Mother’s Day

I think that most of us assume that Mother’s Day was started at the beginning of the 20th century by powerful lobbyists from the greeting card and floral industries.

In fact its history extends all the way back to the Greeks and was eventually usurped by the Christian church like most things. In The States it was championed back in the early 1900s by a woman named Anna Jarvis who had lost her mother and (ironically) never married or had children. This explains all the free time she seemed to have on her hands. Having finally convinced President Woodrow Wilson to sign it into law making it a national holiday, our naive Anna was horrified to find that her tribute to her mother and her somewhat feminist idea that women’s achievements should also be celebrated was now being used by flower and candy merchants to sell their product.

She was so outraged in fact that she spent the bulk of her wealth suing people for the misuse of Mother’s Day and actively lobbied the government to have it removed as a national holiday.

This is pretty much the height of white privilege. But Anna meant well (Bless her heart) and we now have a yearly tribute to the women who bore, fed, clothed and taught us what they knew about the world. As a reluctant career waitress I have had an up close and personal view of the yearly carnage that is brunch on Mother’s Day. I still get a nervous tick in my left eye when I think about the first one of those I ever worked in my teens.

I worked at an old school steak and seafood house in the hills of Burbank California that boasted a dining room and patio that wrapped half way around the hilltop, 6 banquet rooms, two actual ball rooms, a luau pit and a surrounding golf course. The management team conspired to stuff every (mostly) living breathing body for miles that they could into this space for Mother’s Day Brunch. Every ballroom and banquet room had its own massive buffet with ham and prime rib carving stations, pans of over cooked eggs and tables full of desert that looked prettier than they tasted. Think chocolate mousse someone made in a cement truck. There were dripping ice sculptures in every room. and bus tubs full of cheap champagne for making mimosas.

The banquet rooms were set up in tables of ten. We each had four or five of them. That is forty or fifty customers each in case you weren’t counting. The first turn was easy. Then we had to reset and restock for another turn. Then another. Then another.

We ran out of napkins. We ran out of dishes. We ran out of champagne flutes. Finally we ran out of food. The restaurant kitchen could not keep up with the carnage of course so we had to wash dishes in bus tubs out back. The parking lot was completely full, so people were being bussed to the top of the hill. Can you imagine waiting for a bus to take you back to your car 100 degree heat after you took your mother to brunch and they ran out of food? The guests were understandably pissed.

But honestly what did you expect? If you go out for a meal on a day when everyone and their mother LITERALLY is going out at the exact same time you are asking to attend a shit show. My son has been informed that if he ever takes me out to brunch on Mother’s Day I will ask why he is pissed at me. And you would think that lessons have been learned about reservations and preparation for these kinds of events and….

Maybe. By a few. But horror stories still abound. And I would rather gnaw on my own flesh than voluntarily work or go out on Mother’s Day.

And finally to my own mother. Happy Mother’s Day. I miss you everyday. I wish we could hang out and drink wine and talk about all the creative things we could do before we realize we are loaded and pass out. I hope you are having a lovely day and I wish I could be there with you.

And here’s a pug puppy just because. .