A Manhattan Mother's Day

My mother-in-law dismisses Mother’s Day as lower middle class. (I suspect her disdain is a defense mechanism against potentially negligent children.) My mother, on the other hand, is unaware of such socioeconomic distinctions and seemed pleased by the hydrangeas I sent.  As for me, I have no feelings one way or the other about the day. I love it when my children remember but don’t take it personally (much) if they don’t observe it. That’s a good thing, because both my kids were in transit this weekend and unable to make direct contact.

So I celebrated with my friend B by bird-watching in Central Park. Neither of us has a lot of experience in this domain, and I personally couldn’t get the hang of fine-tuning the opera glasses I was using. Mostly we looked for other people with binoculars and tried to look at whatever they were peering at and eavesdrop on their identifications. Here’s what (we think) we spotted: a cardinal, a white heron, a great blue heron, a wood duck, a robin, an unidentified yellow bird, a squirrel and a bunch of sun-bathing red-eared sliders (turtles, above).

But just because my birth kids were unavailable didn’t mean I went florally unfeted. As we were leaving the park, my cell phone binged with a flower pictogram misaddressed (sorry, Anon Mom, I got your lilies from area code 860; they were beautiful). Then the waitress where B and I had lunch handed each of us a Mother’s Day rose. And when I got home, four of the five little girls who live downstairs (their apartment throbs with girl gusto), plus three of their friends, arrived with a bouquet of carnations—and a quickly unmasked desire to chase cats.


If I had to rate this Mother's Day, I'd have to say it was upper middle class.