Mother’s Day is sort of turning into a big deal for me today. I’ve always felt that these kinds of holidays have been co-opted by our consumer oriented society. By turning holidays into big marketing days we drain authenticity from important holidays like Christmas and Easter. When it comes to a more gentle idea like honoring our Fathers and Mothers, it seems to me to collapse under the weight of this kind of treatment.
Nevertheless, I have always tried to reiterate my love for my Mom on this day so she doesn’t even suspect I am not thinking of her.
Yesterday I had another full day off. Eileen and I met an old class mate of hers for lunch at the pub. That was fun, talking to someone who played in Band with Eileen in High School. Very cool. After grocery shopping and organ practice, I prepared food. I made a carrot cake to take with us to the annual Hatch Mother’s Day (Hatch is Eileen’s maiden name…. and I told you I was out of control) and prepared a quiche for a brunch with my Mom today.
The quiche is in the oven right now.
I have yet to frost the carrot cake because it came out of the oven at 8:30 PM last night. That’s pretty late for an “early-to-bedder” like me.
At about 6:30 or so, Eileen’s long awaited lawn edging arrived in the mail. She has been marking time waiting for this to arrive. She was planning to use it to create a little three tiered strawberry bed. This involves many wheelbarrows of compost. She looked at me exhausted and said we could wait on doing garden work. But after a brief conference to determine that she actually would like to work on it right away, we went to work.
So I found myself manually laboring again. New territory for this musician/cook. But what the hey.
So by the time the evening rolled around I was once again a tired camper.
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The Politics of Solipsism – NYTimes.com
David Brooks column. I don’t entirely agree with his point of view but find his arguments interesting.
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I once “jammed”with this young woman in the park. Now she has released a CD.
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I never miss this show. Here’s links to a couple of good segments from this week.
Bin Laden in Culture
50th anniversary of TV Wasteland Speech
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This is the song I have been asked to arrange for String Quartet. On top of everything else yesterday I managed to get started on this.
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Well, this reminds me that it was you that introduced me to the Mothers of Invention. I think of Zappa every so often, I still have the vinyl recordings.
I wish your Mother a very good day today. I miss my Mother very much.
It is a beautiful spring day for remembrances.
Ray