The Postcards for Mom Pranksters

Interesting development yesterday. Someone from the St. Petersburg Times contacted me about writing a story about the project. Pretty cool. Of course, the story won't be done until 'the gig is up' so she can interview Mom, etc. Even cooler is the fact that St. Petersburg is in Florida, where my brother is this week. So here comes some interesting mail from Florida, Mom...

I'm still waiting for David Letterman to call me. With all the stuff he does for him Mom, maybe he'll have compassion on me and fly me up for an interview. Mom never watches the show, so I could get away with it, blame the trip on work (corporate office is in NJ), and get a ton of exposure. C'mon Dave, call!

I'm taking my gorgeous wife to a Bed and Breakfast this weekend for a much deserved break. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

From Leta...

How To Cook A Husband

Be careful in your selection. Do not choose too young. When once selected, give your entire thoughts to preparation for domestic use. Some insist on keeping them in a pickle. Others are constantly getting them into hot water. This makes them sour, hard to get along with and sometimes bitter. Even poor varieties may be made sweet, tender and good by garnishing them with patience and sweetening with kisses. Wrap them in a mantle of charity. Keep warm with a steady fire of domestic devotion, and serve with peaches and cream.

Thus prepared, they will keep well for years.

it's been a while since i've seen my brother. i'm trying to think of what we can do next time we're together... hmm...

We've now had over 1000 requests for Mom's address. Out of that, nearly 500 people have subscribed to the newsletter. Wouldn't it be cool if we could time it so that everyone's mail showed up at the same date? They'd have to get a truck!

I'm updating Gallery number 3 as I type this. Pictures are uploading, should be ready in about 10 minutes.

Enjoy and a big thank you to those of you who have mailed stuff to Mom!

Yesterday Mom's husband told me he went to the mailbox earlier in the week just as the post-lady was pulling up:

Mail-lady: Good afternoon. Does Celeste live here?
Husband: Yep
Mail-lady: She sure gets a lot of mail.
Husband: She has a lot of friends.

Ha!

Well, I did it. I called Mom's husband. I told him about the website, and that we needed an 'inside guy' to help deflect the blame. His response? I'm in.

He liked the website. He also commented that he figured it was you guys (my brother and I)... Sure!

Now for the good part. Mom has a sister named Lyla who is somewhat of a known prankster. In fact, she's probably reading the blog regularly, so this'll get me on her bad list...

Mom was one of many children. Grandma had all her kids pictures hanging on the wall. Mom's husband told me that there was somewhat of a silly thing that the siblings had going, that when they were around they'd take Lyla's picture off the wall and hide it. Last time it took her 4 months to find it. So here's what we should put on casual correspondence...

" Just consider this payback for hiding my picture! "

Don't mention Aunt Lyla's name, as Mom will know darn sure who those words reference...

Leta asks a good question: When we send "stuff" to your mom...do you want us to put OUR return address on the envelope? I have no problem with it but wanted to make sure with you guys, first.

And my response...

Hey Leta,
Many people are asking Mom why she doesn't write back, and then they don't put a return address. That's pretty funny.

You could use a fake name, or to make the project even more fun, put your neighbors return address. My Mom may just write back, and then to the WRONG person! You could kinda play the trick back on someone that way (assuming Mom writes back)

Hahaha!

The April item has been posted.

Muhahahahaha! This oughta generate some good hate mail...

P.S. - Don't start sending it yet. It's the April item, not the middle-of-March item.

I'll be announcing the April item later today. In the meantime, here's some more fun mail.

From our pal Julie: I've taken a bunch of cooking classes in recent months and decided your mom might as well benefit from my time investment. So today I sent off about 40 recipes from some of the best recreational culinary programs available in the greater Washington, DC area. If she can read the photocopies through my hand-scrawled notes, you might be in for a treat... Earlier this week, I also mailed off a collection of recipes that I compiled from family and friends, totaling somewhere over 150 recipes. Those are all geared towards novice chefs... ask her to make the Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cup Cookies -- those are both crowd favorites AND difficult to mess up too badly.

Does this land me in the lead for "most recipes sent" yet?
Yep, I think so!

Catharine suggests: After a year or two, or whenever she gets wise to this, or you give up and tell her, maybe you could collect the stuff that was mailed to her and make a book out of it? It would make a pretty funny story, and it would be fun to see all the stuff that was mailed to her, all together.
Mom isn't much of a book reader/writer, but I would consider taking up that charge. Great idea!

From Dev in Muscat, Oman: Your brother visited Oman where we work, plus our son currently works in MO
Wow!

I'm feeling weird. So off to CraigsList I go. Here are some of the posts I did tonight...

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/wan/26645263.html

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/wan/26645346.html

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wan/26645493.html

http://miami.craigslist.org/wan/26664043.html

If you happen across any forums or other boards during your surfing, post something and get people over to the site.