Good morning. Last Mother's Day, I shared three traditions my mother and I practice annually on her day: 1) arguing about cooking; 2) getting pummeled by her in backgammon; and 3) giving her something she loves (last year, it was these glasses). Unfortunately, today, my mother and I are apart. However, thanks to #moderntechnology, we're still able to practice three of our favorite digital traditions.
1. Parking ticket photography. Despite moving out over ten years ago, I maintain that it "makes sense" that my outstanding parking tickets are billed to my mother's doorstep. (Admittedly, this doesn't make sense—I simply want to delay confronting the fact that I routinely owe the city enough money to collect our new Dansk peppermills three times over.) Rightfully, my mother doesn't pay these bills. Painfully, she instead immediately sends me a caption-less photo of each ticket upon receipt, transforming our text chain into a pseudo collections office. Eventually, I pay them—and when I do, I toast my civil contribution by shaking up Erika Kotite's margarita.
2. "Made soup." My mother's most likely answer to any of the following questions: "How are you?" "What's up?" "What are you doing tonight?" Point being, in her home—and our texts—soup's always afoot. With temperatures climbing, in a few hours, I bet she'll come face-to-face with a bowl something refreshing—like this green gazpacho with shrimp.
3. "Great reset!" The one text I'm guaranteed to receive every Sunday. Also, the best text I receive every week. Thanks for reading, mom! (Hope you enjoy the serving tray I got you!)
