When I was six, my mom and I moved into a new apartment in LA (cahuenga and vanowen for the locals). She was a young florist making it happen on her own, and she couldn’t afford movers. We had been living in San Diego and were new to town. The issue was the fridge. 2/
The other issue was the stairs.
We had already moved all our boxes and furniture up to the apartment, but the fridge.
I realized she did not have anyone coming to help with said fridge. 3/
This is approximately what the fridge looked like.
My mom probably weighed in around 125. I was six. 50 lb?
She produced a dolly. 4/
Now I have always been the voice of reason, the untangler of Christmas lights, the person keeping us on time, the one who had to break into our various apartments when she lost her keys.

I pointed out that this seemed a poor setup.
She pointed out that the dolly had straps. 5/
What followed was her backing up the stairs and pulling that fridge up with her, one step at a time. My job was to brace the fridge from below, making sure it didn’t fall.

MAKING SURE IT DIDNT FALL. 6/
Keep in mind that she has lifelong orders to be careful of her back because she broke it mining in her late teens.

MINING.

If you say anything about coal mining she gets indignant. URIDIUM she says. She was mining uridium.
Anyway. 7/
She was heaving this fridge up the outdoor stairs. I was pushing it up from below, hoping not to die. We had already done a couch, a bed, dressers, table, and boxes this way. Maybe I was destined to die today. 8/
We got to the top. She heaved the fridge up that last step, neck veins bulging, and then laughed. “See?” she said.

Just one example of the complete punk rock bloody badassery of moms. 9/
Anyway here’s my mom horseback riding in Montana last year. “We saw bears!” She cried, excited. “And their babies! They were SO CUTE!” 10/
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