With mother's day coming up...

A bit of stream of consciousness regarding my mother during my childhood

*When I got a training bra she called me Busty Russell. This was before google, and our limited Encyclopedia Britannica’s only went to the Q’s, so I thought she made that term up. She is known for that – her favorite expletive is “Jesus Murphy”…

*We had clandestine slumber parties where I made appetizers of sliced cheese on toothpicks.

*Her sleep-walking and sleep-eating sometimes yielded sometimes scary and sometimes comical results. Once she put corn pops in a pitcher of apple juice (she said she remembered having a dream she was making us breakfast)…I went to get a glass of juice and when I picked up the pitcher there was a clanking sound…upon opening the lid there they were…corn pops floating in the apple juice. A scary instance was when she smeared superglue on a piece of Wonder bread. The fumes from the glue woke her up before she ate it.

*My sister and I inherited our pretty singing voices from her. I loved hearing her sing fifties Christmas carols like Suzy Snowflake, and showtunes from Sweet Charity. She loved relaying the story about our father telling her she sang like a bird, so he gave her birds.


(and no, she's still of this world...we continue to create mother-daughter memories even 4,000 away...)