Birthday Girl

Today is my mom's birthday.  She's a pretty funny lady, and there are so many wonderful things I could say about her.  Today, however, I chose to go in a different direction.  The following are a few of the crazy/funny/neurotic/maddening/insane things I love about my mom.

Top 10 Crazy Things I Love About My Mom:

10.  I love that my mother could talk to a brick wall.  Like my grandmother before her, this lady has the true gift of gab, and she can sometimes be found blabbering with total strangers about absolutely nothing.  This trait has obviously skipped a generation in me, for I would much prefer to sit in silence with my nose buried in a book to prattling away with a person I'll likely never see again. (Why do I need to talk to strangers when I can spill my guts to all of you?!)

9.  I love that my mom still cries every time I come home and leave again.  Keep in mind that I a) have been in college for basically seven years, and b) live twenty-five miles from my mother's house.  It never fails, though, she cries every time I arrive and every time I leave.  I must note, however, that my mother cries at, well, a lot--another way in which we are fundamentally different.

8.  I love that my mother is technologically impaired--big time.  Although I have shown her how to use her DVD player probably twenty-eight times, it still confounds her; the cell phone is a constant source of confusion; the answering machine might as well be the Rosetta stone, as close as she is to figuring out how it works.  Technology just isn't her thing--hence why I set her up a gmail account and she promptly forgot the password, never to log in again.

7.  I love that my mother polishes her polished fingernails.  This one I just find funny.  She gets a manicure every two weeks (her luxury she treats herself to), but every morning she polishes the nails to keep them shiny.  I don't mean she reapplies topcoat; I mean she sort of buffs them with a paper towel or Kleenex to keep them at their shiniest.  She is convinced this makes her manicure last longer, and who am I to argue?

6.  I love that my mother refuses to acknowledge that I'm a grown up.  She's constantly reminding me to lock my doors, get gas, RSVP to events, call when I get there, etc., etc., etc.  It's a good thing she does this so often because I couldn't possibly remember to, say, pay my car insurance if she didn't remind me.  Sometimes she even asks me if I want her to call and wake me up in the morning, as if I don't wake up every morning on my own.

5.  I love that my mom has a love/hate relationship with Chapstick.  I have tried for years to tell her that, every time her lips are dry, she doesn't have to reapply lipstick, for that is why Chapstick and lip balm were invented.  She won't have it, though.  She's whipping out that lipstick tube every chance she gets, even though there's tubes of Chapstick stashed in every drawer in our house.  She also keeps new tubes of lipstick in the freezer, which wholly baffles me.  What is the reason behind this?  Do they go bad?

4.  I love that my mom is a master at Trivial Pursuit.  The woman is a trivia sponge, and she is great to have on your team when playing Trivial Pursuit.  She has a great memory, and she is almost always dead-on. 

3.  I love that my mom is a world class whistler.  Seriously, she can whistle anything--and at unbelievably shrill decibels, as well.  Apparently, according to family legend, some man was on The Tonight Show decades ago, and he was not nearly as good as my mom, so my family is always saying she missed her calling.  As what, I'm not quite sure.  Her whistling is something to be experienced, though--especially her specialty, John Philip Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever.

2.  I love that my mother has selective hearing.  When she's watching the news, she can hear, without fail, every time the words kidnapped, escaped, missing, murdered, etc. pop up.  More often than not, she will report these tragic stories to me as soon as she can get me on the phone and keep me updated on them as they develop. 

1.  I love that my mother is an amateur meteorologist.  She keeps me informed of when snow, ice, torrential rain, straightline wind, tornado, hurricane, flood, thunder and lightening, and extreme cold/heat is predicted, whether it applies to my region or not.  She devotedly checks the local on the 8s, whereas I don't even know what channel is the Weather Channel.  

For all the ways that we are different, we are an awful lot alike, and for that I am so thankful.  My mother is a shining example to me and a great inspiration.  More than that, though, she is a great friend, and we have so much fun together.
Happy Birthday, mom!  Hope you have the best day!  Love you!!