Long Distance, Birthday-Style

My mother just celebrated her 60th birthday, and when it came time to give her a gift, I found myself at a bit of a loss. What do you get for the gal who has everything? (By which, of course, I mean, the woman who has me for a daughter?) I actually had this thought in my head (in jest, of course), and after I got over that particularly egotistical moment, I realized that there was actually a bit of merit to my initial reaction. Here's how:

My mom lives halfway across the country from me, and one of the things that makes her happy is when she gets to see me (of course) and short of that, when she gets to talk to me on the phone. But, there are only so many things you can talk about on the phone without repeating yourself, so I had a new creative idea of how we could share an activity together long-distance. We are both nerdy, bookish, puzzler-types and we both enjoy word and logic puzzles like crosswords, Sudoku and picture logic.

My idea was that if we both had the same puzzle book, and started the same puzzle at the same time, we could call one another when we got stumped and it would be like we were sitting at the same table working on a giant jigsaw like we often do over the holidays. I thought it would be a nice piece of me to share with her.

She was very excited to receive the gift (because while she doesn't truly have everything, she doesn't need more stuff, either. Who does?) and she appreciated the gift of my time as much as the gift of the puzzle book (which, let's not lie, saved me some moolah). Even though we haven't started our shared puzzles yet, I am also really looking forward to calling her tonight to see how it goes!

I'm sure once we get on the phone we will revert to the old standbys--(Mom: How was your day? Me: How's Dad? Mom: Sold any books lately? Me: How's Dad?)--but the puzzles look like fun, too, and it will be nice to be together for a while, even from a distance.