every day, more like my mom

in the course of a few days - 2 events:

i stopped by michael's after my massage the other day - just because i was in the neighborhood and thought i'd see about some craft supplies for sunday school.  but, boom - i was sucked in to the bargain bins out front and in the entry to the store.  i -had- to buy some of the 50 cent items i found there.  i bought 1 cute luggage tag, 3 weekly menu plan/shopping list magnetized notepads (2 for friends, 1 for me), 1 set of notecards with shells, 1 set of notecards with an embossed B on it (either to give to britni, or to keep for myself for a last initial thing), 3 packages of recipe cards (for our cookbook project at Progress) - and maybe a couple other things.  as soon as i started to peruse, i instantly began to think - hmm, who could i buy this or that for? whose other initial letters could i look for in that bin of embossed letter notecards?  they're only 50 cents - you just can't pass up that kind of a deal!  this is how my mom's mind works, y'all.  this is how i end up with a stack of things waiting for me on my bed every time i visit home, and care (emphasize "care" here - i love!!! my mom)  packages full of random (and often awesome - but sometimes like, where did you come up with this??) items.  i slowly enter further and further into the "becoming my mom" zone. 

then today, i hear someone say "it says it's wynton marshall" to someone else.  i hear jazz in the background.  i'm not actually in this conversation, but without hesitation, i say, "not wynton marsalis?...i mean, are you talking about the music?"  "yeah"  "and it's wynton marshall?  not wynton marsalis?"  looks back at it, "actually yeah - wynton marsalis"  and i give credit where credit is due - to my mom, the woman who has at least every jazz, funk, and r&b musician, album, song, and the dates associated with them - all logged away in her head.  i am usually no good at this "trivia."  but i recalled a conversation when i was telling my mom about a photo exhibit at the anacostia community museum - by ... marsalis (i can't even recall his name at the moment).  i think she knew who he was - and she knew he was the brother or something of wynton marsalis, whose jazz she said was great.  i don't guess this one falls into the category of "becoming my mom" - but at least letting some of her vast wealth of knowledge rub off on me a little.