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A month of breakfasts with Mom

Usually it's just me and Mom and my sister Katrina, at our Saturday morning breakfasts. Sometimes Katrina brings her friend Adelle. 

Other than the presence of Adelle, all the breakfasts are basically the same, so it's been a while since I've written about the breakfasts. I don't want to be as repetitive as my mom is.

She always orders poached eggs on toast, asks too many too personal questions, and brings up several uncomfortable topics. She never fails to remind me that I vanished for X years — "I didn't know if you were alive or dead!"

Less annoying but still annoying, she always passes around a few photos, usually the same photos she shared the previous Saturday, and she recites cute things I said or did when I was five, which was the last time I was cute.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Usually I'm on time, everywhere I go. I'm a stickler about it. Keeping other people waiting is rude, so when I say breakfast is at 9:15 on Saturdays, I'm always there by about five after nine. 

A couple of times my sister and mom have been on time, but we've been doing breakfast on Saturdays for almost a year, and almost always they're 10-20 minutes late. Mom and sis live together, and I know the lateness is my mom's fault. She's a dawdler and always has been — never on time for anything but church, because she doesn't want to miss a moment of the service. Being on time for me, though? Nah.

But what do I care? I bring a copy of the AVA and read it at the table until they arrive, enjoying the quiet more than some of the noise when Mom gets there. 

♦ ♦ ♦  

The diner is cash only, and a few Saturdays ago I had only enough cash for a light breakfast, but I wanted to overeat. My bank opens at 9AM on Saturdays, so I decided to bus to the bank first, get some cash, and then bus to the restaurant.

The side trip would get me there about ten minutes late if I had good bus luck, or 20 minutes late if my luck wasn't so good. This would mesh nicely with Mom's reliable lateness, I figured. We'd probably all arrive at about the same time.

Or just this once, maybe they'd get there ahead of me and have to wait. Ha!

But I hate being late to anything, so I gave all of this an inordinate amount of thought and planning, and felt kinda bad about it. I stopped at the bank, and just barely missed the next bus. It was 9:35 when I got to the restaurant.

And just like every Saturday, I looked around for anyone from the family, found nobody, so I picked a big table alone, and told the waitress, "Sorry, but there'll be three or four of us when everyone gets here." It was another ten minutes.

♦ ♦ ♦   

Mom's been asking questions, in person and via text, about my job at the Post Office, the same questions in every text and every Saturday. Her baseline curiosity is about what time the work starts each day, and what time I'm off. Me being a real shit, I don't want to give her even that, so I always say that they don't give us a schedule, they just tell us each day what time we're supposed to be there for our next shift.

Which is what USPS actually did, and was the main reason I quit after three days, a month ago.

But in the story as told to my mom, I haven't quit yet. It'll be this week, probably. After that, I'm not sure what I'll tell her. Anything but the truth.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Whatever I do tell my mom about my life, it's treated like a press release, and she's the press. She's not good with technology, so once or twice a month she sends me a text message meant for someone else, and often it's about me, summarizing what little I've told her.

Like, a few days ago she texted me, "Doug isn't much liking his Post Office job. He says he still hasn't met his boss, or been given a work schedule, and he says the training isn't much more than 'Here, work at this machine tonight.'"

Then a few minutes later, Mom texted me, "Oops, sorry, that text was supposed to go to Myrna."

Who's Myrna? I don't know, and didn't ask.

♦ ♦ ♦

I sidestep most of Mom's questions about my job, which isn't my job, and she's noticed the sidestepping. Heck, maybe she knows I'm lying about working at the Post Office.

"Why are you so secretive?" she finally asked me at the table a few Saturdays ago.

"I don't like talking about me," I said, which is true. I love writing about me — hello, there — but hate talking to almost anyone about almost anything, including me.

"It's like pulling teeth to get a straight answer from you about this job," she said, and I laughed.

"Well, Mom, do you remember all the times you used to call me at work, despite me saying over and over again, please don't do that? And all the times you surprised me by showing up to see me at work, despite me saying I wish you'd stop?"

"I remember it," she said, "but I haven't done that in thirty years!"

"Because you haven't known where I work, for thirty years," I said, and Mom laughed, and I laughed, and Katrina laughed. Ha ha.

♦ ♦ ♦   

Should I forgive and forget? What are you, nuts? I remember the slings and arrows, because they're always in flight.

Like, a couple of months ago I ordered a cheeseburger at breakfast, and before I knew it Mom swiped several of my fries. Since that morning, I've ordered the cheeseburger and fries a few more times, but always with an announcement: "These fries are not for sampling."

♦ ♦ ♦  

I complain about my mom, but one week at breakfast, me and Katrina got her talking about something other than things that hurt — her childhood on a farm in eastern Washington.

She told us she'd had a pet goat when she was a child, and told us all about the goat — its name, and that once it had tried following her to school. At the table in the diner, she sang a song she'd sung to the goat 90 years ago.

The goat story and song were terrific, genuinely charming. And I told Mom, "I wish you'd talk more about stuff like that, and less about what a disappointment I am."

You're thinking we should steer the conversation that way every week at breakfast? We try, Katrina and me. It's precarious, though, like tap-dancing across mine fields. Mom is always looking to change the subject back to something annoying.

But jeez... All these years, and I'd never known that Mom had a pet goat. She'd never mentioned it, but she never stops mentioning things I don't want to hear about.

♦ ♦ ♦

When I moved back to Seattle and started these breakfasts, I was expecting weekly battles over my godlessness, but in the past year Mom's only invited me to church a few times — until the last week couple of weeks, that is.

Easter is important to her, so she started sending wall-of-text messages asking me to her church for Easter services. I replied politely 'no' and 'no' again and 'no' a third time, then added, "It becomes less and less likely every time you ask."

That's mathematically impossible, though. I'm never doing another church service, so there's zero chance of a 'yes'.

Mom gave it her best shot in my gut, though, using "I'm old and this might be my last Easter," and "You ought to want to make your mother happy," and then the ultimate, and I knew it was coming: "After all you put me through, disappearing for 15 years, coming to church on Easter is the very least you could do."

But it's not, actually. The very least I could do was continue answering her texts, and I didn't.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

When she showed up at the diner this last Saturday, late of course, the very first thing she said was that I should come to Easter services with her the next day. Having said no several times already, I ignored her, and talked to Katrina. 

I'm typing this on Easter morning instead of being in church with Mom, which is marvelous, and I'm hoping when Easter's passed that breakfast with Mom on Saturdays will be a bit more bearable again.

Back to the stuff I said when I was five, please, and the jabs about being gone all those years… "and do you ever hear from April? She was such a nice girl."

"No, mom. April dumped me forty years ago, and we don't keep in touch."

4/11/2023   

20 comments:

  1. "After that, I'm not sure what I'll tell her."

    Mom, I've been drafted. I'll be in The Ukraine for the next 18 months.

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    1. The cool thing about "no visitors allowed" at my home plus never answering the phone is, the choice of contact with Mom )or anyone else) is entirely when where and how I choose. And yeah, I might choose Ukraine.

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  2. Doug, I'm sure it has occurred to you that, as constrained as you feel about your available choice of jobs in the real world, your choice of fantasy jobs is limited only by the magical combination of your imagination and your Mom's gullibility. Of course, you're also writing the exit script from the USPS. Could you accidentally route some abortion pills to the Governor of Texas? Of course you could.

    As for new jobs, the economy is down, but the Coast Guard is recruiting now. Are you feeling buoyant? How about soft-core movie script writing? I don't mean for the Coast Guard -- that one would be more of a come-as-you-are job. Your imagination is probably broader than mine. I'm just noting the opportunity for fictional pleasures.

    John

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    1. I don't think the military takes recruits my age, and I couldn't take the military. I have plenty of soft or even hardcore in me, though. Maybe that's a workable notion. It would be a challenge to write a porno without any cliches about my stepsister getting stuck in the dryer.

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    2. I grew up knowing almost nobody who was in a combined family -- who had a step sibling -- then, too soon, the baby boom lead to the divorce/remarriage/combined family boom.

      But, when I first came of coming age, a step sister was an oddity. Now they all seem to get stuck in low-slung appliances sooner or later. They never got stuck during the miniskirt boom.

      jtb

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    3. Your relationship with your mom seems pretty fucked up, though you DO make an effort by arranging the breakfasts, and she DOES seem like a wacky broad. My mother was pretty cool but i refused to ever call her on Mother's Day, not wanting to participate in a "hallmark holiday." In retrospect militantly staying true to my values MAY have been a crock of shit, and at least toward the end of her life i DID finally call once or twice on M-Day...Also she liked to go to church and we would sing along with everyone else and for YEARS i would just not say the words Jesus or God when they came up, until finally I realized oh who da fuk cares, and belted out Jesus Loves Me Fo Sho, or whatever it was...Eel Paradise

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    4. JOHN — Divorce didn't seem to happen when I was a kid. All the way through high school, I only heard of maybe three kids whose parents were divorced. Then again, being mega-introverted me, I only knew a dozen kids at school, maybe another dozen at church.

      In my head, I'm counting the divorces among my siblings since we all grew up — seven wives for my three brothers, four husbands for my two sisters. All unfathomable, when we were kids. Must be rough on the major appliances with all the step-brothers and -sisters.

      Lots of people think the grand increase in divorce is a stain on society, but people were shit then just like they're shit now. Everyone simply settled for unhappy lives in unloving marriages. It's *good* that there's less patience for that now.

      EEL MAN — Yeah, me and Mom are a mess, but I'm sure she'd say it's because of my lack og God and insistence on privacy. If I'd only become a Christian and tell her every detail of my life, we'd have a fabulous relationship.

      By the by, I thought you were gonna write me a story? You're still invited.

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    5. Dougles, I once had a neighbor who worked as a food scientist at Nalley's Fine Foods in what is still called Nalley Valley. He moved away in 2011 when Nalley's moved away after a brief 90 year stay in the Valley. But he told me about his job when if I begged enough.

      Of course, he was always trying to extend shelf life without compromising taste, and trying to find less expensive ways to package, jar, and can pickles and everything else Nalley's made.

      I'm afraid you don't have the right degree to do that job, but surely he had help from non-degreed smart people to test various combinations of jars and preservatives -- in effect, a pickle taster (but of course there is relish and cabbage and many fine foods as well as many kinds of pickles.

      I was thinking of a similar fictional job (for Mom): appliance tester -- testing shortish appliances to make sure women can't get stuck in them and undergo the pleasure of appliance sex. I'm sure you could explain it better than that. Mom might be too embarrassed to ask you how the sport fuckin' went this week.

      I'm just trying to help, brother. I'll keep working on the problem of getting you a fictional job here at my Tacoma un-think tank.

      John

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    6. Well, that's a wild thought that has never entered my mind, even subconsciously, all Freud to the contrary.

      Mom had a part-time job when she was in high school, and for a few years in the 1970s she did daycare work. Other than that she's been a housewife and nothing else her entire life. Hard for me to imagine such a life. Nothing to do except talk to friends on the phone and make sandwiches for the kids and cook dinner for the nine of us. There was never much housework; I inherited my slobbish ways from Mom.

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    7. Whoops, clumsy editing. I also wanted to say that I'm an experience pickle taster, and Nally's was my preferred brand until iyt got bumped into second place by Milwaukee's Best. Nally's still tastes better, but Milwaukee's Best is cheaper and almost as yummy.

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  3. Throughout human history, and probably pre-history, every holiday has been either a seasonal holiday or a religious holiday. The earliest holidays likely celebrated animal migration patterns; when the hunting and gathering economy evolved into the agricultural economy, holidays likely marked seasonal changes and revolved around crop life cycles. Once religion got into the act, "holidays" became "feast days" and common people likely celebrated by eating slightly less repulsive food than was their usual lot.

    Throughout history, I have a hard time separating "real" holidays from "fake" holidays. We are in the process of moving back into a global feudal system, in which people are separated into a small wealthy class and a huge working/surviving class, and, like the first time around, the wealthy distract the rest of us with feast days so we can, occasionally, get a decent meal and a day off work.

    So it seems to me that individuals, to the extent we still exercise some choices here and there, maybe should celebrate days that are meaningful to them and their families.

    When my parents were alive I celebrated Christmas, not as a religious holiday but as a "feast day" to visit my family and enjoy a meal with them. Now it's just another day with none of the symbols of religious oppression -- nor crescent, cross, phallus or sun decorating what is left of my dwelling.

    A couple of lifelong friends send me a card on my birthday and I enjoy hearing from them. I don't have any problem with anybody else celebrating whatever days they think are special. I don't necessarily see the direct connection between hanging plastic eggs in trees and the crucifixion of jesus of Nazareth, but I say live and be well. Celebrate what you will.

    So trying to discern which holidays are fake and which are real is a losing game. They're all fake and all real. Any excuse for a party is fine with me as long as you don't insist that I join in the celebration. If you're looking for me to confer upon my head a festive hat, I'll be right here, perusing the Encyclopedia Galactica and sipping water that, as far as I know, isn't holy.

    John

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    1. That, sir, is wisdom to be savored and spread.

      Personally, I celebrate my wife's birthday, but not my own, and nothing else that I can think of. Feasting is delightful, one of my problems actually, but I feast when I'm feeling like a feast.

      All the holidays other people celebrate seem like partial or full-frontal bullshit to me, so I decline. Maybe I'll regret skipping
      Easter with Mom when Mom's dead, but I don't regret it today. Same with Xmas and Father's Day, Arbor Day, Groundhog Day, Veterans' Day, Memorial Day, Cucumber Day, etc.

      I will cheerfully celebrate any holiday where people send me cash, so long as no strings are attached. Or cash with strings attached, long as it's over $1,000 and not too many strings.

      Encyclopedia Galactica is an Asimov/Foundation concept, right? Guess it's come true, but it's called Wikipedia.

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    2. That's a nice pickup, my brother, for a guy who hasn't read the Foundation trilogy. I've referred to Wikipedia and other reliable non-profit information sources on the Web as the Encyclopedia Galactica since the 90s. It's a way to be accurate while honoring Asimov for some very nice science fiction work.


      John

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    3. I've read the first hundred or so pages of the first Foundation novel, several times. Harry Seldon is in there. I understand it's soon to be a TV show, or maybe it is by now — have you seen it, have any interest?

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    4. It sounded like a good idea to make a movie out of Catch-22. It wasn't. So put be down as skeptical.

      jtb

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    5. I checked it out a little. It's on Apple+, a station that my antenna doesn't seem to pick up. Just starting season two. If they do a season a year of the trilogy, they should have it wrapped up in just under a thousand years. Thankfully, I still get reruns of The Rockford Files.

      John

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    6. I won't have much interest in a FOUNDATION show unless I hear great things about it, and I haven't.

      Was THE ROCKFORD FILES as good as I remember? Watched a COLUMBO a while back, and it was as good as I'd remembered...

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    7. Doug, you know more about this stuff than I do, but I think you picked two stone winners. My own little trick is to, over time, look at the 4th, 5th and 6th leads in TV shows. If they care enough to pick really good actors for those roles, they probably care enough to make the entire show a quality production. Rockford, especially, had great bit players. The newsman on the corner was just as carefully selected and directed as the leads. Both shows had quality, colorful actors in the small roles. And, of course, Jim Garner and Peter Falk knew how to carry a show. They were both terrific, quirky leading men.

      John

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  4. That's a good benchmark, and true to the show. Even being a young buck watching too much TV and not much caring what I watched, it was obvious to me that ROCKFORD makers gave a damn all the way through. No coasting.

    Yeah, I should give his show a more serious look.

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    1. Not as easy to find as I'd hoped, but it's downloading now. :)

      Delete

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