Then There Was The Time That She Did Kind Of Lose It…….

I was about fourteen and reading the ‘dirty’ book of the day.

La Vida by Oscar Lewis.

It was a dog-eared copy with all the ‘good’ pages marked but I was reading the whole book because besides being just slightly titillating it was a pretty interesting story.

My parents were big believers of reading and looking things up. If you didn’t know a word, try and figure it out from the context of the sentence, or look it up.

Well, I came across a word that not only couldn’t I figure it out from the context of the sentence it wasn’t in the dictionary!

So I asked my mother.

The problem was, I asked her as we were entering the foyer of our apartment building just as a very prim and proper older woman was going out.

As we passed her I said to my mother, “I can’t figure out the definition of this word. What does c**t mean?”

Everything happened so fast…………

The woman shrieked and ran out of the building as my mother unlocked our door and shoved me inside while muttering. “I’ll tell you later!”

Once we were inside and she stopped laughing, I got a very detailed explanation of what an ugly and derogatory word that was to refer to a woman and to never, ever under any circumstance use it. 

It wasn’t that my parents advocated censorship, just good taste.

Mom Was Pretty Unflappable

We could talk about anything.

I mean ANYTHING. No subject was taboo or out of bounds. Questions about sex were just as common as questions about history or math.

My parent’s attitude toward sex was that it was good clean fun, and not fattening (family joke….)

I could ask them anything, and I did.

One day my mother picked up my girlfriend and me after we had spent the afternoon with friends.

 At one point our friends had made a joke about rainbow colored dildos.

I had learned very early to laugh when everyone else laughed, even when I didn’t understand the joke.

I didn’t want to look like a fool or show my ignorance and I knew I could ask for an explanation when I got home.

So when I got in the car and my mother asked if we had a good time I answered yes, but…………

And I asked what a dildo was.

My friend in the backseat was waving madly at me to shut up, signaling that she would tell me later.

My mother could see her in the rearview mirror and burst out laughing.

She then proceeded to explain to me what a dildo was.

My friend was mortified.

To me it was just another day in my life.

Ruthie

On their first date my Grandfather took my Grandmother to an ice cream parlor.

He wasn’t a wealthy young man.

He had saved for weeks for this date.

As they were perusing the menu he was making suggestions about what to order based on his finances.

A soda was 5¢, how about a dish of ice cream for 10¢?

Nope, not my Grandma!

She ordered the most expensive item on the menu, half a cantaloupe filled with ice cream for 35¢!

My Grandfather’s comment was,” Boy Ruthie, you sure know how to order!”

He loved telling that story.

The Good, the Bad, and the Crazy

My father’s mother was……..difficult.

As I got older my father would tell me stories that gave me more insight into his idiosyncrasies’.

It was all his mother’s fault.

That was a family joke, but I think it might have been closer to the truth than I ever realized.

I don’t remember ever seeing her smile. EVER.

Not in pictures or in real life.

She was passive/aggressive.

Example: My Grandfather loved to listen to baseball games on the radio. Just to interrupt his pleasure she would take the plug to the iron and shove it in and out of the electrical socket over and over to create static so he couldn’t hear the game!

She was anal.

Example: She ironed my Grandfather’s SOCKS! That’s right I said SOCKS!

She was vindictive.

She remembered every wrong ever done to her (real or imagined!)

Example: She didn’t talk to her own sister for forty years. At the end of their lives they lived in the same apartment building and would occasionally ride the elevator together. Even then she didn’t speak to her.

(What, you may ask, was the horrific deed that was so awful it would keep two sisters from speaking for so long? My great Aunt scorched my Grandmother’s slip while ironing it when they were girls!) 

(Are you kidding me?)

She was a worrier. Even about things that WOULDN'T happen.

Example: She worried about my cousin getting Polio. Even after she was vaccinated.

She would say, “She could have gotten Polio!”

My mother would say, “But she didn’t.”

Grandma would say, “But she COULD have!”

And you wonder why I’m slightly off kilter? 

Look at the gene pool I was distilled from!

Is There a Doctor in the House?

Back in the day when celebrities performed in posh nightclubs (think El Morocco, the Stork Club….) Robert Goulet was performing in the Persian Room at the Plaza.

Robert Goulet was one of my mother’s favorite singers.

So of course my parents went.

But they didn’t have reservations.

This did not deter my father in the least.

He went to the maître d’ slipped him a bill and told him he was  DR. COX.

They got right in!

The reason they got right in is because at the time, Dr Cox was a very well known and respected Dr on Park Avenue (and also happened to be my father’s cousin!)

My mother said she sat through the whole show terrified that someone would have some sort of medical emergency and my father would be called on to assist.

She wasn’t afraid he’d be caught in a lie, but because knowing my father he would actually follow through with the ruse and try to perform some sort of medical treatment!

(I don't doubt for a moment that he would have!)

Luckily, no one needed the Heimlich maneuver that evening.

Aunt Jemima

1956 

I know the year because that’s what it says on the snapshot.

It was my first official Halloween.

I was three.

My mother dressed me up as Aunt Jemima. Blackface and all (because my father was a member of the local drama company and had theatrical makeup.)

I don’t think it was meant to be offensive, just an easy costume for a mom to make.

She said I picked up the whole ‘trick or treat’ concept pretty quickly and by the third house I was ringing the doorbell and asking, “Got any candy?”

But that’s not what this story is about.

Several weeks after Halloween we were at the local luncheonette having a treat.

As we were sitting at the counter a large black man came in and sat down beside us.

My mother said I was fascinated and kept staring at him.

After a few minutes I turned to my mother and in a whisper you could have heard a block away asked, “Why doesn’t he take his Aunt Jemima off?”

She was mortified.

But calmly explained that not everyone’s skin color is the same.

The man smiled at her explanation and even let me rub his hand to prove her point!

(Even at age three I look like I know this can't be right.)

If I Die Before I Wake

I’m glad I ate that last cupcake……..

Once again….

I didn’t (fill in the blank.)

Do you have days where you meant to get to ‘this’ or ‘that’ but never do?

A day where you had the best of intentions but……

A day that slips away to who knows where?

A day that you just can’t seem to focus?

A day where it takes all the energy you can muster just to get from bed to the couch?

I try.

I really do.

But……..

On days such as this I take comfort in a lesson I learned from my mother.

She taught me on those particularly awful days when nothing seems to get done, write something on your to-do list that you’ve already completed.

Just to be able to cross it off and have the feeling of accomplishment!

Guys and Dolls

The movie Guys and Dolls was on TV last night.

The minute I hear the overture it takes me back to when Son1 was a baby.

I would come home from work at midnight as Husband was leaving for work. 

So it was just Son1 and I.

I would sit in the rocking chair and rock him back to sleep as I sang  ‘Fugue for Tinhorns’

I got the horse right here

The name is Paul Revere

And here's a guy that says that if the weather's clear

Can do, can do, this guy says the horse can do 

If he says the horse can do, can do, can do.

No sissy lullabies for my son!

(It's a good thing babies can't remember or I might have ruined music for him for life! LOL)

February Faces

It was a fun exercise. One face a day for the month of February.

Every evening Tablet and I would sit on the couch in front of TV and sketch a face.

Out of 28 faces, these are the ones I think are keepers.

I’m toying with the idea of making them into dolls, maybe…..possibly……someday…….

My mom (sort of, lol) is in there. Her younger self, as I choose to remember her. Can you tell which one she is?