Every New Year's the same heartwarming tradition takes place at our sister Lynne's place in York Pennsylvania. We wrestle our mom for the Absolut Vodka bottle. She's 83 but she's plucky, and things frequently get ugly. This year we won, and got to take the first drink to ring in the New Year. Thank God drinking on New Year's Eve is okay even for sober people! Afterwards, to show there were no hard feelings, the two of us shared a laugh. Shortly afterwards, mom made a grab for the bottle and successfully locked herself into the upstairs bathroom. So the final laugh, we suppose, was on us.
I'll never forget her shrieks of joy and glee when she clocked you in the face and shouted "hands off my bottle, you dirty dog!" Good times.
Posted by: The Good German | January 03, 2012 at 12:45 PM
What wonderful pictures :)
Posted by: gillian | January 03, 2012 at 02:08 PM
Hey, I bought that for Lynne!
Posted by: Jeffers | January 03, 2012 at 03:45 PM
Your Mom is the coolest. And I can see where you got your delightful (scratch whacko) eccentricity from. Did she ask about your 'blob' again by any chance?
Posted by: Martijn | January 03, 2012 at 04:35 PM
not fooling me....cap was on ;)
Posted by: Keith | January 03, 2012 at 07:32 PM
Your mom rocks! My mom rocks, too, but I've never had to wrestle a bottle of vodka from her. She visited from Houston this weekend and I just about run to keep up with her on the trail around Fayetteville Lake, about six miles. Then we went to the brand new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville which you might have read about in the New York Times. Rosie the Riveter is magnificent in person, as is Shaved Woman Holds Globe and Colored Vertical Stripes. You'd love the place! We're both lucky to have such young moms, I guess. Thanks for sharing the fun photos!
~Dave
Posted by: Dave Mows Grass | January 03, 2012 at 10:54 PM
Spent the antipodean new year with my mum & her septuagenarian posse. Don't believe the press, grannies can party hard.
Posted by: Dan | January 04, 2012 at 05:47 AM
Bring her over to Hamburg next time you're here!
Posted by: Jan Martin Löhndorf | January 04, 2012 at 04:03 PM
Lynne--guilty of regifting! The ingratitude! And the terrible thing is it may get regifted again, as Alex's "vodka phase" ended last year. Now she drinks beer and wine, sometimes at the same time and in the same glass.
Thanks for the comments, everybody. Mom is a character, with all the quirks and lethal driving habits that characterize old age. But she still has plenty of spunk. She saw the New Year in, even if I didn't!
Posted by: UF MIKE | January 05, 2012 at 01:25 PM