String Theories

Today, the Internet is full of people talking about how they have the best mom ever.

I always feel a little weird posting about Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, and even Christmas, because it seems like the culturally-mandated Celebratory Period doesn't leave much room for the people who don't have a big shiny happy Norman Rockwell parent / sweetheart / family to gush about on Facebook.  (This holiday paranoia is probably a result of having watched Gremlins at much too young an age.  Chimneys, you guys.  Don't go down them.)

BUT.

The universe has been kind enough to issue me a truly stellar mom.  This deserves recognition.  So in the spirit of "show, don't tell," here is something of her that you can enjoy for your very own.

See this here?

This is a crude replica of something I found while I was helping her clean out her office one day: a little piece of cardboard with two sets of strings glued onto it.

So I said to her, I said, "Hey Mom, what's this?"

And she said, "Oh, that's from a workshop we did a few months ago.  They gave us little pieces of string and told us to use them to illustrate a problem, and show how we would solve it."

"Oh, I see.  So the problem was that they were all in a jumbled mess together, and you straightened them out and organized them."

"No," she said.  "The problem was that they were all separate and lonely, so I put them together."


...I was originally going to use this as a stepping-stone to wax philosophical about something.  On reflection, I'll just say this: my life has been immeasurably enriched by people who arrange their strings in ways that never would have occurred to me.  Thanks for keeping it funky fresh, Mom.

Okay, this screw is important, so I'm putting it here with the oranges.