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My Sainted Mother came this weekend for a visit.  I don’t have a spare bed, so she stays in a hotel when she visits, and over the years she has gotten rather attached to one hotel in particular.  It’s to the point where the concierge knows her and greets her fondly when she walks through the automatic doors, and the girl behind the desk gets her a free upgrade to a better room, and the waiter at the restaurant will tell her about the latest installment in his ongoing health saga–of which she remembers all the details.  One of these days I’m going to find out she came to town, visited the people in the hotel, and left without bothering to see me!  Actually, I’m not 100% sure that hasn’t already happened.

This time we were admiring the Christmas decorations in the lobby.  Well, Sainted Mother was admiring the decorations.  I, having had a very long day, was yawning discreetly and thinking about what on earth to post to my blog when I got home.  We had the following conversation:

Sainted Mother:  Isn’t that a beautiful Christmas display?

Little Blind Girl:  (glancing covertly at the game on the television) Absolutely.

SM:  Last year, So-and-so decorated the lobby, and he always uses a more traditional style.

LBG:  (tries to see score without squinting) Does he?

SM:  But Other Person decorated this year.  I’m really not sure what’s on the top of that tree.  It looks like an African tribal mask.

LBG:  (thinking about blog) That’s nice.

SM:  No it isn’t!

LBG:  (without missing a beat) That’s terrible!

Thank goodness Sainted Mother has a sense of humor!  So much so that she got me a little Happy Hamster button for Christmas, in honor of the picture of a hamster that I posted not too long ago.  It’s just a big button with a picture of a manically grinning hamster on it, and if you press it, it says things like “A happiness train just left the station, and it’s coming right at you!  Choo choo happy train!”  It was actually my favorite gift.

I threw the bag I put it in on the floor of the car and that was enough to trigger the hamster button, and I got this vivid mental picture of my Sainted Mother on her way here, in the car for several hours, with that hamster button packed away in the back and pushing up against something every time she made a turn or stopped suddenly.  “You deserve to be happy–you’re turning left!”  “It’s so happy to have to brake suddenly because the a**hole in front of you doesn’t know how to drive!  Happy happy happy!” All I can say is, to listen to that for hours and still smile, she must really love me.  Either that or she finally lost the rest of her marbles and went to her…happy place?

So here’s to family during the holidays, still glad to see you even after the holiday preparations have driven them out of their minds.  Because that’s how you can tell who really loves you, isn’t it?