{“I don’t know what you were worrying about.”}

…I like the book; it’s a page turner. It seems very normal in an abnormal kind of way…so I don’t know what you were worrying about, although I’ve only read a few chapters so far it is good. Not an epic, but good.

I’m still proud of you.

My mother gives offhand compliments in a very low-key way… She’s just that type of person, and those who know her say I take a lot after her — introverted. A little shy. Tending to Martha around on the edges of things, preferring to carry a tray of glasses into the kitchen and wash them than to be in the center of things at a party. A person who has a finely honed sense of the absurd, who dances with babies and drives too fast, who sings while working, and whose belief in the power of onions to make a meal means that it always smells like something amazing is cooking, even if it’s just onions in a saucepan.

She is not given to gushing, and when she says a thing, she means it. One of the many, many, many reasons she is my favorite woman in all the world.

Marble statues in Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens; sorry I don’t know the artists. Need to go back there next weekend and write that down…