Sunday, August 2, 2009

it's my mom's birthday!

so today . . . i did it. i paid real money for virtual stuff. what could possibly convince me to do such a crazy thing? my mom's birthday!

today is my mom's birthday and as i started thinking about a birthday gift, i was stymied. my mom used to be really easy to buy for, because she collected lots of things. but in the last few years, she has started decluttering her house (not that it ever looked cluttered to me--she had some beautiful collections!) stuff takes maintenance, and i think she got tired of taking care of things that she just looked at. or maybe she got tired of looking at it--i don't know, but the result was the same--the stuff started disappearing . . .

when i was at her house recently, i was keeping my eyes and ears open for ideas but got nothing. she gets her books from the library. she has so many dvds that odds are she would already have anything i would choose. it is hard to buy clothes for her, because i don't get to see her often enough to know what she has. and handbags are subject to personal preference, which makes them a difficult gift to give. i live too far away to take her out and do something fun! so, what to do, what to do . . .

my mom does like electronics. when we were visiting last month, we signed her up with sprint and got her the coolest phone ever, but i had my doubts about how she would adapt to the rigors of cell phone ownership--especially when diandra and i kept trying to catch her with her phone off by texting her at various times throughout the day (yeah mom, it was a plot!) we caught her a couple of times the first day or two, but i have to say that now she responds fairly quickly no matter what time it is. however i am not familiar enough with her new phone to have any idea about what i could get for her that would enhance her cell phone experience. so that idea led me nowhere.

the other day we were talking to each other on the computer, and she was telling me how her poor little virtual pet had no money. this is something we all experience from time to time (except diandra who seems to be the luckiest pet owner in the game when it comes to the daily lottery!) we were commiserating about how long it takes to earn coins to spend on fun stuff, when i thought, "aha!" so for her birthday, paypal and i bought her some coins to spend on her pet.

and it was fun! i was worried that she would be horrified that i had spent actual money on the game, but she wasn't--or at least she hid it well. we "shopped" together, and when i bought something as a gift for her, it showed up in her virtual pet's house in lovely pink gift boxes with bows on top--i didn't even have to wrap them!

she didn't spend all the coins today. and still she got a princess bed and dresser, a settee and chandelier with flickering candles, a jacuzzi tub and mirror for her bathroom, and a waterfall with moving water for her yard. but then she didn't have enough rooms in her virtual house for everything. so she did the only thing she could--she created a cute little virtual pet on my DAD'S facebook account. and named her lily. and then she gave lily all of her extra stuff. lily is kind of going to be "garage sale girl" for a while, i think. here's the funny part--my dad doesn't even know lily exists! he may never know. my clever mother has figured out a way to have two virtual pets.

i love my mom. she was a good parent when i was growing up, and is not to blame for my issues--i take full responsibility for the crazy way i think about things sometimes. she tolerates my diet pepsi consumption even though she knows it is bad for me, but compensates by also feeding me broccoli. she will spend over an hour in sephora with us when we just meant to stop in for a minute. she will watch high school musical 1 or 2 or 3 or whatever as many times as diandra wants to. she will make a second trip to the grocery store to get ice cream and bar-be-que potato chips because we ate them all and still had a few days left of our visit. she lets us do some of our own christmas shopping so that everything fits--even though it means she has to pay the dreaded california sales tax! she has become quite electronically savvy so that we can keep in closer contact. she has learned to text message and surf the web from her phone. she has a facebook farm, and accepts my goofy friends (you know who you are!) as her friends so they can advance in the game.

my mom is the greatest! she must be, because when i did a search of my blogs for the words "my mom," i found that i had mentioned her in 78 of my 204 blogs!now if only she would get on an airplane . . .

2 comments:

Wendy said...

I cannot believe what I just read! Oh well... Your mom is a gem! Cutest little thing I've ever seen! From one of those "goofy" friends!

Mom said...

Susie loves all the new things and so do I. I was thinking while selecting things, " this is so crazy" but laughed all the way. What fun!!!
Thanks again. Great and enjoyable idea. Love you...Mom

And we only tell people who are as crazy as us!!!!!