Brady Bunch family room decor.  My husband surprised me with a Steam gift card so I could pick out some games for myself.  My son even reluctantly let me give him a hug, a good day all around.  (Of course, he didn't hug me back, but we can't ask for too much here.)

It's the story of a lovely lady...

Lunch was at my mother's -- roast beef with the trimmings and the traditional Mother's Day strawberry rhubarb pie (with apple pie for the gentlemen).  I gifted my mother five episodes of The Andy Griffith Show for her iPod and two tiny cooling racks, purchased after she made an offhand comment a couple months ago about wishing she had some more of them.  Earlier in the year we both read When Books Went to War about the Armed Services Edition books that were produced during World War II.  These tiny paperbacks, almost like miniature magazines, were distributed to troops all over the world, with new titles printed on a regular basis.  We both enjoyed reading about them and I thought she'd get a kick out of actually owning one.  I'm having a little trouble imagining a 20 year old guy curled up reading Meet Me in St. Louis, but I was surprised by other similar books that were popular among the soldiers.

I liked it so much I made my husband get me one with
Satchel Paige's "how old would you be if you didn't
know how old you were?"

For a good decade and a half now I've been giving my mother baseball-related gifts for Mother's Day.  Many times they're something I've made, such as a felted knit baseball purse or baseball-shaped afghan.  This is one of the few years when handmade wasn't in the mix.  Instead I opted for a new book by Mike Shannon, editor of Spitball magazine, with gorgeous paintings of famous Reds players.   I also read an article a few months ago about a couple of local sisters who started a small business making bracelets out of baseball glove laces.  These Baseball Lacelets are engraved with inspirational words of your choosing and come in a variety of sizes.  I debated several good baseball quotes and finally settled on Yogi Berra's "when you come to a fork in the road, take it."  I knew that line made her chuckle.  My son tried to say he understood what Berra meant, that this was something deep and profound.  I told him Berra was just a little bit dim.  Then he said, "You definitely have to have a fork when you go to the woods with your pic-a-nic basket."  Smartass.

Happy Mother's Day to all!