Mama and The Dude

When my mom first met Joe, during Christmas some years back (I honestly can't remember which year), she loved him right away. During the evening at one point, she took me aside and said "Have you ever seen The Big Lebowski?" I laughed and said yes, we'd seen it many times, it's a favorite. She proclaimed that Joe is the Dude, and that's what she started to call him. So now she'll say on the phone, "How's The Dude?" 

Every now and then, a random Dude-related package will show up from her. She sent him a doll, then one of those little plastic things with the big heads, what are they called? 

Today, just got this "Where's The Dude?" book. It's like Where's Waldo, but with cartoon Jeffrey Lebowski in one or another Dude outfits and you have to find him in a crowd of people. Each scene depicts a different movie scene, within which a hundred cool characters crowd the big double-page. There's a great one that's the restaurant scene in Kill Bill, the one with O Ren Ishii and the Crazy 88. So you'll be hunting for The Dude and you'll find Uma Thurman in her yellow superhero outfit. She's in there again too, in her Pulp Fiction persona, dancing with John Travolta. There are also many other cool things to find. You can spend an hour on one scene. It's delightful. What a goddamn perfect thing. Is my mom a fucking rock star or what? 

That was the same night my mom gave Joe a baby grand piano. The guy makes a great first impression. 

My mom had actually met Joe ever-so-briefly in 2002 when my intestine ruptured in Switzerland. He kind of remembers it. She stayed with me a week at home to help me recover, during which time, based solely on listening to my side of our numerous phone calls, my mom declared, "You're going to marry that guy." I thought she was insane. He did call a lot. 💓

My dude. Here's a pile of pictures.