Short: The Present, Happy Mother's Day

 The Present from Jacob Frey on Vimeo.

"What do you actually want for Mother's day?"

Moms of Reddit:

Moms, we love to get you things for mother's day, but it's hard sometimes, because maybe you have more money than us and get everything you want, or maybe you have interests you don't talk about, or maybe you just don't like many things?

I once got my mother a 6 pack of craft beer and a box of dark chocolate and she thought it was a great gift.

So here is your chance. What would make a great gift for you (bonus points if it is not a common thing!) 

Top 3 comments...

I have a 20 yr old in college, and he has no money. So a lovely card with a handwritten note saying he appreciates me, and listing some reasons why would be all I want. And maybe cook me breakfast.

What's better than that?

A professional massage. I've been so stressed chasing after the kids, it would be really helpful. Also, a nice meal with my family... Thai or Vietnamese would be perfect.

My daughter is a 12 year old smart ass. I would like one day without her sassing back at me. That is all.

NY Post: A Chinese American Mother's Day

"Mother’s Day is a good day in our house, partly because of the general bonhomie that links us with the many moms in our lives. There’s my wife, the mother of my children. There’s also her mother and my mother, both still with us and adored by their grandchildren."

"And in the special recesses of our hearts, there are three more. These are the women who brought our daughters into the world — three women in China whom we have never met and whose names we don’t even know but to whom we owe our family." (read more)

 

via Brit Hume Tweet 

Lileks: Monogamy Envy

"With Mother’s Day nigh, you brace yourself for pieces in Slate and Salon along the lines of “To Hell with Motherhood: The Case for a Holiday to Celebrate the Real Victims of Kermit Gosnell, His Underpaid Staff” or “I’m Sick of Pretending I Love My Child.” Since no one’s written it yet, I’m reduced to imagining how they’ll sound:

Was I the only one who watched The Da Vinci Code hoping the secret message about Christianity was that some Roman version of Hallmark made up Jesus to sell greeting cards? I’m certainly not alone in regarding Valentine’s Day as a manufactured excuse to underscore historical gender norms with a little kiddie porn thrown in (really, what’s with all the naked babies with wings and bows and arrows?), but I know I’m probably in the minority when it comes to Mother’s Day. Hate it.

And so on with the brave, fearless reconsideration of all our cherished notions. One of these days someone will write “My mom hit me with a baseball and I threw up apple pie on the flag” and they’ll close up the sites, having said it all.

Until these pieces are posted, let’s amuse ourselves with The New Republic, where an author wrote “It’s Time to Ditch Monogamy.” A piece from the archives of 1970? No, bold new thinking, spurred by Cameron Diaz’s insights on the superiority of drifting from one chap to the next. Monogamy doesn’t work for Diaz, or the author of the piece, so Ditching must begin. It’s not enough to say, “I just can’t imagine sticking with one person the rest of my life. I foresee a series of satisfying relationships of varying duration and intensity, after which I retire to Nice and become known in the neighborhood as the iconoclastic woman who turned to pottery at the age of 74.” No, you have to decide that everyone should rethink the idea of faithfulness. (read more)

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Congrats to GA's own Zac Brown & wife Shelly on the birth of their 5th child - and 1st boy! http://t.co/07gY065Mta pic.twitter.com/lEaIL2RSGl
— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) May 9, 2014

Proflowers

Mother's day May 11, 2014.

Proflowers, what you see; what you get.

Poorly reviewed online.

Site jabber 1.5 stars out of five stars

Fat wallet, some people like it, most people do not.

Flowers arrive as buds. The scheme is planned that way. Flowers bloom at different rates so the arrangement of different type blooms shown is not what occurs at home. People report some roses not opening at all. Separate species of cut flowers are shipped in a box each stem with their own separate life sustaining glass vial, a test tube with a rubber stopper. So they start out looking alright in the box. The vase is well protected. They are not arranged as with baby's breath, just the flowers and vase, it is up to the recipient to do the trimming and the arrangement.

This would baffle my mother to bits. I know that as fact. She would not be able to comply with instructions to cut the stems first, trim leaves, add whatever else to complete an arrangement, trim stems and leaves, add elements not shipped such as bizarrely shaped twigs, and spacing plants such as baby's breath, add nutrients, change water, then within three days recut the stems, change the water, and re-feed. All that was well beyond her. 

My favorite thing was buy flowers out of the grocery store cooler and and create an arrangement myself using one of her vases, a feat that completely mystified her and she said so. She said to another woman, "I don't know how he does it."

"I have the gene, Mum." 

"What?"

"Never mind." 

But flowers for Mum, any plant for that matter, is tantamount to consigning them to certain prompt death. In her world it is the thought that counts, then they die. And quickly too. Like that *snap* 

I'd do the same thing for my landlady, buy the same bunches. Two completely different reactions. Mum would be all, "These should be red" no matter what color or type best on that day, and the plants would go limp, dying, dead within just a few days, the dead curled flowers displayed as corpses as reminder of what was, while my landlady would flip right out properly thrilled with receiving a bouquet and she'd care for them tenderly extending their life by weeks. I am not exaggerating. The contrast was between them sharp as could be. 

That was fun. I should do that again for the ladies I know now. What an unexpected surprise that will be. I forgot until right now how fun that was.