cercelata: mama

Showing posts with label mama. Show all posts

I apologize in advance for making fun of my mother

but I can't help it. Did you read my post yesterday? Wellll . . . my mama did. And I received this email yesterday morning, first thing:

Clairey

I just read your blog and I am dead serious--DO NOT GO HANGING OUT WITH MOTORCYCLE GANGS

I'm not kidding. Do not go to any party of theirs.

Mama

Haven't laughed that hard in a while.

Mama's Day

Happy Mothers' Day to my sweet little mama. I'm so sad I can't be with her today, but I'm thinking of her nevertheless!

my mama and her mama this Easter

mama and baby Claire circa 1982

cute mama with cute puppy

she loves beach paddleball . . .

. . . and hiking!

mama and her daughters

Thank you for being so stable, wise, consistent, and good. I love and miss you!

Happy Mothers' Day to all of your mamas and to all of you who are mamas yourselves. Lord knows it's the most important job in the world.

Every year I go home to Georgia for Christmas, but the other holidays can be hard. I always call my mama's house on Easter, where the entire family has gathered, and she passes the phone around so I can say hi to everyone. I love getting to talk to them, but it inevitably leaves me feeling a little depressed that they're all together and I'm thousands of miles away. Would that I could just wiggle my nose and transport myself home for every occasion.

My auntie Pat posted these picture of our family's Easter celebration yesterday:

my sisters

(Jennifer--on the left--is my cousin, but we grew up like sisters. Lil sis Kate on the right)

sweet Nana on the left and my mama on the right

this year Nana will be 80, Mama will be 50, and I will be 30!

Uncle Mike & pretty cousins with spread of food

Uncle Ted on left, brother-in-law Andy on right

love the twin crossed legs, boys

Jennifer's son, Ethan, and our Auntie Pat

Ethan hunting for eggs in Mama's back yard

I would have loved to be there with them. I miss everyone exponentially on holidays. But although it was sad that I couldn't be with my family on Easter, I did the next best thing and headed up to the Freitags to watch Milo and Jude hunt for eggs:

the Freitags on Easter + the view from their backyard

Milo furiously hunting eggs

me and my little love

JJ and Judebug, both sporting seersucker

Thank goodness for the Freitags aka my home away from home! It was a gorgeous day outside, and those boys always put me in a better mood. Plus, after the uncles and aunts and cousins went home, Cari and I did something very Easterly: we watched a very intense, violent movie about post-Apartheid South Africa. ;)

Notice anything about the cast? Particularly the guy standing in the middle? Yes, ladies & gentlemen, it's Tim Riggins. And despite the fact that he had to lose 30 pounds to portray strung out combat photographer, Kevin Carter, he was just as fine as ever in this movie.

All hotness aside, it was a great movie, although devastating. The story centers around four photographers who are trying to take the best pictures of the violence going on around them. Kevin Carter (played by Taylor Kitsch--it's a true story) eventually took the following photo of a starving child in Sudan being stalked by a vulture:

from

Although Carter won the Pulitzer Prize for this photo (taken in southern Sudan in 1993), it was obviously surrounded by controversy. The public questioned him: did you just leave that girl to die? What did you do after you took the picture? Unable to face these questions and the ethics of his job in general, Carter kills himself. And while it was tough to watch Tim Riggins go through all that . . . it was worth it.

Sorry for the downer. Probably should have ended with Jude toddling around in his seersucker suit clutching plastic eggs. What did y'all do for Easter?

Mama's Day at the Aquarium

I know I yammer on about my students way too much (probably more than you wanna hear about), so I'm gonna take a break from that and post about Mother's Day today, and then tomorrow I'll let y'all know how INCREDIBLE the ROOTS students were at our performance Friday night. OMG, they made me prouder than I could have imagined. But more on that tomorrow.

Today, after calling my little mama (who lives alllllll the way across the country in Georgia), I met Jeannette and Freeman at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. I hadn't been there yet, though Freeman is a frequent visitor. It's pretty amazing! Here are some pics:

Jeannette and Freeman on Mama's Day

"Diver Brian" feeding the fish

Freeman watching the "fissssssshhhh"

Jeannette left to have a fancy Mother's Day lunch with Jon, and I took Freeman for the afternoon. (While in my car driving home, F was asking for "More Gaga" before her song was even over--geez).

Though hanging out with Freeman is the next best thing, I wish I could be with my mama and our family today. When I talked to her, she was just arriving at my aunt's house with her mud pie (my mama makes the most ridiculously good mud pie you can imagine!). All my aunts, uncles, cousins, sister, nephew, and our Nana were gathering together today . . . holidays make me the most homesick. I wish I could just transport myself to Georgia for the day and then back to California for work tomorrow morning.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms, especially my cute mama: