I Ate The Fuzzy Certs: Lorelai, Rory, My Mother and Me

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It's no secret that Gilmore Girls is my favorite TV show of all time. I own all seven seasons (well, OK, I only own 6, but that's part of a longer story) and periodically watch all seven consecutively. I'm in the middle of one of those cycles now, which I started somewhere around January 8th, and I've just started season 4. Part of the quickness of this viewing cycle is undoubtedly my more leisurely schedule this semester, but part of it is, as always, the greatness of this show.

My obsession started back in October 2000 with the first season (side note: I can't believe it's been 10.5 years that I've been watching this show!). I had seen a commercial for this new show during an episode of 7th Heaven on the WB and I convinced my mom that we should watch it together. From the first episode, we were hooked, and every Tuesday night at 8 after that was our time. We laughed, we cried, we bonded; watching Lorelai and Rory's relationship helped to cement ours. Somewhere in the middle of Rory's college experience, probably because of my high school workload, we stopped our tradition and we missed the last few seasons of the show.

Then in 2008, I bought the first two seasons on Amazon; it was a spur-of-the-moment purchase, but I took it home as soon as I got it and Mom and I got back in touch with the Gilmore girls. For Christmas 2008, Mom gave me season 3 and I gave her season 4 (though I am the keeper of all 7 seasons... she swears that they all belong to her... I have a delusional mother, which isn't quite as good as one with a haunted leg, but what can you do?). At some point, I acquired seasons 5, 6, and 7 and we devoured them as well. Sometimes we'd watch 4 or 5 episodes in a day and my dad would come home from work on a Friday afternoon to find us sitting on their bed, watching Gilmore Girls on the computer and he'd shake his head, knowing we'd been there for hours. If the first 3 and a half seasons were like meeting familiar friends again, then the second 3 and a half were like seeing the history with them that we'd missed unfold again. Once again, we laughed, we cried, and we got a whole slew of inside jokes that you'd have to know the show to understand ("Oy with the poodles already!").

Watching the show this time around, though, I realized something. We are Lorelai and Rory. I mean, obviously my mother is happily married to my father, I have four brothers, we don't live in Connecticut, she doesn't run an inn, I'm not Ivy-League educated, we really love her parents... but relationship-wise, we are. My mother really is my best friend-we talk at least once, if not two or three or twelve times a day. She's the one person that I really want to share everything in my life with: the fun stuff, the sad stuff, the embarrassing stuff. Mom knows it all and she's everything to me. She is my reigning Lorelai, my freak of sideshow proportions, my woman with a Hello Kitty waffle iron,

and if I'm lucky, I'll end up half as wonderful as she is.

Lorelai: You're my favorite daughter

Rory: You say that to all your daughters

Lorelai: Yes, I do, but I only mean it with you

Mom, I love you.

Love,

Me