Today is Mothers Day in the U.S. I’m far away from my mother on this day, but I'm thinking about her, and I want to take a minute here to tell you about her.

My mother, Lois Orstad King, was born in North Dakota. Her parents, both of whose parents were Norwegian immigrants, farmed a beautiful little farm in the Red River Valley of the North less than 100 miles from the Canadian border. She learned to speak Norwegian before she learned English. She was 5 when the Great Depression blighted the country, but she told me that her family of seven—her parents and five children—never went hungry because they had a garden, chickens and thus eggs, seven cows, and crops of wheat and potatoes that fed them. They didn’t have much cash money, but at least, she said, they had plenty to eat unlike many others during that time.

My mom graduated from high school (here's her graduation picture) when she was 16 (it was 1940 or thereabouts) and then went to work in a bank and later in a government office during the war years. She quit her job when she married my dad, Murray King, in 1945 at 21. It was a marriage of opposites, an oil-and-water combination. Culturally and temperamentally and in practically every other way, they were very different. He was the descendent of Irish forbears (with a dash of German), a very different culture from the Norwegian heritage of my mother. He was Catholic, and she was Lutheran, but she agreed to raise their children as Catholics, and she kept her word, helping us learn our catechism and prayers, making sure we made our first communions and were confirmed. He, the son of an attorney, had gone to college for two years. She was the daughter of farmers, and her father had finished high school but her mother had not.

My parents had six kids between 1945 and 1960: Guy O’Gorman, David Murray, Katherine Ann, Kevin Michael, Jason Harold Elmer (the lucky boy got both grandfathers’ names tacked onto his first name), and me. My dad supported us through a variety of jobs over the years, from preparating taxes to selling quonset huts and insurance, running a tavern, managing a potato processing plant, and finally, working for the Soil Conservation Service. Like many fathers of the '50s in the U.S., he shared in his children's conception and left the raising of them to their mother.

Thanks to her, our house was always clean, our clothes always pressed and mended, our bellies always filled, our birthdays always celebrated, Sunday mass always attended, green worn on St. Patrick's Day, stories read to us as children, nursery rhymes taught to us, songs sung to us--in short, despite the many moves and insecurities brought on by our dad's job changes, our mother gave us loving care and stability. (But don't get me wrong: our dad had many fine qualities, and he shaped us in ways for which we're grateful. We loved him dearly and still miss him since his death in 1974 at age 54.)

But I'm writing about my mother today. I could write a book about her cooking and baking alone. In fact, some of my best memories from childhood center around the food she would make for us, not just on holidays but everyday. I grew up knowing that we were poor, but I had no idea until later that there were times when there wasn’t much food in the house. I realized later that my mother often had to call upon her gift for turning a few simple ingredients—flour, sugar, potatoes, a bit of bacon or beef, a can of tomatoes or peas, noodles, cheese, and especially leftovers—into smacking-good, rib-sticking meals, and we kids had no idea how bare the pantry really was. On Fridays, true to her word to raise us as Catholics, she would make some of our very favorite meatless dishes: macaroni and cheese, creamed peas on toast, fish sticks and potato patties, salmon patties, grilled cheese sandwiches and homemade tomato soup…oy vey! I could go for any of it right this minute.

Odes should be written about her cinnamon rolls, chocolate-chip-nut cake, snickerdoodles, fudge, puddings from scratch, and especially her pies. I recall most fondly the pleasure of eating her lemon meringue pies and her chocolate pies with sesame seeds in the crust and whipped cream on top. Oh, lordy, that woman could bake! How can I forget coming home from school on a snowy North Dakota day to the sight of my mother pulling a pan of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven that warmed and scented the the whole house?

My mother suffered a stroke several years ago that paralyzed her left side and put her in a wheelchair. Since then, she hasn’t been able to cook or bake—her favorite means of creative expression and of giving to others—that she misses still. But the stroke didn’t take away her enjoyment of eating, sweets especially.

My mother loves music, too, especially the music of her day, the crooners and Big Band sounds of the 40s and 50s. I remember coming home to find my mother washing the kitchen floor on hands and knees (“The only way to get floors really clean”) as she sang along to the music on the radio. She sang a lot, and we learned the songs from her. The best birthday gift I ever gave her was to take her to see the revived Glenn Miller Band when it played in Albuquerque a few years ago. She hardly took her eyes off the performers the whole time, and she sang along softly to many of the songs.

I'm getting long-winded here, so I’ll stop. My intention wasn’t to write her biography, and I fear I’ve given a very one-dimensional view of her in order to focus on some of her gifts and talents. Like many mothers and daughters, our relationship has been difficult at various times in our past. She, unlike I, is not a saint. (Just a little humor, Mom. I couldn't resist. :-) But when I look back on all she's accomplished in her life, I’m reminded of the New Testament parable of the loaves and fishes (see verses 32-39). Certainly she has taken—and continues to take—the little she has received from life and turned it into a sustaining feast for us, her multitude of children.

Confetti on my pillow when I got up this morning—mementoes of last night’s New Year’s Eve celebration at Margarita and Isabel’s parents’ home.

At midnight, we ate 12 grapes to ensure good fortune in each of the coming months. I was only able to get down seven of them before the clock stopped chiming, so I can expect rocky times in 2008—kind of like 2007 and all the years before that. Así es la vida.

After that came cohetes, firecrackers, but these—safe enough for 10-year-old Miriam to light—ignited like sparklers when we lit them and threw them into the street, and they didn't make any noise. But we could see the plumes of other celebrators' fireworks shooting into the sky overhead and hear their great booms.

And then Doña Guille, Isabel and Margarita’s mother, brought out a basket of eggs and passed them around. I watched as others threw them up to hit the ceiling. I didn’t quite understand, so Doña Guille cracked an egg over my head to show me that it contained confetti. Ahhhh! So then I cracked mine over her head.

Isabel explained how the eggs are emptied, washed, and dried, and then the shells are filled with confetti from the same hole used to remove the liquid part of the eggs. A bit of paper is glued over the hole to keep the confetti in, and the eggs are sometimes decorated to become lovely little confetti dispensers. (You can find step-by-step instructions here.) Isabel said that they're sometimes filled with flour and used in egg fights (similar, I suppose, to the snowball fights my brothers and I would have against the Cowger kids when we were growing up in the little town of Park River, North Dakota).

The evening had begun with conversation over antojitos (appetizers) and ponche (a sweet spiced tea made from dried fruits) and rompope (a rum-infused drink similar to eggnog). Later, we sat down to a dinner with all manner of delicious dishes beginning with pasta in green sauce and ending with fruit salad and a mocha cake, savoring pork and little garlicky red potatoes in between.

Around 11pm, Miriam won her appeal for piñatas, so we all took turns trying to break two of them and then scramble for the candy that rained down.

At the end of the evening, Isabel drove the two guests—her Tia Rosa and me—home. After dropping off Tia Rosa, she took me home the long way so that we (Margarita and Miriam went with us) could see the holiday lights in the center of the city. She stopped near the cathedral so that I could take photos of the nativity scene and the huge Christmas tree nearby.

And as I walked up the steps to my apartment, I could hear loud dance music, shouts, and laughter coming from the apartment building just a stone’s throw from mine. It sounded like a lot of people were having a lot of fun. The music and the party hadn't stopped when I fell asleep--confetti still in my hair--at 2:00 on this first morning of new year.
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I’m listening to Mahalia Jackson sing gospel music this morning; makes me want to dance and shout. I’ve subscribed to Yahoo Music, so I can listen to any kind of music I want when the spirit moves me. Nice, except Yahoo doesn’t have a lot of Mexican music. Yesterday was Bob Dylan day; I listened to his songs all afternoon.