I <3 my mum
Finally back from my New Year's holiday, which included something of a technology blackout: no cellphone coverage, so no day-to-day Tweets of the day's happenings, so no receiving or sending of New Year's text messages, much to my chagrin because those on rival cellphone networks did get some modicum of reception and were still able to receive New Year's text message love :(
So, on to the blog post backlog I had in my mind. First-up on the list: my mum.
At a Christmas party a week before Christmas day of good ol' 2009, a certain someone - who I haven't yet mentioned in this blog before, and so doesn't have a witty nickname to which I can attach to them, to which I am surprised considering the contribution this person made to my 2009 which in turn made it so great - asked me a pretty tough question:
"What kind of person is your mum?"
How we got on to the topic of my mother, I can't remember - it might have something to do with a certain button badge I was given prior to this party - but when I was faced with that question my mind drew a blank. After what seemed like minutes of silence from me while my interrogator watched patiently at the cogs turning behind my eyes, all I could respond with was:
"I don't know how to answer that. Give me a day or 2 and I'll come-up with something."
"Good answer." she said, and walked away to leave me to contemplate the sorts of things I could say about my own mother.
So I gave the thought a day, which then became 2, which then stretched out from however many days there are between a week before Christmas and now...
When thinking about how I describe anybody, I usually look for that 1 trait that sets them apart from the rest; the thing that makes them unique to me. In the case of my mum, it would be that she is self-sacrificing for her children: everything she did, she did for my brother and I.
That trait encompasses many things: unconditional love, support, a level head whenever I asked her about the decisions I was facing (giving me the answer that would benefit me the most, even if the answer was not what I wanted to hear), and an almost embarrassing willingness to go out of her way to make sure my brother and I were as comfortable as we could be (eg: driving out from her work after school hours to take us home, giving us more than our share of food at the table, giving-up the window seat on a plane, etc).
That trait however is a bit of a double-edged sword; as well as being what makes my mum so great, it's also what has annoyed me the most: the unconditional love is often blind to what's going-on with others, the support would often make me think I was right when I was in the wrong, the honest answers might have carried me down the much safer path which could've given me valuable lessons or challenges to face, and the 'out-of-her-way'-ness often became too embarrassing, particularly when around my friends throughout those terrible teenage years.
Despite the good and bad nature of a child-centric focus, it's all the sorts of things I have grown to expect from a mother - and all the sorts of things that compose the yard stick by which I measure every mother I have known or will know.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
"A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie."
- Tenneva Jordan
Mother's Day gone by
(a sort-of sequel to my BEDA post, Mother's Day ahead)
Mother's Day (and my mum's birthday) was over a month ago, and what I ended-up getting my mum was a 2-part present to cover both occasions:
The first part was a book, The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger. The second part of the present will be that, provided she likes the book, I'll take her to see the movie adaptation of the film coming out later this year.
I've never read the book myself, but have been meaning to for a long time; it's just that it's always on loan whenever I visit the library. Now that there's a copy on hand, I'll be sure to borrow it from my mum when she's done reading it.
So what should I happen to see when I made my way to work last week? As I walked through the book store from which I bought the book to reach the lift I needed to take to my work, I saw an entire shelf of The Time Traveller's Wife for sale at 50% off...
F*!@$!
When I got the book so many weeks ago, it was the last one on the shelf! It wasn't overly expensive or anything like that, but this has happened to me so often: I buy something, only to find it at a reduced price a week or so later! Most often this happens with clothes, which sucks because I just bought this sweet new jacket for an upcoming skiing trip at full price.
If history chooses to repeat itself - which it often does just to mock me, probably because I never took it seriously as a subject during my high school years (lesson learned: don't shun your studies lest they come back and taunt you later in life, especially physics which will find very mathematical and cold-hearted ways to screw with you) - then I should see this exact jacket on sale a week or 2 before my skiing trip.
The other types of products this happens to me a lot with is computer stuff. Although with the speed at which technology evolves and the prices drop, a certain amount of "it'll be cheaper next week" is to be expected.
I guess it's the world's way of getting its money back off me; because I don't spend a lot or buy things very often, the economy finds some way to take it all back, thus evening-out my semi-frugal nature.
Mother's Day ahead
If you ever needed a good indicator of up-and-coming holidays or events, just take a good look at retail and what the shops are doing. For the months leading up to Christmas, stores will advertise the fact that it is coming and flood their shops with decorations of red, green, and silver. Then, come the day after Boxing Day, and all these colours are quickly stripped away as if Christmas never happened, only to be replaced by 'Sale! x-percent off!' signs for the next major milestone on the retail calendar: New Year's. The cycle repeats and continues: after New Year's, Valentine's Day. After Valentine's Day, Easter. After Easter...
You get slight variations depending upon the local holidays, but this is generally how it goes. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, because it keeps me informed of what's coming next. And today, it reminded me that Mother's Day is just around the corner.
For some reason, Mother's Day is one of those holidays in which I really try to come up with something for my mum. Maybe it's because my mum's birthday is only a handful of days in proximity to the event, thus guilting me into doubling my efforts (although when I think about it, my dad's birthday is only 2 weeks from Christmas, yet I never seem to try any harder for his birthday... must be a bias or favouritism).
My earliest vivid memory of having done something for my mum was when I was somewhere between 10 and 12 years old. It was a Saturday morning because we were having eggs for breakfast - a long running family tradition, I still cook eggs every Saturday morning since moving out - and we were trying to figure out what to do for the weekend. Mother's Day was the next day (always the second Sunday in May in NZ) and we had been complaining that our current cutlery holder wasn't doing a very good job. So, I offered that my mum could go out and buy a new cutlery holder, and that I would pay for it, up to the value of $30 NZD. Back then I was on an allowance of $7 NZD per week, so I was effectively offering a month of my money. That was a lot to me at that age.
The next memory is a bit more recent, I was maybe 20, when my brother and I started to notice that there's one thing missing from our house when compared to houses of others: family pictures. You could go through our family home and not find a single portrait of us on any wall, desk, or bedside table. We decided to rectify that come Mother's Day / mum's birthday by taking a photo of ourselves, her 2 boys, framing it, and giving it to her as a present. Now it's only 1 of 2 framed pictures in the entire house (the other one being a picture of my brother on his own bedside table... vanity be thy name).
And so it goes.
At the moment, I'm idealess for Mother's Day '09. If I do anything, it'll probably be small or low-key. But thanks to the bookstore I have to walk through every day to get to/from work, at least I've been given fair warning.
