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2007-05-13 - 6:16 p.m.

It's funny that many people scoff at Valentine's Day as a made-up consumer holiday, and Father's Day conjures images of dads in hammocks with Schlitzes, avoiding the family...but somehow Mother's Day has earned a certain amount of reverence in our society...at least judging from the number of bandmates who couldn't practice today cuz they had dinners to attend, and the traffic on 4th Ave this morning, rivalling that of Easter Sunday.

(I also saw a big, semi-scary-looking biker dude stomping down the street today carrying a dainty bouquet of flowers. Cute.)

Like everybody, I had a complicated relationship with my mom, but since this is mother's day, I'm thinking of all the good things (above and beyond giving birth and raising me and my sibs, no small feat there) that she did and said. Too many for one little entry but some random bits:

My mom is the person who instilled in me my love of books and reading. She was anything but a book snob, she just always had a novel going, and was the absolute best reader-aloud. We made regular trips to the library, and she was very cool about letting me pick out any book I wanted, even if it was from the adult section and seemed over my head. To this day, libraries are my church and books are my refuge, and I have mom to thank/blame for that.

Another thing I always appreciated about Mom, even at the time, was that other mothers seemed kinda germaphobic and uptight about their kids playing in mud and dirt and stuff, but she maintained that "a messy kid is a healthy kid," the only instance of a fully-formed and articulated parenting philosophy coming from her lips. And while this may have contributed to my derelict housekeeping skills as an adult, I think it also took root in my brain as a more generalized, type-B kind of approach to living.

I'm trying to end this entry in a snappy, upbeat fashion, and it's not coming, so I'll just turn this over to you guys: what are some of the positive things your mothers have instilled in you, either on purpose or by osmosis?

thoughts? (8 comments so far)

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