For Mom’s birthday I opted to get her something every midwestern older woman would love: a gift certificate to Lord & Taylor. I ordered it from Amazon and had it shipped to her house. Unfortunately, she never received the gift card so now I’m stuck dealing with the vendor through Amazon to try and figure out a solution. In the meantime, Mother’s...

Back in October when I visited my mom, her friend was gracious enough to let me and my boyfriend stay at her condo in Rochester Hills. The place was nice–two bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, a nice kitchen and living room. There was also a washer and dryer that Jason and I were eager to use because we were going to be away from Seattle for a few weeks and...

In the weeks leading up to my trip to Costa Rica, I would remind my mom that I was traveling to Central America for a week and she would respond the exact same way each time: Mom: “Oh my gahhhh. You be careful! My gah. You going with friends? Okay, good. You be careful. You go places with Jason–don’t go places by youself. My gah. I raise you all by...

Last week I was working when my mom called. I had just spent a few days in Las Vegas so I figured she was calling me up to see how the trip went. We had just missed each other by a day–my mom was visiting her mother-in-law in Arizona and took a short trip to Las Vegas while she was there, but she had left on Sunday and I arrived in Vegas on Monday for work. (I...

Mom doesn’t typically offer up her opinion of people, but when she does it’s often quite amusing. Recently my brother John emailed me with a random Mom gem. He said he was chatting with her on the phone when, without warning, she started to inexplicably rant about today’s youth. Apparently she was out running errands when a couple of teenage girls...

Quite randomly, I received an email from a PR rep who was promoting Korean food maker CJ‘s new line of pantry items. Called “CJ Bibigo,” they include sauces, pastes, seasonings, and snacks. It’s not the first time I’ve been offered free goodies for blogging–my boyfriend and I used to write for a food site and scored free samples of...

Recently I called Mom to wish her a happy new year. During our call, I brought up North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s death to see what she thought about it. Me: “What do you think about Kim Jong-il dying?” Mom: “Good. I happy.” Me: “Yeah?” Mom: “Yeah, he terrible. Good that he’s dead.” Me: “What do you...