Ha, I was rite!
So, I was rite that the next bit Mom an' Connie told Iris was abt when Connie told Mom abt the d8 the next day.
Mom recalled that she was driving the car, w/Mike in the backseat (totally not belted in, so he cd, like, stand or kneel on his seat and poke his head up against the back of the front seats). Mom told Iris abt seeing Connie outside and yelling 2 her out the window, "Hi, Connie! How was yr big d8 last nite?" Connie let Iris know that she didn't really wanna have this convo shouted out in the street like that, so she got in2 the passenger seat of Mom's car B4 answering, "A letdown. The wittiest thing he sed all evening was "Yr place or mine?" And Mom remembered being all, "And-and AND...?" Like so eager, she caused Connie 2 bug her eyes out a bit (Connie's own eyes, not Mom's eyes) and Connie answered, "..He went 2 his place an I went 2 mine..."
OK, show of hands? Who didn't C that punchline coming? Hm, no hands up, eh?
Oh, if U C Meredith, B sure 2 wish her a happy birthday. Her b-day was this past Tuesday and she turned 5, but 4 sum reason, my fam totally ignored it! Poor kid. I'm gonna bring over sum cake an' prezzies this afternoon.
Apes
Mom recalled that she was driving the car, w/Mike in the backseat (totally not belted in, so he cd, like, stand or kneel on his seat and poke his head up against the back of the front seats). Mom told Iris abt seeing Connie outside and yelling 2 her out the window, "Hi, Connie! How was yr big d8 last nite?" Connie let Iris know that she didn't really wanna have this convo shouted out in the street like that, so she got in2 the passenger seat of Mom's car B4 answering, "A letdown. The wittiest thing he sed all evening was "Yr place or mine?" And Mom remembered being all, "And-and AND...?" Like so eager, she caused Connie 2 bug her eyes out a bit (Connie's own eyes, not Mom's eyes) and Connie answered, "..He went 2 his place an I went 2 mine..."
OK, show of hands? Who didn't C that punchline coming? Hm, no hands up, eh?
Oh, if U C Meredith, B sure 2 wish her a happy birthday. Her b-day was this past Tuesday and she turned 5, but 4 sum reason, my fam totally ignored it! Poor kid. I'm gonna bring over sum cake an' prezzies this afternoon.
Apes
Labels: boring, Connie, gratuitous reminiscing, Iris, Mom
posted by April Patterson @ 7:22 AM
10 Comments:
At 7:57 AM,
DreadedCandiru2 said…
They're far too busy wrapped up in their own shit to notice silly things like birthdays, kiddo. Mike is off with Weed, Liz is stressing about her bare ring finger, you Mom is busy boring old people to death, your dad is playing with his trains, and so on and so forth. Good thing you're arond or they'd be so distracted, they'd be living in a pile of their own wastes.
At 8:33 AM,
April Patterson said…
u're rite. poor merrie, her dad only cares abt her when it's time 4 him 2 bore her with stories of his boring childhood.
apes
At 10:14 AM,
DreadedCandiru2 said…
What makes it all the worse is that she may never find out a thing about her mother's side of the family. Not only would Mike not be interested in it, Deanna fears that her daughter might embrace the Polish component of her background thereby frustrating her desire to re-invent herself as a WASP.
At 10:43 AM,
April Patterson said…
that wd xxplain y i saw dee stomping on that treasury of polka music cd that mira sent 4 merrie.
apes
At 11:15 AM,
April Patterson said…
i m writing from the discovery centre @ the milborough museum, where i arranged a surprise party 4 merrie. it's me, merrie, robin, five of merrie's friends from kindy, and the other kids' parents. mike an' dee r, of course, "2 bizzy" 2 particip8.
apes
At 1:48 PM,
DreadedCandiru2 said…
Bad enough your brother likes to bore her to death with stories about people she'll never meet, he's about to wax nostalgic about how your mother was inconvenienced as a direct result of his leaving his crud all over the floor.
At 2:44 PM,
April Patterson said…
yeah, i'm bummed we're not getting a sunday reprieve from the reminiscing. :(
apes
p.s. merrie just asked me 2 adopt her.
At 8:07 PM,
Anonymous said…
April,
Formerly little sis. I remember the good old days, when no one cared about seat belts in the early 1980s. Mom just let me crawl around and have a little adventure all to myself, and if I was lucky she would pick up Connie Poirier and ask her to regale us with lurid details of her dating life. The particular occasion she recollected seems to me to be the one where Connie and her date either opted not to spend the night with each other after their moment of passion, or it was the man she dated who liked to do things in a lot of different places. I do not recollect which one. It has been awhile.
Oh, by the way. My lovely Deanna has informed me that seat belts have been around since the 1950s, and her parents scrupulously restricted her movement in the car with them. She envies my carefree life with mom, and resents the way her mother controlled her life, even back then, with seat belts.
Speaking of controlling kids, we (or rather Deanna) had a little informal get together planned with Ardith Narayan, so our daughter could spend some birthday time romancing her little childhood sweetheart, Ardith’s son Kevin, when we had the time to travel to Toronto and back (not on Tuesday, since Deanna is busy working and I am busy writing). After Deanna finished stomping on the treasury of polka music CD from her mother (that took a lot longer than I thought it would, which either is a testimony to how out-of-shape Dee is, or is a testimony to the strength of polka music), we were a little distressed to find she had gone, and there was a little note saying:
Deanna and my slug of a brother,
I arranged a surprise party for Merrie at the Discovery Centre at the Milborough Museum. I have Robin and Merrie, and I will bring them back later. In case you notice they’re gone, it’s OK. They are with me.
Love,
April
My first response was of course, “We have a museum in Milborough?” Deanna’s first response was, “April’s not licenced to drive underage passengers.” Naturally, I had to give Deanna my lecture about how those kinds of licencing laws do not apply to Pattersons, and my classic example of how Liz used to drive heavy equipment for Lawrence Poirier without a proper licence; and Deanna had to roll her eyes and sigh a lot in response.
But all was not lost. Ardith was willing to drive her children to Milborough to the Discovery Centre, and a good time was had by all. Except you, of course, April. I think Deanna said something along the lines of “First you feed my kids dog food and then you plan a surprise party without consulting me. It’s probably going to be a week before I trust you with the kids again.”
I hope you considered yourself duly chastised, formerly little sis. And if our daughter hands you adoption papers, try to remember they are probably not real.
Love,
Michael Patterson
At 8:26 PM,
April Patterson said…
fyi, merrie, robin and i took the bus 2 the museum. there's a stop rite @ the corner of sharon park drive and kentberry ave, and it goes directly 2 the museum. it's a five-minute ride.
oh, and ardith told me that when dee called her 2day, dee was all, "we hafta pretend we were planning a b-day surprise 4 merrie w/u and the kids in toronto. pls come out 2 the discovery centre @ the milborough museum and follow my lead!"
apes
At 2:11 AM,
Anonymous said…
April,
Formerly little sis. After the events of yesterday, where you usurped my wife’s traditional annual birthday party for my daughter; I was quite gratified when my daughter admitted to me her favourite part of the day was when I took out the old photo album and told her yet another story of my past life based on pictures.
I started out saying, “I remember one day when my mom was vacuuming…” This may seem like an ordinary lead-in for a story about my life, and the truth of the matter is that when it comes to my mom, fully 50% of her early life with me revolved around vacuuming. I sometimes think it affected me, so I get odd feelings whenever I see my lovely Deanna hunched over a vacuum cleaner with its long tube. Fortunately for me, Dee has never been able to recreate the look of absolute hatred and revulsion mom always seems to have on her face when vacuuming, and I think that helps.
Anyway, on this particular occasion, it was before our house had a central vac, and mom was using the portable vacuum, with her usual grimace on her face as if she were in great pain. The vacuum made a “RRRR” sound and the hose made a “Tinkle” sound, while Lizzie spent her time experimenting with different ways to electrocute herself using the vacuum cleaner cord. These were the days before there was child safety equipment for plugs and the like.
I, of course, asked mom “Have you seen my Batman ring, ma?...It’s about this big.” And I used an unusual finger gesture where it appeared one of my fingers was dislocated in order to show the actual ring width, as least as best I understood it at that age. My daughter said, “Why is the carpet blue, daddy?” I said, “Back in those days, daughter, our house contained many strange colours. I think it was before mom hired a professional colourist to work for her on Sundays. You may have also noticed the Canary yellow wall on the right.” My daughter said, “Yuck.” I said, “Life was hard when I was young, daughter.”
At this point I interjected in my own picture showing and said, “Mom was just trying to clean the house when..” My daughter interrupted and said, “Daddy. You just said she was vacuuming. I know you vacuum to clean.” I realized I had interjected in my own story about the picture in order to state something I had just stated in my prior interjection. It was unnecessary interjection interjection. It was a little embarrassing, but perhaps not as embarrassing as those people who don’t seem to realize that it is unnecessary to repeat yourself.
Anyway, the picture I showed my daughter was a man in a purple outfit. My daughter said, “What is this guy?” I said, “Vacuum repairman. He’s the man mom never called, except in an emergency.” My daughter said, “Was it an emergency?” I said, “Let’s look at the next picture.”
In the next picture, mom is playing with the bottom of the vacuum (as it throws dirt everywhere) saying, “No wonder this vacuum isn’t picking anything up---it’s plugged somewhere.” My daughter said, “Let me interject, daddy.” I said, “OK.” And then my daughter got a very thoughtful look on her face, and I could tell she was thinking of Grandma Elly looking the end of the tube and saying, “*!@*%” I can tell you formerly little sis, there is nothing like the angelic look of a granddaughter thinking of her grandmother cursing like a sailor.
You may not have been aware of this, formerly little sis, but our mother actually had so much lung power, she could blow an engagement ring out of a vacuum hose. With a massive breath, which left her looking very red, she thought to herself, “Michael’s *@* Batman ring!...How I hate these little vacuum-clogging toys.” It is an impressive feat. When the same thing happens to me, I have to stick a stick down the pipe to get things out.
The next picture after that was a real blast from the past. Mom had removed Lizzie’s arms and put her in a stroller, while she was shoving a long sleeve shirt on me. The thoughts written for her on the picture said, “…can’t waste another minute---got to rush downtown before my bank closes…” My daughter said, “Why did Grandma Elly say that daddy?” I said, “Back in those days, they didn’t have ATM machines.” My daughter looked thunderstruck. I said, “Believe it or not daughter, but if you wanted your money from the bank, you could only get it at certain hours of the day, and if you didn’t get it then, you didn’t get it.” My daughter said, “Poor daddy.” I said, “Yes, daughter. Those were primitive times.”
The next picture showed mom at a bank teller with Lizzie clinging on to her for dear life, and my little tousled head in the bottom of the picture. The picture captions show mom thinking, “It must be my imagination—“ Then the bank teller caption is “Thanks, Mrs…er, Patterson…” My daughter said, “What is that?” I said, “Those were bank tellers. They still have them in some banks. You had to get your money from them, and it was not uncommon for them to mock you for you inability to handle your money, or to fill out banking forms.” My daughter said, “ATM machines. Thank you for ATM machines.”
The next picture had a little bit more of an explanation for the prior picture. In it, mom had apparently managed to leave little perfectly-rounded circles of dust around her left eye and mouth from dealing with the vacuum. In the picture, Lizzie looks at it strangely. Mom has a caption for a thought which says, “Ever since I left the house…people have been staring at me!!” My daughter said, “Where did those circles come from?” I said, “Remember, mom looked in the vacuum hose with her left eye and she blew through the vacuum hose with her mouth. That’s why those circles are there.” My daughter said, “Daddy. If it was that dirty, her whole eye and her mouth would be black.” I said, “It is best not to question these pictures, daughter. I certainly didn’t question things back then, no matter how ridiculous they were. I actually liked the bank tellers, because they made fun of mom and they gave me suckers to keep me from telling mom they laughed at her.” My daughter said, “Good ATM machine. I hope they still have them when I get older.” I said, “As long as at least one person remembers how rude the bank tellers were, then we will always have ATM machines.” My daughter appeared to be quite happy to hear that.
Love,
Michael Patterson
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