Talking walls

Gramps sent me an e-mail:

April,

Just a quick dispatch from your Gramps. Iris took me into the elevator recently, as she is wont to do. The elevator was quite full, and as soon as the door closed, the "oldies" in the elevator shared the most scandalous gossip! Iris forbids me from sharing the details, but I can tell you that I found myself thinking, "If only the walls could talk!" Wait, maybe the reason I was thinking that was because everyone seemed to be ignoring me, down at wheelchair level, while they swapped their gossip. And if the walls could talk, at least then, someone would have been talking to me!

Oh, my, there goes the old fert, getting himself depressed. April, I know you're busy with the vet clinic and Liz's wedding plans, but can you spare some time today to visit your old Gramps?

Grandpa Jim

So I wrote back and sed I wd def. make time 2 visit. I'll get Dixie out from where Mom has her tied up and also bring my guitar, of course!

Apes

Going/Gone

W8 a minute. What?

OK, @ sum pt during all the reminiscing over the past couple of wks, Mom and Liz decided on a d8 & location and sent out invitations. I still have no idea when the wedding is, cuz no1 tells me NEthing. I hope it's not gonna B a day when I've already got plans!

So, here's what happened. Liz was @ our kitchen table, hunched over her papers, while Mom filled yet another mug of coffee. Liz asked, "Have NE more RSVPs come in, Mom?" And Mom sed, "Yes, but we're missing abt 10." Liz, looking a lot like Meredith 4 a moment, went, "I hope they respond soon. I have 2 tell the caterers how many meals 2 prepare." Oh, that's EZ. Pretend all 10 will B there. If they don't show, Mom will eat their meals. NEway, Mom and Liz went in2 silhouette a moment B4 Liz sed, "Y do ppl w8 'til the last minute? How can we plan this if we don't know..." ::snerk:: Pot. Kettle. Liz. I mean, isn't this wedding being "planned" @ the last minute? But Mom didn't say that, instead, she sed, "Relax, honey!" Liz and Mom unsilhouetted, and Liz went, "I CAN'T!" This caused Mom not only 2 get a gobsmacked look on her face, but also 2 lose most of her forehead, so it became at best a .5-head.

Mom went outside 2 the back deck, placed her coffee cup behind her, shrunk, put a spindly rite hand on her rite knee, her left elbow on her left knee, and held her .5-head w/her left hand, mayB wondering how 2 reclaim it. Dad, also shrunken, put his left leg on the bottom step, so he was kinda lunging, and asked Mom, "How's it goin' Hon?" And Mom went, "If U're talking abt my patience .... it's gone." Dad sed, "'Patience' was not the referent of 'it,' and you know it, Elly. Don't play dumb 4 bad wordplay." OK, he didn't say that, but wdn't it have been cool if he had?

Apes

What's Mom Now--Part-Time or No-Time?

More on the stupid-boring gardening convo between Mom an' Connie. They were putting away the gardening supplies when Connie asked Mom, "Do U really want 2 B a full-time parent again?" Hearing abt that made me go "BWUH?" Isn't Mom supposed 2 still B a "full-time parent" 2 ME? Normal parents don't stop thinking of themselves as "full-time parents" when their youngest is 17 (or really last yr when I turned 16), rite? I'm not tripping, rite? B-sides, did a miss a memo abt Mike, Dee, Liz, and Anthony all moving 2 Ecuador and leaving Merrie, Robin, and Francie w/Mom?

Gah. NEway, on 2 Mom's dumb response 2 Connie's dumb question. Mom dumbly sed, "No. 2 B honest, I just don't have the energy." [2 remember I xxist.] Mom went on w/"I used 2 B able 2 chase kids all day, Connie. Especially Michael. When my Mom sed she hoped I'd have a child xxactly like I was--she got her wish!" Wow. So Grandma Marian was a mean and spiteful old bird. Nice.

Then Mom continued, and decided 2 work in the current retcon abt Michael: "Michael drove me crazy. But he was smart and funny and I loved him. ...And when I look back @ it all, he made me what I am 2day." Connie prompted Mom, with "Proud? Confident?" And Mom went 4 her punchline: "Um... Tired, actually. Just tired." Connie did an ugly-faced sticky-outy tongue laff rite on cue.

Uh-oh ppl. Look @ this sitch. It's Saturday. I just finished telling U a CONNIE story ending w/Mom reminiscing abt chasing Mike and Nizzie when they were little, and how Mike made Mom all kinds of tired. What does this sound like the prep 4? Yeah, I'm thinking it, 2. Prolly a wk's worth of "ZOMG NO! FLASHBACKS!" :(

Jeremy, def movie and pizza. Wow, I can't believe Brad Luggsworth's side gig. I guess being a cop doesn't pay as much as he'd hoped, eh?

Apes

Oh, no, he did NOT!

Liz sent me her l8est e-mail on the next bit of what happed that super-eventful nite when Warren dropped in:

April,

Wait until you find out what happened next. I can hardly believe it, even though I was there and saw the whole thing. Even though Pattersons normally don't turn down a friend begging for a place to crash for the night, especially since we get martyr points for putting up with people like that, I couldn't risk that Anthony might see Warren through the windows when he accidentally points his telescope at my apartment because he happens to be stargazing in my neighbourhood. Knowing how Anthony jumps to conclusions, I didn't want him to run off and propose to Julia or Kortney or something. So I did something Pattersons hate, I asserted myself and said, "You have to go. You can stay at a motel. I'll give you some money." As I was telling him that, I was pulling my oddly shaped wallet out of my purse. Warren told me, "I've got money, Liz..." At just that moment, my phone, which is at the other end of the apartment from where we were standing, rang. And before I had a chance to do anything, Warren sprinted across the room, fast as can be, and answered my phone. I was so shocked, all I could do was raise my brows, bug out my eyes, and let my mouth fall open. Warren, who had his jacket half on/half off, answered, "Hello?" And I could hear Anthony's voice on the other end, going, "Um... who's this?" And Warren handed me the phone and said, "...I think it's the OTHER man in your life!"

April, can you believe this? I felt my chances of EVER marrying Anthony fading away. I could just imagine him going through his phone book, calling every unmarried Milborough woman he knows until he finds someone willing to dash off to the courthouse as soon as it opens to marry as fast as possible. I felt my life was about to be ruined! But I can't tell you whether it was or not, because of the Patterson rules of suspenseful storytelling. Stay tuned!

Liz

Wow, flyboy has some serious boundary issues, eh? I mean, who DOES that? Man, I wish you were allowed to tell us what happed next. I can't remember the last time I really wanted to know the next part of one of our Patterson stories.

Apes

Transformers? Bwuh?

Liz sent me another e-mail:

April,

Yay, we're still on me! I had a nightmare that we switched back to Mike and that he had a story about making some Kraft Dinner for those kids of his, but that they dumped it down the sink and Mike sent them to bed without supper while thinking a pun. I'm so glad we're on me!

Like I started to tell you, Candace and Rudy were at my apartment and Candace had asked me about how things were going with Anthony. And I told them that thing about taking things one day at a time. Well, Candace asked me some syko-babbly question about how compatible we are, and when I stared at her without answering, because I remember I had to learn "compatible" in a vocab quiz once but hadn't thought about the word in ages, she kind of sighed and said, "Are you and Anthony well matched?" I thought about how we are always finding we are wearing the same shade of brown or mustard yellow or eggplant, and I said, "Yes, we are pretty well matched." Candace had to get all competitive by saying, "Rudy and I are pretty well-matched too, Liz. We just sort of 'click', I guess." By then, we were all standing up, and Candace and I were holding our mugs. I saw that Candace was facing Shiimsa, who was on the counter, and I thought, "Oh, yeah, I have a cat."

Then I realized that Rudy was talking again, I think he heard about how Pattersons are always doing the best wordplay and he wanted to show off, because he started to gesture with his two hands, like he was pretending to open a jar, and he said, "Like those Transformers! You know, you get some goofy monster thing, then... click-click, you fudge around it and it turns into a car or something!?" Candace had put her mug down and picked up Shiimsa. I was putting my mug on the coffee table, and Candace was asking Rudy, "You're comparing me to a Transformer?" And Rudy said, "Nope! No psychoanalysis, Candace. You know what I mean. It's the way we figure each other out!" I sat on the couch and felt myself looking like Mike with a confused look on my face while Candace answered, "A 'goofy monster thing'?" Then Rudy sat next to me on the couch, grabbed his right foot, and said, "Click, click, click" while leaning in like he was going to put his face onto his foot. Candace asked, "What are you doing?" And Rudy said, "Putting my other foot in my mouth!" And I laughed. Because I saw there was no way Rudy was flexible enough to put his foot in his mouth. I said, "Maybe April can do that, with those yoga classes she takes, April does stuff like that to be annoying and maybe so that she can put her foot in my mouth." And then I laughed some more because I pictured you, April, with both feet in your mouth! Ha, ha, ha, I'm laughing all over again thinking about that!

More tomorrow.

Liz.

Liz, FYI, putting your foot in your mouth is an expression. When you say the wrong thing and realize you've accidentally insulted someone, that's called putting your foot in your mouth. And in case you care, I'm flexible enuf 2 put my feet behind my head, but I never put my feet in my mouth (at least not literally). Oh, and memo to Rudy, Transformers are "robots in disguise." Not "goofy monster things."

Apes

And Dee uses Grandma Marian's wedding dress?

Well, Mike has the next installment in his "what we found in the crawl space" story. Let's C how long it took them 2 get 2 "Hey, this dress wd B PERFECT 4 LIZ!"

April,

Formerly little sis. There comes a time in a man's life when you have to consider that your wife has gone crazy. Take this dress of Grandma Marian’s that Deanna found in the crawl space for example. After she found it, she became completely obsessed. I was dipping my tea bag into my coffee cup to get the best flavour out of it, when I saw Deanna had laid the dress out on the table, spreading it out and admiring it. She said, “I’m going to take this to the dry cleaners and see if they can spruce it up.” I said, “Really?” This was my way of saying, “Why do you want to spend money making a 60-year-old dress look good? It’s not like anyone will ever see it again.”

Then Deanna grasped the dress in both hands and said, “Then, I’ll put it in one of those pretty boxes with the window on top.” I held my tea cup with the usual Patterson pinky extended and said, “And then what?” This was my way of saying, “You’re going to put it in one of those boxes like they put pastries in the grocery store? Is it your plan to put the dress in the kitchen so people can look at it, while they are eating a doughnut?”

Then Deanna gave me this strange look, where her nose and her mouth were starting to be grotesquely distorted. She said, “I don’t know! But, your grandmother’s wedding dress is far too precious to leave in the crawl space!!!” I suddenly went dark from one of those unexpected silhouettes, but while I was there, I started to wonder why it is that my wife, who barely got to meet Grandma Marian before she died, would suddenly be obsessed with her wedding dress. I know that Deanna has embraced the Patterson family and mom and rejected her own mother for the longest time. It never occurred to me that Deanna might also embrace my Grandma Marian and possibly reject her own grandmother too. This could even go back to even earlier generations. Maybe Deanna prefers my great grandmother to her great grandmother. Maybe the same is true of my great, great grandmother or my great, great, great grandmother. I tell you, April, I think there is no depth to which my wife would not sink in her quest to fully immerse herself in all things Patterson. I thought about discussing this particular aspect of her personally with my wife, but there were far more important things to be discussed. Manly things. I said, “So is my hockey gear!!” Considering all the discussion of frilly feminine things like wedding dresses, pastry boxes, and dead grandmothers; I felt it was time to bring up a man subject and there is no manlier subject than hockey. I’ll bet you forgot I even played hockey at one time, didn’t you, April?

Well, my wife apparently had forgotten that, because she said to me, “But honey!...You never USE it!!!” She clutched that wedding dress to her bosom and I tried with all my might not to look at her bosom. And yet I did and I felt all my manly, hockey bravado melt away so I was just left with a dumbstruck look on my face, my coffee cup with tea in it and my extended pinky, and a strange feeling my nose had grown. I looked downward and sure enough, there was the cursive “Lynn” lined up with my manhood again.

It is difficult to feel manly when your wife has gone nuts over something really girly.

Love,
Michael Patterson

Actually, Mike, I do remember that U played hockey. Mostly cuz there R times when Mom gets in this weird mood and starts muttering abt U. It starts out kinda sounding like, "Mutter mutter mutter, Michael mutter mutter mutter Mike." Then she'll go, "2 think I drove him 2 all those hockey games and practices and sat in the stands 2 cheer him on even when I was freezing my butt off!" I'm not sure what that's all abt, but I estim8 she does it every 4 wks or so.

I'm not sure what Dee is getting at. Does she have a habit of using old bridal gowns?

Apes

Stuff we didn't wanna know, w/revisions

Mike had another installment 2 what he told Merrie abt Mom an' Dad when they 1st met:

April,

Formerly little sis. After a whole series of mom’s fake “pictures of her past”, she finally relented and let me tell the story, so long as I followed the basic outline of her script. My daughter and I still had the photo album in front of us and we still looked at pictures. Following up from yesterday, I said to my daughter, “And that’s how dad got mom to agree to go on their first date, by asking her when he was working on her teeth.”

My daughter said, “So Gramma Elly and Grampa John got married?” The question took me a little aback and yet there in the photo album were pictures of mom and dad obviously living in an apartment together and looking very married. Now here’s the tricky part. Do I explain to my daughter that mom and dad started living with each other almost immediately after that first date, or do I say they were married in those pictures? I could probably get away with saying they were married. After all, no one in our family wears a wedding ring; so my daughter might not be able to tell the difference. Just be safe I said, “After a while they did.” I don’t want my daughter to get the idea she should get married, just because she went on one date with someone.

I read mom’s script and it said, “Dad had a couple more years to go before he graduated, and mom was only in first year. After a few months, mom left school and started working so they could save some money.” Now, here’s a funny thing. For years mom has told us she had to drop out of school because she got married and had kids. Yet, mom was born August 26, 1951 and dad was born in February 17, 1949. They are separated by 2 years in age. So, when mom started at the University of Toronto, dad would have been starting his third year of his 4-year program for a Doctor of Dental Surgery. Even if dad went to Grade 13 before university, he still would have graduated by 1972 and mom would have graduated in 1974. I was born in 1976, 2 years later. Mom didn’t have to quit school for me.

Sometimes mom says she had to drop out of school to support dad through dental school. That doesn’t make much sense either. Dad had already been there 2 years, and when he met mom he wasn’t expecting her to pay for his school. His third year was already paid for. Her first year was already paid for, and she knew she had enough money for her to go to school for 4 years. Why did mom need to save some money? Then it occurred to me the real reason why mom quit school. She was living in an apartment with a man who was going to be a dentist, so there was no need for her to stay in school. I was in the middle of this revelation, when my daughter interrupted my thoughts in silhouette and said, “And then they had you?” I really did not want to get into a discussion of how mom and dad “had me” with my almost 5-year-old daughter. So, I said, “No! They got married first…”

Then I looked down at mom’s notes and it said, “Mike was a bit of a surprise (see picture)”. I thought, “No I wasn’t!! I was born when mom was 24.” But then I was filled with dread. How am I going to explain this one to my daughter? I looked at the picture. It was a picture of dad wearing his dentist outfit looking like someone knocked the breath out of him. He was in an apartment decorated with a chesterfield, a bowl of popcorn, a dead potted plant, a can of beer, an extendable floor lamp, and a pointing hand hanging down from the ceiling. My initial thought was “Hand of Fatima,” but the hand didn’t look right. Mom was there holding some sheet of paper and saying to dad in a speech balloon, “Honestly, I don’t know HOW it happened!!”

I thought, “Perfect. If my daughter asks me what Gramma Elly means by a surprise, I can say, ‘A surprise is when you don’t know how it happened!’” But then, April, I thought about it some more, and I felt this terrible sense of déjà vu. After all, didn’t my lovely Deanna pull the same trick with me back in 2002? Initially I thought it had to be a coincidence, but the more I thought about it, I realized what had actually happened. I showed the picture and the speech balloon to Deanna and said, “This seems awfully familiar, doesn’t it?” Deanna said, “I guess you and your daughter have something else in common.” My daughter said, “What?! What are you talking about?”

I said to my daughter, “We were both big surprises to our daddies, but not to our mommies.” Then I thought some very bad thoughts about my mother I never thought I would ever think about her.

Formerly little sis. Sometimes it is better for the past to stay in the past. I have been doing this for only 4 days, and I never imagined it would make me feel this bad.

Love,
Michael Patterson

Ew, yeah. Mom shd keep the past in the past AND stop rewriting it. I remember Mom telling me that she'd completed 2 yrs of uni B4 dropping out. Y wd she change her story 2 this? I think it sounds worse. And I agree that her reasons 4 dropping out don't make NE sense and she just doesn't wanna admit she didn't feel like doing schoolwork NEmore once she felt she'd secured a hubby w/earning potential.

But I also don't understand if Dad was supposta B only 20 yrs old (2 yrs older than Mom, who was supposedly only 18 when all this happened), how he cd even B in dental school yet. Wdn't he hafta do 4 yrs of undergrad 1st, and THEN dental school? I'm confused.

And OMG, Perdita, U've gotta get that lappy back 2 Dunc so he can finish telling me his story. So, Dunc, U R OK?

Apes

Empty Nests and Open Doors

The other nite, after my sorta "welcome home" dinner, Mom was washing dishes and Dad was having more butter tarts. Mom Was all, "2 more yrs, John.... And April will B on her own." Xxcept 4 during school breaks and holidays, eh? Dad was all, "I know." And Mom was like, "I wonder what it will B like, 2 B empty-nesters." Bwuh? I was away for almost a month. I wda thot that wd give her the flavour of emptynestitude. And Dad, while feeding his face, was like, "We'll never B complete empty-nesters, El...." And just then Mike arrived, with Meredith, and he was all, "Hey, Mom.... We just ran out of milk. Can I borrow sum?" Borrow? No pls don't return it when U R dun w/it! And Merrie was like, "I smell meatloaf!" And I asked, "Got NEmore butter tarts?" Then, as we 3 gathered around the open fridge, w/Mike going eyeless, big-headed, and short-bodied, and me feeling my butt instantly widening from the butter tarts I'd already had, I heard Dad narr8: "We've alwayz had an open-door policy... And as long as the fridge is stocked--they'll B opening the door!"

Hrm, how forced was that? Isn't Mr. Singh's store abt as close 2 Mike's house as the TTH is? All this so Dad cd make sum lame joke abt open-door policies. And there goes my fam obsessing abt food again.

Oh, in case U R reading this Honoria: Bread-battered butter, fried in more butter! Ha, pass out now!

Dunc, I dunno, I just don't like raisins in my butter tarts. I guess it's a texture thing. But NEway, I'll B glad 2 send U a box w/the kind U like! I can't believe U won't B @ RP Boire this fall. I'm gonna miss U!

Apes

Trust me when I say, BWUH?

More abt Liz telling Candace a buncha stuff she heard abt Anthony and Thérèse.

Candace was all, "So, Y did she have a baby?" And Liz sed, "They'd bought a house. ...I guess she thot she cd buy in2 the whole domestic package!" OK, w8. No. They had the baby and THEN bought the house. This is what Anthony told Mom @ Thérèse's baby shower. Nice try, Lizard. NEway, then she told Candace, "Anthony was thrilled when Françoise was born, but Thérèse became depressed. She went back 2 work and left him w/the baby." Hm, shdn't she have been evaluated and treated 4 PPD (post-partum depression)? I'm surprised Candace didn't bring this up. I've heard of this, and I haven't even studied psych @ university. So, Liz continued w/"She spent more and more time @ work. Eventually she admitted she was having an affair with a co-worker. She asked 4 a divorce, and he agreed. She left him w/the house, the baby, and a lot of debt. ...He's only just started 2 trust again." Candace: "And.... he trusts U?" And then, according 2 Liz, "I gave her one of those meaningful looks and I told her, 'Trust me. ...He does."

OK, bwuh? That's how this retell ends? And what's that supposed 2 mean, that Liz and Anthony have made the beast with 2 backs in his Liz shrine bedroom? And what abt Thérèse's ability 2 trust a guy not 2 lust after an ex-girlfriend and try 2 push her in2 a mold she doesn't fit in (yeah, I know we're supposed 2 think THERESE tried 2 change ANTHONY and that her evil PARENTS R supposed 2 have pushed her towards motherhood and home ownership--but my memory hasn't been wiped out, eh?).

Sorry, Liz, U haven't made me like Anthony this week. Tho I feel loads of sympathy 4 Thérèse.

Wherein Candace chugs the Kool Aid

So, more abt Candace chit-chatting w/Liz abt Anthony and Thérèse's marriage. Liz told Anthony, "Anthony bought Gordon's house and fixed it up. Even tho he planned 2 sell it sumday, Thérèse wasn't happy. She wanted 2 live in the city." Candace was all, "Y didn't they work all that out B4hand?" And Liz sed, "I don't know, Candace." [In case Candace mighta 4gotten her own name 4 a mo there.] Then Liz continued with, "Her mom desperately wanted grandchildren, and her dad kept saying that a house was a gd investment. Being an only child, I think she did many things 4 their sake." Oh, w8, this is a total retcon, ppl. Every1 knows that ANTHONY was all abt having a baby. Oh, and look, T. is all messed up cuz of having been an only. Liz, I guess U better rush in and help Anthony save Françoise from the awful f8 of only-child syndrome.

NEway, Liz sez she folded her arms across her chest and told Candace, "So, there U go again.... U can't change ppl. U have 2 take them as they R." And Candace, chugging a mug that musta been filled with that special Corbeil Kool Aid, was all, "And eventually Thérèse took Anthony 4 all she cd get!" Bwuh? Did she go 2 a Patterson re-education camp? Cuz this doesn't sound like str8-shooting Candace, who C's thru the bull. Let's look @ the facts. Thérèse is the driven career woman, remember? She makes more money than Anthony did. She walked out and left Anthony the house and everything in it. How is that taking him 4 all she cd get? That makes no sense!

Apes