As always, Mother’s Day is a mixed blessing for me: I’m grateful beyond words for the fact that I’ve joined this Mom’s Club (photo to come later today), while I miss my own mother like a pain. In my column Sunday, I realized — as many of you already know (see comments below) – how much Mom’s cooking made a difference for us, and how much I treasure the hot-pink recipe cards she wrote for me.

Also, in case you missed it, Tom Friedman’s column yesterday was a terrific tribute.

So, how did you spend your Mother’s Day? What’s the best Mother’s Day gift you ever got?

Just got word that one of Memphis’s nicest guys, Thomas Boggs, died this morning. At 63, Thomas had done more living than most of us ever will, from his early rocker days with the Box Tops to his restaurant dynasty, which now includes the seven Huey’s locations, as well as partnerships in Folk’s Folly, Tsunami and the Half Shell. But the thing I’ll remember best about Thomas is how friendly and welcoming he was to a newbie Memphian back in the early 1990s, always willing to tell me who was connected to whom, how to reach them, and later, ready with a wave and a smile for my son whenever he saw us. I also admire him for sharing the wealth with his daughters, pictured here with him at Huey’s in a 2006 photo — (from left) Ashley Williams, Samantha Dean, and Lauren McHugh.

Godspeed, Thomas. We’ll miss you like hell.

By the time I arrived, the alumni field hockey game had already started. It was cold and misty, but the women on the field hardly noticed. I watched, awed by the incredible fitness, skill and determination of both the alums in their purple T-shirts and the current team in uniform.

I felt shy, as I always do when I’m watching the current incarnation of my former collegiate team. It’s difficult to believe that the women on the field — most on scholarship, all top-ranked on their high school teams — have anything in common with the dumpy uniforms, ad hoc practice facilities and determined but random collection of players that make up my field hockey memories. It was even harder to imagine that any part of my life now — as a slightly out-of-shape wife, mother and journalist — would be even remotely interesting to them.

Turns out I was wrong. (Read the rest of my Sunday column HERE.)

Heard all the fuss about Vanity Fair and Miley Cyrus? Evidently the magazine’s topless (though covered) portrait of the star of the Hannah Montana franchise suddenly doesn’t sound like such a great idea to both the star and the folks at Disney who care about keeping Hannah the sweet teen she is marketed to be. And I’m sure that being on set with photographer Annie Liebovitz is intimidating to stars way older than Miley Cyrus. Aside from the fact that she’s nearly unrecognizable in this picture, what do you think? Is this portrait really a bad idea … are the tweens who love Hannah going to be led astray by a Vanity Fair story/portrait? I think the Chicago Sun-Times headline is right — is this really a scandal?

“Kleinmanns’ residence, Leanne speaking.”

Those are the words my parents taught me to use when they first let me answer the phone, when I was around the age my son is now. Of course, the calls were never for me, but answering the phone made me feel very grown-up, using my best manners to speak to what I usually discovered were total strangers.

How different the world is for my 8-year-old.

“Hey, Dad,” I heard him mumble into my cell phone last week. (Is it my imagination, or does he deliberately stop speaking clearly when he’s on the phone?) “Fine. Nothing. Yeah. Bye.”

Not for the first time, I realized how different his idea of phone communication is, even now, from the one I grew up with. Click HERE to read the rest of the column.