Happy Birthday to my Mom

 Mom holding me when I was 4 months old.

My mom, Peggy, was born August 10th in the year none-of-your-damn-business.  She was the third of four children born to my grandparents, Hedwig and Benjamin.  She grew up in Akron, Ohio and went to the same schools as my dad, had many of the same friends, and yet the two of them didn't meet until they were 28 years old!  They got married after dating only six months, probably not the smartest thing either of them ever did.

Mom wanted to go to college but there was no money, so she took high school classes to help land herself a good secretary job.  She was so good that when her boss from one job was opening a new office he pretty much begged her to come work for him, which she did because he was a good boss (plus yay, a raise).  She left work when it was time to have me.

My mom is an awesome mom.  My dad was a firefighter which meant he worked a 24/48 shift - he was at work for 24 hours and off for 48 (unless he got overtime or there was a big emergency).

Mom and I were just discussing the fact that all the "adventures" happened when my dad was at the fire station.  I don't even remember the earliest instance of this.  Mom says there was a day when my sister and I were really little and Mom smelled gas in the house.  So she called the fire department (the local one, not the one my dad worked for) and took my sister and me out to the very back of our yard for safety.

The trend would continue when my sister and the two younger neighbor kids (who I and one of the older neighbor kids were supposed to be watching for a minute while Mom ran inside) decided to wander off into the wooded back yards of our neighborhood and get lost for half an hour.  Then a few years later during a thunder storm, a tulip tree right behind the house split in the wind and fell on the back of the house. Thankfully the damage was minimal but it started my dad's quest to eliminate all tulip trees in our yard.

The most memorable emergency while dad was at work, for both me and Mom, was in fifth grade when I fell and broke my ankle.  I was down the street at a schoolmate's house where a bunch of us were having a water fight.  The hose got involved and a big muddy patch developed.  I ran through it, slipped and fell on my ankle with my leg out to the side.  My friends encouraged me to walk it off like you do with most injuries as a kid.  Thankfully the pain told me not to listen to them.  My friend, Laurie, ran down to her house where she called my mom to come pick me up.  It's a good thing she did because my ankle was bro-ken. Snapped clean in half.  And my bone doctor said it was a good thing I didn't walk on it because I'd have needed surgery if I had.  But that was after Mom drove my soaking, muddy butt home, helped me change into clean dry clothes the only way I could - laying on the kitchen floor (while she also talked to my dad on the phone), and took me to the ER.

I have many more fabulous memories of Mom than ones where she's yelling (though she doesn't believe this).  Like picnicking under the big "witch tree" in our back yard, and all the summers she took us to Fell Lake pool (the best pool in the history of pools), and laughing so hard it hurt while playing board games at her house.  It was Mom who took me to my 2nd - 7th Moody Blues concerts; drove with me out to South Bend, IN to see "Weird Al" Yankovic; and was in Burlington, Ontario with me for a Scottish film festival to see actor Billy Boyd when the Iraq War started.  In short, she's fed my fandoms happily!  Probably because she usually gets sucked into them.  She was just as excited to see the Moody Blues as I was every year and she ended up a fan of Keith Olbermann even though she rarely got to see Countdown.  My calling her and recapping the show probably didn't hurt that...

Mom loves to sing and loves music.  When we were growing up it was lighter rock (which I still adore) like ABBA and Lionel Richie, though I did find out in my teens that she's always been a Bad Company fan.  Then as my sister and I got older we introduced Mom to "new" music like Pink Floyd (she loves "Comfortably Numb") Boston, Van Halen, and Fountains of Wayne.

My parents got divorced after 21 years of marriage, when I was a young teen.  No divorce is really easy but I think theirs was the easiest. Mom and Dad are still friends and as anyone who knows my family or reads my tweets knows, we all still have dinners together, celebrate holidays together, and do birthdays together.  My parents are great friends.  They just didn't work as a married couple.  Mom made a lot of sacrifices after the divorce to try to make things easier my sister and me. It worked, and I'll always be so thankful for all she gave up and wish I could repay her somehow.

I think it's obvious I could go on and on and on. I love my mom dearly and am so glad she's having her *mumble* birthday today and I hope she has at least a hundred more!!!!!!!!!

The Tail of Maggie

Once upon a time, almost ten years ago, Chad (who is now my husband) was living alone in an apartment.  He had been living there for about a year and thought it was about time to add a kitty to his life.

Growing up, Chad's family had a number of mostly outdoor cats.  One of his favorites was a striped gray girl kitty they called Quester.  She was very smart, rather fluffy and extremely affectionate.  She would climb on Chad's shoulder and purr and drool with happiness.  When Chad was renting a room at my mom's house for several years he'd had my sister's cat, Tristessa, to snuggle and pet and keep an eye on him when he was sick.  During this time, we started calling Chad "Catboy" and "The Cat Whisperer" because there's almost no cat on this planet that doesn't connect with and adore him.  Cats that are usually nervous around strangers take to him quickly.  Cats that aren't afraid of strangers adore him immediately.

Still, Chad was nervous.  He'd never had a cat of his own before - they were always family pets or shared.  This one would be all his responsibility, and he took it very seriously.  After deciding to adopt a kitty, but before actually picking one out, he went and got all the things the new kitty would need.  He bought a kitty carrier, food bowls and kitty toys, and a heated perch that attached to the window so the future kitty could enjoy the view from his 9th floor apartment.

It was a cold day when my sister and I went with Chad to the Akron Humane Society to see if we could find a kitty for him.  While we hung out in the lobby waiting for someone to take us back to see the animals we looked at pictures of pets in their happy new homes and pictures of animals waiting to be adopted.  On the bulletin board was a Polaroid of a fluffyish tuxedo kitty with the most adorable white stripe on her nose and white toes.  She was sitting very tall, like she was posing for the camera.  I pointed the picture out to Chad and he kind of blew me off.  He was anxious to see the kitties in person!

Finally they took us back.  Sadly, they were overrun with pets at the time.  The cats we were taken to first weren't even in the "cat room".  Chad had told the people at the Humane Society what he was looking for in a kitty cat and they had a few suggestions.  First we met a 6 month old kitten named Hannah.  She was all black and very cute, but Chad was actually thinking of adopting an older kitty.  Tessa had been three when my sister adopted her and we all felt that Hannah, being a kitten and so cute, would get adopted quickly.  Plus she just wasn't the right cat.

Chad reiterated that he was looking for a very affectionate cat.  The woman from the Humane Society introduced us to a three year old kitty called Mandy, who happened to be in the cage above Hannah.  When Chad held her it was love at first hug.  She threw herself against his shoulder and purred like crazy.  Then, for good measure, she leaned out and rubbed against my sister and me!  Chad had found his cat!  We went back out to the lobby so he could finish his paperwork and take her home.

While my sister and I were waiting for him, I noticed the cat in the photo I had seen was Mandy!

Thankfully, I wasn't the only one who wasn't crazy about getting a Barry Manilow song stuck in her head every time we talked about the cat.  After a couple of days, Chad decided that Maggie just fit his new kitty better and that's been her official name ever since.  She has about 12,000 nicknames.  She has very much lived up to her reputation of being a very affectionate cat.  The first night she spent at the apartment she was back and forth between the kitty perch and waking Chad up to tell him how much she loves him.  She has always preferred to sleep under the blankets with her head on the pillow being snuggled like a teddybear and loves to give and get kisses.

For about a year and a half, Chad thought apartment life with Maggie was purrfect.  But when he was working long hours his very affectionate kitty was lonely.  That leads us to the Tail of Phoebe which I'll tell another day.

Maggie being adorable with yarn in '09