working, knitting & mom
I've been immersed in a free-lance job all week, and I have missed a lot of my knitting time . So, today, after attending some meetings, I went across the street to the new Time Warner Center and grabbed a few hours to do my favorite things: first, i walked through Williams Sonoma and looked at their incredibly beautiful test kitchen, and then I went downstairs to the biggest supermarket we have in Manhattan: the Whole Foods at 59th and Columbus. It's enormous and beautiful and a shrine for foodies like me. Then I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down with my knitting, and I pulled out my NY Times Crossword puzzle and had 2 hrs. of solitary fun - in the middle of a giant coffee/jamba juice/whole foods milling crowd. It was glorious.
It was my late mom's birthday and since it was she who taught me to knit, my thoughts turned to her. My mom was a funny and rather gentle lady who taught me to knit when i was 8 and then promptly put down her needles. (Years later she told me it made her "nervous" and she didn't understand how I had the patience for it.) Nonetheless, she gave me an enormous gift so I think of her often when I knit.
So, I think it only fair that on her "birthday" I tell one of my favorite "mom" stories - When my mom was a little girl and she started school, she was very shy. When they enrolled her in class, the teacher recorded her birthday and understood it to be November 11th.
Since she was born in 1911, her birthdate was recorded as 11/11/11. In reality it was 11/20/11, but she liked the sound of all those eleven's and she was too shy to correct him, so she let it stand. For years - and I mean until I was at least 40, we celebrated it on the 11th - Veteran's Day. One day, she told me, with a silly smile , that her true birthday was the 20th. When I asked her why she had let us all go on like that for years, without revealing the actual date, she just smiled and said that, at first, she hadn't wanted to "make any trouble" and then she had grown to like it - that all of those 11's were kind of like a good luck charm - and besides 11 was a really nice number. She was a really nice mom, too.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
It was my late mom's birthday and since it was she who taught me to knit, my thoughts turned to her. My mom was a funny and rather gentle lady who taught me to knit when i was 8 and then promptly put down her needles. (Years later she told me it made her "nervous" and she didn't understand how I had the patience for it.) Nonetheless, she gave me an enormous gift so I think of her often when I knit.
So, I think it only fair that on her "birthday" I tell one of my favorite "mom" stories - When my mom was a little girl and she started school, she was very shy. When they enrolled her in class, the teacher recorded her birthday and understood it to be November 11th.
Since she was born in 1911, her birthdate was recorded as 11/11/11. In reality it was 11/20/11, but she liked the sound of all those eleven's and she was too shy to correct him, so she let it stand. For years - and I mean until I was at least 40, we celebrated it on the 11th - Veteran's Day. One day, she told me, with a silly smile , that her true birthday was the 20th. When I asked her why she had let us all go on like that for years, without revealing the actual date, she just smiled and said that, at first, she hadn't wanted to "make any trouble" and then she had grown to like it - that all of those 11's were kind of like a good luck charm - and besides 11 was a really nice number. She was a really nice mom, too.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
posted by pjjhowe at Thursday, November 11, 2004
3 Comments:
Happy birthday Mom, indeed.
What a great story about the Elevens. How funny that she was willing to celebrate on the wrong day all those years. The Chosen Birthday--love that concept. Mine would come randomly, usually while shopping. (Hey, why not buy this--it's my birthday!)
We have a twin niece & nephew who were born on 7/11, which Hubby, who is superstitious (and yes, a gambler on occasion), thought was Extremely Meaningful and Propitious. So far their lives have been lucky so perhaps he is onto something.
xoxoxo Kay
Glad you had a happy daughter/mom moment today... and many in the past.
what a lovely story. happy birthday to your mom, gone but never to be forgotten
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