Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday. And of course, although it's been on the To-Do list for a week, I didn't get the card sent. Actually, if I ever got a card of any kind sent to my parents before the date of the event, they wouldn't know how to deal with it. Mom would think I had been replaced by a pod person from the planet Mars. It would cause all sorts of trouble, I'm sure. But since I can't get my act together enough to send cards, I try to call and/or send an e-card. Or like today, I blog and send a link.

Mom is the normal one in the family...kind of. There is the issue of her Warner sense of humor. It's totally warped, and none of us with Warner blood can escape it. But really, who would want to. It makes life a lot more fun.

My mom loves words. Her love of words and her sense of humor mean that I always have someone to share awful (or wonderful) puns with. However, she is also the grammar queen and although newer rule books allow it, she would correct that last sentence saying, "Never use a preposition to end a sentence with." We used to watch the local news out of a small town in Idaho and she would have to jump up and get her dictionary to check and see if the newscaster had pronounced a word correctly or used it correctly. (Usually Mom was right and the people on the TV were wrong.) It was lots of fun, really, and educational for all of us too. One year, my dad gave her an unabridged dictionary as a gift. She was totally excited about it. How nerdy is that! I love it, love her, and love that monster dictionary. (Can you put me down for that in the will?)

Speaking of strange gifts, one year my mom's friends and my dad's co-workers gave Dad a really bad time about the gift he gave Mom. She came to his defense saying that the chain saw was exactly what she wanted. And it was true. Yes, she likes pretty stuff (see my Hyacinths post), but she's very practical. They needed a chain saw, she needed a gift, money was short...it was the perfectly logical choice.

Mom knows how to make the best of whatever she has to deal with. She thinks that we were traumatized by some of the events in our childhoods, but some of those hard times are my favorite memories. One year we ran out of heating oil before the end of the winter and didn't have money for more. We closed off the rest of the house and basically lived in the living room, kitchen, and bathroom, heating that space with space heaters and whatever heat the oven generated while in use. It may not be one of her favorite memories, but to me, it was an adventure.

My mom could also make tasty food from whatever cheap ingredients she had. I haven't made these in years, since I now have serious issues with what goes into hot dogs, but I loved these dishes as a kid.
Recipe #1: Roll hot dogs in mustard and then in corn flake crumbs. Bake in the oven.
Recipe #2: Slice hot dogs length-wise and fry them in BBQ sauce. Stir in cooked macaroni and more sauce.

(Just in case you are wondering, she can make real food too.)

My mom does have a couple of weird food things. She can buy a chocolate bar or ice cream and eat a little at a time through the week. How is this even possible??

My mom is probably the person most responsible for me becoming a musician. She is a singer, pianist, and music teacher and I grew up surrounded by music. In fact, because I heard it so much, I was singing in Italian before I knew the ABC song. She also made my music lessons a priority. I know that there were times that the money could have been used for other very important things, but she found a way to pay for my lessons.

My mom set a wonderful example of the importance of life-long learning. She is super intelligent and curious. How many people do you know that read Einstein for fun? We joke that my dad knows more useless trivia than anyone else we know, but I'm betting that Mom could give him a run for his money. And truly, no knowledge is useless. It just gets filed away until you encounter a situation where you need it. From my mom, I learned a love of history, especially British history. Mom and I had a plan to take a trip to England for the year that she turned 50 and I turned 30. (Maybe we started with 40-20. I can't remember.) Anyway, neither one of us has been able to afford it so we haven't been there yet, but someday we are going together. The joke now is that it will be when we are 100 and 80 and I'll be pushing her wheelchair.

I have been incredibly blessed to have 2 very open-minded, compassionate parents. My mom is a seeker of truth and know that truth comes to many people. She shares what she believes and listens and learns from the beliefs of others. When I bought my tickets to the Dalai Lama events in MN last spring, I sent her an email because I knew she was one of the few people that would understand how excited I was. She once commented that she wished Pope John Paul II was still alive because she would like to hang a trio of pictures of him, the Dalai Lama, and Thomas S. Monson and call it her wall of heroes. I told her she should do it anyway. These men radiate love and that's the kind of people that are her heroes.

Because my mom is only twenty years older than me and I was always very mature (that means nerdy, responsible, couldn't understand dumb kid stuff)some people thought we were sisters. Mom says sometimes she was the mom and sometimes I was the mom (yes, I did have some bossiness issues). We took care of each other, we worried about each other, we went to shows and concerts together. We've been known to start singing the same tune at the same time, in the same key and the same place in the song. Neither one of us can draw to save our lives, but when we are a team for Pictionary, we beat my artist dad and brothers. We can recognize each other's sad attempts at art. I can't remember who said it first, but it has been noted that sometimes we share a brain. And if I'm going to share a brain, I can't think of anyone better to share it with than my wonderful friend, my mom.

Happy Birthday, Mom! Start saving those pennies for England.