Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

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.

In Which the Queen Mother Teaches Me About My Heritage

Previously: I refer in the last post to my German Grandmother, Granceil DeWolfe.

My Mom slaps me down in the comments:
"Your grandmother is French. Gary's people are German. Remember she sang the French national anthem to you? Would a Kraut know it? "

I respond:
"Dear Queen Mother -
Are you on crack? Are you a crack mom? Because was her name not DeWolfe? It was not LeWolfe."

Caroline decides to step between me and my Mom:
"De = of in French. So she is "of the Wolves."

Yeah. We are wolf people. Mom and I ignore Caroline, and when I picked Mom up for her eye doctor appointment today, it was ON.

Mom sighed in her pointed Mom Way and said, almost immediately, "French. French Huguenots. Landed Gentry. Learn your facts."

"No, Mom, seriously, I know they were German. That was the family story, how they got their name, some ancestor saved some nobleman from a wolf and --"

(Im sorry if I'm a little incoherent. I;'m tyiping as fast as I can because I bet right now Mom is putting her version of this onto her blog.)

"No," Mom bridled, "Le Loup. Le Loup. French."

"What's with this 'Loop' stuff? DeWolfe! German!"

"French! You question me? You dare to question me?" She rose up and I cringed under her five-foot-two frame.  "It's in the Harding book. We will discuss it when we get back from the ophthalmologist."

I further enraged her during the visit to the eye doctor by referring to my Granceil's fur coat as "Beaver fu-"
"Seal! Seal fur!" she cried, exasperated.

Well, we got back from the eye doctor with a cataract diagnosis and skipped that trivial news by getting right into the German/French debate. "Get the book!"

The book is Florence Harding, a nice thick biography of the "scandalous" former first lady, which is of special interest to our family because a good part of Flo's early years were devoted to her first marriage to impregnation by "Petey" DeWolfe (Granceil's half-uncle) and his snobbish father Simon, who I suppose is my great-great grandfather. I skimmed the index entries and found a spot that said Florence WAS from FRENCH HUGUENOT  descent.

"There you have it! It was Florence, not the De Wolfes, who was French -"

Mom's eyes blazed. Really, she's just like Godzilla with the tiny arms and the blazing death ray eyes.

"Do you WANT me to FIND it? Do you want YOUR Mother with her DILATED CATARACT-RIDDEN eyes to PORE over this book and find the passage that SAYS Simon was French? Because I WILL DO IT."

"Well maybe Simon was French Huguenot too. Maybe that's what he and Florence had in common," I snickered.

Well, in case you couldn't see it coming, page 23 states quite clearly that Simon  was from "a distinguished Huguenot family." so...

"Still, Mom, how could he be French with a German name? She wasn't Granceil Le Loup."

She directed me to the family genealogy, which I started quoting gleefully. "A great favorite of the Emperor of GERMANY!", extreme emphasis on "GERMANY!" to the point of bellowing it. I read backwards until I got to 1427. FOURTEEN TWENTY-SEVEN, when one of the Damn De La Loups followed Princess Matilda to the German court after her marriage and he Germanized his name. Bastard. Traitor bastard. Traitor bastard causing friction almost 600 years later. If he had kept his name I would have known we were French.

I need to stop being stubborn and rational and get more emotional, obviously, now that I am French. (And given that the above geneology came from "Israel De Wolfe," I need to investigate the possibility that we were actually the DeWolfe-Cohens at one point.) And, as a Huguenot, I need to re-think this marriage to the Catholic Persecutor.

In Which we Live the Life of Our Mom

When I was young, but still old enough to attend to myself in the hours after school but before my parents came home, Mom would come home and ask:

"What did you do this afternoon?"
"Nothing."
"You must have done something."
"I watched TV."
"Oh." (pause) "I mean, what productive thing did you do today?"

She got it from her German Mom, she says, and now that she's retired and not well, she has to spend a good deal of time not producing.

I thought of Mom Saturday when I slept till noon, got up, surfed the 'net, took a nap, watched TV, read my book, painted my toenails, and watched Some Like It Hot from beginning to end. (Which, funny movie, no? You think you've seen it? No. You haven't seen it beginning to end in one block. You've seen bits of it between shows and on the Academy Awards. It kills.)

I had a completely unproductive day.

I ignored my list of Stuff To Do.

I wasn't sure how to feel about it.

So today I took another day off. I took off because Gary, in an unprecedented move, got so sick he couldn't go in to work. Usually he is at least healthy enough to whine "I neeeeed asssspirin. Where's my sooooda? Ellen, I left my glasses in the other room, and now I'm in beeeeed..."  So I schlep and carry and get verbally abused because there is an unwritten S______ law that if you are sick you get to be as big an ass as you can. (Oh. OH. And I go to Walgreen's to get bendy straws. NOT the regular straws. BENDY straws. I'll never forget that episode.)

Anyway, oddly, he slept all day and all I did was to transfer his laundry from the washer to the dryer. And slept. I'd wake up, he was asleep. So I slept, and maybe surfed a little, and thought, I can wear my blue pants tomorrow, those are clean. Why iron? And I think I like this unproductive life.

Mom called toward the end of the Wasted Day of Unproductivity. I thought it was because her Mom Senses could tell I was wasting my time, but after I hung up and turned on the TV I realized the Republican National Debate WAS ON AND SHE WAS CALLING TO CHECK IF I WAS DRUNK. Hah! Well, played, Queen Mother, well played.

Mom

Here's a photo of my Mom:

She's standing behind a bank of pink surprise lilies in her garden. We love the surprise lilies because they arrive early summer, they bloom, you heartlessly mow them down, and they bloom again on the week of our birthdays.

Mom taught me how to garden. Even, better, she taught me how to cope. I've been in the vicinity of a number of Moms lately, with teenagers, and they don't teach their teenagers how to cope. So the teenagers drink, or smoke, or cut, or starve. My Mom, on the other hand, has had a lifetime of coping with adversity, and she does it better than anyone.

So, she taught me how to garden, and how to cope, and if you know those two things you can rule the world. I'm very lucky to have this mother. Thanks, Mom! I love you.

In Which I Am Profane

Yes, this is the post that has the profanity. It is not my profanity. (That would be this post.)

Sharp as a Tack!

Mom proved her brilliance and superior memory today. She remembered a game/parlor trick we used to play in my youth. It was called Black Magic, and evidently I was adept at it. I can not remember a thing about it. Mom remembered the rules and sloooowly explained them to me. I kept thinking, "This must have been your other daughter, the illegitimate one you had that summer you were a groupie with Eddie Fisher."** Then she got up and slapped "Black magic game" into Wikipedia and here it is. Amaze your friends. I still don't remember a bit of it.

**Sarcasm.

I Have a Secret! Whoops, Now I Don't!

So, there's this new guy at work. Let's call him Non-creepy New Guy.

He was explaining his college career, and in the course of his college history said, "And then, when I became a Mason -"

"A Mason?" I squealed in delight.
"Yeah."
"Like a Secret-society-special-handshake-also-known-as-the-Illuminati MASON?"
"No. The Illuminati? Are you serious?"

And then he set me straight on the Masons. Actually, I already knew the Masons were good. But they really are shooting themselves in the foot with the pseudo-secret aspects of their organization. And of course, that's what I kept riding the New Guy about.

Eventually he tired of me.
"I've said too much," he grumbled. Then there was a long pause. "Masons are GOOD!" he muttered, but I heard him.

Well, the Master Architect must have been greatly amused, because as I related this conversation to Mom this weekend, Mom said:

"Well, I think your Grandpa Ray was a Mason. My sister was in Job's Daughters. And your Grandmother was in some Eastern Star thing ... The Sisterhood of the Easter Star? Something like that."
"It can't be Job's Daughters," I said to Mom, confident that I know everything, "That's like a Jehovah's Witness thing."

Well, Mom should have pinkie bet me, because of course we went to Wikipedia and found ... that I have Mason blood! Of course! Who has every copy of the Big Secrets books? Who loves a good secret handshake? Who was born to be a Worthy Matron in the Order of the Eastern Star? Me! Me!

Sadly, the Mason Way was not the path Mom's family took. Even though it appears Step-Grandpa Ray must have made it to Master Mason status, he was ill-equipped to be a Mason at heart, given he was one of the most selfish men ever to walk the face of the earth. ("Three meals a day and snacks at night!" - Granceil.)

Also, Granceil was evidently not suited to be a good Matron Mason, because as Mom described it, "Oh, the way she would roll those dark eyes, and they would flash, and she would say, 'Horseshit!' She thought the whole thing was stupid. And Delores didn't like anything."
"Why didn't you get to be in Job's Daughter's Mom, if Delores was?"
Mom made a face, which at first I didn't recognize, because I don't often see Mom affect the faux "Pity me! I'm a cripple!" face.
"Tooo fraiiiillll" she whined, and rolled her dark eyes.

Well, I wouldn't become a Freemason now if you went down on your lousy stinking purulent knees and begged me.  And, just in case this put you in the mood for the Monty Python Architect Sketch, click here.

Christmas Newsletters

I don't send Christmas cards, and after years of this anti-social behavior I don't get Christmas cards either. I certainly don't send out a Christmas newsletter, but I love getting them and reading them. "Our youngest, Amy, has proved to be a challenge, but we are sure she soon will find as much success in school as her older siblings." You think, "My God what did Amy do this year that no one can find a kind word to say about her?"

After Mom's kids were grown she starting sending out a Christmas newsletter, in inimitable Queen Mother fashion. This is her newsletter from 1997:

It has been an eventful year.

In January David flew from Albuquerque to meet a woman he had been visiting with via the Internet. They liked what they saw and were married within the week. They settled down in Steelville.

At some point lightning struck their trailer and fried all Dave's media and electronic stuff as well as his computer. He then took a hard look at his surroundings and with his wife's encouragement departed from the silent scenic Ozarks for the fast track here in St. Louis.

As luck would have it I had shattered my right upper arm, elbow and wrist in March and thought it might not be a bad idea for Dave to hang out here. He agreed, so we fixed a little apartment in the room behind the garage and we got all his media repaired, replaced, and humming again. He finally settled down enough to get divorced and on Dec. 23 got that over with.

On another note my dearest friend and mother-in-law died in September. Her mind was bright as a penny up to the end, when her 92 year old body failed her. She wasn't here to share my concerns when Ellen was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

"STOP!" you say. "This is the most discouraging, depressing letter for anyone to send out at the most joyful time of year." Well, you could imagine that if you didn't know better. Actually, both my kids have been there for me in ways I would never have dreamed possible. David is just the most handy person I  ever have lived with. He can fix plumbing, electrical things, empty gutters, caulk, shop, cook, and clean. The list is endless. And Ellen ... "

(Edited to fit your screen.)

I am proud to say that people always crack up when they get to the part about my MS. You did too, didn't you? It's okay.

I'm not having the best month so far, myself, nor is Mom. I think what I need is just one more little thing to push it over the edge into hilarity...

Don't Rain On My Tirade

So I was puttering about Queen Mom's Northern estate today, talking about Gary, and I of course used the word "tirade." In a sentence. As in:

"Gary started off on a tirade about - "
"TI-rade," Mom said.
"I said that."
"No, you said tiRADE. As if it rhymed with parade."

I remembered when Michael D_____ and I were dating, and he said something was "banal." He pronounced it "BAYnull." "Bah-NAHL, darling," we corrected him. Nope, turns out both are correct.

That is why the first thing I did when I got home was look up tirade, and luckily for me both pronunciations are acceptable.

However, I would never gloat about mispronunciations, especially to the Queen Mother, because she witnessed the Unfortunate Incident Occurring on My Twentieth Birthday.

For my twentieth birthday, I went to see some friends of my Mom, because I was just THAT popular, and on the way home she asked what I thought of Carolyn's house.

"I liked the inside," I mused, "but I didn't like the fuk-aid."
"The what?" Mom asked.
"The fuk-aid, Muthuuurrrr," I sighed, and if you took my picture at that moment you could put it right next to bershon in the Urban Dictionary.
"I have never heard that word. Spell it," Mom demanded.
I sighed. My god, she went to college, how is it she doesn't know anything? "F-a-c-a-d-e," I spelled.

And  that is why I bow to my Mom in all things pronunciational.

Queen Mom Falls for It

After refusing to allow a link from my blog to hers, Queen Mother has given in.

She claims she refused me a link because she thought I might be embarrassed. I didn't tell her, but when the waitresses at Ozzie's Sports Bar and Restaurant tried to embarrass me on me birthday I got up on the chair and yelled to the diners, "HEY! EVERYBODY! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY AND THESE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO EMBARRASS ME!"

So, check out my mom's blog! Queen Mum's Blog on the links on the left, or http://royaldynasty.blogspot.com/

Queen Mother Again Cheats Death!

Last time I was at the Queen Mother's residence, I wanted to turn off her printer. I no longer mess with finding the on/off switch for any appliance (she waved dismissively); I just yank the plug out of the socket. In this case, the plug was on a power strip, so that threw me. Next time I shall just yank the entire strip out of the wall, because what I found was terrifying. I truly haven't been able to speak of it till now.

In trying to find the right plug I touched them all. One of the plugs was the type that looks more like a box than a plug. It was an adapter. And it was melted, people, melted! Melted like a block of butter in a microwave. Luckily I didn't touch the part that was completely liquefied. Luckily, I did not curse. (Mom was right there. Can't.) So I yanked the entire scorched surge protector out of the wall and dropped it into the brass trash can. Mom reports the adapter continued to melt and then adhered to the can.

(Actually, I find this an example of quick thinking on my part, unlike the last time I touched a plug. I began pulling my blow dryer plug out of the wall with wet hands and thought (this is word for word): "Huh. That's a funny sensation. Weird, it stops when I take my hand away from the plug. Huh. You know what it feels like? It feels just like when I was in Jr. High Science and the teacher gave us an electric shock in our module on Electricity. Maybe it's an MS thing, like Lhermitte's sign. No, that's in the spine. Hey, this is an electrical plug, MAYBE SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH IT...AAAAAGGH!")

So, as is our wont, Mom and I dealt with the scary situation by fantasizing how much worse it could have been. Mom pointed out that since she'd had me take down all the smoke detectors because they were making tiresome shrieking noises and she couldn't turn them off that she would not have been awakened if there had been an electrical fire. (She got away with this by telling me the respirator she sleeps with would have drowned out the sound of a smoke detector.)

Then she was a little let down because she remembered electrical fires don't cause flames, but lots of acrid smoke. And then I pointed out that since she sleeps with a respirator maybe she wouldn't experience even the acrid smoke. This was untenable. The goal of the fantasizing is to comfort ourselves that Death, it was cheated.

Then I pointed out that the respirator pulls in air from the room, and it was possible the filter might even take out all the acrid from the smoke. Completely the wrong move. Mom looked at me as if to say "Did I not teach you how to play this game?"

I cheered her up by telling her that the last time I spent the night (after her fall) I found the noise of her respirator to be immensely comforting, because it was proof she was still alive. Of course, sometime that night I realized the sound of the respirator meant nothing, she could have died in her sleep from kidney failure and how would I know? I was listening to the respirator breathe, not listening to Mom breathe. I could have let her sleep till noon the next day, all cold and dead and blowing up like a bellows. I told Mom that. She loved it.

The Queen Mom's Birthday

A few notable things happened on the Queen Mother's birthday:

1) She got a card from a friend showing an old lady in a crown and caftan with a caption something like "Queen for a Day", which the friend amended to ready "Queen Mother for a day  ever."

2) She got another card which presented one woman saying to another: "Bitch. She only has two chins." I found this particularly amusing since I have always had a second chin. I think when they "corrected" my double thumb my body compensated by growing a double chin.

3) She did not understand the present I gave her for a full two minutes. It was a set of all the Michael Apted Up Documentaries - in which he follows a group of British kids and re-visits them every seven years.

"The Up Series." (Blank look.)
"Yeah, Mom. You know...Seven Up?"
"7-Up?"
"21 Up ... the last one we saw was 35 Up..."
"Oooooohhhhh." Polite but still baffled.
"The little boy who wanted to be a jockey, but then [SPOILER ALERT!] he was too big to be a jockey, and that one guy who became homeless - "

Finally she got it. I was a little worried. When you see something every SEVEN YEARS SINCE 1977 you would think a person would remember it. I've always heard it was the short-term memory that is the first to go, but evidently not.

Well then, just in case, Mom - don't forget today's my birthday!

I Shouldn't Be Alive: Mom Edition

Before I begin, I love the show I Shouldn't Be Alive, first because it makes me feel superior to rich fools who think they can swim the Amazon instead of lying at home and watching the Discovery Channel, and because even though you know the people survive because there they are on the screen, it still manages to keep up the suspense. That is why I bring you:

I Shouldn't Be Alive! Queen Mother Edition

Voice-over: This week on I Shouldn't Be Alive - a seventy-year old woman falls in her breezeway. How does she survive? On (pause for drama) I Shouldn't Be Alive.

The Queen Mother (not her real name) was a typical suburban seventy-year old. Her outdoor activities had been limited in the last few years by post-polio syndrome, a condition that affects survivors of polio and is marked by weakened muscles. This can be difficult when coupled with the damage done by the initial polio, in QM's case atrophied arm muscles.

QM was in the breezeway, a room in the back of the house between the den and the kitchen, searching for a nice treat to end her pleasant day. It was 7:30. She rooted through some un-emptied grocery bags. It was Friday, and Ellen would be there to empty them that Sunday. As she reached in to a grocery bag, she felt herself lose her balance.

Next! on I Shouldn't Be Alive - Is QM able to get back up? Has she broken a hip? Find out when we return on I Shouldn't Be Alive.

[Commercial: This Friday! July 14! Live on the Levee Brings you Sister Hazel and Better Than Ezra playing Live under the Arch at the Saint Louis riverfront! Free! Friday! Friday! Friday! Come downtown, eat Saint Louis style pizza, and meet some friends at the BTE concert!]

Previously seen on I Shouldn't Be Alive: QM is reaching for a grocery bag in her breezeway when she unexpectedly falls. Luckily, she doesn't break a hip. She remains conscious and after collecting herself tries to stand up, but her legs are too weak to stand and her arms are of course unable to pull herself up. After thirty minutes of spinning on the brick floor like an upturned turtle, QM manages to get to her knees and bloodies them knee-walking to the kitchen. There she snags a broom with her good hand, and tries to get off her knees but hasn't the strength. Instead, she puts a bag of napkins under her head, lies on her back and pushes herself with her Mighty Legs through the kitchen and family room onto the the carpeted hall, where she hopes she can get to her feet. Can she? Tune in for more I Shouldn't Be Alive.

[Commercial: Come Friday the 14th to the Better Than Ezra show under the Arch! Sister Hazel might only sing for half an hour, but the Ezra concert will be great! Dance with the Ezralites! Rock on Oblivious That Your Mother Is In Danger! Friday! Friday! Friday!]

Previously seen on I Shouldn't Be Alive: QM has fallen in her back room and crawled half-way through her ninety-foot long house to reach the carpeting. Unfortunately, her exhaustion keeps her from struggling up to her feet, and the effort of break-dancing on the carpet has made her considerably weaker now. She looks back at the kitchen where her cell phone with her daughter's cell phone number is. In a critical decision, she decides not to push back into the kitchen to snag it with the nearby grabber. Instead she plans to lie on her back, propel herself into the computer room, and call her daughter's house from the speakerphone, unaware her daughter and son-in-law are not at home on this Friday night, but instead are deafening themselves at a concert standing fifteen feet away from the speakers, where they couldn't possibly hear their cell phones anyway.

SurvivoMom makes it into the computer room, and before tackling the phone uses her Mighty Legs to assemble a campsite. She has the broom, a throw, the bag of napkins, and the speakerphone out of reach on the desk. Can she make the call? Will she be rescued? When we return on I. Shouldn't. Be. Alive.

[Commercial: On the Discovery Channel: a documentary recounting how on July 3rd a woman killed a penguin with her bare hands. What would cause a woman to commit such a horrible crime? Was it love? Was it for money? Decide for yourself on Pudding and the Penguin, next week on the Discovery Channel.]

Previously on I Shouldn't Be Alive, QM has made it through a harrowing ordeal to crawl back to the computer room and get to the speakerphone. She eyes the phone. She weighs her options. She grasps the cord with her big toe and yanks it down to the floor. She rolls to the speakerphone and punches numbers. Her daughter's voice mail answers and she speaks into the speakerphone. But what QM doesn't know is that the speakerphone doesn't work. So instead of taking a message, an automated voice says it hasn't received her message and she can hit 4 for more options. Disgusted, she hits 4 and finds the best she can do is to mark her silent message urgent. Then she rests her head on the napkins and listens to Dateline.

[Commercial: Live at the Levee! Come downtown! Dance Under the Arch! Watch young folks who evidently follow this band take photos of BTE with their cell phones, and then snap photos of the Arch like they've never seen it before. Enjoy the Saint Louis pizza that is still stuck to the back of your teeth. Decide, hey, lets stay for the fireworks, the dog was never house-trained and nothings calling you home ANYWAY.]

Previously (etc.): QM has fallen in her back room, possibly dented the brick floor with her Hips of Steel, crawled through her house on her back into the computer room where she has yanked down the speakerphone and left a message for her daughter, who is selfishly acting like a child downtown and then is stuck in traffic at 11:00 because the exit to the bridge to her suburb is shut entirely. Ellen doesn't get home until 11:30, when she picks up her voice mail. "Huh," she thinks, "I didn't even know you could leave urgent messages OH MY GOD THIS IS FROM MOM'S NUMBER WHAT'S WRONG WITH MOM? THERE'S NO MESSAGE!" Ellen calls QM back and heads there with Gary to haul her up onto her feet and give her water and healing Fusion.

The QM reports she will continue to walk in her breezeway and that she remains at the ready to drink her own urine and saw off her arm with a penknife if need be. Oh, and she is happy to be alive. Her daughter and son-in-law are relieved. Ellen reports that while she is relieved she is still going to renege on the deal she made with God that if her mother was okay she would never go to another concert again and will be at the Cheap Trick concert next weekend.

In Which I Am Doomed

The Queen Mother now has her own blog.

http://royaldynasty.blogspot.com/

In Which We Almost Kill the Queen Mother

The Queen Mother, you will be surprised to hear, contracted polio when she was 13. This was after the iron lung but before the polio vaccine. The polio affected her legs until college, and it affected her arms permanently. She has one good opposable hand on one arm and one good bendable elbow on another, and she soldiers on.  She creates cunning patent-pending assistive devices and adapts to any setback. (I just think it is so handy she had polio just to be a good role model for me when I got MS. Always thinking ahead.)

Anyway, she always joked the reduced ability in her arms made her compensate by developing uncanny strength in her legs. We called her "Mighty Leg" in my youth. She is much like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, all powerful legs and scrawny arms.

At any rate, we were in the car a few days ago and I hopped in to a fast food place, leaving her in the car. I came out five minutes later and was puzzled when I unlocked the door. "Huh," I thought, "I thought I left that unlocked."

Mom looked at me panting. "A gentle reminder," she said, "when you leave babies, dogs and mothers in the car in the 90 degree heat, CRACK A WINDOW."

She explained that when the guy parked next to us unlocked his car door with his remote keyless entry, it locked the car doors on our car. So she was trapped, she said.

She continued, "I was considering drinking my own urine."
"Ooo. Sorry." I said.
"I might have chewed off my foot, but I couldn't see what good that would do."

Then we began to speculate how she would have gotten out if the car had not been locked, since she can't operate the seat belt. I still think she could have kicked out the windshield with the Mighty Legs. Of course, then she would have just had her legs stuck in the windshield, but there would have been air.

Three Funerals and No Wedding

My uncle Jack died and I went to the visitation today. Jack was my Dad's brother, and therefore my step-uncle. It's a little complicated: I consider Dan (my stepfather) to be my Dad, my step-grandmother my grandma, but Jack is my step-uncle. Since Dad died seventeen years ago, we haven't heard much from that side of the family, which isn't all that surprising, I suppose.

I went fully expecting two things: 1. I expected the corpse to be photographed.  2. I  expected no one would recognize me.

First, about corpse photography. Dad's aunt had a book of daguerreotypes and old photos and quite a few of them were of the dead. (I suppose they wouldn't move much and it made them good daguerreotype subjects. Plus, the photo wouldn't steal their souls.) This was fascinating to me.

I know some families feel even today that the dearly departed is an apt subject for photos. I find this repellent. You know what else is repellent? Touching the corpse. This brings me to:

Grandma's Funeral
Mom's mom died and was outlived by her husband Ray, my STEP-(oh SO step)-Grandfather. He did a scandalous thing at her funeral. Well, he brought his girlfriend, but this in my eyes was even more scandalous: he touched the dead body. He was discussing her arthritis and hauled her hand out of the coffin as a visual aid. Aunt Carleen hustled up to him and said, haughtily and distinctly, "Have you LOST your mind?" I don't know what happened next, Gary dragged me over to some flowers and distracted me.

Gary's family has a long history of touching the corpse. This is why I donated my body to science.

Step-uncle Jack was not photographed or touched during the time I was there (approx 12 minutes). I didn't stay long, but I went because he was related to my Dad, and because Mom would expect a report. I have attended visitations as Mom's proxy before.  For example, I went to:

Mom's Friend Carolyn's Father's Funeral
Nothing much happened at that funeral per se - I went to give Carolyn a hug from my mom. I did not view the corpse, since I had not only never met him, I had never heard stories about him. So the corpse of honor was of no interest to me. I did not view the corpse, I just gave Carolyn my mom's respects.
A few weeks later, Mom asked Carolyn, "So how's your Dad feeling?"
"Dead." (I was not there but I can guess there was an awkward pause.) "... Your daughter was at the funeral."
Mom stepped up to the challenge. "She did not report seeing a coffin. How am I to know he's really dead?"

So I called Mom from the parking lot to remind her not to make any faux pas if she encountered her in-laws. I was expecting to go unrecognized by this family because as I said, it had been seventeen years, and sixty pounds, but as soon as I walked in Brad saw me and introduced me to someone as his cousin Ellen.  It reminded me of:

My STEP-Grandfather Ray's funeral
On the way to Southern Missouri to attend Ray's funeral, Mom alerted me that I would meet some distant relatives I might not recognize. (Not that "those people" would care if I didn't know them. ) Ray had a family from his first wife and there were quite a few of them. I had heard stories of embezzling and babies born in tubs, but I hadn't known what connection "those people" had with Grandpa Ray. It seems I hadn't seen them at Grandpa and Grandma's EVER because "those people" weren't all that welcome at my Grandma's house. This is why I was floored when they saw mom and said:
"Margie! Come over here! This is our sister Margie! And who is this? Hey, kids, that's your Cousin Ellen!"

That is why is was kind of nice that my cousin Brad did recognize me and introduced me as his cousin Ellen. This immediately elevated him from step-cousin to cousin status. In fact, cousin Jayne and cousin Sandy recognized me too. That's why I went over to the body and and looked (but did not touch).

"Why, Ellen" my step-uncle Jack's corpse said, "How ya doin'?" Then he reached out of the coffin and slapped my back. Well, no, I made that up. But he looked like he could have. He was barely dead. It was creepy. I have never seen such an alive-looking corpse. He looked just like Jack did while alive. Draw your own conclusions.