My Mother

In over 9 years of keeping this blog, I have not yet written about my mother.

That’s probably because she makes it so hard to be talked about.

As much as I normally don’t give a rip about what people think about my actions, my mom has always been that one person in my life that I’m trying really hard not to disappoint. She comes across as so perfect and so mistake free that is so hard to please. She speaks in one liners and she always has the last word. She defies definition and despite her succinct style in everything, she is so hard to summarize in one post.

These are just some things that describe her and that I have learned from her, over the years:

1.    My mom is terrified of writing a birthday card, but she will explain in minute detail the organic chemistry that happens between the ingredients when she bakes a cake, fries an egg or makes sour cream from fresh milk! She will do complicated math with no pen and paper, she will figure out a complicated piece of electronic, but cannot match her skirt to her shirt!  

2.    Always make a fresh pot of coffee right after you climb out of bed, every morning. A house enwrapped in the smell of coffee will forever remind me of her.

3.    Whatever you do, whatever choices you make, your parents will always and forever support you. Never be afraid to come back home! There is no shame in coming back home. Always accept defeat with dignity and come back where you’re loved to recharge.

4.    Outside your priest and your doctor, your parents are the only people that you should never lie to. If you lie to them, they won’t know how to help you. And no matter how old you are, and how far you’ll go, you’ll need their help, their ear, and their shoulder.

5.    Don’t ever be afraid to try anything! Everything is created by the people, for the people. You are just as good if not better than everyone else. Folks who are less smart than you have done this, so you can succeed in attempting anything others have tried as well. Just give it a shot!

6.    Don’t ever be afraid to speak your mind. Never go to bed with thoughts you’re afraid to utter. What’s in your head should match what’s coming out of your mouth. If you have a thought, you should speak it up. Every time. Any time. Just be yourself. My mom is the only person I know that never tells a lie.

7.    The only thing that separates you from your boss is their title. Not their education, smarts, or ability. You’re their equal in everything else!

8.    Bad words or curses? Let them out! Don’t keep them inside, or you’ll get cancer!

9.    Don’t judge your parents! Love them for who they are – they did the best they could and they will never judge you. They love you unconditionally, so it’s only fair that you return the favor.  

10. Be grateful for what you have and never covet what others have. Life is never a competition. Everyone achieves as much as they allow themselves to dream of. Those are their dreams, not yours. Make your own. And don’t stretch more than your blanket allows.

11. Own your actions. No excuses. Even when it hurts, be truthful and honest. It’s the fastest way to peace of mind.

12. Read. Read. Read. You’ll never make intelligent conversation otherwise, and life is conversation.

13. No matter how tired or busy you are, always make time to clean your house thoroughly, wash your windows, your rugs and your curtains at least twice a year: before Easter and before Christmas. At least!

14. My mom is the greatest multi-tasker I know. All at one time, she will stir something in some pot on the stove, cross-stitch and solve a crossword puzzle, while watching a movie and actually following the plot, all while smoking a cigarette and pouring a drink. In her mind, you should never sit still while you’re awake. Find something to do or else your luck would be stagnant. She tires me just to watch her!

15. Always make time to do your nails! True ladies wear white nail polish and white underwear.

For everyone who knows my mom, they know she is extremely serious. It’s hard to make her laugh, or even crack a shy smile. She’s had a hard life, before she met dad, and she never got over it, in some way.

Today, on (American) Mother’s Day, everyone posts beautiful pictures of their mothers on social media. My favorite picture with/ of my mom is the one below. I am probably a year and a half or two, and I am slapping her across the face, as she pulls away. My dad captured the moment. I think the reason I love this picture is because I should have gotten in trouble for slapping her! But she is laughing and holding me so tight. This picture is the most perfect connotation of my relationship with her: even when I am in trouble, she is happy to have me, and she supports me and loves me and, in the end, forgives me, too. And deep down inside, despite her seriousness, I know she is having a good time. Deep down, in there, somewhere.

My mission in life has ever been to make her smile. This is one of the very few moments when I succeeded. 

 

Mom and me, cca 1976

A Dress, by Any Other Name …

I feel about weddings like most people feel about “don’t shoot me” orange clothes: they might look good on some people, but not on me!

For some odd reason, I have never liked the big, fat, party central type of weddings. And more than the huge parties where people you don’t know get fed and drunk on your life savings, I hate the dresses. Like I said: I hate them for me. A white, puffy dress that looks like belongs in the 18^th century does nothing for me. It’s uncomfortable, it’s too white, and you can’t drink your coffee comfortably for fear of not spilling and ruining the day, and on a terribly short person like me it looks ridiculous!

And I never understood why women want to look like in a masquerade ball on their wedding day! It’s the beginning of your new life: will you look like a jester in your new life? Or will you look like you, every day?! I want to be me. Me, at my utmost. And I am never me if I am uncomfortable.

A guy can wear a suit, which is something they (some) wear every day. Women have to wear “gowns” and not breathe during their wedding. Now, I have an issue with that! It’s a principle issue here! Somehow, what’s good for the gander … you know what I mean! And yes, I know this is a minority’s point of view. But it happens to be mine.

So here I am, hating all this, and trying to put together the wedding and buying the dress for it … I have managed to keep the wedding the way I have always wanted: small and symbolic, not huge and blurry. But the dress is giving me nightmares! For the millionth time, people in Retail, I do not want a GOWN! No gown! No puff! No train! No lace! NO! NO! NO! I want a dress I would not wear to work, so a little bit more chic than that, yet comfortable, as if I could wear it anywhere. I don’t want to be afraid to sit, or stand in it, I don’t want underwear showing, nor have to lose 10 lbs to fit in it. I want it simple, elegant, small and HERE! NOW!

And finding a white or an off-white or a black-and-white dress that’s my size has been virtually impossible! I find the right cut in the wrong color everywhere. Always the wrong size, but I have even stooped low (for the budget oriented me) and talked myself into alterations … I am a nervous wreck ! I dream about wearing nothing on the big day but a rain coat! I have nightmares that my dead grandma (who was a very, very fashion-savvy seamstress and spoiled me rotten growing up because she would custom make everything I wore the way I wanted it!) is scolding me about my dress … I started to hate my stature and my body and people in retail stores.

And Holy Mother of Jesus, are those bridal stores intimidating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You get a “consultant” (?!? – please, people, I have bought clothes before, all right?!), you have to see yourself in the mirror with 10 thousand strangers fighting for the mirror space, gawking and looking at you! And please, don’t tell me there are no petite brides left in the world! You have TWO size 2 dresses (a bit big for me, but like I said: alterations) in one cut, and one full aisle of size 18W! Really??? That’s what most of the brides out there wear?! Oy!

And the prices! Oh, Lord! So, you cross the aisle in the bridal gown area, you pay at least $400 for a white dress. The same dress, in yellow, across the store, for brides’ maids, is $100! I might not be a fashionista (or whatever kids say nowadays), but I know common sense!

And asking advice from your friends and family is even worse, because you don’t want to disappoint and you know you will when you’re not main stream about these things. And every one of them seems to just see herself in front of the altar when they share opinions on dresses! Has no idea that this is ME, ME- who hates weddings, ME- who hates dresses, period, ME – who hates puff, ME - who is looking for a dress! So much help is that! I am sure they mean well, and I admit I have quirky and unusual taste … but honestly – I got no help there …

I am exhausted! I am not quite sure what I’ll wear, but I can tell you – it will probably be an impulse buy once I have reached my limit. The most important thing about the wedding is that I have the right man. And that’s a definite. And I know he is the right man because he, also agrees with me on “small wedding and a comfy and simple dress”. And also like me, he doesn’t believe in what “you should wear on your wedding day”, but in “wear what you want. Always.”. So, I’ve got my mainstay for the wedding. Everything else, including the dress, is just haphazard!

Thank you, everyone, but mostly Aa., for putting up with my extra-neurotic self these days…

New Year’s Resolution – of Sorts …

Just like you would expect, a boy puts a ring on my finger and I freak out and start dieting . It’s not that I am fat, by all definitions, I think , it’s just that now, I am overcritical of my figure, because I don’t look as slim as I did when I was 18! … Insert your stereotypical bride joke here … I won’t deny it … All of a sudden, I am obsessed with who I am not anymore.

I have been shopping for dresses lately, and man, all of a sudden, my true and tried sizes are too small! Only by a hair, but still! Or they look like crap on my out of shape body! This is what you get for getting married after The Holidays, I figured. Or after 30!

And this is how I discover that I am getting old and rusty, too. And losing 5 lbs in a week by eating salads only doesn’t do the trick anymore … And today, after a lovely chat with my dad, I realized, I need to be reasonable! I need food, and starving is not a solution. And sometimes, what I might think it’s gaining weight might just be part of the whole aging process. As long as I don’t jump BMI brackets – I am fine. Nothing like a good talking with dad to bring me back to earth and talk some sense into me!

He said: “Honey, I want you to write this down, and frame it somewhere! In fact, I really think you should write to whoever is in charge, and this should be written on the Time Square ball when it drops for New Year’s every year in New York City. Just so ALL Americans be aware of it”.

I go, with doubt in my voice and eyes rolling: “OK, dad! What is it?!”
Him: “Are you writing it down? It’s important! You need to frame it!”

Me: “OK! Shoot!”

Him: “This is supposed to be your motto for the year. And definitely for the wedding. So, here it comes: Stress makes you fat. Dieting is stressful. Done. Do you understand?!”

And just like that – in those very simple words, I understood!

Then, he goes on a lecture about how this year will be nothing but stress, and I need nourishment to carry me through it! And to stop starving myself and just let life roll. And he is so right. I need to love myself before I put myself to the tasks I have planned for this year. In any shape.

So, I’ll watch portions and I’ll make time to walk … but I should not kill myself … Hunger makes me very cranky, anyway. And like any reasonable person out there, I know that stress holds on to fat as comfort … And I’ll just need to get a size or half of a size bigger dresses for the wedding.

After all, I am not 18 anymore! And I need to embrace my age. However rusty and metabolism-slowing it is! And something tells me my man would not care much if my dress came in a size 1 or a 1 and ½! Yes, they have 1 and ½’s out there!! Or even a 2! I hope … No: I know!

Girlfriends

By complete chance, I was witness to this conversation, while on my hike last weekend. It’s not in the least made up. Two strangers, I’ll call them Kathy and Cindy, about 35’ish year old, both accountants, approached me on the trail, sort of out of pity, because I was hiking alone. And after the usual politeness, of what your name is, what you do for a living, they just went off on their own rants, and I was a mere spectator of it all.

There they go:

Kathy: “That tree is totally twisted. It cannot make up its mind which way to go. See, how it grew toward the valley, and now it’s growing towards the hill? It must be a woman, not knowing what it wants!”

Cindy: “What do you mean?”

Kathy: “You know: that’s what men tell us, that we’re moody and we never can make up our minds.”

Cindy: “Well, I can tell you that men are just plain stupid. That’s what I can surely tell you. They are the ones who don’t know jack sh^t about what they want. They want us for the sex, up and down, all day and all night long, but then, when we want them for the emotions, they say that’s too complicated, and they get out. That’s what they do! They’re idiots! What is there so complicated about emotions? Is it rock science?! No, it isn’t! It’s just plain talk! I wanna tell you how I feel about you, and how I need you, and you’re going to turn the football game up and ignore me, and if I push, you walk away because that’s too complicated! That’s a bunch of bull crap!”

Kathy: “I hear ya, and that’s why we’re on this hike today: because we’re fed up with them! Both mine and hers are idiots. So, we wanted to get away and not put up with their sh^t today.”

Cindy: “You don’t even know where to meet them no more. You meet them at a bar, you meet them online, at the office, through your friends, they all suck! None of them wants the real thing anymore. Everything is too damn complicated to all of them. Now, Kathy here, she’s a true online dater perfectional. She surely is. She’s been on everything and she’s been doing this for years. And she’s still not finding anything. But one thing I know for sure: as much as my now boyfriend made me mad this week, I’m back on Plentyoffish(.com). I surely am! I’m back at it!”

Kathy: “Well, the one I have now, I met on Great Expectations. And usually I met some good people there, but this one’s a dead beat! See, I am looking for something long term, but he don’t want anything like that. He just wants something now. I just don’t know why you’d pay all that money for it, and just want sex for it. What is wrong with you?! “

Me: “How much are you paying for Great Expectations?”

Kathy: “Well, they want to sell you for years at a time, and it’s like $2000 for a year, or $3000 for two, but I talked them into a $600 for 6 months deal”.

Me, dubious: “600 DOLLARS? For a dating site?!”

Kathy: “Well, yeah, but you don’t get all the junk that’s on MySpace there. Or the goobers on PlentyOfFish. I really met some interesting folks. Although, I’ll have to say, there are some stupid folk on it, too”.

Cindy: “They’re all stupid, girl! All of them!”

Kathy: “Well, I did meet this one guy, he was from DC. And we talked online, and I was tired of all that typing, so I asked for his number, and he gave it to me, and we talked for months. Then, one day, he told me he’d come down to see me, because he was feeling like we were falling in love, bla-bla-bla (she’s rolling her eyes in disgust). And he bought a plane ticket to North Carolina to see me. I was really shocked. So, then he came to my house, and then, he told me he had bought the plane ticket for this other girl, that lived in Charlotte, but then she backed out on him at the last minute, but he still had the ticket, and had to use it, so he came to see me instead.”

(Cindy and I are about to faint laughing)

Kathy:” I am telling you, Cindy’s right: they don’t know jack sh^t of what the hell they want. One minute, you’re in love with me, and one minute I am your back up plan?! I even tried to kiss him, just for testing, but he couldn’t kiss worth a damn either, so he slept on the couch and I never saw him again. Nor talked to him”.

She shrugs. And I shrug now, too, nodding my head in disbelief, and deep thinking. And I thought I was the only one having dating nightmares.

It turned out I was not alone on that hike, after all. On that hike, or otherwise…