Yesterday we had an Easter lunch with my mother and brother's family, and while my mother and I were cleaning the kitchen I reached over and turned off the faucet she had running for no reason.

"You always do this," I said referring to how she always turns on the water and walks away. "You're making it so that my grandchildren are going to have a crappy world to live in."

She shook her head remembering all those times when I was growing up that she made me go sit on my hands in another room so that she could clean the kitchen without me reaching over 17 times to turn off the water. Sorry, but when the world ran out of water I'd have to testify in court, would have to point directly at my mother and say SHE DID IT.

"Don't even give me that," she said, and then I saw an actual shiver go through her body, from her head all the way to her perfectly manicured toes.

"Wait," I said. "You believe that global warming is real, don't you?"

"Of course I don't," she said. "Why does this surprise you?"

And when she said that, when those words shot out of her mouth and hit me squarely in the forehead, the whole floor dropped out from underneath my feet, and then I blacked out for five seconds.

But you know what I didn't do? I didn't run out of her house crying.

Me and my family, WE'RE MAKING PROGRESS.