Of course now she won't tell me neat stories for a while because I've gone and embarrassed her by mentioning her on the blog

Some people call and gossip with their mothers, and bicker about pointless things and whisper complaints about other women, life, work, clothes, money, plans and anything else.

And well ... OK, we're no different, my mom and I.

But she's also still Quirky Mom, and she tends to ignore the boring, petty, daily stuff and instead saves the other unique information for prime story-telling.

She probably stores them all on index cards next to the phone to prepare for our weekly call: "Now ... what else was I going to tell you?? Oh! A skunk got hit last night by the mailbox. And now it's in pieces."

Mom rocks. I don't even mean that sarcastically.

She also passes along tidbits that she should use to make some blurby blog. They make good fodder for my own late-night, "oh, did I tell you what my mom said?" conversations with Dave.

She tells me: There was a funeral this morning for a woman who was buried (in another town), so the procession drove by our house. The hearse beeped at us. Well, (family friend) Tim did. He was driving. I think the body was already out of the car, though.

She goes on: A cow had a chain around its neck at the fair. A fan short-circuited above it and electrocuted the cow. And people were angry because the owners were selling it for meat. But what else are you going to do with it? Let's have steak!

She continues: I won a blue ribbon at the fair for my cross-stitching; I found out Tuesday. I guess they didn't have the ribbons out Monday yet when I was there. Or, someone felt sorry for me and gave me a ribbon that says 2006 on it.

Indeed. She's neat. I think I should write these down somewhere for posterity's sake.