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?

Week Nineteen: Books on Mom’s Day, LERA, and TV Season Renewal

May 13, 2012

Read
I had my mom over for Mother’s Day and I was babbling to her about something, then realized she wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention because she had started reading my copy of Darynda Jones’ Third Grave Dead Ahead, which I had sitting on my coffee table. After I gave Mom her Mother’s Day present, I lent her First Grave on the Right. She’s got to start at the beginning, after all.

I now own a copy of The Power of Myth, the transcripts of the Bill Moyers interview with Joseph Campbell that aired on PBS in 1988. I am so stoked. I have wanted this book for a long time, and I won it at a Land of Enchantment Romance Authors (LERA) meeting, which leads me to— 

Write
“With symbolism, we create myth.”—Sarah Shade, at her talk “The Secret Language of Words”

I attended my first LERA (Land of Enchantment Romance Authors) meeting, and the speaker for this month, Sarah Shade, talked about how symbolism creates powerful universal connections that turn stories into myths. So when I was watching Howl’s Moving Castle on Sunday for the fifth time, I saw all kinds of symbolism. The fire demon! The doorways! The boy! The dog! The bird! The scarecrow! The tunnel in Sophie’s dream with the monster at the end of it! I must get a book on symbolism.

Many of the LERA members are successful, published authors who know the business, and they enthusiastically answered my shop questions, even though I was a first-time guest. I got to sit next to Darynda Jones, the New Mexico author who writes the wonderful Charley Davidson series, and I ran into a fellow writer I hadn’t seen in months. The meeting discussions were lively and interactive and encouraging. I do believe I have found my new writing group.

Bliss
In TV news, I am so excited:
Nikita—renewed for season three—yes!
Scandal—renewed for season two—awesome!
The Vampire Diaries—a killer season finale with lots of twists, turns, and tears. Read this article on TV line about TVD writer Julie Plec crying onto her keyboard. I know how she feels.

Related articles

• Finding Joe—The Hero’s Journey is in All of Us (readwritebliss.wordpress.com)
• The Power of Myth (requiredreadings.ca)