Apr 26 2003

Mothers

Published by at 1:38 pm under Uncategorized

My mother told me that she wasn’t well enough to have me visit today. I found this mystifying at first, since I thought the whole reason she was having me come up was because she wasn’t well and couldn’t vacuum, etc. On closer questioning, it turns out that she has some kind of intestinal bug which she doesn’t want to share with me, an idea I applaud whole-heartedly. And let’s face it: if Suzy Homemaker is such a laughable concept – and it is, it is – Suzy Nursemaid is beyond the realm of the absurd. I mean, can you picture that?!

Now stop laughing.

Released from Mom duty, I spent several hours working instead. I don’t seem to have the missionary zeal required to joyfully and efficiently convert the heathen. I find it a time-consuming and tedious task, made all the worse by the need to actually pay attention to every little detail. I finally informed my bosses that not all the reports can be converted this quarter, but I have committed to having them all done by the end of next quarter.

Communication has been restored with my stepmother. I normally faxed her letters twice a week, but since her house burned last month, we have been reduced to snail mail. I had forgotten how very slow the appropriately-named snail mail is. It takes a week for my letter to get to her, then she has to find time to answer it, and then mail it back. Our letters often cross each other, and really, the entire proceedings are quite unacceptable. However, she now has a fax installed in the house she is renting while her new house is being built, so now my only challenge is finding time to write her while so swamped with work.

She says the remains of the house are covered in scaffolding, and that the scaffolding was put up wrong and had to be re-done. I think she’s beginning to suspect that the estimate of six months to re-build a 5 bedroom, 3 bath house is a little on the optimistic side. Fortunately, her rental house is close by the old house, so she can supervise the construction workers and make sure they aren’t just drinking tea all day long.

She herself is keeping her spirits up, in spite of losing $75,000 worth of things while insured for only $25,000; the house she lived in with both of her husbands and where her children grew up; all her clothes and jewelry; love letters and photographs; the souvenirs and other things one collects in a lifetime. I should take a leaf from her book.

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