Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

In Which I Am Told I Need to Think or Shut Up

A few weeks ago, I was at work but I needed to make some phone calls between nine and four.  Because a number of government agencies needed to know Mom was dead. After a few days of playing with words ("dead," "passed on," "passed away," "not with us, if you know what I mean," back to "dead,") I became more and more conscious of the thought bubbles of condemnation floating over the tops of the cube walls. Did I sound too sad? Too matter-of-fact? It's a lot of calls, even if you don't actually say "dead." At any rate, knowing the liberal policy TeddyJ has about working from home, I wanted to ask my Team Leader (TeddyJ has no bosses, we're groovy like that) if I could work from home. so that I didn't disrupt my co-workers with the "Uh, I need to report a death /passing / deceasement" routine.

What did I do? I walked up to my Team Leader and said "I want to go home so I can make some personal phone calls. During work hours."

After a little re-phrasing she was cool with it.

Yet even still, today, when I printed out three hundred pages of Powerpoint presentations and white papers, I began to read and got distracted by every little thing. So of course out of the blue I asked the same Team Leader, "Would it be okay if I just go home and read?"

She said I really need to work on how I phrase these things.

It's Wee Idda Bidda Bebe Woses Time of Year

I have the sweetest rose bush out in the back. Made sweeter the year it died all the way back, and I discovered you don't grow plants, you grow roots. It came entirely back in that one year.

I always mean to prune it, and I never the heart. It needs it, but I can never remember if roses grow on old wood or new wood.

And I love it, because it has the teensiest tiniest roses ever:

Tiny. The size of my thumbnail. Which needs a manicure.

(I was holding it gently, but still it seems like I'm a giant trying to tear the head off a long-stemmed rose.)

Oh, and since you asked: Graves you say? Resting place of Mom and Dad? Here they are under the Rock Mom gave me that says Laugh.

What I am Posting Instead of Oh, Say, Cooking Brownies

• It's Gary's fault; if he hadn't bought new stamps I would have been at the grocery and picked up necessary brownie stuff.

• I also haven't used the glue gun to do minor shipping repairs on Judith's whimsical sculpture, either. (It's mine now! I scored! You can get your own! At http://judibleu.etsy.com.) I love it - the photo doesn't do it justice.

• I appear to be loosening up at my new job. I had this conversation today, with Oy-jay and Ott-scay, who sit across the cube wall from me:
  
  Oy-jay: (coughs violently, as she has been doing for two months)
  Me: Hey, when you went to the hospital with pneumonia, was it bacterial pneumonia?
  Oy-jay: (perkily) Yes! It was!
  Ott-scay: Yeah and then she came to work and coughed all over us.
  
  Then I paused, and blandly said ...
  Me: You probably killed my Mom.
  
  Heh. It was great. Poor woman.
  

Seven! (7) How Many Is Seven? (sehhhvehhhn...)

Congrats to everyone who answered Seven!

It was almost eight. As I left she said, "I hope you feel better soon."

"No, really I'm fine."

"That cold can last a while."

So, I couldn't count that as Mom-generated sympathy.

So, brownies baked in the Famous Edge Brownie Pan for:

Becs
LaisyDaisy
Autumn

Because seven is the magic number. (All BNL children, in chorus: "Seven Eight Nine!")

AND, a new Blog From Beyond is up at Queen Mum.

Steak

Gary and I were at the grocery Saturday night, when I said, "I want to cook you something, like a roast or a steak." He just screamed like a girl at the idea of the roast. (I can only imagine all fights between his parents stemmed from food: too much for the freezer, how hard it is too make, because when I warn him I'll be making some he protests. When I make it he's happy.)

So, that's why I bought two porterhouse steaks and made them when he was walking the dog today. I had to do it then, since he invariably bursts into the kitchen screaming "Something is BURNING!" when I heat up the oven or stove. I didn't want to grill the steaks because it was perfect catch-a-cold weather, and I am still sleeping off a cold. I opened up "How to Cook Everything," my big yellow cookbook friend, compiled by a vegetarian, which still explains how to cook up cow muscles indoors.

I wanted a second opinion, went to the internet, and found a fine explanation on Everything.com.

An excerpt:
"A properly cut, aged, and prepared porterhouse, IMNSHO, is the best steak. PERIOD. People whine and whimper, 'Oh, what about the filet mingon? Or the top sirloin?' These people are freaking idiots and should NOT, under ANY circumstances, be allowed near any proper steakhouse, BBQ, charcoal pit, or any other symbol (real or imagined) of elevated carnivorous behavior. A steak isn't a little sliver of beef wrapped in bacon and presented on a white plate with a sprig of some sort of pretentious green matter, as if you just happened to bring your pet rabbit along to eat a large, hoofed mammal with you. A steak, and your experiences enjoying it, should invoke memories of roasting animals over an open fire with your fellow hunters. IF THIS MEANS YOU AND YOU'VE TAKEN OFFENSE, STOP READING THIS RIGHT FUCKING NOW!! You do not have the qualifications to view the following, and your eyes will melt out of your skull if you proceed, leaving you with useless sockets of dessicated carbon."

I still went ahead and pan-broiled the steak like a wuss,  but I enjoyed the Everything.com explanation best. And it tasted fine, even without the open fire.

Place Your Bets

Saturday is the big Dual Mother's Day / Birthday Party for my mother-in-law. It should last six hours.

Let's place some bets.

How many times will my mother-in-law mention my mother and how sad it is that I don't have my mother on this Mother's Day and how terribly I must be missing my mother since it is Mother's Day and even though I don't have a mother my mother will live on always in my heart.

How many times?

I'm serious. I'm going to keep track. If your guess is closest I might even bake you something and mail it.

Place your bets in the comments. Betting will end Monday night.

Please, no doping.

This is Great News

An excerpt from this news story:

"Researchers have known for some time that fat that collects in the abdomen -- known as visceral fat -- can raise a person's risk of diabetes and heart disease, while people with pear-shaped bodies, with fat deposits in the buttocks and hips, are less prone to these disorders."

Also, we can booty-pop, unlike some African-American women of our acquaintance. This is really pissing off Friend #7.

"White girls can booty-pop. Why can't I booty-pop?"

The Fog

The weather was beautiful last weekend. I suffer greatly from my own strain of Spring Fever: when it's an absolutely gorgeous day I am filled with guilt and inadequacy. "Look at this," I think, "The grass is that luminous spring green. The sky is perfect. The world is all beauty, why aren't you doing your part? Why aren't you creating more beauty in the world?" It's the same feeling I get in the art museum. "You're just a beauty-user."

Understandably, I feel less pressured by bad weather. Love the rain, even the drizzle. Of all, my favorite is fog.

About 22 years ago there was an epic fog in the Saint Louis area. And, even better, it was a night fog. Gary and I were out buying crystal for a friend's wedding, and we'd driven out to an outlet mall 40 miles west of Saint Louis. (See, children, back before there was the Internet, we had to drive places to buy things.) We drove home disappointed.

On the way home, the fog hit. Driving stopped. You could see only the taillights of the car parked on the shoulder directly in front of you. It was a situation that equalized all cars. SUVs and trucks had no advantage over our eensy Honda CRX.

After an hour of the incapacitating fog, Gary and I got a little impatient, because there was a wedding to attend the next day and the crystal was still not in hand. We had already noticed the only thing visible for miles: the big glowing sign for "Mid-Rivers Mall." So we pulled back out to where we thought the highway might still be, then crept along the exit and across the parking lot to the big glowing "Famous-Barr" sign.

None of the crystal we needed at Famous, either, so we headed out to the mall -- except we couldn't find the exit to the mall.  We  followed the wall on the first floor, then we thought to ask someone.

"How do we get out to the mall?" we asked, embarrassed.

"The mall?" said the perfume lady.

"Yes."

"I don't understand."

(Brief moment to evaluate the language skills of the perfume lady.) "The mall. We've walked all around and can't see how to get out to the mall."

"What mall?"

(Brief moment to evaluate the drug addictions of the perfume lady.)  "This mall. Mid-Rivers mall."

"This is the mall." (pause) " There is no mall."

It reminded me of that Lost in Space episode when Dr. Smith takes the elevator up to the second floor of their spaceship in the parallel universe or something, and he comes back down all ashen-faced and intones, "There is no second floor."

Come to find out, ha ha, we had crept through the minimal parking lot past the massive construction equipment to the fully-finished Famous which was not attached to anything, yet. Sure, there was a sign.  Two points determine a line, and it appears one store determines a mall. About a year later, they finished the mall and had a grand opening.

So, fog. My favorite.

Look! You Got Monkeys Yesterday. Today You Get Snot.

Updated: I woke up today and thought, "Look! You Got Ejaculate Yesterday, Today You Got Snot." Sorry for the delay, but I'm snot-stupid.

My head is full of snot. So full that I have taken to putting a towel on the bed and laying the most snot-filled nostril on it and just letting my nose drain directly on to the towel. This as I breathe through my gaping mouth and moan as I exhale. *inhale* "ooOOOooooaaaannnnnhh." *inhale* "uuuuUUUUnnnnnhhhhhhh." *inhale*

Am I the only one who does this: I find great comfort in making the inside of my bottom lip as dry as possible when I've been mouth-breathing for a while.

My only real comfort is work. I have been doing all the brainless work-projects on my plate today.  And, I've been watching the election intently. Barack congratulated Hillary on winning Indiana, Hillary was gracious about winning Indiana, and the MSNBC people are still insisting it's too close to call. I think this might make sense if it could get past all the snot.

In Which I Observe Some Monkeys Being Spanked

I just did something fun that I think every woman should do. It's not something the faint of heart would want to read. That's why it's below the link.

Stress Kills

One question neurologists ask when you come in to report an exacerbation is, "Have you had any stressful events recently?"  I used to think, "Who wants to know? Not your business."  Twenty years ago I would have been the first to roll my eyes at the thought that stress could influence your immune system. But then they took rats and stressed them out and it really happens; stress affects your immune system.

Brief immune system lesson: we all have two parts of our immune system: a)kill the bacteria cells vs b)chill out, stop the killing cells. These are supposed to be in balance. Stress gets them out of balance.

When MSers have an episode they have more kill cells than chill out cells.  Therefore, the kill cells run rampant and attack perfectly good body parts. Thats why we inject the chill cells, so even if our bodies crank out more kill cells, we're covered, the new chill cells will convince them to stop attacking. Oh, and the chill cells? They're what make you feel sick and feverish. Picture paying $1K a month for this. Of course, I'm off those drugs now, and I'm taking the experimental FTY 720 drug that stifles the extra kill cells.

(When many normal people get stressed they have more chill out cells than kill cells. The chill cells make you feel sick. Stressed out "normals" may have only one bacteria in their entire body, but they feel sick and feverish.) 

When I changed jobs a month or two ago, I of course considered how this stressful event would affect my MS. I figured it would hit after a month or so. A month or so later, Mom was in the hospital, then Mom was in hospice, and it wasn't so much on my mind. But the last few days, yes, I have been waking up and routinely checking all my limbs.

Then, I guess it was Thursday night, I lay down in bed and could barely move. "Wow," I thought, "This is MS fatigue. I feel totally wiped out."

Then the next morning, as I awakened and did my full-body assessment, I felt a weird sensation in my throat. Tingly, like a paresthesia (an odd MS sensation). I tried to swallow. Ouch.

I lay there for a moment until it struck me that I had a sore throat.

And the fatigue? I believe you normals call it "coming down with a cold."

So, here I am with a cold. A raging cold resulting from my recent stress. Nothing wrong with me except a cough and sore throat. Try and convince me I'm on the placebo now.

The Deed Is Done

Our backyard has two gardens by the back patio. They were originally vegetable gardens, eight feet by 2.5 feet. After we slaved over them, and bound them in with wood ties, and mounded up the dirt, we stood back to survey our work, and said, "Damn! We just built graves!" Often we refer to them as the S______ graves.

Since the were first dug, they have gone from vegetable garden, to tomato garden, to miniature rock garden, to cutting garden, to whatever grows garden.

This evening as I was digging a hole for the transplanted Sedum fortified by Dad's cremains, and tilling Mom into the hole, it struck me I was essentially burying Mom and Dad. In a Hole. In the Dirt. In a Grave.

Why this basic flaw in the plan didn't strike me before is beyond me. Now I want to take the remaining third of her and shoot her into space or seed a cloud with her.

Lush and the Loss Leaders

Gary was at the Big Lush Store at the Galleria tonight, buying some more Mother's Day / Birthday presents for his Mom. Her birthday was in mid-April, and has been postponed for so many reasons that it's now merging with Mother's Day.

(On the topic of Mother's Day, I was just on the phone with Dave tonight, and he agreed with me there are many mothers out there who suck and do not deserve to be alive. Mother's Day is pissing us both off.)

At any rate, Gary is having a no-holds-barred volcanic gift eruption, including  now three visits  to Lush. Gary selected the few Lush products that have been beneath his radar. He sniffed for an hour or so while I chatted with the sales crew. I have it on their authority that there are some people in Saint Louis who eat the Lush products. One grown woman and one five-year-old boy. The boy likes the sandstone soap. I don't know what soap or scrub the grown woman eats.

At any rate, we then went to dinner at the mall and I had the chopped salad, again -  I think I can imagine a Mom chopping up the vegetables so they are all tiny and diced. It's really so comforting.

At dinner he started totaling up all the stuff he bought his Mom, and suddenly looked up from the Lush receipt and asked, "What's Gorgeous?"

(If you use Lush, you can stop reading. I think you know where this is going.)

"I don't know," I chewed, "You did all the shopping."

"Well, there must be a mistake. I didn't buy anything for $87.50."

Hack! "One thing? For 87.50? No, one of those giant gift boxes must have been on the counter and they assumed it was ours."

We walked back to the Lush store. I went up to the friendly sales guy (the one who told me about the Sandstone-eating Pica Boy) and demanded pleasantly, "What is Gorgeous, and why does it cost ninety bucks?"

He reached into our bag and pulled out the teeny tiny tub of Gorgeous. Here it is on the web site, tucked in between all the $25 things. It was tucked in next to the $25 things at the store too, and for all of you who are screaming at a $25 tublet of moisturizer, much less $80 plus, know that Gary doesn't look at prices when it comes to gifts.

I unscrewed the lid because I wanted to discover what $87.50 smelled like. Smells like cold cream. I checked the ingredients, I didn't see "squid placenta" or anything exotic in there.

So, Gary has actually hit a limit on what he will buy for his Mom. He won't spend $87.50 for 1.5 ounces of moisturizer.  He returned it.  When I got home I read some reviews on the Lush site. The one with the 32 year old who credited it for keeping her unwrinkled was pretty funny. I started picturing Lush TV Ads with ten year olds cooing, "This moisturizer keeps me wrinkle-free!"

 

Hitler is On the History Channel! No Way!

Here it is, Blogging Against Disability Day, and ... and ... I got nothing to say. Aren't healthy people a minority? There are in my world. Mom, Dad, Gary, Me, Dave, all disabled.

Well, two disability-related things happened to me today:

1. I was all tickled that TeddyJ offered me Long-Term Care insurance without asking me pesky questions ... and then they asked me pesky questions.  Feh. So I stuck my neck out and emailed HR, "Is there something I don't understand?" Sneaky bastids. Now they suspect.

2. I suppose lip-reading is disability-related. I just watched the tail-end of a remarkable documentary on the History Channel. They took old silent newsreels and silent films of Hitler, just hanging out in the mountains with Eva, and then used "Lip-reading software" to work out what he's saying. (Get this: Hitler is a dick!   I KNOW!) But I have to ask, why couldn't they have done this decades ago with a living walking talking lip-reader? And what about all the other newsreels?

FDR at Yalta?

See? FDR. Another disabled person. We're everywhere. And the History Channel says Hitler had Parkinson's. I just blew your mind on Blogging Against Disability Day.

Laundry

This is me doing the laundry: 1. I put the clothing in the soapy water. 2. I run the washer. 3. I ignore the buzzer. 4. I read blogs. 5. I go to sleep. 6. I go to work. 7. I come home and think, "Duh. I forgot to take the clothes out of the washer." 8. I run the washer with no soap, but with water, because the clothes are all wrinkly. 9. I ignore the buzzer. 10. I read blogs. Et. Cetera.

Oh, I know, the water, the waste, oh the humanity, I know. Sometimes this goes on every day for a week.  Doesn't the soapy water evaporate, then come back to earth as fresh clean rainwater? And the water from loads 2-7 never got soapy anyway. It doesn't matter since I get a free ride from not having kids.

At any rate, I'm quite bad at the laundry.  I only do my own laundry, then, not like some unfortunates who are asked to launder, dry, fold and rotate the underwear. That's why if I accidentally happen to launder Gary's clothing I get this horrified shriek of, "You did my laundry!" that reaches a level of outrage as high as the time I posted the nude photos of him.

It makes me feel inadequate as a woman, that's what I'm saying. And don't tell me I'm lucky that I'm not asked to do his underwear. If he said, "What?! You MADE me dinner! No! I make my own dinner!" I'd feel as rejected.

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!)

New Town

We were interrogating the new co-worker.

"Where do you live?"
"Oh, off of Elm, by the river."
(Gasps of horror.)
"Oh my God. You live in New Town."
"NO! NO, I don't!"

Whew, all said, and then commenced a group review of New Town.

"Freaky."
"Weird. Just creeped me out."
"Like Stepford."
"Yeah."
"Like Stepford in the cornfields."
"Yeah. You don't live there, do you?"
"God, no."

I'd heard of New Town. It's a planned community down by the river. I thought I might wikipedia it, so you could see some photos. First I looked up Celebration Florida, the first planned community I'd ever heard of. Then, hey, maybe New Town is on Wikipedia. Guess what? They don't call them planned communities anymore. They call them New Towns.

I had heard Mom describe it years ago, and the image I had in my head was of a collection of Georgian row houses. Down by the river, instead of Regent's Park. Everything was said to be in walking distance. "Cool," I thought. "I need to take that New Town exit sometime. That sounds pretty."

The work conversation piqued my interest, so sometime came 'round on Sunday. So we motored to New Town.

It's wrong. It's so, so, wrong. First, it is no longer in the cornfield, it is a disease spreading across the cornfield. You know how DisneyWorld is "in" Florida, while DisneyLand is "IN" Anaheim? This is DisneyLand. Not so isolated anymore at all.

The first thing you see when you drive in are the display homes.  "Ew," I said, "It isn't all Georgian. It's a row house next to a bungalow next to a French Quarter home next to a brownstone."

You know what's worse? Driving past the display homes. To the "Brownstone" block, then a few blocks later the "French Quarter" block, then the Town Square. Main Street. I looked for that store where you can get ice cream cones for a nickel, like at DisneyWorld.  Then you pass Futureworld, then you pass the church (THE church), then you pass the giant sign titled "The Colors of New Town" -- the colors you are allowed to select for your New Town home. Which had better coordinate with the home next door, because there's about ten inches of side yard separating you and your neighbor.

It was such false diversity. "Be unique, as long as you conform!" I smell trouble in New Town.
I can see the Great New Town Riots of 2115.

Does anyone out there live in New Town, or in a New Town? What's it really like? 'Cause Gary wants to move there.

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.

From Latin miscellneus, from miscre: "to mix"

• I wasted a good deal of my day today watching VH1's top 100 Songs of the 80's. I didn't listen to music in the 80's.*  That's probably why I didn't recognize the #1 song: Living On a Prayer by Bon Jovi. Kind of pissed me off since I waited four hours for it. I was at least familiar with most of the other songs. Still,  now I understand the "Tommy and Gina" reference in that one Bowling for Soup song.
  
  *And I don't want grief about missing 80's pop music. I listened to NPR. I learned about apartheid. It was all apartheid all the time at NPR in the 80's.

• The ophthalmologist  told me two interesting things Thursday. First, I have the beginnings of a cataract. I am only forty-five! Maybe I'm going senile too. Maybe I have heard Living On a Prayer. Second, the doctor who told Mom she need cataract surgery was probably defrauding Medicare. Evidently Medicare is to the point of telling some eye doctors they can't do cataract surgery unless the patient has had a second opinion.

• I asked the optician which pair of frames she preferred, and she said neither. I said I appreciated her honesty, and ~~Silk, I took your stand that no one looks good in tiny horizontal glasses. You are right. They are one step away from horn-rims and cats-eyes. Who needs a horizontal line across the face? Probably some tween who wears those layered t-shirts so there's a horizontal butt-line. So, watch out, in a week I'll be covering my face with a pair of glasses that are tortoise-shell to match my dyed hair and round to match my round face, and the optician can suckmahballz.
  

Wattle Watch '08: Stress Wattle

The wattle in retreat:

Hospice by the Numbers: Part 3

Number you dial to report a claim on Mom's life insurance:
1-800-628-8600.
Yes. 86 again. These people are sick. And you just know they all think they're being so original.

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

If you have a sex dream about your Mom, she'll die 35 days later, like in  The Ring. Like The Ring if it starred Bruce Willis. (I know you already figured this out. You've been wanting to say it. I needed to say it first.)

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

The 1815 Incident.

Here's the thing - this story is going to be anti-climactic. I'm only posting it to get it off my chest. AND because the guy at the drive-through said, "Shhh. It's a secret," when he handed me the wrong (more expensive) bag of food after giving my plain cheeseburger to someone else. "Great," I thought, "a secret. You know what they do to me." AND I'm writing this out because every time I relate a story of my frustration and suffering you all leave comments like, "HA HA HA" and "So funny." So. Enjoy.

In her last week, Mom had a lot of difficulty talking, and a lot she wanted to say, and she insisted I was the only one who could translate. So she would wake me up to say, "You're smart." Or, "Life is hard." Or, "Tell Wilma to buy stocks." Or, "Be nice to your brother." Or "Tell [insert name here] I love love love [him / her]." Important stuff.

One day she brought me down to her lips so she could whisper, "Important. Sue. One. Eight. One. Five. Help. Help. Help. Help."
"Help with what?"
"David. Sue. Knows ... Planter. One. Eight. One. Five. Help. Plan for David. Sue knows. Help. Help him."
"Okay. I'm writing this down." (I write it down, and I still have the notes.)
"Sue. Help. Sue knows numbers. Sue. Sue knows."" (Mom started crying.)
"Do you want me to call Sue?"
"One. Eight. One. Five."
"That isn't Sue's number." (I started crying.)
"No joke. Not funny." (Mom had taken to saying 'No joke. Not funny,' all the time.)
"Do I look like I'm joking?" I sobbed.

At that point the nurse's assistant pointed out that 1-8-1-5 is Mom's street address. We've always said "Eighteen - fifteen," but whatever.

Armed with this extra clue I called Mom's friend Sue.

"I have no idea what she's talking about," Sue said.

After some analysis we figured that Planter is the spot where the address used to hang, and Plaque is the plaque by the front door where the address is now. And "Dave" is my brother, who was driving in from the Southwest, and "Help" and "Important" must mean that Mom was worried that Dave wouldn't remember the address, and not be able to find the house. Never mind that he grew up at this house since he was eight.

Sue called back to report that she had called Dave on his cell, he was in Tulsa, and yes, he was pretty sure he could find his way home.

I reported this to Mom. She started sobbing. I started sobbing. And if I never hear the words "Ellen, help me, help me," again I will be a happy woman.

Then she pulled it together and said in a rush, "Plaque. Over the door. Mailbox. Garage. Hardware. Sue. Sue knows."
"Okay. I'll call Sue again."

I called Sue and said, "Okay -- 'Plaque. Over the door. Mailbox. Garage. Hardware.' Does that help?"
"No."
(I burst into fresh tears.)
"I'm sorry."

I reported this back to Mom and I am sad to say she did not take it well. No joke. Not funny. And, it would appear that I don't listen. I had to just walk away from it all.

An hour later, Sue called. Angels sang. The sun burst from behind the clouds in glory.

"Ellen, I've got it! I know what she's talking about."
I sighed with relief. "Oh, thank God."
"About three weeks ago she had me go to the hardware store to buy screws because she wanted the brass numbers she took off the house back ON the house, on the garage door. I'm sure she means to have Dave put those numbers on the garage door while he's here."
Long pause. "You are kidding me."
"No! I'm not joking! I am sure that's it." (Not funny! No joke!)
I thought, "No, I meant you are fucking kidding me." But I didn't say that. Instead I calmly said, "Okay. I'll tell her."

I went in and reported grimly to Mom that why yes, Sue would be happy to help David put the house number over the garage door.

"Yessssssss ..." she sighed, and smiled a great big smile.

So, the day after Mom died, Sue showed Dave where the hardware was and Gary and Dave screwed the numbers on the garage door. Or, as I like to put it, the fucking numbers over the fucking garage door.

I Could Snort Them Like That Stones Drummer

While Mom's instructions said specifically that she be cremated AND the funeral home should dispose of the ashes, the funeral home refused and we now have a plastic box of Mom that needs to be disposed of.

I have a few options.

1. Botanical Tribute

Dad's ashes were buried under an azalea.

(An aside: as many of you know, this isn't entirely accurate. After Mom got Dad's cremains, Dad's mom made a fuss that she had this burial plot and Dad should be in the plot next to hers, ashen or not. Mom "lost the fight" and, with a straight face, handed Grandma a box full of Dad. Or, full of half of Dad. The other half of the ashes she buried under the azalea bush. Shh. It's a secret.)

Thankfully I just re-read Mom's blog and found that the Dad azalea died, otherwise I would have dug up the wrong azalea looking for Dad. I'm glad to see Dad's now under an easy-to-transplant sedum:

Since we are selling the house, my plan is to take the dirt/Dad and the sedum and move it to my garden, where I will till Mom's ashes into the soil and transplant the sedum/Dad there.

The down side is that the Mom/Dad Sedum might meet the same fate as the tree honoring my maternal grandmother. It really sucks when you have a dead grandmother and a dead grandmother-honoring tree.

2. Medicine bottle Tribute

Pseudo-Cousin Chrissy told me what they did with her Uncle Ollie's ashes. Ollie was a world traveler and rabble-rouser. He was somehow involved with an organization that protested the Veiled Prophet by crashing the Ball and unveiling the prophet. And that's not the half of his exploits. He was such a character I didn't even know he owned a jazz club called the Holy Barbarian. So, anyone who visits a foreign land gets a medicine bottle full of Ollie. The goal is to scatter Ollie across the globe.

3. Jewelry

A Google Search tells me this:

"Jewelry: Keepsake jewelry has been developed as a way for individuals to keep a small portion of cremated remains close at hand as a tangible source of  comfort. The jewelry may be displayed in a glass dome or worn as a pendant. Keepsake jewelry can be made of brass, pewter, silver, gold plated or 14k gold. It is available in a variety of styles and is yet another way to personalize a loss."

4. Paperweight.

http://www.memoryglass.com/

5. Diamond

http://www.lifegem.com/

6. Mom In My Pants

It seems like I should be able to incrementally sneak her into Shaw's Garden, like the prisoners did with the dirt in the Great Escape.

Yes, I know this is disrespectful. Mom wanted to be thrown in the crematorium dumpster. It's not like I'm considering smuggling her into the iron lung on display at the Science Center.

The Stuff. My God, the Stuff.

Before I begin, know that I sound very materialistic in this post. I can assure you that I am feeling the appropriate guilt and grief over Mom's recent daughter-assisted suicide.  I'm just sick of thinking of it. (Of course, I could stop thinking about it if I stopped listening to music. It's just like breaking up with a boyfriend in high school: ALL the songs are about you and your boyfriend. Well, now they're all about Mom.)

I thought we'd picked through all the good stuff before and during the wake. But no. We forgot about the closets. I thought I'd gone through all the closets with Mom and did a big purge after Dad died. She must have ferreted stuff under her bed and then levered it up to the top of the closet without my knowledge.

I have now packed my house so full of Mom's stuff that Gary needed to mentally empty our bookshelves and buy another set to match, then mentally move the entertainment center downstairs because a new bookshelf means the entertainment center won't fit, and instead imagine he could buy one of those space-saving wall-hugging wide flat-panel televisions. I don't know if I'm more outraged that he's rearranging my furniture or spending my inheritance.

At any rate, check out these valuable prizes:

Dad's U.S. Army semifore flag set. I had no idea we had this. I don't know why Dad even had a semifore flag set. He had a desk job during the last two weeks of the Korean war. And of course, now there's no one to ask.

All my brother's old Mad magazines and my old Get Smart metal lunch box. Soon to be sold on an e-Bay near you.

Valuable art by known artists.
First artist: my Great-Aunt Rosemary. I'd already snagged most of the china plates and vases she painted, only to get a letter from her today that mentions she's a known artist. She had an appraiser look through her things and found she was mentioned in his artist database. Evidently she had painted a plate once that was found in an art collector's collection.

Second artist: my high-school boyfriend Virgil. I found that the "Ellen - ART" box contains not only art by me, but art inspired by me. In high-school I posed (fully clothed) for a silkscreen by Virgil M______. And now Virgil's all esteemed, and I have a tattered silkscreen of me from his early tempera and newsprint phase.

Valuable writing by Mom.
You may wonder why I jumped on Mom's copy of The Bridges of Madison County. "Why, wasn't that a veiled boy-fantasy disguised as a novel?" you ask, "Why would you want that?" Because this is The Annotated Bridges of Madison County. This is the copy with Mom's cutting criticisms on the edge of every page.

Even better, Mom kept a copy of some of the columns she wrote for the Harris Teacher's College paper and the Mizzou Showme magazine. I'd only read a few of them before. The first words I saw when I picked up the newspaper were "I do not like to stand in lines. Right now if Marlon Brando came to Harris especially to play the bongo drums for me I wouldn't even stand in line to see Him."

"Well, that's a blog right there," I thought. A blog from the beyond.

So I'm going to transcribe or scan one column a week and post it on Queen Mum, so her blog will live on. I'll let you know when there's a new post, like this one here.

The Wake: Part the Second

One of my favorite parts of the Wake was when people stepped up and told me things about Mom that everyone knows: she was smart, funny, never complained, and a great writer. And then Mom's friend Martha stepped up with some information that wasn't widely known, the Story of Mom and Dad. (I knew the Story, of course. No surprises at the Wake, even though I kept thinking someone would step up and say, "Did your Mom ever tell you that you're adopted?")

The Story of Mom and Dad

Margie (Mom) dated a guy named Danny in college. Here they are in '58.

If you look closely at this terrible blurry dark image, you will see my Mom (with a very, very enhanced bosom) standing next to a skinny tall guy.

So, Danny and Mom were dating. Until the fateful night when Danny did not escort her to a college Journalism dance. A gorgeous man at the dance spotted Mom, swept her into a dance, whirled her about, and kissed her when the music ended. Danny Who?

The next day when Danny came to pick her up for a date, she said, "Oh, I was just going to go out and buy a hat for MY NEW BOYFRIEND. You can come along if you want."

In six months Mom married the gorgeous man and moved to Houston. In ten years she was separated from the gorgeous man and came back to Saint Louis, while my seven-year old brother and my five-year old self stayed in Houston with Jerry. One of her friends (I believe it was "Aunt" Carleen) said, "You know, whatever happened to that Danny boy you were dating in college?" A few phone calls later, and Mom was on the phone with Danny.

"Hello, Danny?"
"Yes?"
"This is Margie Foster." (pause) "What'cha been doing?"
"Well, I've been sitting here ... by the phone ... waiting for a phone call from a girl named Margie Foster."

They decided to go see a movie, with Aunt Carleen as a chaperone, because Mom was still married. They dropped off Carleen at her apartment and fell into each other's arms.

Then six months later ... they were married.

Look at that smile!

(And look at that little girl! Look at that tan! I think this is the only photo of me with a tan.)

All this explains why Danny is my Dad and Jerry is my Technical Father, because "Hideous Mistake That Resulted in Two Children" is just cumbersome. No. Really, no one ever acted like that.

I do remember having a spat with Dad about something Mom said, and snapping out the classic kid/stepdad remark, "Well I've known her LONGER." He laughed and reminded me that no, actually, I was about ten years behind him.

Once someone heard that Mom married Dad only six months after she separated from Jerry, and said, "So, you married your transitional man?"

"No," Mom said, "Jerry was the transitional man."

So here they are again, at my wedding. Look at that smile!

Martha Stewart (Not) Living: The Wake

Or:
The Wake, Part the First

Sure, other people have funeral directors to plan the gathering to honor the deceased. Since Mom had requested immediate cremation, we needed to find a way for people to gather and remember Mom. I suppose we could have rented space at a funeral home, but Mom has a nice large house and everyone knew how to get there.

Food:
The Sunday before she died, Mom learned she'd be having a visitor the next day. "Poundcake," she mouthed, "Helfer's Pastries." I crossed my fingers and hoped they'd even have poundcake when I made my first visit ever to Helfer's Pastries. It turns out they did, thank GOD, because if they hadn't - think of it - a deathbed food request I couldn't fulfill. They also had eclairs, also known as breakfast. Filled with heaven. And deep butter poundcake, which in their world is gooey butter cake without the gooey.

So of course, later I picked up eclairs and poundcake for the Wake, and Mom's friends had already volunteered to bring dip and cookies and wines and beverages and to make the coffee. (As a note for those of you with living mothers, be sure your Mom cultivates take-charge friends who know their way around your Mom's kitchen. Mom had a group of great friends who would come and make breakfast at Mom's every other week. They showed up and I took a nap.)

Decor:
I knew from Dad's service that photos are essential. I fretted a little about finding frames for all the  photos of Mom, then I remembered Mom always displayed treasures under the glass top of her kitchen table. (Mom topped her table with a tablecloth, then a layer of, say: dried flowers, or flower photos, then a big round circle of glass.) That worked out well. 

Favors:
In the death file she had suggested that after her death she wanted her friends to each go through her house and pick something to remember her by.

The thing that made this hard was that Dave and I  had to strip the house of everything we wanted first. Mom always joked to her friends that there wouldn't be anything in her house that her kids would want, and instead we'd pitch it all into the Giant Death Dumpster you see showing up in the neighbor's driveways after a  death or a one-way visit to the nursing home. I don't know who calls in the Dumpster, but I don't think we'll use their service. Does anyone know? Is it part of what comes with an estate sale?

So even with the big speed purge, there were still a few awkward moments. ("Oh! No! That painting is MINE MINE MINE!" and "You want a television to remember Mom by?") Fortunately, Friends #2 & 3 were there to remind me, "Um ... is that a family quilt on that bed? Are you sure you want that sitting out?"

Reviews:
Mom's friends said it went well. Others said they missed seeing a body and would have preferred it to be in a funeral parlor. Mom's ghost spat on those people.

A Good Philosophy of Marriage

So, my social whirl this weekend so far has been GNO at the house of Friend #6, and oh, Mom's Remembrance Party. I need to absorb the Mom thing for a while, so let me tell you my favorite part of GNO.

Friend #6, you will recall, is the friend who "can switch from 'Oreo' to 'Sistah' at the drop of a hat," and it would appear drinking buckets of wine really facilitates that transfer. By the end of the night she was explaining her marriage philosophy to us. It is largely based on her experiences with her first husband, who was a crackhead. She explained, "Like, my new husband and I will have a fight, and he'll say, 'I'm sorry,' and I'll be all, 'What? Sorry for what? I was married to a crackhead.'"

That would have been funny enough, even though I don't have words sufficient to express the attitude she threw into it. (Marcia and I played with the idea of expressing it in dialect, i.e. "Ah wuz marr'd. To uh craick-heyah." But I realized that's offensive, or at least it was when I taught Huckleberry Finn to high school students.)

"I was married to a crackhead" was funny, but, even better, we had to keep bringing it up.

She drunkenly cooed, "My new puppy is the cutest thing!"

"Yeah, but your last dog was a crackhead."

File Under Misc.

So, at 4:30 I woke up and thought my hard drive on the laptop was really thrashing a lot. So much it was shaking the eyeglasses on the lid. Of course, other than that, I slept through the earthquake.

But I really enjoyed the aftershock that came when I was at the lawyer's office. I like natural disasters. A little part of me roots for the levee to break or the tornado to hit next door.

Oh, and this morning I put Mom's only jewelry onto my pinkies: a great-grandmother's engagement ring and Mom's wedding ring from Jerry. Which is now gone. Fell off my hand at the in-laws, probably in the grass. Oh, well, it was from Jerry, no even symbolic value. Only that Mom lives in my head and is very disapproving right now.

Time to head off for GNO, where I will drink the Mom Inheritance liquor of Scotch and Apricot brandy.

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.

A Post With Hair On It

The Gods were with me today.

First, I got this fine award from KC at All The World's a Stage. And I would give you one, but you might have one already. Ajooja does, and RachelSkirts does. However, Becs is highly deserving, as is ~~Silk, because they write faithfully, without enough praise. And I have to give one to Stephen and Connie at Planet of the Blind, for the writing and because it looks like a tipsy eye chart.

Second, I slept through one meeting and walked in late to another. But the Gods took pity and TeddyJ canceled the first meeting. I walked into the second one, five minutes late, yet two minutes before the speaker said "Let's introduce the new employees! Where is Ellen S_____?" I was so jazzed I stood up with the Steve Holt gesture.

Third, our speaker used a new phrase: "It's got hair on it!" Is your project moving along according to predetermined timetables? It would appear "it's got hair on it." Gary says he's heard this before. I think he might just think he's heard it before, just like "we are totally in the tank for Obama" from SNL. Had anyone heard "totally in the tank for" before that SNL skit? No. But still, we know what it means.

Fourth, I got an orchid from my friend Lea, who may have commented here as The Orchid Lady a few days ago.

Oh, and fifth, Friend #3 gave me a bite of the tuna casserole she made me and then ended up keeping for herself.