Five Awesome Quotes from My Mother

What can you say about mothers? Sometimes they drive you crazy, sometimes they are just plain crazy. Sometimes that craziness makes you laugh, and becomes a moment, or two or three, that you remember lovingly forever.

In honor of Mother’s Day, here are five such moments, courtesy of my mother.

1.  I was lamenting to my mom about how four different guys at my job were interested in me, yet none of them were viable candidates. No. 1 was a seriously down-on-himself kind of guy, a guy with lower self esteem at twenty-something than I had had in high school. No. 2 was—to quote Max from Dark Angel— a “playa playa from the Himalayas.” No. 3 had some sort of police record. I don’t know what for, but he was on one of those ankle monitoring programs. And No. 4 was much younger than me, a skinhead looking guy who—and I never told Mom this part— used the term “gang bang” to flirt with me.

Mom said to me, with zero irony and zero sarcasm, “It sounds to me like your best bet is the one with the prior criminal record.”

2. Remember when JLo was dating Puff Daddy? I was talking to my mom on the phone and she said, “Oh, I don’t like that guy Jennifer Lopez is dating. What’s his name? Cream Puff? Pop Corn?”

3. My mom loves rock music, and she really liked Van Halen in their early days, but she hated their cover of Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street.” She said to me, “I hear their version of that song and it’s enough to make me think that white people have no rhythm.”

Mom with her Mother’s Day present, a Clinique Happy gift set.

4. When my mom was in rehab after her hip surgery, her doctor told her that she was not really allergic to some of the foods that she thought she was, and told her to add those foods back into her diet. After she was home, she called me and said, “I’m taking my doctor’s advice. If I get sick, he’s going to have a very long hate letter coming his way.”

5. My mom and I were walking down the street and some guys in a car drove by yelling, “Hey, baby!” I was fourteen, and developing a little spunk,  so I flipped them off.

My mom said, with sincere affection, “Oh, you remind me so much of your father.”

Love you too, Mom.

Mom and Me, Christmas 2010

What are your favorite Mom moments?