Dee fails an' Mom gloats
Dee's here. She came over w/Robin and sed she'd dumped Merrie in the lap of her "other X-chromosome donor," meaning Mike.
Mom of course fixed cups of coffee rite away and Dee poured out this story abt how Merrie was playing w/all her Xmas toys, crafts, make-up from the Lil Miss Tart line, and the "Future Delicate Genius" journal Mike had given her. Then how she'd stopped with a big sigh and wrapped herself around Dee's rite leg while Dee was getting reddy 2 take out the kitchen trash, and how Merrie sed, "Mom? ....I'm bored." Dee told Mom that she'd put a hand on each of Merrie's arms and sed, "What?! After all that stuff U got 4 Xmas? There's no way U shd B bored!!" And Deed sed that Merrie unhinged her little jaw and screamed out a big, pink "BUT I AM!" And Dee returned 2 her task of the kitchen trash while saying, "Meredith, I have 2 much 2 do 2day 2 provide entertainment 4 U! --so.... go and find sumthing 2 DO!" Merrie apparently picked a physical fite w/Robin by whapping him w/her teddy bear (no longer a Super Teddy, BTW). Then Dee felt herself getting a black storm cloud over her head as she took Merrie 2 Mike, who was relaxing in bed reading his own book again.
Finally, with Robin peeking over the edge of the table and sumhow having a squiggly line over his head, Dee told Mom, "It's strange. I thot I knew everything there was 2 know abt raising kids--and then, I b-came a parent." And as I passed by, I cdn't help noticing that hearing Dee say this made Mom take on one of her v. unpleasant, smug Schadenfreude faces.
Hey, Zandra, no prob abt the mix-up w/the DVDs @ yr house last wk. I M just relieved that "The Exciting Struggle to Construct the St. Laurence Seaway" isn't really yr all-time favourite movie, that U like 2 watch again and again. I didn't wanna say NEthing, but I was a lil concerned.
Apes
Mom of course fixed cups of coffee rite away and Dee poured out this story abt how Merrie was playing w/all her Xmas toys, crafts, make-up from the Lil Miss Tart line, and the "Future Delicate Genius" journal Mike had given her. Then how she'd stopped with a big sigh and wrapped herself around Dee's rite leg while Dee was getting reddy 2 take out the kitchen trash, and how Merrie sed, "Mom? ....I'm bored." Dee told Mom that she'd put a hand on each of Merrie's arms and sed, "What?! After all that stuff U got 4 Xmas? There's no way U shd B bored!!" And Deed sed that Merrie unhinged her little jaw and screamed out a big, pink "BUT I AM!" And Dee returned 2 her task of the kitchen trash while saying, "Meredith, I have 2 much 2 do 2day 2 provide entertainment 4 U! --so.... go and find sumthing 2 DO!" Merrie apparently picked a physical fite w/Robin by whapping him w/her teddy bear (no longer a Super Teddy, BTW). Then Dee felt herself getting a black storm cloud over her head as she took Merrie 2 Mike, who was relaxing in bed reading his own book again.
Finally, with Robin peeking over the edge of the table and sumhow having a squiggly line over his head, Dee told Mom, "It's strange. I thot I knew everything there was 2 know abt raising kids--and then, I b-came a parent." And as I passed by, I cdn't help noticing that hearing Dee say this made Mom take on one of her v. unpleasant, smug Schadenfreude faces.
Hey, Zandra, no prob abt the mix-up w/the DVDs @ yr house last wk. I M just relieved that "The Exciting Struggle to Construct the St. Laurence Seaway" isn't really yr all-time favourite movie, that U like 2 watch again and again. I didn't wanna say NEthing, but I was a lil concerned.
Apes
Labels: Dee, Mom, stoopidity, Sundays
posted by April Patterson @ 8:24 AM
10 Comments:
At 12:46 PM,
DreadedCandiru2 said…
Maybe, just maybe, she had too much stuff to decide what to do with her time. If she had just the one toy in front of her, she could been less, I don't know, overwhelmed? Also, Dee didn't make it easier on herself by being all vague. Sometimes, you have to tell people exactly what to do with their free time. At least when your Mom was that age, she copped to not knowing what she was doing half the time.
At 3:48 PM,
Anonymous said…
April,
Formerly little sis. My daughter and I have had a great time today. I read through some key passage of Stone Season to her, where Harvey Rood kept his sons Charlie and Mitchell from going to school by using a rifle on the truancy officer. My daughter is convinced Harvey is some sort of hero. But then I read where Wilm deGroot, got school books for Sheilagh Shaunessy’s kids without Harvey Rood noticing. My daughter is convinced Wilm is the villain. I don’t know where she got the idea that going to school is bad. After all, she goes to H.G. Davis Public School, the same elementary school I went to. She says it’s old and rundown, and wishes she could go to the new elementary school, like Gordon Mayes’ kids do; but that is simply not the way things are done in my family.
My lovely Deanna said that when she was growing up, her mother always made sure she went to the “right” school where she could meet the “right” people, but she would not let Deanna socialize with any of the poor kids in their very, own neighbourhood. When she was pregnant with my daughter, she used to say, “I know everything there is to know about raising kids. I will just do the exact opposite of what my mom did with me." So, none of those “right” schools or “right” people for my children. H.G. Davis Public School is the “right” school for us. When Mira Sobinski saw it and was muttering things about health hazards, I knew it was the one.
Love,
Michael Patterson
At 3:50 PM,
Anonymous said…
april, i'm bored. wen do u get done @lilliput's 2day?
At 4:07 PM,
howard said…
April,
Beatrice and I are back from our holiday travels in Argentina, Beatrice’s home country. We traveled along with Beatrice’s brother, who lives in Toronto, and her sister, who lives in Guelph and their families. My girls, María and Ana had a great time with all their cousins, especially the ones who live in Argentina that they rarely get to see. My girls get so many toys for Christmas; it was good for them to see that one of the best things about being a kid is to have other kids to play with, instead of spending all day with some toy. Beatrice and I are tired from the trip back, but the girls immediately went out in the neighbourhood to spend time with their friends they haven’t seen in a few weeks. I’ll write later, after I’m a little more rested.
By the way, Beatrice wants to thank you personally for spending so much time at Lilliput's during your break, filling in so she could take this vacation. She's made you a little something special (and it's not food, but it is very Argentinean).
Love,
Howard Bunt
At 4:12 PM,
April Patterson said…
hey, jeremy, i m dun now. we just did a huge batch of stone steason returns 2day. man, did that get crayzee. i will come by in my crius and then we can drive wherev u'd like 2 go. well, in mboro, neway. we do have 2 start back @ school 2morrow.
At 4:17 PM,
April Patterson said…
howard, jeremy and i r gonna stop by yr house in abt 25 mins.
apes
At 4:53 PM,
Anonymous said…
april, well that wuz weird visit w/howeird & beatrice alfarero.
who wud have thot that just puttin’ on that authentic argentinean dress beatrice got 4u wud make ur hair pop outa its hair clip & become kinda latina lookin’? u know, seein’ u in that dress is kinda like, an’ this is gonna sound strange, but seein’ how u wud look if u weren’t a patterson. duz that make sense?
it wuz also kinda innerestin’ that beatrice alfarero’s sis works @the university of guelph. i feel kinda odd ‘bout the idea of callin’ her up & askin’ 4 advice, but beatrice sez her fam iz rilly n2 gettin’ uni degrees (like beatrice has a degree in archaeology. thass whacked) & it wudn’t b a prob.
neway, i think supper @casa mendoza’s argentinean food iz a gr8 idea & i rilly like it wen u kinda growl in my ear, “¿Es usted listo para el amor, Jeremy Jones?” i dunno wut ur sayin’, but it sounds gr8.
At 6:14 PM,
April Patterson said…
we r @ that restaurant jeremy mentioned an' i m having the best time trying out this new, non-patterson persona!
apes
At 10:43 PM,
Anonymous said…
april, thingz were goin’ pretty well ‘till we ran n2 luis guzmán & his gf rosario. or in particular, rosario’s little megafone. i think u cud’ve outdone her, but that megafone gave her a lotta xxtra volume. & i cud nevah rilly figure out wut luis meant wen he sed, “wooooo-hoooo! make it a good one!" i think he had sum idea u & rosario were gonna have a catfight or a gato (?) fight? i have a hard tyme unnerstandin’ luis sumtymes.
neway, @least the food wuz good & i got 2 run my hands thru ur hair w/o havin’ 2 worry ‘bout ur hairclip snaggin’ my fingerz. that wuz nice. & wen rosario told u, “this is how a latina treats her man” i thot 4 sure u were not gonna do wut she did, cuz it wuz kinda, u know, sumthin’ u don’t usually do. i think rosario & luis were both mpressed u did do it, evn if u did pull sumthin’, fell ovah, & accidentally put a knee in a place where i woulda kinda liked not 2 get a knee. but don’t worry. by the time u drove me home, it felt a lot better, az u know frum how u tested it b4 i got outa ur car 2 go inside my house. i like the way u test injuries.
neway, cu 2morrow 4 skool.
At 2:09 AM,
Anonymous said…
April,
Formerly little sis. Believe it or not, I believe mom and Connie Poirier have decided to have a conversation reminiscing about age that may run on for the whole month. According to mom she remembers quite a few stories from back in 1979 to 1980 where she thought she was old. I said, “You mean like the one where you got upset when you found the first wrinkle on your face?” She said, “No, Michael. You couldn’t see wrinkles on my face in those days. I barely had a pupil in my eye. I couldn’t have crow’s feet for just a pupil.” I said, “You mean the one where your body made strange noises when you got up in the morning?” She said, “No, Michael. That was your father.” I said, “OK. Which one then?” And mom said, “Well, in the beginning I am looking at the meat selection in the grocery store.” I said, “No, mom. I know this one. It starts with the barber.” Mom said, “Grocery store.” I said, “Barber.” Mom said, “I don’t remember any barber.” Then I said, “Well, that’s because you’re too old to remember it.” Then mom started crying and I said, “Calm down mom. I’ll tell the story and we’ll start from the meat counter in the grocery store, and not the barber.”
So, formerly little sis. Once upon a time, in Milborough, mom was in a grocery store looking at a meat counter. The butcher was right in front of her, a bald man with a unibrow almost completely obscuring his eyes. He pointed to mom and said, “Have you looked after this woman yet, Jake?” Jake was a younger fellow with glasses, and I guess he hadn’t looked after mom yet. Needless to say, mom was deeply disturbed by the whole conversation, but didn’t say anything except to roll her eyes.
The next part I remember didn’t have anything to do with a barber. We were all walking together to the car from the grocery and I was licking a lollipop and I don’t know where that lollipop came from, except it wasn’t from a barber. Helping mom carry her groceries was one of these people who help people carry groceries, only this one was pretty stupid, because mom still had to push Lizzie in a stroller and carry groceries too. You would think he would just put all mom’s groceries in a cart, but this was back in the 1980s and people were stupider back then. In fact, this fellow said to mom, “-that your wagon over there, ma’am?” Not exactly a vivid description, but there was something about it which caused mom to stoop over a little bit more and make her left arm really long.
Once we were in the car, mom strapped Lizzie into one of those car seats which looked like a miniature trampoline. I suppose the springs around the side were supposed to help with the impact, if there was an accident. I don’t know. I do know it was fun to jump on, even when Lizzie in it. This was not my concern though. My concern was with the barber. OK. I can’t take it anymore. There was a barber. I got my hair cut. Mom was flirting with the barber in the way that she does, but the barber said to her, “Missus Patterson, that’s not appropriate behaviour for a married woman.” Mom wasn’t wearing her wedding ring, which is true for most people in Milborough; but the barber knew she was a missus anyway. So I said to mom, “How did the barber know you was a missus, Hey mom? Mom? Mom?” In the middle of that bad grammar, there was still that question.
Well, mom never answered that question, but years later I ran into that barber and asked him how he knew. He said, “Look, Mike. Your mom had 2 small children with her, her hair tied in a pony tail, she had a plain yellow scarf around her neck, and she was shopping in the middle of the day. It was pretty obvious she was a missus.” This was a silly argument because my lovely Deanna has 2 children, her hair in a bowl cut, and she does her shopping in the middle of the day, and that doesn’t mean she is a missus. As a point of fact she is a missus; but she could just as easily have been a slutty single mother, like Connie Poirier. So, what it boils down to, is the barber thought mom was a missus, because he didn’t think she could be slutty. When you think about it that way, it does seem like a logical conclusion.
That logic aside, mom started thought bubbling “Woman…ma’am…Mrs….What ever happened to ‘Young Lady’?” Yes, formerly little sis, our mother actually wondered when it was that men in Milborough started being polite and stopped using the old sexist terms like “young lady”, the use of which Canadian feminists had run out of town almost a decade prior, along with “girl” or “gals” or “chick” or “wench” or “coed”. I suppose it was being around dad all the time with his sexist language, which threw her off.
It was around this point in my story, when mom said, “No, Michael. I preferred to be called ‘young lady’ because that’s what I was called when I was younger. Those other terms like ‘ma’am’ or ‘woman’ or ‘Mrs.’ made me feel old.” Then Connie Poirier said, “Elly. The women’s movement made sure you were no longer referred to by that degrading language.” Then mom said, “It’s not degrading, if it made you feel young.” Then Connie said, “Treating you like you were younger than you were, was a way of taking power and respect from you.” Then mom said, “Taking power and respect was all right for me, if I felt younger.” Then Connie said, “Mike, I have a feeling this conversation may run all month. I think I need to explain women’s liberation to your mother.” Needless to say, I took the opportunity to leave, after I had eaten a few things out of the refrigerator, of course.
Love,
Michael Patterson
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