My mother, the Supreme Overlord-Lady of the Mercenary Planet of Venshquenkle (hereafter referred to as Overlord-Lady):
(She's the one in the background. The lower half of her face is covered to protect her identity from her interplanetary rivals, who are always conspiring to "relieve her" of her empire.)
My mother is an amazing, awesome, and absolutely supportive human being. She has always been there for my brothers and me, and she still loves me after the hell I put her through as a teenager after my father died. Of course, newly teenaged when my father was diagnosed with cancer and ultimately wasted away because of it, I was completely oblivious to the fact that my mother WAS WATCHING HER HUSBAND DIE! This is one of my biggest regrets in life, and while I've tried to explain to her how awful I feel about who I was at that time, she'll never know how much that haunts me. At least not in the way my shrink does.
An interesting fact about the Overlord-Lady is that she was born without a sense of smell, the official term - anosmia. Because of the lack of her olfactory sense, her sense of taste is not all it could be. In fact, once she told me that the only was she really can tell the difference between an orange and a banana is the texture, or mouth feel (obviously, this would be the case only if she was wearing a blind fold). It used to drive me nuts when she would ask me what something smelled like, because... well, have you ever tried to describe the color red to someone born blind? Now, I try to explain in terms of emotion, if she even asks. I'm afraid I may have deterred her from the inquiry, and I am terribly sorry about that.
My mother was also unfortunate enough to have three very picky children. Somehow, I've escaped this affliction (loves my food, I do!), but my brothers are steadfast in their aversion to some of the simplest and most common foods. Oldest will only eat hamburgers completely plain - meat, bun. Not even CHEESE!!! Youngest will only eat spaghetti with parmesan cheese, which seems to me like it would be terribly dry. And I absolutely hated tuna fish and mushrooms (the former I'm coming around to, the latter I've been experimenting with). I dreaded Tuna Casserole night. There are other things they won't eat, or won't eat together, but you get the picture. The pickiness combined with the anosmia made it somewhat difficult for my mother to come up with things the whole family would eat. In fact, the only thing I remember being a hit with everyone was chili and fritos, which is one of the Overlord-Lady's favorite thing.
I love this. It makes me happy, and it makes me think of my mommy, who I love more than anything else.
(Oh, god, I want this now...)
