Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Driveway

I knew girls in high school who never left for a date without a quarter to call the parents, in case the boy in question got too handsy. 

I could never understand how this would work. Were the girls supposed to bail out of the car from whatever isolated location they were in and walk to a pay phone? Because make out sessions were generally hosted in rural church parking lots, far away from pay phones. 

The quarter was better than nothing, but, nothing compared to my Mom's demand, which was for me to entertain boyfriends, handsy or otherwise, in the driveway of our house. That way, if any unwanted pressure was applied, I just had to go inside.

I got up to all kinds of technical virgin borderline nonsense in that driveway (all with my consent). On the other hand, there were way too many episodes where instead of slapping or arguing I really should have just walked the ten feet from the boy's car to my house, and I chose not to. Lots of missed opportunities there to assert myself, but then I would have missed out on the contrite kissing.

My frailties aside, it really was a great plan. (I know it was a great plan, because many of the boyfriends let me know how much they hated it.)

I eventually started making out with boyfriends inside the actual house, which was even safer, what with Dad wandering past glowering at them. And then when boyfriends came with their own private apartments, well, I married pretty soon after that. 

It occurs to me that Mom might have never expected me to actually stick to this plan. She's not around for me to ask, sadly. Still, I recommend it for anyone with daughters.

It Dawns On Me After Four Decades

This morning, something made me think of a fight I had with Mom when I was eighteen.

There was a midnight showing of all the episodes of The Prisoner at Webster University and I wanted to go, as I had no boyfriend and fans of The Prisoner were my demographic. I was all ready to go, dressed in my best ensemble, when my Dad appeared and forbade it, because Mom was crying.

I tried to reason with Mom, and eventually I got that she didn't want me to drive in the rain. 

"Mom, I have driven in the rain before." No success. Dad pulled me aside and pointed out that Mom's sister had died in a car accident, driving in the rain to see Mom at the same age. 

So, I didn't go, and thus no doubt dodged a bullet -- because there would have been many hot prospects there and I might not have been primed for my Gary whom I met a few months later.

For some reason I was thinking of that this morning, and realized, forty-odd years later, that it wasn't being 18 or driving in the rain that made Mom so irrational. It was being 18, driving in the rain, TO A UNIVERSITY. When she died, Aunt Dolores was driving to see Mom in her dorm at the University of Missouri in Columbia. 

If I believed in ghosts, I would think that the spirit of Mom saw me making coffee this morning and whispered to me, "You were driving to a university, dumbass," just to settle that argument.

Mom Agrees with John Oliver About the DaVinci Code [Spoilers]

Because of this Writer's strike I've been looking for things I like that I might have missed. I found that John Oliver has released a lot of content on the web that I haven't seen yet. or content I've forgotten.

Including this vicious takedown of The DaVinci Code.

His complaint was that the initial puzzle that drives the plot of the book -- revealed at the end -- was too simple. It reminded me how Mom was equally disappointed at the obvious end of the DaVinci code.

It's nice to have Mom's annotations in the margins of Trollope and Dickens and ... Brown, I guess.

Tributary

You may remember my charming childhood tale of growing up next to Coldwater Creek, just at the primo time to be splashing in its radioactive waste. I just had to cross the parking lot of the condos across the street and I was in the creek. I lived there until I was twelve, when we moved into a house three miles away. 

The house we moved to is the one I'm selling now, so I was reviewing Mom's documentation, and I read something alarming. Before they could build Mom's house, which is at the top of a hill, they had to clear up something that was at the bottom of the hill, and that something was a tributary of Coldwater Creek. 

So, they diverted that tributary 12 years before I got there, so that's good, and moving that extra three miles put me four miles away from where they dumped the radiation, also good, but still, my bus stop was at the bottom of that hill.

I didn't spend enough time at the bus stop or in the creek across the parking lot to feel any effects. Still, creepy to think about the neighbors who lived there.

Mom Again

Remember a few weeks ago when I woke up and forgot Mom had died? Remember, I felt I needed to call her because I couldn’t remember the last time I had called her? And then, I remembered that’s right, she died 13 years ago.

It happened again. I fell asleep with the television on, and when I woke up I thought, on no, that noise is really going to disturb Mom. I’d better turn that off. Then there was a moment of wondering why I thought Mom was at my house, certainly Gary’s snoring would bother her more, and then I remembered, oh, that’s right, Mom is dead.

This might have all begun because it turned August, Mom’s birthday month, or else my subconscious is manufacturing situations in which I am relieved about Mom’s death instead of sad. Like, a few days ago I had a dream I shaved off my right eyebrow (Mom was not involved in that caper). Then of course I woke up alarmed, went to the bathroom mirror, and felt the relief that my eyebrow was intact. Just a bad dream. 

What makes it all even stranger: I rarely dream now that I don’t use an alarm to wake up. So my subconscious is being even more manipulative waking me up so I can get that hit of relief. 

Peculiar

Last Tuesday I woke up and lay there about ten minutes, as is my wont in the morning if I visited the bathroom several times during the “wee” hours.

I lay there thinking about moms I know. It occurred to me I hadn’t seen my mom for several weeks.

I swear I lay there searching my brain for the last conversation or phone call I’d had with Mom, worrying that Mom was feeling neglected. Just as I was thinking “Gotta call Mom right now,” I remembered she died thirteen years ago.

I totally forgot my Mom died thirteen years ago. So I guess healing takes thirteen years. 

Mom Speaks Again From Beyond the Grave

Yesterday I found an old 1950s spiral notebook filled with Mom’s handwriting. It is titled CHI OR DIE, and seems to be an account of a train trip she took to Chicago when she was twenty, along with her sister Dolores and four of Mom’s friends. 

This is one of three travel journals I have uncovered in my messy house: Dad’s from the trip to D.C. during the bicentennial, Carleen’s trip to Garden of the Gods and Hollywood, and now Mom’s train trip to Chicago. They have one thing in common: they detail every meal and most prices.

On the train Dolores had hamburger and lettuce and peaches and milk, Carleen had a Hostess cupcake, Mom had peaches and milk and pickles and coffee. Nancy freeloaded off everyone else. Mom then adds, “Thus fortified we hit Chicago singing vociferously, ‘We are Chicago bound, they’ll be no heebie - jeebies hangin’ ‘round.’”

That’s the best part. Mom’s writing at twenty is like my writing at 58. “Thus fortified.” I would write that today.

She continues “next morning at the Hoosier Room on Wabash I had scrambled eggs, 2 slices of toast and butter with strawberry jelly in a little plastic container which was darling and two cups of hot chocolate in a little silver pot. 64 cents.”

 
Today that would cost nine dollars and no one thinks the plastic container is darling. 

The six went places I know from my trips to Chicago (Navy Pier, Hull House, Buckingham Fountain) , and places that may still exist under another name (Hoboland, the “various foreign sections”). Dolores chastised Mom in Chinatown for stepping out of the line of people rubbing Buddha’s belly and rubbing the “belly” of a large planter pot instead. 

They visited the museums, where they “ate in some motley room and everyone had chili, hot dogs, hot watermelon, sour Orangeade and other rubble.”

They were unable to get tickets to see Carol Channing in “Wonderful Town,” so instead they went to a restaurant called Berghoff’s, where they all had roast turkey dinner ($2.25) except for Dolores who had roast goose (price unknown). Clearly they enjoyed it more than they would have enjoyed Carol Channing: they made friends of all the waitstaff, the bus boy offered to give them all a ride to Decatur, and Mom spoke German and French to all. They had a good time as it was “a very classy restaurant.” 

(I checked in with Berghoff’s and they survived the pandemic and not only that, they re-opened the restaurant for business on July 12, 2021, they very day I found Mom’s travel journal.)

The details go on. They upgrade to a better room with foam-rubber pillows for $4. They visit North Shore beach where Mom waded in up to the waist of her pedal-pushers. That day ends with a wrong turn and a bad neighborhood and a streetcar driver who was — and I quote — “insolent.” 

The next day they take a bus ride to Lincoln Park, where they saw a statue of Goethe, and I wouldn’t mention because it got less detail than her waffle breakfast (again at the Hoosier Room), but I recall that once when Gary and I came back from Chicago and Lincoln Park, she asked if we’d seen the statue of Goethe.

Because that’s the kind of classy German-speaking waist-wading rubble-eating person she was. 

Back row: Nancy, Flo, Carleen
Front row: Claudette, Mom, Dolores

Pallisers Annotated

In Which We Summarize Mom’s annotations on the Palliser Series by Anthony Trollope. 

On the title page she notes how many times she has read it:

The annotations for Can You Forgive Her were focused on underlining every time Trollope uses “it does not signify.” She also commented on this description of George Vavasor’s work habits:

“... when he was at his desk he did not whittle his ruler, or pick his teeth, or clip his nails.”

Mom’s annotation was “obviously not a State Employee.”

Phineas Finn is completely unblemished. There are no notes of previous readings. There are two mysterious check marks on page 163, apropos of nothing. They do not not signify.

The Eustace Diamonds and The Duke’s Children are similarly unsullied. 

Phineas Redux is the one book in the series Mom did not have, but my eBay replacement copy just arrived. I will have to note this on the title page for anyone who might get the series as a whole in the future.

The Prime Minister (read twice) has an additional note on the title page: “In this book we are taught the meaning of the word vulgar by Mr. T.” I find this odd, given that if I remember, The Eustace Diamonds had a vulgar heroine. Mom has numerous annotations in this one: comparing Mr. Brock to Eisenhower and Phineas Fin to Nixon, noting where Mr. Wharton class-trashes other characters (including Lady Eustace, told you), and when Anthony Trollope restates his theme Mom writes “Tony does tend to beat a dead horse.”

But then there is this:

In response to Trollope detailing the “perils” of having a daughter, because one must either be too indulgent or a tyrant, Mom writes, “The man says it in a nutshell.” Of course, I don’t remember Mom being either a tyrant or a pushover, so I would say I have the estimable Mr. Trollope to thank for that.

Tears

Long ago my Dad was in the hospital and told me that his cancer was terminal, that he had six months to live if he went on chemotherapy or six weeks to live without it, and he decided to go with the six week option.

He got as far as, "six months to live" when I began to cry. I wasn't able to talk by the time he got to "six week option."

He paused after the announcement, and listened to me sob quietly for a moment. Then he said, in a tone that suggested that this was not the reaction he expected, he said, "... Well ... don't cry." As if to say, "Aren't you overreacting just a little? I'm just dying."

(He then spent his hospice calling up old friends, making small talk for a minute, and then, "Turns out I'm going to die in a few weeks." I hope none of them cried.)

When Mom was in the hospital, and found out she was going to die, I was already weeping on a regular basis anyway. One day I came in and a nurse pulled me aside and said, "Your Mom is worried about you. She feels you're crying too much."

I want you all to know, when I die I expect the full complement of the Gnashing of the Teeth and Rending of Garments. When the time comes, if there is any question of What Ellen Would Have Wanted, I would have wanted you to be unhappy.

My Old Nemesis ... We Meet Again

Ignore the five-year-old version of me on the left, and ignore my freaking perfect cousin Cindy on the right.

Focus your attention instead on the storage unit in the background.

Mom left the marriage with nothing but that storage unit and our clothes. She packed it up and drove back to Saint Louis. That storage unit followed us to every apartment, condo, and house.

When Mom grew bored and wanted new furniture, we would take apart the storage unit and re-configure it -- move the drop-leaf desk from the center to the right side, then swap the side the drawers were on, etc.

Even if she had had fully-functioning arms she couldn't reach the top of it to dust it, and dust bothered David's asthma, so dusting the storage unit was always my job. Only, you couldn't just dust it. Every inch had to be massaged with the Lemon Pledge. The oil, not the spray stuff, no, that would be too easy.

It felt like it took hours rubbing the oil over every inch of that thing. For a while I had a reprieve because I couldn't get to the top; only Dad could reach the top. Then I grew tall enough and had to oil up the whole thing.

I got rid of Mom's storage unit when she died.

The other night I was watching Better Things and I saw that the therapist played by Matthew Broderick has been applying Lemon Pledge to his storage unit for fifty years now. It was odd to see it there.

Moms Letters: More Surprises

It's so odd to me that everything I remember from my semester stay at Indiana University is documented in my letters home. I wonder if perhaps instead of the memorable stuff ending up in letters, writing it down is what made it memorable.

I was wondering that when I opened a letter I'd written after I'd broke up with Michael. I giddily told Mom about my new boyfriend Dave. I remember that Dave was a big one for making plans and lists. I remember on our first date he'd made a plan for our future and made me sign it. (I still have it somewhere. He's a lawyer now. Meretricious. Can't hold up in court.) What I didn't remember at all is that we went shopping for engagement rings sometime in our first month of dating. I described what I was wearing, I have photos from that day, yet I can not remember going into the jewelry store or anything else engagement ring-related. I can only imagine Mom's horror getting that letter.

Evidently I inherited this speed romance gene from Mom. She knows a boy, they go on some dates, and she writes her way into his heart. There's one young man named Wessel who seems quite taken with her. At the end of his envelope pile I see an unsent letter from her (not a carbon) that seems to put him in his place. A year later there's his response to her wedding invitation. (I've found Mr. Wessel online. I'm wondering if he might like his letters back.)  

Then she meets a boy in December, writes him three letters a day starting Christmas break, he's in love with her by mid-January. The love and marriage plans are professed in an unsent letter there too, but it's from the boy to my Mom. I get to see the unsent letter to Mom because the boy (my stepfather) found her again years after she ditched him, married Jerry, and had two children, including me.

Those are particularly fun to read because they both kept both sets, so it's like a historical document. Also, they both have legible handwriting. After reading all these letters I have changed sides on the abandonment of cursive in school. Cursive is evil. Oh, and back in the day there was a habit of folding two sheets of typewriter paper and writing on it in a style I can't even describe without a video. Sheet 1 contains pages 1 and 4, the inner sheet contains 3 and 2, right first then left. It's like Shakespeare's folios, except for the backwards way the inner sheet is.

Sadly, the boy with legible handwriting is ditched for my scribbly father, from whom I see one very passionate letter. (I know there are other Jerry letters, but I don't know where.) The letter from Jerry was sent while he was visiting his parents and evidently telling them he's engaged. It doesn't seem to have gone well at first, but he makes a case to his parents and "Mad Aunt Jo." (Run, Mom.) He spends a few pages giving some genealogy.

On my grandmother's side I was surprised to see I'm a Southerner. Her father was "A black sheep" (run, Mom) " from a very rich and genteel family" in Spartanburg, South Carolina. This is a good match for Mom, whose great-grandfather owned much of Marion Ohio. Genetically, I should look for some small pond I can be the Big Fish Of.

My grandfather's side is where the big surprise lay: my great grandfather was full Cherokee. I just read an article on how it would be impossible for everyone who thinks they are Cherokee to actually be Cherokee, but here I am all one-sixteenth Cherokee. (Indian name: "Writes On Blog.") And he isn't just a nameless guy, his name is "S"... "a"..."m" ... "s ...e ...r ... y? ...Maybe?" Very poor handwriting. He shouldn't be too hard to look up, since he fought for the Confederacy and was "a federal Circuit judge." Yeah, right, I thought, that's bullshit. A Cherokee U.S. Circuit court judge? But, and here I show my ignorance to my Cherokee relatives, the Cherokee have an entire judicial system they started in 1839 - constitution and circuit courts and all - that was taken away in 1898.

So, here I am the very end of that particular run of Cherokee blood. Tsk. It's absurd, of course: unless that 1/16h is pooling in my face and giving me my red chin.

Mom's Letters: Mysteries Revealed

It's been fascinating to see Mom's take on family history ... it would be better to say "hear" Mom's take, because I can hear her voice in every word. I've got copies of her letters and any letters sent to her by family.

I'm glad Mom could type on the electric typewriter, and kept carbon copies (Google it, kids). It makes me very sad that my paternal grandfather had such poor handwriting that it took me five minutes to work out that he had chastised Jerry for his "SEX affair." (And watch the sex affairs, kids, fifty years later your children will out you on their blogs.) Mom was pretty convinced Jerry's love affair - sorry, Grandpa, SEX affair - was chaste until they were separated. I think that's probably true, just from some of the nuances. Of course, once they split up no one waited for the divorce on either side. I think the last letter between Mom and Jerry's parents was the one in which she announces she's getting remarried four months after the divorce.

There are some things that Mom had the good grace to white out from her later letters. It would seem her early opinion of Gary was not one of whole-hearted support. (Easy enough to read through the white-out if you hold it up to a light.) It's okay, he grew on her, "weird" and "unreliable" though he was. (And is.)

Every month when I go and cash in the thirty year old Series EE bonds, I worry why they had an extra $200 to invest in bonds right after I got married. Did I cost that much money? Come to find out, Mom got a raise and promotion, and they invested the raise. So that eases my mind.

And there are tiny little mysteries revealed. For example, why are there only a few photos of me as a child? I started to notice a theme in her letters. "Dressed Ellen in her green smocked dress for her grandparent's visit." Yes, that tracks with one of the six photos I have. There I am, next to the grandparents, in a smocked dress. Six photos. How much did film cost? Seriously? Was it like getting an oil painting? And then ... "I am sending you this photo of the kids at Christmas. Please return it since it is our only copy and our camera is broken." Well! There you go! The camera broke. And Mom trusted the existing photos to the U.S. Mail and soon-to-be-estranged relatives. No wonder there are only six photos of me in Houston.

And finally, it has been revealed whose bladder I inherited. My paternal grandmother must have been my age when she was writing Mom after the divorce and the woman has a bladder infection every other letter, when she isn't suffering from a kidney infection. I don't know what she was doing to get her bladder infections, given that her husband was coughing up blood from lung cancer at the time.

I'm only a tiny portion of the way throuh the box. Next up, my letters to Mom.

Mom's Letters: Ferguson Letters

Now that Mom's been dead almost ten years, I'm re-reading all her letters. I keep wanting to look up all her old friends and see if they remember her, or if they ever wondered what happened to her after she divorced Jerry and moved away from Houston.

I actually looked up one set of friends: Mike and Marilyn Ferguson. They were writers, and they even obliquely mentioned Mom and Jerry in the book they published: Champagne Living on a Beer Budget. They knew Mom when they lived in Houston. The most notable letter was from Marilyn, when she advised that Mom and Jerry not get divorced. Mom fired back a testy letter because she was fighting for her marriage! (At least, until she ducked back to Saint Louis and found her ex-boyfriend, thank God. I liked Dan Davis as a stepdad more than I would have liked Jerry Lockett as a father. I know you shouldn't judge your ex-father based on your Mom's letters, but even HIS father was on Mom's side.)

Anyway, the thing you notice when you Google Mike and Marilyn Ferguson is that Marilyn died a few months after Mom, and that Deepak Chopra was sad about it. Evidently, Mom's friend Marilyn became a big noise in the New Age Movement in about 1980.  

I already knew a few things I saw in her Wikipedia article. I know she had written a book called The Brain Revolution, because that was on our living room bookshelf, and I know she divorced Mike Ferguson because Mom noted it. Not smug or hateful. Just a little note on yellow lined paper, tucked in to her divorce letters, that listed all the friends who told her not to get divorced, followed by the dates of their divorces. (Well. Perhaps a bit smug. Not hateful.)

So, add this to the wedding photos taken by Bill Eppridge, and this makes two friends of Mom's who went on to immortality. I'm sure if Deepak Chopra had known my Mom he would have been sad she died too.

Vindicated!

When Mom was in her late sixties she had a dreadful time finding glasses that suited her. She had her computer glasses, her reading glasses, and her distance glasses. One time she bought glasses and simply couldn't use them. I said she could go get them adjusted but she was not up for it.

I picked up my new glasses yesterday. Simply couldn't use them. They worked for distance, but if I wanted to read something I had to nestle it under my wattle and look down my nose. I gave myself a day to adjust but I had to call the glasses store after four hours. I couldn't find a way to position my computer monitor under my nose. Same went for my dashboard controls, which I noticed as I drove back to the glasses store.

When I walked in I suspected they'd say, "You need give yourself a few days to adjust. Push your glasses up on your nose. Perhaps you need a separate pair of computer glasses."

Nope. Looked at me, looked at their documents, said, "Why these glasses have been made incorrectly." Evidently there is a Seg (?) number to indicate where your progressive lens changes from distance to reading, and my number was entered incorrectly. I had only a tiny slice of reading at the bottom instead of half reading, half distance.

I have never been so overjoyed to discover a company screwed up. In fact, I said, "You screwed up? It's not me? That is SO GREAT." I almost got up and danced about. Instead, I had a very smug conversation with Mom-in-My-Head. "Gotta stand up for yourself, Mom. Don't always assume it's your fault."

I may have been impudent enough to suggest she be more assertive in the future. While she's dead. Just in case there are progressive lenses in heaven.

Seriously, We Didn't Call This LobsterHospice? Really?

These bad boys are going to be dismantled and put in my belly soon with some butter.

 

Once you start a tradition, you have to uphold it.

I am again celebrating my Mom's life and teachings by killing a lobster with my bare hands on the anniversary of her death. I thought Gary might want to participate, but he does not. When I called from work I found he's back on his diet. I'd call it the six-bite diet, but when I got home it seems he'd consumed several pounds of raw vegetables. He's very uncomfortable right now.

When I heard he wasn't participating, I thought, "Well, I'll just go home and have something frozen." And then Mom-in-My-Head roared, "When I have I suggested that it is even remotely acceptable to put an Event on hold because you don't have a man sharing it with you?"

So, both these bad boys are for me and my Mom.

Mom In Three Boxes

Today was the day Mom died three years ago, so today was the deadline I gave myself for getting her files completely sorted, and it is Done.

I put the lid on the last box and announced "Mom is officially dead." Gary said, "Your Mom will never really be gone," and that is true. When I later mentioned I'm $16,000 in the hole for the repairs and upgrades to her house, he said, "See, as long as you're in debt, your Mom will still be with us." So that's a comfort.

There was no LobSlau this year, because the last two have dissolved into me talking about death, and that's not fun. I did, however, mark the anniversary of her death with lobster on Friday night.

We went to Ruby Tuesdays, because we have neglected that chain restaurant for months now, and I ordered the Lobster Carbonara so that still a lobster may die for Mom, even if not by my hand.

I had asked them to go easy on the peas. I had a few bites. It was very light. A fair amount of bacon. Not much lobster. I pulled a forkful up to the light and looked through the strands for lobster. "How do you confuse 'peas' with 'lobster'," I thought.

A manager appeared. "There's no lobster in your carbonara," she announced.

"I was wondering about that!"

"I'm so sorry. The chef was in the kitchen with his hands full of lobster and was all, 'Where is that lobster carbonara? I wasn't done.' But someone had already served it to you."

So I handed it back over. She returned with a heavenly top sauce and loads of lobster and cheese. And, she asked, "Are you having dessert? It's on the house."

Well, yes, now I am. Cheesecake with blackberry sauce. Not, as Gary suggested, lobster sauce.

So, three boxes: one for family history and photos, one for legal files and certificates and misc., one for anything Mom wrote. That's a nice box. I'm keeping that one upstairs

The Mom Time Capsule

The painters at Mom's have been picking off wallpaper with their fingernails, God bless them. (And I am sure God will: this team of two play soft Christian rock while working.) The house is full of sun. All manner of sins have been painted away. You can no longer tell which side of the bed Dad smoked in. You would think the thermostat had always been mounted three feet off the floor. Mirrors are off the walls and you can see layers of paint never seen since the sixties.

And.... the mirror is off the wall in the bathroom and the time capsule Mom left is exposed.

 

The BIG Reveal! Duh Duh Dunnnnnnn.

A button, reading "What's the sense in having a cat if you don't torment it?"

 

A pin, made in New Zealand, which is a native leaf specially treated with silver paint. I imagine I could add a newpaper article about the Christchurch time capsule they found after the earthquake. However, it might make my future homeowners jealous.

 

A bottle opener from Fairbanks Alaska, and the receipt for what the wallpaper in the room cost. (I removed that, because that $1,000 wallpaper is probably off the walls this very evening. Without the wallpaper, that item would be irrelevant. It would clash next to the timely relevance of the other items.)

 

A grocery receipt from 1991.  Cascade $2.99. Is that good? No idea. When this is discovered again, I hope that delights someone.

 

A measuring tape to show the antiquated way we measured things back in 1991.

 

And, finally, something kind of interesting. It isn't from 1991, in fact, I have no idea where this came from. As far as I know, Mom or Dad never went up in the Empire State Building. But yet, here are a bookmark and a souvenir receipt.

 

At one point Tammy, the painter's assistant, found me and asked, "Did you grow up in this house?"

"Yes, since I was 11."

"I found a couple of things pushed in the back of the closet shelves."

One was a Blues hockey ticket from 1971. One seat: $4. That went right into the Time Capsule purse.

The other thing?

You'll have to guess until tomorrow.

More From Mom From Beyond the Grave

I'm sorting through Mom's files, separating the wheat from the chaff.

Chaff: EVERY receipt for EVERY appliance bought since 1959. Toasters long gone. (Old charge card receipts printed the entire charge card number; that was quaint.) She kept a disturbing number of clippings about MS. Plus many articles about keeping your senses as you grow old.

Wheat: Lists of garden plantings, family history, old Christmas newsletters, and an intriguing document Mom wrote titled "History of the House."

She details who built the house (the Kaufmans), who then bought the house ten years later (the Bartes), what trees were planted and removed, all room dimensions, and all repairs.

We are then moved into the house in third person, as "The Davis Family." After a few more paragraphs about roofs and when they were installed, she writes,

"When the Davises removed the red velour flocked wallpaper in the bathroom they discovered this hole in the wall behind the mirror. Margaret" [that would be Mom] "thought 'if somebody had left us a history of this house we would have know about this hole and the plumber could have installed the new shower in half the time.' So she wrote this little history for you. And just in case there are any little kids in the house the next time the wall is papered she gathered up some interesting stuff to leave there for them to find."

What the ... ? She did? I removed that red flocked wallpaper myself, and I'm sure I would have been in on any caper involving time capsules left for future generations, but of this I have no recall at all. 

"...The next time the wall is papered ... " Of course, how could Mom know about the violent wallpaper bigotry that has overcome the civilized world? I now have to remove all the wallpaper I put up to replace the bordello wallpaper. I'll be sure to check in that hole and see what's there.

Pimpin' Out My Mom

I never thought it right that Mom's blog was on Blogspot, and mine was lazing about here in cushy Typepad. I made the decision to get into Mom's blog, export everything, and import it here.

That would have been a great plan if I could still get into Mom's blog. I should have done it just before "Too Soon" gave way to "Forgot Password."

Of course, that also means I can't delete Mom's old blog. It really was a pointless exercise, copying and pasting all Mom's entries. I think I realized that as I was copying and pasting all the old comments. That's when I stopped and realized this is one of those pointless posthumous missions that produces nothing but guilt.

On a related note (get it? "Related?" I typed it and I just now got it) all the in-law posts are back up. They went through my filter, and of course they all passed, but they still need to get Gary's editorial approval.

Oh, and on a truly unrelated note, I want to update my blogroll with one that will show each link's most recent posts. I know you're in the feed reader. "Pah!" you sneer, "Who actually goes to a blog site anymore?" That makes my vain attempt to resurrect my Mom even more pathetic. Screw you, snobby feed person. I'm going to Paris without you.

My Two Dads

Evidently today is the day that Father Ghosts rise up and say, "Stop obsessing about your Mom! We're dead too. Pay attention to us!" 

Evidently, attention must be paid to these men.  Neither is a dead salesman, though, Jerry was a newspaper editor and Dan was a Purchasing Agent.

A recap: here, or in short: 
Mom met Dan.
Mom met Jerry, dumped Dan. 
Mom married Jerry and had me and Dave.
Jerry dumped Mom.
Mom found Dan again.
Mom married Dan, her true love.

Jerry's Bid For Attention Today

The topic of conversation at lunch today was whether or not one is filled with inexpressible love for ones baby the moment it is born. ("That's all bullshit," said my expert.) (That may not be your experience, but don't argue with my expert.) At dinner, I was told Gary we need extra birth control because I can't fall back on the "bullshit" hormonal safety net if case we have an Accident. And then talk turned to men who just never seem to bond with their kids, and then to Jerry, the Technical Father.

"What did Jerry do for a living?" Gary asked.

"When Dave found him he was the City Editor for the McAllister Oklahoma paper. He was also drinking, and living with his Mom."

"I had no idea he sunk so low! You never told me that!" Gary was shocked.

"What? That he was a drunk?"

"No, that he was living with his Mom."

So. Gary Ethics say: puking up Antabuse, fine, living with your Mom, not cool.

Dan's Bid for Attention Today

Here's a sad tale of two sisters who gambled on the lottery for years, had a falling out, then one of them won half a million, and then the other wanted to share. It reminded me of how Dan would bet on the lottery, first he would size up ... (You aren't paying any attention, are you. The sister who bought the ticket got to keep all the money. Okay?)

First, he would size up the blood alcohol level of his bar-mates. If any were drunk enough, Dad would chat him up. "Hey, I was feeling lucky, and I thought I would buy a lottery ticket, but I'm about 20 cents shy. Loan me twenty cents, and I'll give you twenty percent of the winnings." And of course they would "invest," and OF COURSE Dan would have the same conversation with about ten or fifteen people at the bar, always needing just about 20 cents, and by the time Dan had worked the room into a Big Lotto Syndicate, none of whom had ever seen "The Producers," the Lottery drawing would be on and they would all lose. Awwwwww.

That kind of makes Dan sound like a drunken grifter. He wasn't. It's not like he was living with his Mom, at least.

Mom Will Not Shut Up From Beyond the Grave

I went by Mom's bank to transfer the contents of the savings deposit box to a closer branch. I looked in the envelope where "my" savings bonds were stored and found this note, from Mom, beyond the grave.

She started off impersonal and then went straight for the personal.

"I had these changed to remove Dan's name and add Ellen's. 10/91. (You need a death certificate.) They handle it at Boatmen's - no charge. Put Gary's name on as beneficiary - not joint - Ellen L S______ P.O.D. [payable on death - Ed.]  Gary S______.  If Gary isn't around (!) and you are alone it's your call.  M.D [Mom]."

 

Gary - dissed by a dead woman. That's cold.

More From Mom On the Other Side

We found a cookbook in which Mom stored almost all of her old driver's license or ID photos.

So, I bring you

Thirty-two years of Mom

Since obviously she was keeping them so I could step back and prepare myself.

Below: Thirty-two, just divorced. HAPPY smile.

 

A ten year jump to 42. I am not to blame for this photo. Mom experiments with not smiling.

 

Two years later the smile was back

 

In 1985 Drivers License Photo Technology takes a big leap forward. Mom is 49. I'm  currently 47. Evidently in the next two years my chin will tighten up and my eyes will get bigger. Awesome!

At 52. Not smiling has become a requirement. I think this is the year Dad died and Mom retired.

According to the license Mom weighs 110 below. So 53 will be a big weight loss year.

 

Fifty six.

Finally, at 56, Mom begins to resemble me at 47. Smiles are back! Chins are also back. Mom also discovers a way she can style her own hair, even though she can't raise her arms over her waist. Oh, and I can't wait until those glasses are back in style.

Here she is in 1995, at 59.

At 62, you will notice Mom has made a major fashion adjustment. After decades of dressing to hide her tracheotomy scar, she decides her wattle sort of drapes over it and she doesn't need to hide it with high collars. Right now I'm tempted to send this photo to work and combine it with my current face, so I can desensitize Gary for his future.

And here she is in 01, at 65, wearing my shirt.

 

Of course, she died at 71, but she didn't drive the last few years. 

But here, just for you, an extra bonus cartoon she saved!

Crockpot

The Whomp-there-it-is Pork Loin was parceled out in thirds: one third was the ambitious rolled Emmenthal loin. That was a disaster, followed by the less ambitious garlic and rosemary loin, which then was remixed as the reliable Cream of Mushroom simmered pork, which was Fed to the Dog. So, this last third will be slumming it as Crockpot Pulled Pork with Bottled BBQ Sauce.

My crockpot has never been used to cook something while I'm out of the house, because, Mom asks, do you want the house to burn down when you're at work?  (Sorry, Shania.) No, I don't. So I do my crockpot cooking rarely and on the weekend.

But the thick hunk of loin was still rock hard on Sunday morning that's what she said, and after you cook one even partially-frozen turkey you don't make that mistake twice. But waiting for a full refrigerator thaw would put me out to the beginning of the week.

"Other people use their crock pots during the day," I thought. Then I noticed the Ghost of Mom by my elbow. "Buuuut - I would NEVER leave the house when any appliance was on."

"Good girl," Mom said. "Now get your hair out of your eyes."

"Wait -  I bet I could turn the crock pot on at ten p.m., then have it cook while I sleep!"

"Sure," she said. "Do that. It'll be nice to see you again. Of course, you'll have burned to death in your sleep, at least. Don't think I didn't see you leave the room when you made that PieCake earlier tonight."

"I think I'll be okay cooking it at night. I've leaving this in the fridge until it thaws, then I'll cook it tomorrow night."

"Well, that's just crazy. By the way, you haven't sold my house yet? How hard is that? It's not like I made you skate in the Olympics the week after I died."

Breaking News: Queen Mum is Still Dead

Sigh. For those in mourning, the countdown to the two-year anniversary of a parent's death is when you step back and say, as I did at lunch, "Shit. That was hard. But it's ov - "

Over? No, it's not. But miserable though it was, I don't want it to be over. There are stacks.

Stack #1
A stack of Mom's letters has moved like a glacier from the top of my closet to the top of my sewing box. The letters on the very top are to us kids from my Technical Grandparents and refer to me as "Em."  Ellen Marie. Never caught on.

The next set down in the stack are letters from Mom to the Tech. Grandparents. The top one of those caught my eye this morning and I peeled off the others to peek at it. "This will be the last personal letter I write to you," and then she goes on to say, and I paraphrase, "I'm tired of you telling me I have to work on this marriage and an affair isn't really that meaningful and I tried and he didn't." I didn't read any more.

I hadn't read the stack up till now because the stack is finite, and when I've read it all there will be no more of Mom's letters to read. Now I don't want to read the stack because I'll go through her pain vicariously, which you all know is the real reason I didn't have children.

Stack #2
Dave's coming out Tuesday to truck the living room and office furniture back to New Mexico. (And I did say, "See you next Tuesday!" last time he called. He guffawed.) The files had to come out of the office file cabinet, and those all sitting on my kitchen table, waiting to be culled through. Mostly taxes, receipts, every warranty for every purchase, with some interesting treasures. Dizzy Dean's photo autographed for my Dad. Dozens of family photos. And an "Ellen-young" "Ellen-teen" and "Ellen-adult" file.

Stack #3
Mom cleared hundreds of books out of her house in the years before she died. So any book that's still there must have some great importance, right? I didn't realize that until we moved books out of the office bookcase and I almost tossed The Essential Earthman - THE ANNOTATED Essential Earthman. Mine Mine Mine, as are all other books all mine.

Sadly, I have to negotiate space for these stacks with Gary. I know, he's trying to keep me off the hoarding path. But when all the stacks are gone, done are all one-sided conversations with Mom. And you know how I love one-sided conversations.

Goldbugs

A few weeks ago I went to my Work Father-in-law's funeral. Or, alternatively, the man at work who is my "Work Husband" suffered the loss of his father, and I went to the funeral. It came up that both the father and the mother attended my Mom's high school, McKinley High.  I got Mom's yearbooks from my closet so I could take them to work.

The yearbook was the "Nugget." Because President McKinley ran on the gold standard, McKinley students were the "Goldbugs" and the yearbook was the "Nugget." I mean, that's just freaking weird. Like, "Hi, we're the Nixon 'Burglars', and this is our yearbook the 'Scandal.'"

I didn't look too closely, but of the yearbooks ('50 to '54),  two were covered with signatures. "Did she graduate twice?" I wondered.

When I got them to work and Work Husband and I were searching for his Mom, we realized that the first signature-covered yearbook didn't belong to Mom, but her older sister Delores. That's Delores who died in the car accident heading to visit Mom at Mizzou.

So, it was my dead aunt's yearbook! And, even better, Work Husband's mom had signed it.

"Delores - Loads of Luck! I wish you the best in your future endeavors. Love, Dot."

Sadly, Dot is dead herself, so Work Husband can't go home and present his Mom with her faux pas. "Look! You signed this woman's yearbook 'Loads of Luck' and then she DIED the next year."

Photo of Mom

This is currently my favorite photo of Mom:

It was taken the Christmas after she got polio. I don't know what she was actually looking at, but it certainly seems she's looking at her future.

Some days I look at her and she seems resigned but heroic: some days she looks pissed. "Bring it, future," she says, "I'll kick your ass."

"The I Hate to Cook Book" Nostalgia

When I was in going through my recent ill-guided fusion cooking phase, I was at the grocery looking for shallots. "Wait," I thought, "Can't I just use green onions? That was in Mom's I Hate to Cook Book. Shallots are just a fancy name for green onions."

Well, no, scallions  are just a fancy name for green onions, and that helps explain why I had so little success with the fusion cooking, but it reminded me of how much I retained from Peg Bracken's I Hate to Cook Book.

I'm bringing it up in particular tonight because Meryl Streep just commented on Colbert that her Mom did not have Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but she did have The I Hate to Cook Book. My Mom had both cookbooks. I was always involved in Mom's French Cooking experiments because the books were too heavy for her to take out of the bookcase.

In fact, last weekend I used Volume 1 to investigate why my Beef Wellington sucked so much. (Beef Wellington is made with brioche, not frozen puff pastry. I'd made the Julia Child version once and it was indeed fabulous., I'd also used the same book to make French puff pastry from scratch the same weekend - I think I merged the two memories.)

After a little research I found these illustrations. This took me back.

 

I might have Mom's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but I don't know where her I Hate to Cook Book went. (She purged a lot. "Less for the dumpster you'll park out front WHEN I DIE.") Thanks to Amazon one-click, I know have some one else's Mom's I Hate to Cook Book.

Another Visitation

There was a booksale at TeddyJ today. I donated a sack of books Gary culled from our house. All of it crap: Tom Clancy, The DaVinci Code, John Grisham.

Later, Friend 3 and I were poking around the books, when a mutual friend, Steve, came by with The DaVinci Code in hand.

"Hey, I donated that book," I said, suddenly all proud of The DaVinci Code, as if it were an obscure piece of fiction I had donated. It might not have even been my copy.

Steve began thumbing through it. He stopped at the first page and said, "Someone wrote in this book."

"What's it say?" Friend 3 asked.

"'This book is an albatross around the neck of Margaret Davis.'"

"Mom!" I squealed, and grabbed the book back from Steve, who then insisted I pay for it.

I had forgotten we demanded Mom read The DaVinci Code. She read it under duress, and annotated it accordingly (annotations listed below).

She illustrated the frontispiece:

 

(I think that's Gary being crushed by the poor house. The uh ... Scaiydt poor house. Or perhaps it's me, what with the boobs and all. If I remember our crime was buying her her own copy instead of waiting for Hot Mom to return ours.)

This is Mom's comment on the last page:

 

And in between there are these annotations:

The Hate begins

Suspicion

Polio commentary(the blurry comment is "Kee-rist.")

Bored

Mary Magdalene

More polio commentary

Gratuitous sex scene

Mirror writing

Plot hole 

Overkill

Mom learns a new word

Alanis Morrissette

Mom learns another new word

It does get pretty lame near the end [SPOILER]

Proof They Have Computer Access in Heaven

I was avoiding Mom's taxes because Turbo Tax would ask if the person these taxes were for was deceased.

This is the screen you get after you click "Yes."

T-Minus 10

This is grim. I had a grim little epiphany sometime this weekend.

My grandmother Lucille (Granceil) had three children, Jimmy, Delores, and Mom.

Jimmy

I could post a photo of Jimmy, but you wouldn't believe it - he was a perfect, curly- haired tow-headed boy. The photo of him as a toddler in the thirties looks like an advertisement. When he was five he got scarlet fever and Granceil was told she had to put him in the children's Quarantine hospital. 

On his death certificate a month laster, the doctor listed: "scarlet fever, measles, mumps, chicken pox, rubella, whooping cough." When Granceil asked why so many illnesses were listed, the doctor told her Jimmy caught all those other diseases in the hospital, and he might have lived if he'd been allowed to stay at home. 

Margaret (Mom)

A few years after Jimmy died Granceil had Delores and then two years after that, Mom. Mom got polio when she was 13, in 1947. The doctors explained to Granceil that it was quite possible that Mom's immune system was too weak to fight off the polio virus because Granceil was very clean, and specifically, "washed the grapes."

Delores

Delores, Mom's slightly older sister, was a poor replacement for Jimmy from the day she was born. She sassed, she disobeyed, she grew up to have boobs and boyfriends and an abortion. At 19, she and "Aunt" Carleen drove to visit Mom during her second year at Columbia. It was raining, and her car spun out of control on Hwy 40. Carleen survived, but Delores was thrown from the car, hit her head on a milepost and died instantly. While the doctors did not place the blame for this one on her, Granceil still felt responsible.

Then, after all that, Granceil started taking in foster children during the next ten years, until her daughter and grandkids arrived from Houston after Mom's divorce. I asked Mom why Granceil would want to take in foster kids; she said she thought Granceil wanted to get it "right" at least once.

So, if anyone asks why I don't have children, I can point them back to family history. We can't be trusted with them.

Chapter One: I Am Born

I thought I'd told everyone the extended version of the first anecdote of my life: In Which I Am Born With an Extra Thumb. Strangely, I can't find it out there. So here it is.

===============================================

Mom, having had a child already, was all too happy to get the heavy-duty drugs when I arrived. I don't know what they gave her, but she was unconscious when I evidently frog-crawled my way out of her vagina.

Later, she came to just as the doctor was entering the room. The doctor assumed since I had been born hours earlier, Mom had woken up, seen me, counted the fingers and toes, freaked out, dismissed me, then gone to sleep again.

Unbeknownst to him, Mom had been sleeping off the drugs for hours, and hadn't seen me. Mom's side of the story was that he woke her up and said, "Well, congratulations on your baby girl. She looks healthy. Seven pounds. You have two children now, that should keep you busy. Well, we'll talk again in a few weeks. Bye for now." Then he left.

Then, Mom says, he stuck his head back in the door and said, "Oh, and don't worry about that extra thumb." Then he left for good.

Then Mom freaked out. Mom called the nurse to have me brought in so she could number my digits, since I'd already been weighed and measured.  While they were fetching me, Mom called my Grandmother.

Granceil said, "Well, you know your cousin had twelve toes AND a tail."

(I don't know if that made Mom feel any better. When Mom would tell that part of the story I always felt a little inadequate, as if, Damn, I should have had a tail, too.)

This is the only photo in which Mom was unable to hide the freak thumb:

You can't count everything on that hand, but know that the digit closest to my belly button is not supposed to look like that.

When I was sitting up on my own, some doctor resolved the situation with a big pair of scissors.

In  about sixth grade I realized I had never been able to bend that thumb, then I put my hands together:

And realized that damn, I have wrinkly old hands for a sixth-grader. No. I looked at the scar and the bump placement and realized they took off the real thumb and left me with the freak stump thumb.

Of course, if they'd taken off the Freak Thumb, I'd have been unable to close my hand without pressing on that little ganglion left over from the nerve for the amputated thumb. Bumping that thing causes me sickening pain. It's my Achilles Thumb.

Observed in Our Living Room and Kitchen

Scene: Expanded "Great room / eating area / kitchen" area in our almost-paid-off starter house. (------->)
Mom's leftover remaining remains are on top of the fridge.

Gary complained from the kitchen, "The only place to put these snacks is on top of the fridge, and that's where your Mom is."
I answered from the couch in the living room, "Then you can't put them there."
"What if I move your Mom?"
"No!"
"She could go on top of the bookcase by the couch."
"No! It's too soon."
Gary picked up Mom's remains box and said, "I'm moving her."
"No! You put Mom back!"
Gary placed Mom on top of bookcase and soothed, "There she is. She'll be fine there." Then he slipped and only avoided falling by catching himself on the couch. "Shit!"
"Really?"
"Shit and pee." Then he added, "Your Mom just laughed at that."

How cute is this?

I was looking through Mom's old writings.

 

 

 

1. What struck me at first was that she signed it "Marge" instead of Margaret. In 1956, Mom was 20.

 

2. This particular short story was a narrative of how she and her roommate Nanci murdered their housemother.

 

3. Interestingly, she experimented a little with Margi. Note the classic circle / dot over the i.

4.Margee.

5.Margi. (Sans dot.)

6.Margye.

 

 

7. - 8. She evaluates Margye versus Margi.

 

 

 

Clearly, Margi (sans dot) wins, because that became her byline in college, plus it's the one she circled on the Margee / Margi / Margye test run.

(Ellen / Ellyn / L.N. / Ehlyn)

(New college-era post from the great beyond at Mom's blog!)

Post-its From the Great Beyond

The day began with a huge fight with Gary. It's my fault, I'll often find that I'll work something out in my head, make a decision, then Gary will submit to me all the same arguments I had worked through, and it's frustrating, because shut up, shut up! I already thought that out. Just do what I say. (Bongo! No talk back to Missy.)

My thoughts had been: "Bring more stuff from Mom's. Uh-oh. No room here. Purge stuff from here. Then bring stuff from Mom's."

Gary's response was "Your Mom is dead! We have no room for her in our life!" except the actual words he used were, "Stuff means furniture! I like our furniture! You want to throw out all our furniture in favor of your Mom's furniture!" But I knew what he really meant.

Anyway, after much crying and consoling and shortcake at Bob Evan's we went to pick up some remaining tiny microscopic knick-knacks and writings from Mom's house. And it was fun, because I kept finding notes from Mom.

In the china cabinet where she kept Great-Aunt Rosemary's painted china I found a letter from Rosemary talking about how she'd worked to get china painting classified as art instead of decor. "Why I didn't know that, Mom. Thanks! And thanks for putting it right by the china."

In the den, attached to the top of the 1950's shoe shine box was an ad from Organized Living with a reproduction box on sale for $35. Good to know, Mom. Thanks.

But the best part was when I found an old issue of Life with this note:

"Page 145 Life
Great Photos of the Century
Life photographer Bill Eppridge took the stark wedding photos in Nov. 1958 of our marriage."

"Who is Bill Eppridge?" I wondered, and turned to page 145, and saw some photos of heroin addicts. "Cool," thought I, "She and Jerry must have met him in Journalism school." As it turns out that is true. Or at least he went to Mizzou, graduated two years behind Mom and a few years before he started covering Bobby Kennedy for Life and took this photo:

But I didn't know that until I googled him tonight. Before tonight the only Bill Eppridge photos I knew were Mom and Jerry's wedding photos:

 

The one above was my grandmother's favorite. Jerry's worried about the bags under his eyes, and Mom has this great "I'm gonna get laid!" smile in the mirror, but Grandceil particularly enjoyed teasing Mom about the great vat of Vaseline in the back corner of the suitcase. (Click for expanditure!)

I'm sure it's that eye for detail that made Bill Eppridge a famous artist.

I Smell Like Chanel

Since the Mom Death File Instructions specify that we let her friends take something from the house to remember her by, Dave and I have been hoarding heirlooms before the MomFest on Saturday. (We don't know what to call it; there's no service, so it isn't a memorial service. It isn't a visitation or a viewing. Frankly, it's a party in memory of Mom. I'm thinking of using "wake.")

I wanted to liberate her can opener, but Dave protested he had just bought some chili and needed to be able to get to it. I tagged the balsa-wood Christmas tree and the Dickens. We were rooting through her drawers (since you never know WHAT people will want to remember her by) and I found an old bottle of Chanel No. 5.

It's old, so you know it's got tortured civet in it.

I put some on. It smells like velvet and powder, not civets or ylang ylang. I tried to think of why, and I realized it smells like Mom going to the Purchasing Agents Dance in her green velvet dress.

I don't recall Mom wearing perfume on a regular basis. For one of their early anniversaries, my Dad bought her a perfume obelisk. I don't know what else to call it. A perfume reliquary? I tried to find it on Google Images.

It looked a little like these, if these were 8 inches tall:

...only Mom's wasn't as tasteful. I can't even call it Mom's, it was Dad's, and you could tell because behind the outrageous gilding, inside the crystal chamber, there was a naked gilt lady holding up the vial that contained the dauber and the perfume. How gaudy was it? I, a ten-year old, thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

Mom thought it was so "lovely" she put it on the back of the toilet tank. Since it was top-heavy - "ours" was the size of the one on the left, but it stood on a base about the size of the gilt flower on top - I think Mom hoped it would fall off.

Of course, now I want it. I have no idea where it is.

Bad News, Good News

Bad news:
Arthur C. Clarke is dead

Good news:
...dead, at NINETY ...
...after suffering from POST-POLIO SYNDROME (like Mom) ...
...which he has suffered with since the SIXTIES!

By my calculations, this means Mom has another twenty, thirty years in her.

(This news was so great I kept it to myself for a day, somehow forgetting to push the "Publish" button.)

The Lunch Table Turns

The Queen Mother found herself sandwiched by doctor's appointments today. The lung doctor at 1:30, GP at 10 and no food for 12 hours beforehand. So at lunch she was hungry enough to take the step of dining out in public.

Mom's dined out in public before of course, but not since her arms went into their current decline. Mom's food habits recently have been limited by what she can get into her mouth without lifting her arms. Lately on the weekends she gets to eat what she wants because I've been feeding it to her at home.

So Mom was hungry enough that I said, "Applebee's. Quesadilla?" and she was up for it.

And it worked out really well. I sat on Mom's right, I ate my food with my right hand, and held a triangle of quesadilla in my left I just casually held it as if it were a highball, then I looked off into space absently while Mom leaned in and gnawed on the quesadilla.

At one point Mom lost contact with a diced tomato bit and it landed on the table. I kept the quesadilla hovering with my left hand and nabbed the bit with my right. Then I ate it.

Mom called me a scavenger fish and a bottom feeder.

I pulled the quesadilla away the next time she leaned in.

Her eyes narrowed. "I could bite you," she whispered. Then she demanded my French fries. I could tell I might lose a finger so I gave them to her.

It was a nice moment.

Mom Brushes Her Teeth

Mom let me watch her as she brushed her teeth today. For future reference in case one ever has limited use of ones arms:

1. Design an Arm Prop (patent pending) made of an inverted new toilet plunger sawed in half and affixed to a stand, so.

2. Hold electric toothbrush in right hand and use  recoil properties of a sudden shoulder jerk to elevate right elbow into rubber cup of plunger.

3. Take left hand and unscrew toothpaste cap.

4. Astonish your daughter who is expecting you to squeeze toothpaste into the sink but NO, instead bend down and squeeze toothpaste into your mouth.

5. Rub toothpaste on teeth with tongue.

6.  Lower teeth onto electric toothbrush and run each tooth over the toothbrush.

7. After cleaning teeth, heartlessly drop electric toothbrush directly into sink.

8. Butt head against faucet to turn it off.

I swear to everyone, I asked if she wanted me to help her brush her teeth. This is why I was so disgusted that night when Gary whined, "But I need you to help me wrap the presents."

The Haul

In honor of the season and her sturdy teeth, I bought the Queen Mother some candy for Christmas.

I also got her a book with large print, in honor of her literacy and poor eyesight.

Then, in May when we had encountered armadillos in Memphis on the way to the BNL concert, she told us of a basket she'd seen made of an armadillo's shell and had not purchased. So she got this.

Then, a week ago, she said this sentence:

"I'm trying to get rid of things like candy dishes. I have enough crap in my house, and I don't eat candy anymore."

"Oh ... how do you feel about reading?"

Because I figured the candy and the armadillo wouldn't go over, she also got this:

Only because I dimly remembered she likes ONE Screaming Jay song (I Put a Spell On You) which he helpfully puts on every single one of his albums.

And when I realized she really had no use for that, I broke down and got her this profoundly functional and boring item:

(And she was very gracious and thanked me for every gift. I have raised her well.)

Mom Meets Manbitch

I was driving Queen Mom about this afternoon, having taken a half-vacation day, and who pulls up beside us and honks but Manbitch?

We rolled down our respective windows and after some pleasantries, I gestured to Mom and introduced her.

Mom leaned forward and yelled across to Manbitch:

"She is so mean to me!" (Pause for laughter) "She mistreats me!" (Pause for more laughter) "Tell everyone you know!"

And then we drove away.