The Five Spot (Formerly The Friday Five)

More than a week ago, I thought I'd post a little list about my mother. Blogger had different plans for me. It was all, "Oh no you don't, girlfriend." *snap, snap* (insert neck roll here)

Long story short, Blogger took my precious post away. I then posted this mini rant on my experience. Shortly there after I received several emails titled YOUR MOM. All I could think was ARE YOU PEOPLE REALLY THROWING 'YO MOMMA' JOKES AT ME AT A TIME LIKE THIS? (That totally would have been cool with me and sooo funny.) But no. You were all very nice and supportive. A few of you even got to read it before it vanished.

Then out of nowhere, Christina over at The Bigger They Get sent a kind email with a copy of my missing post in the body of her message. I'd never met Christina, so for someone to be that completely kind to another stranger just floored me. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm offering you, here and now, free babysitting for an entire year. Just fly me out to your home (your expense of course), put me, my husband and kids up at your house (again, on your dime), cover other incidentals and I'll totally do it.

Also, my dear friend at Us and Them could hear my sobs all the way up there in the frozen tundra they call Canada and took mercy upon my sorry soul. He sent my mom this beautiful flower to console her. What a nice guesture. My mom is sure to love this.

But, dude, you have so never met me in person. After you do, you will know that my mom needs more than one flower (allbeit, huge as it is) to console her for the thirty-sithurmth years I've tortured her.

I am amazed at the kindess of you folks out there. Thank you for giving me back the ability to embarass my mom as she reads this tomorrow morning with her co-workers. Here's original her five courtesy of Saint Christina.

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Oh Internets, I couldn't stay away for long. While I sat under my heap of unwashed laundry I heard you calling me. Actually, I think it was my mom. I heard her voice on my answering machine saying, "Jennifer? Your blob says you'll be gone for a while. I just saw you last week. You didn't tell me you were going anywhere."

Yes, my mom calls steenky bee a "blob". I try not give her a hard time about it because she pimps it out to everyone. When she retires, I'm thinking of asking her to approach strangers in the store to ask them if they wouldn't mind giving steenky bee a read. If I gave her a shopping allowance, she'd totally do it.

This week's Five Spot will be dedicated to my mom. I shall share five trivial, yet lovable, things about my mom with total strangers.

1. She gets excited over just about anything. My mom is a bubbly person and just about anything will make her happy. She called me at work a few years ago to tell me how excited she was about KFC's new chicken bowls. Yes, the lady was stoked about potatoes, gravy, corn and chicken mixed together in a plastic bowl. I'm telling you, she's not high maintenance in the entertainment department.

Just last week she and I had a girl date filled with shopping, lunching and movie watching. You'd think the movie or time spent with me would be the highlight for her. But no, when she picked me up the first thing she said to me was, "If we hurry with all our errands then we can even go to the POST OFFICE!" I've never seen anyone so eager to get to the post office. All she had to do was mail two bills, but still, she did it with such enthusiasm.

2. My mom loves anything with a leopard print pattern. Seriously. Name it and she's got it. I've exhausted my search for all thing leopard for her. She has every shoe, every scarf, bag, skirt, picture frame, notebook, pencil, glove, everything. She doesn't wear all these things together, but her collection of feline accessories is so deep, any major league baseball team would be jealous of her rotation.

3. My mom loves a good perfume. She has the largest collection of perfume I've ever seen. I'm. Not. Kidding. Christmas time is a a big holiday for her perfume-wise. Toward the end of the unwrapping of presents, the rest of the family sits by at watches her unwrap bottle after bottle of the smelly stuff. She gets equally excited about each bottle too. With every new fragrance she opens, she must take the perfume out of the box, remove the lid and sniff. Each time she'll slowly say the name of the fragrance out loud, "Beautiful, by Estee Lauder!" Then, after she smells it, she says, "Mmm. It smells so good!" Every bottle. Every time. I never get tired of it.

4. She is a shoe and hand bag hoarder. Imedla Marcos would be jealous of her collection. About six months ago my parents heard a loud crash come from their bedroom. They rushed in but couldn't see anything the matter. But upon closer inspection, of one of my dear mother's four closets (yes, count 'em, four!) had collapsed due to the weight of her collection of shoes and hand bags. Needless to say, my mom spent days reorganizing and cleaning up that mess. In the end, her assessment was that she had a few too many red hand bags, but she had let her black hand bag collection lapse.

Internets, you should know that when I turned 18, I left for a college six hours away. My dad was distraught and sad to see me go. I thought my mom felt the same. She kept coming into my room, sometimes when I'd be sleeping, and just look around. At the time I thought it was sweet. She was going to miss me. She would stand in my room and just take a mental note of all my belongings trying to keep the memory of me with her always. At least that's what I assumed at the time.

However, when I returned home in the fall for a visit I was surprised to see that my mom had overtaken my room and turned it into a staging place for her collection of pant suits and dressers full of jewelry. She hadn't been stalking my room back then in an effort to keep me close to her. She had been sneaking in to prepare for her fourth closet. I always wondered why she had that tape measure with her.*

(*The last two paragraphs may not be entirely true. My room was, in fact, only her third closet and she waited until Christmas break to take over my room.)

5. My mom is an incredibly good sport. Really she is. I've teased her mercilessly in person for years and she always managed to laugh along. Now, I'm teasing her openly on the interweb and I expect she's sitting there laughing along like always. I love you, Mom.