It's Been a While, But...

This was worth it.

I recently passed the bar exam, which, naturally, prompted the following response from my mom:

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Dear Pumpkin -

CONGRATULATIONS! Now you can concentrate on planning your future family life. I want you, which is also my wish for your siblings, to have a life companion which marriage brings. You need someone to dream with, be happy and sad with,to fight and reconcile with, to go to the theater, church, travel destinations, etc., with. God said: “it is not good for man to be alone.” And so He created Eve. You may not understand the value and benefit of having someone to grow old with because you are young, independent and having a good time. But when you are older, you will understand the wisdom of what I am saying. If your marriage is blessed with children, then you will have everything, and you want to have everything, don’t you? Children are great to grow old for and with. As the cycle of life demands, parents need younger children to take care of them, to remember them, to love them. You need someone to at least call you or email you when you are already old. And if you have grandchildren, then you will be really so blessed like Abraham to whom God promised the blessing of descendants as many as the stars and the grains of sand.

God said: “Go and multiply.” Now that I am old, I know what it means. That command is for our own good. Your aunt is so blessed because her family line did not stop with her or her children. She now has grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will produce her great-great-grandchildren. She has seen three generations come from her. This continuation of the family is awesome. If you don’t get married and have children, the family line stops with you. We will all just wait to die one by one and there won’t be any legacy, no continuation. We will all disappear and be forgotten by the world. If your uncle had died without children, he would have just disappeared from the face of the earth. But we see him in his three children he left behind. He lives in them and by so doing, he lives with us up to now. CONGRATULATIONS! again. We are very proud of you.

Love,
Mom

***

I have nothing to add. This woman is FOCUSED!

Who Taught Mom How to Email???: A Drama in Three Acts

I have only one word: Oy.

1.

January 3, 2008
Subject: Suze Orman

Hi -

Do you know that Suze Orman is gay? I have been listening to her financial advice on her regular show. However, last night on the Larry King Live, she said she wanted a Democrat to win the presidency because he/she will change the present law that she cannot give her money to her partner when she dies. And she used the female pronoun to refer to her. Holy smokes. She dresses so stylishly that I never thought she was one.

Love,
Mom

2.

February 11, 2008
Subject: URGENT: YOUR BRA SIZE

Hi -

Macy's at Randall Mall is closing, and this is their last week. Everything is 80% their lowest ticket price. Pumpkin - what's your panty and bra size? I could get some for you on your birthday. Pa - you may want to check it out -- they have a huge selection of men's underwear too. We can't miss this great opportunity.

Love,
Mom

3.

March 15, 2008
Subject: Testicle Fruit

Hi -

I forgot to tell you that in his show, Dr. Rozier of the Cleveland Clinic showed a picture of avocados hanging from a tree. The avocados he showed, which are what we find in supermakets here, are from South America. He gave its native South American name, which translated into English is testicle fruit. The avocado really is actually shaped like a testicle, especially when hanging from a tree. I wonder if the So. American natives who named it knew that it was beneficial to the male prostate. Avocados in the Philippines are at least 3 times bigger.

BTW, I already bought Pa his testicle fruit at Heinen's. We had half each, but I will start eating only one tablespoon a day from now on because it is high in fats, albeit good. It cost $2.00 each but it was not rotten - very good. I have compared Heinen's and Giant Eagle prices, and the latter is more expensive, but their cosmetics and feminine napkins are cheaper than Walgreen's. I had to buy feminine napkins for our Turkey trip so I don't have to wash panties everyday and they are 80 cents cheaper. We won't have the time to wash panties because we will be transferring hotels practically everyday.

Love,
Mom

November, 2007: Mom As Flip-Flopper? Fat is Gooooooood!

In a stunning reversal, pregnant women everywhere, and their limbs, will be overjoyed by my mom's latest:

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Hi Pumpkin -

Just a few minutes ago, Ann Curry of the Today Show announced the newest scientific discovery: that fat around the hips and thighs are full of Omega-3 fat acid and is great for the brain. Finally! And I started walking again today! That's why seniors are smarter than their younger counterparts. No wonder I feel smarter now than when I was young and thin as a rail.

Love,
Momsy

***

Dangnabbit, I just *knew* there was a reason I subsisted entirely on pizza and Combos during finals.

August 2, 2007: More Deep Thoughts From Mom.

Oh, mother. Be careful who you say this to, or you might be accosted by hordes of irritable pregnant women, wielding their own gargantuan extremities with fearsome precision.

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Dear Pumpkin,

Beth Hasselbeck on The View is pregnant again and has gained lots of weight. Why do their arms (also Nancy Grace), legs and faces get fat when they are pregnant? In all my three pregnancies, only my stomach got big. My limbs and face stayed the same.

Love,
Mom

June 14, 2007: A year closer to death, but otherwise, uneventful

I turned twenty-eight recently, and I promised some of you out there prompt posting of the surely wondrously odd birthday package that I would receive from Dear Mom. Sure enough, a box arrived on my doorstep. I dutifully put it away until my birthday. Then I opened it, and...

Eh!

It really wasn't so bad. Sure, there were some questionable fashion items, but others were almost...but not quite, of course...wearable. A couple of random books, but not that random. Some promising envelopes of ethnic food mix, but I actually ended up keeping them all, and in fact prepared one for dinner tonight. Don't get me wrong - the Salvation Army did get a healthy donation last weekend - but for once, I didn't think that the thrift store volunteers would be 1) laughing their asses off, or 2) exclaiming, "we couldn't pay people to take this crap off our hands!" as they went through my stuff.

So, sorry to disappoint. By way of mollification, here's a little Mom-ly tip that I received this morning:

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Pumpkin, for colds and congestions and sinus, get a small tea pot that has a small spout that will fit in your nostril. You can buy a special one called None (spelling?) pot and put warm, salted water in it. Then, pour it inside your nose. It really works.

***

Seriously, imagine your mom doing this. You can thank me later.

Sports, Political Science, and Mom

My mother has truly adopted her new city of residence, and cheered valiantly, although of course fruitlessly, for her beloved Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA finals. Along the way, she offered this little nugget for me to ruminate on:

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Dear Pumpkin,

Tomorrow starts the NBA finals. It is me and Pa in Cleveland vs. you in Texas. James LeBron is now considered the greatest basketball player in the free world. I wonder why "the free world." Is there anyone greater in the communist and socialist worlds?

Love,
Momsey

***

Come to think of it, my mom did get a Master's in political science. There's a dissertation in this.

Wedding Season: Dum Dum Da Dum....

Reader, you may remember that my mother's acquaintance with my boyfriend did not get off to a spectactular start (see, e.g., bizarre dwarf episode). Sadly, it hasn't improved much with time; I get periodic emails on the topic, ranging from interventionist ("Your Father and I Thought We Should Express Our Concerns About Your Boyfriend") to wistfully fatalistic ("ay, I just hope that you do not shortchange yourself, you are so talented and beautiful") to flat-out suspicious ("he probably knows that you are a gold mine and that you will be very successful and wealthy"). It's all kind of unfortunate, of course, but we seem to have come to an unspoken resolution - basically, Mom don't ask, Pumpkin don't tell.

All of this serves as background to explain why I found this package of materials so befuddling:






ummm...marriage pamphlets? really? but...why? and why now, when the only single, ergo vulnerable male in my life within possible striking distance is a godless dwarf? I tell you one thing, though, that second one is freaking me out a little - the groom is kind of leering and Ronald Reagan-esque, and the bride is actually rather mannish and looks a bit pissed off, possibly because she didn't know that JESUS HIMSELF would be performing the ceremony and making her swear to stay faithful to this secretly-gay-waiter-why-else-would-he-be-wearing-a-white-dinner-jacket-to-his-wedding until death does them part.

Well, I flipped through them, and they weren't too outrageous, if predictably outdated - the second one is literally from 1952, after all. There were various not-very-cheery chapter headings, like:




Oh, and this unrelated but also very upbeat little number fluttered out while I was reading, having apparently been inserted:




Actually, maybe it's not unrelated...since I'd most likely be doing some pretty good time in purgatory if I ever married my wildly inappropriate and vertically challenged paramour, I guess I should know what to expect for the next, oh, 10,000 years or so. Purgatory - it's a good thing!

Overall, though, the Catholic repression and guilt aside, it was mostly pretty standard pre-matrimonial advice. So, you know, not bad reading for any of you out there who are thinking of taking the leap yourselves. You can even order your own freaky time warp marriage pamphlets, along with helpful lessons on a wide variety of other topics:



Order now for this amazing deal! There is no charge for this course! No one will call on you! Just take it from Archbishop John F. Whealon himself: "This Catholic home study course really changed my life! I was able to receive all kinds of Catholic answers in the privacy of my home. I never even have to go to church anymore. MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA."

March 5, 2007: Always Planning Ahead

Below is an email that my mother recently sent to my brother. Have you ever met anyone so undefatigably cheerful?

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Hi!

I know this may sound morbid, but I believe in being always prepared. Now that we have some extra money, I am thinking of buying cemetery plots and a funeral plan with a funeral parlor. However, these questions need to be answered first before we can do that.

1. Do you plan to stay permanently in Cleveland even after your retirement? You know that my wish and dream is for you three children to be buried together in the same city so you can be a family. That is very important.

2. If you plan to stay here permanently, we can buy three plots, one for me, Pa, and you.

3. If you plan to move to where one of your sisters is (preferably Pumpkin because she plans to get married and have children), then perhaps we can buy a small niche in a columbary and have us both cremated so you can transport our ashes whereever you will move. I want to be on your mantle.

4. Having said that, Pa, me, you, and your sisters could all be in the same family plot.

Once we have reasonably decided what to do, I will put it in writing so that what happened to Anna Nicole Smith will not happen to us. Thanks!

Love,
Mom

Emergent situation: Looking a little preggy

I've never felt like I photograph really well, so if someone takes a picture of me that I actually look halfway decent in, I tend to be inordinately pleased. Thanks to my recent make-up experiments and my new co-worker's extremely useful Photoshop acumen, I recently sent an unusually palatable picture of myself to my parents. It's not just vanity - my new theory with my mom is that it helps her to see me as an adult if I wear lipstick and nice clothes, as opposed to how she generally sees me when I visit home, in sweatpants with dirty hair. Here's the relevant part of the photo:




Pretty sharp, right? New suit, lip gloss, etc. etc. Well, here's what my mom thought:

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Dear Pumpkin,

How come you look like a little preggy in this picture?

Love,
Mom

***

My first question is: is "preggy" a noun or an adjective? At first blush it seems like an adjective, but is she really asking me why I look like a little *piggy*? Soon the linguistic curiosity gives way to indignance, as I wonder what in the world she's talking about - preggy? I don't look preggy, I look good! How dare she? But soon, the paranoia sets in, and I squint my eyes and look closer...




Damn it, I DO look a little preggy! Note to self: abandon all empire-waist garments immediately, go back to gym ASAP, do many crunches...

Wait, I'm being ridiculous. I don't look pregnant! I marshall my pluck and type what I hope will be a sassy response, which will simultaneously amuse, humble, and slightly worry my mother:

****

Hi Mom,

wow, is it that obvious?

****

I feel good. I've shaken off my insecurities, and my boyfriend says approvingly that he loves the spunk.

Then I get:

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Dear Pumpkin,

Yes, and I can't believe that I will be a grandma pretty soon.

****

Damn! Unquestionably, I've been bested. She turns the joke around on me *and* suggests again, with diabolically subliminal skill, that I do, in fact, look like a little porker.

Well played, mother, well played.