💐 Your mom is gonna love this

It's Thursday, Boston.

😷 Reminder: Federal and state COVID-19 public health emergencies expire today. Here’s a quick refresher on what’s going to change starting tomorrow. 

👀 What’s on tap today:

• A threatened MBTA lawsuit 

• Good news, Swifties!

• More beer gardens

Up first...

MOTHER'S DAY

You got it for your mama

Reminder: Mother’s Day is in three days. So if you’re looking do more than the bare minimum of sending the woman who raised you a Hallmark card (which you should mail today), here’s a handful of local gifts and things to do to level up your celebration. Don’t forget — it’s Sunday. 

💃 Treat mom to a Mamma Mia-themed drag brunch at Summer Shack. Nothing says “I love you” like oysters and ABBA. It’s $20 per table to watch the 11 a.m. or 2 p.m. show, and you can sing along with the dancing queens while enjoying an a la carte brunch menu.

🍷 Get her a subscription to The Urban Grape’s Wine Club. There are two levels: The Urban Sampler, which is budget-friendly and for the wine curious, and The Urban Connoisseur, which isa little pricier and for those looking to expand their palate. You can subscribe to the club for just one month all the way up to a year. This month’s Urban Sampler is all rosé, and if you make her a member, it’ll get her exclusive access to their rosé grand-tasting event in June. 

💎 Don’t buy her jewelry, make your own! The Charles River Speedway is hosting a bracelet-designing workshop with the Boston Women’s Market and Nabia Designs Jewelry on Mother’s Day proper. Each ticket will include the materials to make one custom-beaded stretch bracelet, as well as a jewelry box and shopping bag, making it ready to gift.

🍩 Grab some M-Day specials from Kane’s Donuts. The sweet honey hibiscus variety  is a fluffy yeast doughnut coated with a rose-hued hibiscus glaze. Kane’s also offers a more classic ring that’s festively decorated to remind your mom how much you love her.

💐 Trade a bouquet of flowers for a bouquet of flower macarons from Cocorico. In addition to these floral-shaped pastries, the Seaport boulangerie is offering Mother’s Day specials like Boston cream croissants, cruffins, and cookies with Pro-Mom messages.

🍽️ Splurge on a bougie prix fixe brunch. We’re normally all about ballin’ on a budget, but if you can swing it, treating Mom to a nice meal will always be a winner. Harvest in Harvard Square has a three-course M-Day brunch for $75 a person, and it features goodies like surf & turf eggs Benedict and coconut tiramisu. You can see a full list of Mother’s Day brunch spots here. 

🫖 Also, afternoon tea is having a moment, so here are some spots recommended by the Boston Globe food writer Devra First.

QUICK POLL!

💐 What’s the bare minimum for a Mother’s Day gift?

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🚇 Woman struck by a falling utility box at Harvard Station plans to sue the MBTA. A 28-year-old PhD student at Harvard suffered a detached clavicle and will require long-term medical care after a defunct utility box fell on her at Harvard Station earlier this month. Her attorney said she plans to sue the T to cover medical costs and hold the agency accountable for what they considered to be a preventable incident. The utility box that fell was part of a pilot program that ended in 2013. The support straps keeping the box in place had corroded. 

🛬 A new surge of migrants is overwhelming the state’s aid network. The people are arriving at transit hubs, hospitals, and community health centers at all hours. And once Title 42 expires tonight, the situation could get worse. The COVID-era border-control policy, which  made it easy to expel people crossing into the U.S. illegally, will end when the public health emergency ends. Officials expect the number of unauthorized crossings at the Southern border to double, and Mass. aid groups are anticipating the possibility that more migrants will be here soon. 

🚂 Good news, Swifties! The Commuter Rail has added extra special event tickets for train service to Gillette for the Eras Tour. The extra tickets are only good for the May 20 and 21 shows (sorry, May 19). Roundtrip tickets are $20 and will go on sale at 11 a.m. Friday, May 12. They’ll only be sold on the mTicket app and you MUST buy them for a specific show and station of origin. Due to high demand, no refunds or exchanges will be available. Set your alarms!

🍻 Night Shift’s beer gardens are open for business. Starting today you can pop a squat along the Charles at their Esplanade and Allston locations. New this year: the Summer Passport challenge, where once you collect a stamp after visiting each of Nightshift’s four locations, you can get a free Detroit-style pizza or an appetizer and koozie at Lovejoy Wharf. The beer gardens and the Lovejoy Wharf location have also applied to be dog-friendly, so you may be able to bring your pup soon!

ONE LAST THING

RIP Rudy

A classic New England theme park is retiring one of its famous rides. 

Rudy’s Rapid Transit Roller Coaster at Santa’s Village in Jefferson, N.H., will take its final runs along the green coaster track this summer. The roller coaster, featuring the bust of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, has been running for 35 years and is one of the main attractions at the Christmas-themed amusement park. It’s an older ride, so repairing and replacing the parts is getting harder to do. RIP, Rudy. You had a good run. 

🎢 Thanks for reading! I feel like we should mention that Rudy’s Rapid Transit can reach top speeds of 22 miles per hour. That’s faster than the MBTA runs in some places.   

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected].

😋 The results are in! 83% of respondents from yesterday's poll has no idea you weren't supposed to eat or drink on the T. On person wrote, "“I thought the T was like international waters or the wild West: no rules." Same.