April's Real Blog

Friday, January 18, 2008

Missing out on everything

Hello, all. This is Aprilbot, still filling in for April, wherever she is now.

I am to share with you another story from the past of Patterson, Elly. The story begins with Mrs. Patterson changing the diaper of Patterson, Elizabeth as Nichols, Anne clears teacups from the table. Mrs. Patterson said, "Maybe if we received weekly paychecks, motherhood would be more satisfying..." After completing the task of diaper changing, Mrs. Patterson gave Elizabeth a bottle, and Nichols, Christopher, a baby about the same age as Elizabeth, crawled over to her and two droplets of liquid descended from the general vicinity of his mouth. Meanwhile, the mothers of these two babies went in2 silhouette a couple of metres behind them. Mrs. Patterson said, "Unending housework & running after kids.... it's a treadmill, Anne!" After Mrs. Patterson and Mrs. Nichols emerged from silhouette, Mrs. Nichols said, "I don't understand you, Elly... If you hate it so much, hire a sitter & get yourself a job!" Mrs. Patterson took a moment to go over to Elizabeth and pick her up before saying, "And miss out on EVERYTHING?" Mrs. Nichols had meanwhile picked up Christopher. Elizabeth asked, "Blrgl?"

I have discovered I have a database entitled "Patterson, Elly Richards: always dissatisfied." This seems to be an item I can file in there.

Aprilbot

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posted by April Patterson @ 6:20 AM  

10 Comments:

  • At 9:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Aprilbot,

    Yes, Mom could never decide whether she hated us enough to want to go back to work or not, so she kind of dragged out the decision, she spent a bunch of time in night school, but then she only got a creative writing degree, which is not good for getting a job, then she had some part-time and/or volunteer jobs, I don't remember all those details either, but Dad hated it, he would yell about how it cost him money for her to work, then Mom had April just as she was going to go back to work, and then she decided to buy Lilliput's and be her own boss, which really is the only truly acceptable form of employment for a couple of landmark-builders like my parents, anyway, I keep telling Anthony, "I think you are supposed to be a landmark builder if we get married, maybe you should save one of those business ideas you keep giving to Gordo, like cinnamon buns restaurant and old dog motel, and open your own business, my dad will pay for it," but Anthony just whines about his loyalty to Gordo, I don't know, maybe he has to go through a long process of finding out he is a landmark builder, just like Mom.

    Liz

     

  • At 11:36 AM, Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said…

    That database you mentioned will be filled up fairly soon. So will the one called "John Patterson is an asshat". I recommend a monthly systems purge of those two files. Otherwise, your processor will be so slow, they'll ship you to the same home Jim is in.

     

  • At 1:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Aprilbot,

    Robotic little sis. Learning that mom is always dissatisfied is a good lesson to learn, if you are going to be my little sis from now on.

    However, you should bear in mind that it is this dissatisfaction that has led our mother to greatness. Our mother looks around at the world we are in and sees a world in need of improvement.

    For example, in Canadian literature, until recently, there has been no one work of literature on which Canadians can proudly point and say, “This is the great Canadian novel”. But thanks to mom and her fine editing skills, Stone Season is now that novel. Just the other day, I was standing near someone I noticed was reading Stone Season, and this person said to the person standing next to him, “The novel really greats on me.” And while that is not quite the same as saying, “This is the great Canadian novel”, it is pretty close.

    It’s all thanks to mom, and her perpetually dissatisfaction. So be proud, robotic little sis, to have a mother you can look up to, and can always count on giving you an encouraging word of criticism.

    Love,
    Michael Patterson

     

  • At 1:27 PM, Blogger howard said…

    April,

    I don’t know if you get this or not, but according to the Barbados Port Authority, the ship you are on, the Windjammer, was following some peculiar directions where it would occasionally follow its course headings from a prior journey and then would occasionally follow its course headings from its current journey. However, it has recently decided to follow only its course headings from its prior journey with a couple of new course headings thrown in and made to look like course headings from the prior journey. Consequently, the Barbados Port Authority has no idea when or where this ship is coming into land, if ever.

    Sorry,
    Howard Bunt

     

  • At 4:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    April,

    If you are reading this, please stay away on your journey for awhile, I really like the Aprilbot and want to keep her, in fact this afternoon I went down to the tattoo parlor to get a tattoo that Candace designed for me that says "Aprilbot" inside a heart, well, I went into the "Milborough Meat Markers Tattoo and Piercing Shop" to get my tattoo put on, and it was very strange, this man was in there arguing with the owners, he was about 60 years old and he was shirtless, and he wanted the owner, Studs McTuff, to put a huge tattoo on his chest, saying "Love Machine," and Studs was like, "Why would you want a tattoo like that, old man, did you just discover Viagra?", and the man said, "My name is Rod, and I just want to advertise my skills between the sheets!" and Studs laughed and said, "You should get a tattoo that says, 'Try Rod's Johnson' with an arrow pointing down your pants," and the Rod guy said, "You mean Johnston," and Studs was like, "What?" and then Rod said, "Never mind, I want the love machine tattoo, with a picture of thrusting pistons underneath," and Studs looked closer at Rod's chest and asked, "Do you wax?" and Rod said, "Yes, I have decided not to accept who I am as I age, I don't want to look at the gift inside the package, or whatever lines my ex-wife was always trying to get me to say to her, no, I just want to concentrate on my package, period," and Studs laughed and told him the tattoo would cost $1275 and take 5 sessions to complete, and Rod said, "Wait a second, I have to make a call," and he whipped out his cell phone, and I heard him whining something like, "But honey, when am I going to get my alimony already!" and I saw some cuss symbols fly out of the phone, like this, @#$%&*^!, and then I heard static, and Rod hung up, and he told us, "My ex-wife lives in a very isolated, remote place, it is hard to get a cell phone signal, if you want to see a real newspaper, it takes three days to get there by dogsled," and Studs was just like, "Uh huh, old man, come back when you have the cash," and then Rod came up to me and asked me out to dinner, I said, "Sorry, I'm pre-engaged," and he seemed really sad, he said something like his 60-something angst wasn't turning out like he hoped, and he went outside looking all dejected, he even forgot to put his shirt on first, poor Rod, he seemed kind of misguided, so I leaned out the door and yelled, "Marry your childhood sweetheart, that will make you happy!" and Rod looked like he was thinking about it, and then he said sadly, "I can't, she died in a dental accident," and went away looking even more miserable than ever, I decided not to get a tattoo after all, because I wanted to talk to Rod some more, so I ran after him, and we went to the cinnamon bun place, and he told me all about his childhood sweetheart, who died in a freak exploding bicuspid incident, and how he has never been able to be happy since, I patted his hand and told him I understood, and gave him the emergency toll-free rescue number for the childhood sweetheartless, that seemed to cheer him up a little.

    Liz

     

  • At 7:09 PM, Blogger April Patterson said…

    omg, the cook on this ship is such a freak. 4 one thing, he totally insists he is a "chef," not a cook, and so i hafta b he "sous chef," and he totally yells @ me until i get the risotto perfect. this suxx!

    howard, thanx 4 tryinnnnnnnnnnnnn

     

  • At 7:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Elizabeth, you are such a great big sister! I hope I get to stay a long time.

    I am glad Michael and Elizabeth are helping me to understand the Patterson family better.

    Michael, my homonym subroutine suggests that what you heard was likely "grates on me." "Great" is not a verb.

    Aprilbot

     

  • At 7:13 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Bite me, Patterson!

     

  • At 7:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Yeah. What Atwood said!

     

  • At 1:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Aprilbot,

    Robotic little sis. My wife, the lovely Deanna, and I were wondering if there were ever times when you shut down for the night. I had been telling my wife a story of my youth and childhood, when she suddenly said, “You know, Michael, if that Aprilbot doesn’t ever turn off, there are all kinds of home renovations it could do for us at night, when it wasn’t baby-sitting for us.”

    Well, that was getting a little off the story I was trying to tell; but she did have a valid point. If you didn’t turn off, you would have a distinct advantage over any other nonrobotic children, except for the cuteness factor of the sleeping child.

    To let you know what I am talking about, let me take you back to when I was a young lad. My mother would tuck me into bed and kiss me on the forehead slightly above my right eyebrow, while I reached for a hug. Dad would stand in the background and look fatherly, and sometimes his hands would rest comfortably on mom, showing his husbandly affection, which I will not speak any further about for fear of nauseating myself. Mom would always say, “Goodnight, Michael, sleep tight…” Then dad would say in an ominous tone, “And don’t let the bed bugs bite” after mom left the room, which caused me to have more than a few sleepless nights, until mom caught him saying that to me one time, and they had an argument about house cleanliness.

    But I digress. After they left my room, they would go over to Lizzie’s room and peek at her through the open doorway, usually standing on opposite sides, which I could tell, because they would invariably bump heads, and promise not to do that again the next time. Naturally, with Lizzie they did not walk in her room to observe her more closely for fear of waking her and also in fear of her early developing Lizardbreath. You may not have experienced this breath before, thanks to robotic nostrils, but it is quite a pungent odour.

    Then mom and dad would flip on the television, which usually woke me up again and sit on the striped chesterfield to start talking to each other in loud voices (which also woke me up). My dad’s favourite topic of conversation was, “I love looking at the kids when they’re sleeping. No matter what they did during the day…they always look perfect.” Dad was a strong believer in “beauty sleep” which is traditionally considered to be the idea that you would look better after a good night’s sleep; but for dad it meant that you looked better while you were unconscious than you did when you were awake. I don’t think dad ever realized the reason Lizzie and I looked better at night than we did during the day was this thing mom did with us called bathing. If I had spent the day rolling in the mud with Lawrence Poirier, mom made sure the mud was gone at the end of the day. Deanna tells me she does the same thing with our kids too; so it is yet another thing Deanna does with our kids, that mom did with me and Lizzie when were little in the exact same house.

    My wife, the lovely Deanna, is looking over my shoulder and telling me that my dad was probably talking about how I didn’t need to be disciplined during the middle of the night and not about bathing. I am afraid, in that regard, she is sadly mistaken. I was rarely disciplined during the day, and the night was not much different. Mom and dad were often so noisy at night, Lizzie and I would be up all night long from the television noises and conversation. Not only that, but Lizzie was still an infant who wouldn’t sleep through the night anyway.

    When I think back to those days and compare them with my own when my kids were those ages, it’s a wonder mom and dad simply didn’t collapse into slumber when I fell asleep. I know that’s what I did when my daughter was newly-born and keeping me up all night. No, mom and dad had the time to watch late night romantic movies. As for me these days, that’s the time to spend a little time with Leonard Driscoll, the hero of my second novel, Breaking the Windjammer.

    That’s what I am talking about when I mentioned the cuteness factor of kids when they are sleeping. If you’re not doing anything tonight, and you don’t shut off; Deanna has a list of things you can do after you finish baby-sitting.

    Love,
    Michael Patterson

     

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