Things about my Mom

Since Mom died, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my experiences with her as a younger kid. As a 45 year old adult there's a lot of disconnects between various points in time, but I thought maybe writing some of them down might trigger a few thoughts here and there. Some of these fall into the category of family legend or just stories I have told over and over again (so they may be part fact part fiction).
- Mom used to let me hang out in her room while she was getting dressed for parties. She and Dad must have gone out quite a bit since I have many memories of this. She'd walk around in her bra and stockings while she put on makeup and did her hair. Her dresser drawers, the top ones, had all her jewelry in them (they did right up until she died) and she'd carefully pick out what she wanted to go with what she was wearing. Her face powder had a really nice smell to it and I think she used the same powder for a long time, because it's still a smell I associate with fancy dress up parties. No idea where my Dad was at this point, probably already dressed and downstairs.
- Probably when I was younger than when I was watching her get dressed, like little-kid young, she used to make fun of how her hair looked just washed from the shower before she brushed it, kind of shaking her head and saying "Witch!" Somehow I associate this memory with the laundry room or utility room of our house in Japan even though I think that's because she actually dressed up as a witch for Halloween one year and we were in the utility room for some reason.
- I remember sitting on the brown sofa in our old kitchen/family room in New Canaan after school crying about getting teased on the school bus by the older kids and Mom giving me hugs and trying to make me feel better. I don't really remember what she said.
- Shopping for my first bra in the downstairs section of some store in New Canaan, when young girls' bras came in the funny colored boxes and all of them were white and kind of padded.
- Cooking with Mom in her "square" in New Canaan, making apple pie (although she didn't make it much). I also remember the deep fryer she had for making fried chicken (plugged into the wall) and the pancake griddle. Somewhere along the way she let me make a meal for the family and for some reason I wanted to make scallops. I think they were OK, actually.
- Hiking up Mount Washington with Annika Freyss and Mom and Dad. I don't remember if Coulter was there or not. I remember there were mice in the cabin late at night and Annika was freaked out about them. Mom was a total trooper even though I remember she got pretty tired near the top of Tuckerman's ravine. It's pretty cool that she and dad would have done that for me, it's not an easy hike and I have no idea where they got the camping equipment.
- Of course there's the story about my being on a plane as a little kid and telling Mom that I wanted to be a stewardess (that was the term back then) when I grew up, and having her tell me "No, sweetie, you want to be a pilot." I am sure she said something different, but that's what it's turned into over many retellings.
- Sharon Collins would of course remember the famous "you're playing with fire" lecture when we were doodling on Rick and Ken(?)'s jeans one night at our house. I'm sure she thought we were a little less sophisticated than we were about boys at the time, as I recall we knew exactly what we were doing.

I feel like there's so much family history missing from these recollections!

I miss you, Mom.