Happy Single Mother's Day

Yes, that's right; I said it, Happy Single Mother's Day to me. I had to correct quite a few people yesterday, jokingly of course, when they wished me a Happy Mother's Day. Now I do realize that many individuals out there have their own version of Mother's Day, some whose mothers have deceased, or those who have lost children, so my intent is not to be insensitive to their pain, but remember the purpose of this blog for me is to find the comedy in my "chronically" single status and how my life so does not conform to the societal norm of blissful marriage/relationship. So for starters, while many of you mothers out there were waking up to breakfast in bed, or even later on, sitting down to dinner cooked by your husband and kids, I think somebody got cheese stuffed mushrooms and crab legs (let me double check on Facebook), I was up at 6am making scrambled eggs, not for myself but my child, followed by laundry and housecleaning. The night ended with me throwing up in a bucket because my lactose-intolerant self decided to eat ice cream.

And, since we are on the topic of societal norms, let's talk about how these patriarchal-capitalist norms affect the child of a single mom. In the wake of the capitalist Mother's Day frenzy, my daughter has spent the past few days trying to figure out how she is ever going to afford to get me a Mother's Day gift after watching all those TV commercials, and in all those advertisements in the paper now that she can read. I guess it didn't help that she had to watch me agonizing over what to do for my mother. My mother, being the difficult woman she is, asked for an outdoor fern, and subsequently went out and purchased herself three ferns the day before Mother's Day, which means she now has four. Don't I feel original? Again, "Thanks for everything Mom." Anyway, so by the Friday before Mother's Day, my child attempted to go on strike and hook kindergarten, in an effort to get her grandparents to help her get a gift, which didn't happen and boy was she pissed. Ultimately, she got back at them my ripping up flowers from their garden and making me a card, just one of the many reasons I love my child, her resourcefulness. Now if we can just get past Father's Day this year, which is even worse than Mother's Day for her, because instead of worrying about a gift, she is feeling sorry that she doesn't have father like all of her other friends. We had a preview to Father’s Day earlier this year when her elementary school hosted a Father-Daughter dance, which she did not attend.

So how did I celebrate Single Mother's Day you ask? Very simple, I went out with my Turkish friend who doesn't celebrate all these ridiculous holidays we Americans invent and then capitalistically try to colonize the rest of the world with. Where did we go? To Mezze in Baltimore. Why? To celebrate my former boss’s going-away party. Now you’re probably wondering who in the hell would schedule their going away party on Mother's Day and the answer is another single mom like me, well kind of, she has a girlfriend. Long story short, the food was good but the wait staff was horrible but thank god for the three glasses of sangria and thanks to my Turkish friend for holding my hand to walk across the street. No I wasn’t drunk; cobblestone streets just don’t go well with my heels. We did look like the perfect lesbian couple, NOT but given the societal norms and assumptions, I am sure that is what we looked like as we tripped across the cobblestone street. Well we thought so at least.

Now time for the amusing Mother’s Day phone calls/texts from my guy friends. Honestly, there were only two but both equally amusing. The first was during the lunch at Mezze not from my girlfriend but rather her husband. It went something like this, "I just thought to call you and wish you a Happy Mother's Day, and we didn't have this conversation, but I was really drunk with my wife the other day and told her I would really like to have a threesome with the two of you. What do you think?" Again, remember Option A. My reaction, "You're right we didn't have this conversation, talk to you later." I return to my sangria. Also, I highly doubt he was drunk when he made that comment. The second, which was really surprising, was from Specimen #2, in text form of course because for some reason he can't make phone calls, which is surprising because Specimen #1, who didn't call at all and lacks all verbal communication skills,  can still make an occasional phone call, although from what I like to call the "Phantom Phone Number" because yes, he uses a phone number that isn't real and you can't call it back. If you read my two previous blog posts, you can figure out why. Anyway so after spending the entire day informing people that I was celebrating "Single Mother's Day," and then vomiting in a bucket, the text from Specimen #2 read, "Happy Gringa Mother's Day.” At that point, as you can imagine, I was frustrated that after finally finding contentment in my Single Mother’s Day, to suddenly now have “Gringa Mother’s Day” thrusted upon me. As a result, I did not have the energy to reply, which would have to have been by text, because not only is he incapable of placing phone calls but also taking them, that I am celebrating "Single Mother’s Day" and not "Gringa Mother's Day."