Love, Jimmie

This weekend Madre came for a visit.  She wanted a pedicure and since she’s never had one, we thought it best that she come to NashVegas and let me treat her to one.  Okay, that’s not the full story.  I believe she’d heard the rumor about how I laugh like a hyena at the nail shop when they scrub my feet because it just tickles so badly.  I also believe she’d heard the rumor about how the staff at my nail shop gives me grief because I have long feet and because of my hyena laughing.  They say things like, “We charge you extra, you so loud.” And “We video you and send it in to funny videos.  Ha!”   But she also heard the rumor about the massage chairs so I feel certain that clinched it for her.  NashVegas and my nail shop were the places that won out so she packed up and came here.

We had pedicures. They were awesome. She is hooked.

Martie did her share of pampering Madre too.  Madre got a new haircut and new color, courtesy of Martie. The best part about Martie doing our hair is that she’s quite talented and we always leave looking better than when we came in.  The worst part about Martie doing our hair is that we cannot always re-create what she does in the shop and we spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make it stand up this way and poof up that way and sweep across our foreheads in the correct manner.

Saturday morning ablutions rolled around and Madre was in my upstairs bathroom attempting to create Martie-quality hair when her hair blower thingamabob which had been on the fritz lately just stopped working.  I heard it shut off and didn’t think much about it until I heard Madre bellow down the stairs, “I’m throwing that mother f@cker in the trash!” 

I laughed like a hyena at this. 

I love you, Madre.  Happy Mother’s Day.

A couple of years ago Martie and I were in the car or in the movie theater or in her living room or somewhere, and we were digging through our respective purses for something.  Probably this would be a better story if I could remember the circumstances around it but you read the post where I’m facing forty in a few years, right?  They say the mind is the first thing to go.  Anyway, we were digging around in our purses and I said, “I can tell I’m a chick because I have 4 chap-sticks and 3 lip glosses and 2 lipsticks in my purse.” 

 Martie gave me a thoughtful look and said, “I can tell I’m a mother because I have loose raisins in my purse.” 

 She won that one. 

 I love you, Martie.  Happy Mother’s Day.

My parents divorced when I was pretty little and my dad re-married when I was still in the Cinderella phase of my life, meaning that all my sister and friends and I knew of step-mothers was the wicked one who made Cinderella clean a lot and wouldn’t let her go to the ball.  So when I told all my school friends that I now had a step-mother, you can imagine the looks of horror that crossed their faces.  They would ask me questions like, “Is she mean?  Do you have to scrub the floor with a brush?  Are there mice in her house?” 

The thing is, she wasn’t mean and she didn’t make me scrub the floor with a brush and I never saw any mice.  I wanted to convey the fact that having a step-mother wasn’t so bad and that it was actually kind of nice.  So I mustered up all of the wisdom and knowledge a five-year-old has to explain it in the best possible way to my friends so as to gain their admiration and respect and possibly their jealousy.  And I told them the truth.  “She lets us eat raw cookie dough.”  Score!

I love you JiJi.  Happy Mother’s Day. 

And for all the other mothers I know out there: Aunt Jean, Jane, Vonnie, Christy V., Chandra, Monica, Jamie, LaCole, Melissa, Judy, Nikki, Cheryl, Elizabeth, Rhonda, Dawn, Andi, Kat, Katie, Michelle, Julie Ann, Christy H., Anne, Sarah, Jade, Barbara – oh I’m going to forget so many and I don’t want to – Happy Mother’s Day!  Love to you all!

Proverbs 23:25

 . . . May she who gave birth to you be joyful!