Happy Mother's Day to those who celebrate!
I added that last part to stave off any potential push-back from people who don't like Mother's Day. I've heard tell of this holiday destroying text chains before. In perhaps the most heated example, somebody I know who lost both her parents at a relatively young age and has been unable to conceive children herself, responded to a "Happy Mother's Day!" text by asking the group to please refrain from such niceties, as they aren't so nice to those among us who aren't and/or don't have mothers. Then somebody else -- another childless woman, for what it's worth -- responded to that text with a longish rebuttal, saying that she (the first woman) could simply ignore such texts and that on a group chat you can't be expected to forego standard well-wishing due to one member's personal issues. The first woman then wrote back: "Remove me then and fuck off." And that was the end of that.
By the way, I just now noticed that it's Mother's Day and not Mothers' Day, even though it's a celebration for many mothers. That's weird, no? Other holidays, such as Presidents' Day, aren't like that. I guess it's a reference to the royal mother, like how some people just say "mother" instead of "my mother." Mother came to visit last weekend... I've never liked that. I'm not your brother.* I especially dislike it when dudes do it. It comes off as some combination of pretentious and serial-killer-y. I don't know if Hannibal Lecter ever references his mother in any of the Silence of the Lambs movies, but if he does, he surely says "mother" and not "my mother." So, if you're somebody who does this, I urge you to go ahead and start adding that extra syllable in there. It's a third of a second well spent.
*Unless you are my brother or sister reading this right now. But then I'd think it was weird you were calling our mom "mother," considering we've pretty much only ever called her mom.
As I've surely mentioned before on this blog, I'm not big on gift-giving, especially socially mandate gift-giving*, but I usually do give S something on Mother's Day nevertheless. This year I made her a little slideshow video of pictures of the boys through the years -- the type of thing Facebook would do (back when people were on Facebook) and randomly put in your feed, only instead of cheesy music playing behind it, it was cheesy narration, provided by me. I think she liked it. Actually, she inadvertently gave me the idea. I was making a video of my Immaculate Grid, this baseball thing I do on Twitter (the only thing I do on Twitter), and she overheard me and was like, "What are you doing? Are you doing something for Mother's Day?" I reflexively responded, "No!" which was the truth, but then that made me think that I should do something, so I did, which now makes my response sound like a lie. But it wasn't.
*I'm not big on gift-receiving either, so this isn't a totally selfish trait.
The main thing S wants on Mother's Day is to not have to deal with all the usual stressors of day-to-day parenting, so I did my best to alleviate those as much as possible. I did the laundry, changed the sheets on the bed, and made a few day's worth of lunch for her. I even did a touch-up paint job in our living to cover up some old water damage. Then, I let her "zone out" and do whatever she wanted, which was actually mostly more household chores, but I get that. Sometimes as a parent what you legitimately want is to be left alone to do tasks in peace. On the rare occasions that I'm home alone for a few days, one of my simple joys is to get ready to go into the office in the morning. It's so different and pleasant without two preteen children around.
The other thing about Mother's Day is that it is always very close to S's birthday. This year I actually will be out of town for her b-day. I'll be seeing Pearl Jam in Vegas. (Vegas, baby!) This came about quite suddenly. What happened is, a friend* of my good friend is in a band who's opening for Pearl Jam at one of their Vegas shows, and he got him a couple of floor tickets for the show, kinda last minute. So my friend texted me to see if I wanted to go, and of course I said yes, granted S was cool with it, which she was, even though it's her birthday, because she's awesome.
*He's kinda my friend too. I've long contended that we need a word in English for somebody who is between a friend and an acquaintance. I have so many people in my life who I get along with and have hung out with and exchanged texts with, but I wouldn't really call them "friends", because we've never been super tight, and we could have major life events without the other one knowing. "Friendly acquaintance" is the best term I have for somebody like this, but it feels clumsy to me. We need something better.
It's gonna be a whirlwind trip. Neither my friend or I can take much time off right now, so I'm flying out of DC at 7:00 am the morning of the show, and then flying back the next day. I'm sure Pearl Jam won't even go on until the wee hours of the morning DC time, so I'm basically just not gonna sleep for a day or so. I mean, I'll try to sleep on the plane, but that never works. Whatever. I'm still young enough to do this... I hope.
Tired or not, it will be great to see my friend. We were supposed to rendezvous in Maui, but then the west side of the island caught on fire, so I haven't seen him in a few years. So Vegas it is. I mean, YOLO, right?
Until next time...
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