My birthday gift to my mom 2007
Dec. 26th, 2007 01:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
paganiwitchCross posted from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
be4u...lj-cut in case you're seeing this twice.
Mara Alexander, my mom
My mom is very special to me, and I wasn't sure how to honor her birthday...it's not easy for me due to my situation (those of you who know Mara probably know what I mean. Those who don't know, well, a little mystery is good for the soul.) Then I came up with something to put on LJ. But how to do this? Should I send it to a friend and have it posted as a surprise? In the end, I'm going to leave it up to my mom to post, or not to post. So if you're reading this, and you're not my mom, I guess she posted it. Here goes... Happy Birthday, mom...
Mara is Gaelic for "of the sea", fitting for a Scorpio, a water sign. Her emotions ebb and flow like the tides. She is a very loving person. She has a record of being unlucky in love, always a bride, never a bridesmaid [1]. Despite that, she's never given up on finding true love.[2]
She will stand by her friends and family through almost anything. She is the type of person who wants to help in any small way possible, even if that means just sewing a button on a jacket during an important trial. [3]
My mom is always right, especially when she's wrong. She can be sweet and bitchy all in the same breath. [4] She has no problem giving someone a rasberry or the finger, depending on what the situation calls for.
She has a garage full of power tools, and knows how to use all of them. She can build a gazebo, make a teddy bear, build a computer from scratch, and lay down a driveway. No room in her house is finished, but that doesn't stop her from starting a new project.
My mom loves that she's a grandmother, all be it a young one. She still listens to hard rock like Ozzy Osbourne and goes to concerts where the band is wearing nothing but clear shower curtains and smiles, all while wearing leather pants.[5]
She is a college graduate, runs two businesses and yet still watches EVERY Charlie Brown holiday special, whether there is a child around or not. She still plays with Barbies and troll dolls. She's the true definition of a Toys'R'Us kid. [6]
My mom wouldn't dare give the neighbors any food that might have spoiled, but has no reservations about feeding that same food to her son. [7] Any given day she can be heard yelling at him "Fine, be that way, asshole!" [8]
She has posed in her birthday suit for a calendar, much to the complete horror of her son [9], although it was for a good cause. She gets hit on by men the same age as her son (and I'm watching each and every one of you!). [10]
My mom will never live down the fact she hit a cop car as a teenager.[11] She has locked herself inside her car [12], but then again she is a blonde. She can give a complete and detailed tour of Yosemite in 20 minutes flat. [13]
She is one of the most magickal people I've ever been around, even if she doesn't realize it all the time. She has always been surrounded by angels. She has great energy and has a beautiful spirit. [14]
My mom is many things. She's an artist [15], a web designer, a gardener, a yogi, a blogger, a cancer survivor, a business woman. She's someone you can always talk to, a shoulder to cry on. She's strong, lovable, honorable and kind.
She's my mom, now and always, and she means the world to me. Happy Birthday mom, I love you.[16]
[1] At first I wondered if he meant this the other way around...then I realized, it's correct the way he wrote it, at least in my case. Might of been better had I been the bridesmaid in those weddings...
[2] Remind me to bring the b0i up speed in this area...
I noticed during one of our recent visits how he seems to have inherited my romanticism. Perhaps it's been there always, I'd just never seen it before. He spoke of someone he has a crush on, and said something about marriage. I said "Oh?" He said "Yeah, you know in my mind I'm already naming our second child, so since we're going to be having kids together, we might as well be married." It was just cute to see that side of him.
[3] During Adam's trial, he of course wanted to look as good as possible (clean-cut and wholesome might help as well), so he wore his one good suit. The jacket button came loose and needed to be sewn back on. During 3 month's worth of trial days, it was the one time Steve ever went to court with me. Adam's attorney brought me Adam's suit jacket during lunch recess, and we sat on the bench in the court hallway while I sewed the button. I felt good about being able to help him, even in such a small way...until I realized that I was so nervous I'd sewn the button all the way through to the back of the jacket, thereby sewing the jacket closed...
[4] Hey, it's a well-honed skill!
[5] Leather garments are apparently "off limits" to anyone who has given birth...*makes a face*
[6] This from the kid of tortured a 3" high Barney toy! I tied it onto one of his Christmas presents as a joke (because he *hated* Barney) when he was 15. So what did he do? He tied a string around Barney like a hangman's noose, carried him around the house lighting a Bic lighter under his feet, saying "Die, Barney, die!" Then when the plastic started to melt Adam hung Barney from his room's doorknob. I seem to remember Barney getting dropped out the window a few times, too.
When Aaron was helping me find something in the garage a few weeks ago and we found that Barney, I had a hard time explaining why it was in that condition. "Well, see, daddy hated Barney....and daddy burned Barney's feet, and....ermmmm..."
[7] Adam was looking in the freezer for something to take to our neighbors house, sice they'd invited him to dinner and he wanted to contribute something. He found some Polska Kibasa sausage, wrapped in plastic wrap and had been in the freezer a while. OK, so perhaps I could have explained a little more at the time, and the exact quote was "Don't give that to the neighbors, it's bad. You eat it."
I then went to my bedroom to take my shoes off...and Adam followed me, still holding the sausage, still with his mouth open. "Do you realize what you just said?" OK, so what I meant was that it had been opened, was old, and not in a new, fresh unopened state, hence not "company-ready." But I didn't think it was spoiled. Because nothing ever got a chance to spoil with Adam in the house.
When he first moved out, I cried my eyes out for three days straight. Then I came home from work one night and found there was still food in the frig and no stranger sleeping on my couch, and suddenly...the light dawned and I saw an upside to the situation.
[8] Adam was 14 (and for parents of teens, I could stop the story right there and you'd get it), and late for school. I don't remember the exact reason why, but I remember he took the bus, and since he was late he was going to have to walk. I was trying to get ready myself, and yet Adam had already gotten those "If you're late one more time" notes from school. I didn't want to be late myself, and I was trying to teach him the consequences of his actions, and yet...I didn't want him to get into more trouble at school. So I went to the bottom of the stairs and called to him (at that time we lived in a big 4 bedroom, 2 story house). I had planned to offer to give him a ride to school, saving him another tardy.
I got met with an attitude and one of "impatient 14-year old sighs", while set me off. Before I got anything out of my mouth about giving him a ride, I got fed up and said "Fine, be that way, asshole! Here I was trying to help you..."
[9] Bah, it'll give you something to talk about in therapy, ya whiner....
[10] If you're watching them so closely...mind telling me where they're all hiding?
[11] I didn't run into him, he ran into me. I just happened to be in the middle of the intersection when he hit me...and had inadvertantly run a red light on the way into the intersection... 33 feet of circular skidmarks. When I dated a Highway Patrol cadet 6-7 years later, he told me the story of this blonde in a Firebird convertible from years ago...talk about a small world.
[12] I was tired....and, and...paranoid! We were roadtripping from CA to New Mexico straight through. We were traveling with a few thousand dollars worth of merchandise (teddy bears), as well as our lugagge. The trip was just a few months after I'd had major surgery (the cancer surgery), and looking back I was a wee bit "touched" to have made a 2k mile trip in that condition. It was also the same trip I got my first (and so far *knocks on wood* only) flat tire...mid-day, in August, in the middle of the Mojave desert. No, I didn't have AAA then. It's why I *always* do now.
We stopped at truck stops to use the bathrooms, and everytime we'd stop I always always paranoid someone would steal whatever it was we had, and so I always reminding Adam to make sure he locked his door. I had "lock the door" on the brain...was very, very tired...and locked the door before I got out of the car. The look on Adam's face was priceless. We really did have a lot of laughs :)
[13] We'd gotten a much later start on the trip to Yosemite than planned, on our way to New Mexico. I'd planned this relaxing, leisurely drive with planned stops along the way in Yosemite, Calico Ghost Town, the Grand Canyon and then to Santa Fe. We got to the park entrance about an hour before nightfall, and as we were camping (with the sites first come first serve), and I was nervous about trying to find a campsite in the dark.
And so I speeded through Yosemite valley, as fast as traffic would allow. He still teases me with "Look! There's half dome....zoooooommmmmm....that *was* half dome...."
I kept telling him "It's OK, well come back, we'll come back." Every campground we tried was full up. Every one. We were told there were some sites left at the campground on the other side of Tioga Pass. Word to the wise: anytime they say it's "remote and very difficult to get to", and the cost is significantly cheaper than the rest of Yosemite...there's a reason.
I'm not a skiddish driver, but going over the pass, Tioga Pass at 9945 feet is the highest automobile pass in California, with grades between 12% - 19%, scared the bejesus out of me. By the time we got to the campsite I was ready to literally KISS the ground. And I would have...until we found out those funny tracks we saw in the dirt were BEAR tracks! So now I was paranoid about making sure every bit of food stuff was properly stored, and a FREAKED when I found Adam had toothpaste in the tent.
There was NO WAY I was going back up that to get back to Yosemite the next day. We went on south towards the next stop, with Adam disappointed (and me too). We went to Yosemite at least once more (and another time gave it a valient try, but the used car I'd just bought blew up on the freeway on the way out of town), but I don't think Adam ever really got to *see* Yosemite.
[14] In our talks over the last couple of months, once we started talking about "this subject", I was overwhelmed at how much Adam remembers. Little things I'd do that I thought he was oblivious to, and yet he remembers every detail even though we never spoke of what I was doing at the time. He remembers how I used crystals to heal, he remembers the candles, and most of all he remembers the second time I got cancer, that it wasn't the doctors who cured me. He remembers more than I'd ever would have expected he would from that time.
I just hope he's forgotten the "Lentil loaf" from my vegan days. That really was cruel and unusual punishment for a teenage boy.
[15] My drawings and paintings seem to have made quiet an impression on him. I've shown my work to very, very few people...Adam is one of the few. Art for me has always been such a personal thing, I'd rather keep it to myself than show it to anyone and take a chance of criticism. I create for me, because for a long time drawing was the only way I had to express for feelings for which I had no words and no voice.
Adam's asked recently if I'd share some of my drawings with him and send him copies, so he can incorporate them into his "master tattoo plan."
[16] I know I promised "no emo", but this part made me cry. Despite his circumstances, he's grown into a fine man. Not a day goes by that I don't miss him terribly. I remember the last Christmas we had when he was "out"...
He was working graveyard as a security guard, not far from my house. He surprised me very early Christmas morning by knocking on the door. He just came by to say "Hi" and Merry Christmas. He'd never done that before, so it was quite a surprise, and I was wondering if he wanted something. Turns out he only came to see me, because it was Christmas.
I remember making him breakfast. It was one of my best Christmas memories.
be4u...lj-cut in case you're seeing this twice.Mara Alexander, my mom
My mom is very special to me, and I wasn't sure how to honor her birthday...it's not easy for me due to my situation (those of you who know Mara probably know what I mean. Those who don't know, well, a little mystery is good for the soul.) Then I came up with something to put on LJ. But how to do this? Should I send it to a friend and have it posted as a surprise? In the end, I'm going to leave it up to my mom to post, or not to post. So if you're reading this, and you're not my mom, I guess she posted it. Here goes... Happy Birthday, mom...
Mara is Gaelic for "of the sea", fitting for a Scorpio, a water sign. Her emotions ebb and flow like the tides. She is a very loving person. She has a record of being unlucky in love, always a bride, never a bridesmaid [1]. Despite that, she's never given up on finding true love.[2]
She will stand by her friends and family through almost anything. She is the type of person who wants to help in any small way possible, even if that means just sewing a button on a jacket during an important trial. [3]
My mom is always right, especially when she's wrong. She can be sweet and bitchy all in the same breath. [4] She has no problem giving someone a rasberry or the finger, depending on what the situation calls for.
She has a garage full of power tools, and knows how to use all of them. She can build a gazebo, make a teddy bear, build a computer from scratch, and lay down a driveway. No room in her house is finished, but that doesn't stop her from starting a new project.
My mom loves that she's a grandmother, all be it a young one. She still listens to hard rock like Ozzy Osbourne and goes to concerts where the band is wearing nothing but clear shower curtains and smiles, all while wearing leather pants.[5]
She is a college graduate, runs two businesses and yet still watches EVERY Charlie Brown holiday special, whether there is a child around or not. She still plays with Barbies and troll dolls. She's the true definition of a Toys'R'Us kid. [6]
My mom wouldn't dare give the neighbors any food that might have spoiled, but has no reservations about feeding that same food to her son. [7] Any given day she can be heard yelling at him "Fine, be that way, asshole!" [8]
She has posed in her birthday suit for a calendar, much to the complete horror of her son [9], although it was for a good cause. She gets hit on by men the same age as her son (and I'm watching each and every one of you!). [10]
My mom will never live down the fact she hit a cop car as a teenager.[11] She has locked herself inside her car [12], but then again she is a blonde. She can give a complete and detailed tour of Yosemite in 20 minutes flat. [13]
She is one of the most magickal people I've ever been around, even if she doesn't realize it all the time. She has always been surrounded by angels. She has great energy and has a beautiful spirit. [14]
My mom is many things. She's an artist [15], a web designer, a gardener, a yogi, a blogger, a cancer survivor, a business woman. She's someone you can always talk to, a shoulder to cry on. She's strong, lovable, honorable and kind.
She's my mom, now and always, and she means the world to me. Happy Birthday mom, I love you.[16]
[1] At first I wondered if he meant this the other way around...then I realized, it's correct the way he wrote it, at least in my case. Might of been better had I been the bridesmaid in those weddings...
[2] Remind me to bring the b0i up speed in this area...
I noticed during one of our recent visits how he seems to have inherited my romanticism. Perhaps it's been there always, I'd just never seen it before. He spoke of someone he has a crush on, and said something about marriage. I said "Oh?" He said "Yeah, you know in my mind I'm already naming our second child, so since we're going to be having kids together, we might as well be married." It was just cute to see that side of him.
[3] During Adam's trial, he of course wanted to look as good as possible (clean-cut and wholesome might help as well), so he wore his one good suit. The jacket button came loose and needed to be sewn back on. During 3 month's worth of trial days, it was the one time Steve ever went to court with me. Adam's attorney brought me Adam's suit jacket during lunch recess, and we sat on the bench in the court hallway while I sewed the button. I felt good about being able to help him, even in such a small way...until I realized that I was so nervous I'd sewn the button all the way through to the back of the jacket, thereby sewing the jacket closed...
[4] Hey, it's a well-honed skill!
[5] Leather garments are apparently "off limits" to anyone who has given birth...*makes a face*
[6] This from the kid of tortured a 3" high Barney toy! I tied it onto one of his Christmas presents as a joke (because he *hated* Barney) when he was 15. So what did he do? He tied a string around Barney like a hangman's noose, carried him around the house lighting a Bic lighter under his feet, saying "Die, Barney, die!" Then when the plastic started to melt Adam hung Barney from his room's doorknob. I seem to remember Barney getting dropped out the window a few times, too.
When Aaron was helping me find something in the garage a few weeks ago and we found that Barney, I had a hard time explaining why it was in that condition. "Well, see, daddy hated Barney....and daddy burned Barney's feet, and....ermmmm..."
[7] Adam was looking in the freezer for something to take to our neighbors house, sice they'd invited him to dinner and he wanted to contribute something. He found some Polska Kibasa sausage, wrapped in plastic wrap and had been in the freezer a while. OK, so perhaps I could have explained a little more at the time, and the exact quote was "Don't give that to the neighbors, it's bad. You eat it."
I then went to my bedroom to take my shoes off...and Adam followed me, still holding the sausage, still with his mouth open. "Do you realize what you just said?" OK, so what I meant was that it had been opened, was old, and not in a new, fresh unopened state, hence not "company-ready." But I didn't think it was spoiled. Because nothing ever got a chance to spoil with Adam in the house.
When he first moved out, I cried my eyes out for three days straight. Then I came home from work one night and found there was still food in the frig and no stranger sleeping on my couch, and suddenly...the light dawned and I saw an upside to the situation.
[8] Adam was 14 (and for parents of teens, I could stop the story right there and you'd get it), and late for school. I don't remember the exact reason why, but I remember he took the bus, and since he was late he was going to have to walk. I was trying to get ready myself, and yet Adam had already gotten those "If you're late one more time" notes from school. I didn't want to be late myself, and I was trying to teach him the consequences of his actions, and yet...I didn't want him to get into more trouble at school. So I went to the bottom of the stairs and called to him (at that time we lived in a big 4 bedroom, 2 story house). I had planned to offer to give him a ride to school, saving him another tardy.
I got met with an attitude and one of "impatient 14-year old sighs", while set me off. Before I got anything out of my mouth about giving him a ride, I got fed up and said "Fine, be that way, asshole! Here I was trying to help you..."
[9] Bah, it'll give you something to talk about in therapy, ya whiner....
[10] If you're watching them so closely...mind telling me where they're all hiding?
[11] I didn't run into him, he ran into me. I just happened to be in the middle of the intersection when he hit me...and had inadvertantly run a red light on the way into the intersection... 33 feet of circular skidmarks. When I dated a Highway Patrol cadet 6-7 years later, he told me the story of this blonde in a Firebird convertible from years ago...talk about a small world.
[12] I was tired....and, and...paranoid! We were roadtripping from CA to New Mexico straight through. We were traveling with a few thousand dollars worth of merchandise (teddy bears), as well as our lugagge. The trip was just a few months after I'd had major surgery (the cancer surgery), and looking back I was a wee bit "touched" to have made a 2k mile trip in that condition. It was also the same trip I got my first (and so far *knocks on wood* only) flat tire...mid-day, in August, in the middle of the Mojave desert. No, I didn't have AAA then. It's why I *always* do now.
We stopped at truck stops to use the bathrooms, and everytime we'd stop I always always paranoid someone would steal whatever it was we had, and so I always reminding Adam to make sure he locked his door. I had "lock the door" on the brain...was very, very tired...and locked the door before I got out of the car. The look on Adam's face was priceless. We really did have a lot of laughs :)
[13] We'd gotten a much later start on the trip to Yosemite than planned, on our way to New Mexico. I'd planned this relaxing, leisurely drive with planned stops along the way in Yosemite, Calico Ghost Town, the Grand Canyon and then to Santa Fe. We got to the park entrance about an hour before nightfall, and as we were camping (with the sites first come first serve), and I was nervous about trying to find a campsite in the dark.
And so I speeded through Yosemite valley, as fast as traffic would allow. He still teases me with "Look! There's half dome....zoooooommmmmm....that *was* half dome...."
I kept telling him "It's OK, well come back, we'll come back." Every campground we tried was full up. Every one. We were told there were some sites left at the campground on the other side of Tioga Pass. Word to the wise: anytime they say it's "remote and very difficult to get to", and the cost is significantly cheaper than the rest of Yosemite...there's a reason.
I'm not a skiddish driver, but going over the pass, Tioga Pass at 9945 feet is the highest automobile pass in California, with grades between 12% - 19%, scared the bejesus out of me. By the time we got to the campsite I was ready to literally KISS the ground. And I would have...until we found out those funny tracks we saw in the dirt were BEAR tracks! So now I was paranoid about making sure every bit of food stuff was properly stored, and a FREAKED when I found Adam had toothpaste in the tent.
There was NO WAY I was going back up that to get back to Yosemite the next day. We went on south towards the next stop, with Adam disappointed (and me too). We went to Yosemite at least once more (and another time gave it a valient try, but the used car I'd just bought blew up on the freeway on the way out of town), but I don't think Adam ever really got to *see* Yosemite.
[14] In our talks over the last couple of months, once we started talking about "this subject", I was overwhelmed at how much Adam remembers. Little things I'd do that I thought he was oblivious to, and yet he remembers every detail even though we never spoke of what I was doing at the time. He remembers how I used crystals to heal, he remembers the candles, and most of all he remembers the second time I got cancer, that it wasn't the doctors who cured me. He remembers more than I'd ever would have expected he would from that time.
I just hope he's forgotten the "Lentil loaf" from my vegan days. That really was cruel and unusual punishment for a teenage boy.
[15] My drawings and paintings seem to have made quiet an impression on him. I've shown my work to very, very few people...Adam is one of the few. Art for me has always been such a personal thing, I'd rather keep it to myself than show it to anyone and take a chance of criticism. I create for me, because for a long time drawing was the only way I had to express for feelings for which I had no words and no voice.
Adam's asked recently if I'd share some of my drawings with him and send him copies, so he can incorporate them into his "master tattoo plan."
[16] I know I promised "no emo", but this part made me cry. Despite his circumstances, he's grown into a fine man. Not a day goes by that I don't miss him terribly. I remember the last Christmas we had when he was "out"...
He was working graveyard as a security guard, not far from my house. He surprised me very early Christmas morning by knocking on the door. He just came by to say "Hi" and Merry Christmas. He'd never done that before, so it was quite a surprise, and I was wondering if he wanted something. Turns out he only came to see me, because it was Christmas.
I remember making him breakfast. It was one of my best Christmas memories.
