D.C. McMillen

My mother has developed some rather odd habits/hobbies of late. Yes, I realize she has always carried around some odd habits, like drinking pickle juice to “cure” her stomach aches, eating Cheez Whiz and applesauce sandwiches, and laughing loudly while other people are crying. Hell, she even roller bladed along the boardwalk while 9 months pregnant (yes, the baby did come the next day so I guess she was right about that one). So, as any of you who have read some of my past blog entries already know, my mom’s a bit of a nut. Lately, though, she’s being especially odd.

To begin, she keeps stealing my dog. After the third or fourth time, I insisted she get her own dog, which she did. Unfortunately that only made things worse. She claims her dog, Sherlock, needs company. Her dog is big goofball that shits on his own leg so, while she may have a point, I believe he is a bad influence. Regardless of my concerns, my mom has become rather stealth in figuring out when I will be out of home and then she swoops in, steals my dog and does horrible things with it. Like take her to the beach, where she is encouraged to roll around in mud and sand, She then returns her home as if I won’t know about their little liaison. I open the door to my tiny condo only to be slapped in the face with the stench of wet dog and dirt. Stella, curled up on my once clean sofa, looks pleased a punch while I call my mom and ream her out.

If she does not get Stella thoroughly ensconced in sand and mud then she usually doesn’t bring her back home. Instead she either takes her shopping and buys her pink sweaters (how many pink sweaters does a dog need?) or brings her to her house, where she loads my dog up with treats that smell like week old bacon and forces her to watch horror movies because my mom does not like to watch them by herself. Apparently her dog is too big and full of energy to sit on her lap and be hand fed popcorn for an hour and a half. The record length of time my mom has kept my dog is four days.

Stealing my dog is not the only odd habit that mother has developed, although this next one is not exactly something to be discouraged. She has started to buy me jewellery. In the last two weeks my mother has dropped off five necklaces, four pairs of earrings, two bracelets, one silk scarf and one fantabulous ring. I cannot tell you how much jewellery she has gifted me over the past six months but I can say that my jewellery collection no longer fits in my four foot tall jewellery cabinet. Perhaps she is feeling guilt over stealing my dog? I don’t know but my boyfriend is unhappy. Jewellery was always his go to gift but now he has to fall back on purses. And the poor guy hates how many purses I already own. In fact, two years ago he built a unit around our bed with with special shelves for my purses and shoes. I thought he was being sweet but apparently he just did it so I would have a cap on how many shoes and purses I could own. Out of shelf space? No more purse and shoes purchases. I know, I know. A jerky move, right? Except now he has had to break his own rule, thanks to my mom’s awesome gifts.

But back to my mom. She has started buying scratch tickets. Only, she hates scratching them. So whenever the boyfriend and I visit, she asks us to scratch a whole pile of tickets. I don’t know if it is the fact that she doesn’t scratch them or just the sheer amount of tickets she purchases that upsets my brother so immensely. Either way, the bf and I scratch a billion tickets for her while my brother rolls his eyes to the point I’m sure he gives himself a headache.

Finally, my mother is reading cookbooks. I mean, really reading them. She hates cooking so, like I did as a child, my brother has picked up the gauntlet. I never cared for following recipes but my brother is a much more surgical than I am in everything he does so I am sure he appreciates the fact that our mom purchased three more cookbooks this week. She reads them cover to cover as if they’re fiction novels (maybe to her they are?) and then puts them on the pile of “read” books. Once they’ve made it onto the pile, my brother picks and chooses the ones he wants to keep and the rest go to the used book store where she has a bazillion dollar credit because she doesn’t buy used books.

Oh wait. One last thing. She has, and this one I’m particularly proud of, started swearing at people. My mother has always been a bit introverted and, as a result, avoided confrontation. I’ve never had that problem so usually it is me who stands up to people for her. I’ve fought with a landlord on her behalf, even going so far as to take him to court (I won!), I deserted my masters program and scholarships to fly home and do battle with her ex-husband through a particularly messy divorce, and I’ve waged war against people who have mistreated her over the years. Imagine my surprise and delight when she rolled down her window the other day to scream obscenities at a man who cut her off not once but twice in traffic then gave her the finger while hurling his own obscenities at her. It’s a small thing but it is also a great start!

I am sure there are more odd habits but I don’t have time to think of them at the moment. I have to make room for my new jewellery before the boyfriend gets home.

Okay, this photo does not do this ring justice but that is actually a gorgeous canary yellow Swarovski crystal. Cool, huh?

For those of you who aren’t aware, I attended a funeral this weekend. Sort of. It wasn’t actually a funeral despite the fact that someone did die. It was a member of my boyfriend’s family so he donned his best suit (shit, he looks hawt in a suit. He should really get an office job.) I wore a black dress, expensive jewellery, a silk scarf that faded from a coffee cream colour to a muted pink to chocolate brown, and a pair of leopard print stilettos with solid black heels. It was appropriate attire for a wedding, or so we both thought. Other people, however, thought jean shorts, a golf shirt and New Balance running shoes were more appropriate. Turns out, they were more correct than we were.

After standing around in a mausoleum for an hour with no clue as to where to go, we were directed to the third floor of the building. Once there, we crowded into a small hallway, where we watched two man wearing burgundy sweatshirts step onto a scissor lift, place an urn on a shelf and then cover it with a marble slab that had all the pertinent particulars of the deceased glued on it.  With that task dispensed, the son of the deceased thanked us for coming and suggested we go to his aunt’s house for refreshments. Despite the fact that he only spoke two sentences, his eyes were watery, which made me well up. A couple of tears slipped down my cheek and I blinked them away while glancing around the room. I noticed I was the only sap who teared up, despite the fact that I was also the only one in the room who had not actually met the deceased. How embarrassing. I quickly decided to blame my emotional state on my feet. Standing for a solid hour and a half in stilettos can make anyone let loose a few tears.

We arrived first to the reception. Quite literally, we were first. No one was home. So we left and went shopping. I bought two of the cutest ankle length sundresses, one in teal blue and one in hot pink. I also picked up a pair of Pumas. My bf found a new leather belt with dark metal buckle that went better with his suit than the silver buckle he was already wearing. He switched it out and we went back to the reception. We were the last to arrive. His mom did not approve.

I overheard his mom asking where we went. He told her he had to find a restroom. He is a smartypants, that one. Later she asked me the same question.

“Oh, to find a washroom,” I answered, not making eye contact (I’m a terrible liar).

“I see. Too bad the door was locked or you could have used this one.”

“Yes, well…”

“That’s a nice belt my son is wearing. It looks different than it did at the funeral.”

“Does it? I didn’t notice…” How the hell did she see that? Wasn’t his jacket buttoned at the mausoleum?

“Would you like to see my mom’s new T.V in the basement? We’ve done some work; the basement looks a lot different.

“Yes, I would like nothing more…” than to change the focus of this conversation.

I flagged down the bf and we went downstairs with his mom, dad and nana.

Once we were comfortably seated, the bf’s dad turned on the 50″ LED. An interracial couple in the midst of hard core sex popped onto the screen. And when I say hard core I mean, that blonde was riding the biggest, blackest cock I had ever seen, as if she was poisoned and only had twelve seconds to pump the antidote out of him.

“Are those monkeys?” asked the bf’s nana. “Is this the nature channel?”

“That doesn’t look  quite natural,” I said.

I glanced at my bf. His head was cocked to the side, in an effort to view the scene from an angle that made more sense. I looked to the left to see the bf’s mom laughing so hard that no sounds were coming out. Moving on to the BF’s dad, he was scrambling around on his hands and knees to find the remote he had dropped when the couple first appeared on screen. He found it, finally, and after pressing buttons wildly, managed to switch off the T.V..

“You certainly get a lot of channels,” he stammered.

“Is hard alcohol being served at this party?” I asked. Truthfully, I had wondered this for a while but now seemed like the opportune time to ask.

The BF’s mom shook her head, still silently laughing. Tears streamed down her face. “Two monkeys,” she finally gasped. “I thought one of them was going to split in two!”

“I’ll see if I can find you some gin, D.C.,” the bf’s nana offered helpfully. “Such a sweet girl. So choked up over my sister’s death.”

“Choked up!” the bf’s mother cried, holding her sides.”She wouldn’t be the only one!”

We did not find any gin. We also did not find the channel again, despite the fact that the bf’s uncles spent the better part of an hour looking.

“Why do the gay men so badly want to see straight people have sex?” The bf’s mom leaned in to ask me quite seriously. 

Because you mentioned the man’s penis was the size of a child’s arm?

Instead of saying what I was thinking, I answered, “Um. People do strange strings at funerals.”

~~~

So that was my weekend. How was yours?