My brother has had surgery numerous times (for bad knees and a bum hip), and every time he’s scheduled to go in, my mom treats him like a death row inmate on his last hurrah. On Monday John had a hip replacement surgery, which means on Sunday my mom came to his house with enough food to feed an army, plus some extra goodies to pamper him before he went under...

Christmas has come and gone. My mom, as promised, sent me a Christmas card with a check enclosed (because I disappointed her by not banking through Bank of America). Before it arrived, she called me a couple times to remind me that the check was for me and Jason, not just me. Mom: “I send you card and check.” Me: “Great, thanks. I’ll let you...

Recently my mom had considered flying to Colorado with her husband to attend his niece’s wedding reception, and since I travel to Colorado regularly for work, I wanted to try and coordinate our trips so I could see them. Unfortunately, they decided not to take the trip. My stepdad has been working a lot lately and didn’t want to take the time off to...

Shopping for my mom is extremely difficult. One year I gave her some Julia Roberts movies on VHS, and she scowled and said, “Why I wanna watch these?” Another time I bought her a nice light blue sweater from the Gap (size 00, of course), and the following year she flew out to Seattle for a visit and brought a bunch of clothes for me, one of which was the...