Tagged: conversations with my mother
Conversations with my Mother, Part #5: “You’ll have to get a thing”
On the ‘phone to Mum, I told her I was getting a plumber round to give me a quote for installing a shower. I thought she’d be pleased. She suddenly sounded very serious.
Mum: You do know, don’t you, that you’ll have to get a…a thing.
Me: A thing?
Mum: You know…! A shower curtain. Or a door.
Me: Mum! I have had showers before! I’m not an idiot!
Mum: Do I know what you know?!
Do not attempt without a shower curtain. Or door.
Coversations with my mother, Part #4: The Wrong Trousers
![Lee-Blue-Slim-Fit28Butch29-Jeans-0665-226632-1-product2[1]](https://chezgoldberg.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/lee-blue-slim-fit28butch29-jeans-0665-226632-1-product21.jpg)
We spoke on the ‘phone yesterday. Mum was thanking me for her birthday treat (see Part #3 for our planning session). I took her to see ‘Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense’ starring Mark Heap and Robert Webb and I cannot recommend it enough. It really was the most perfect nonsense – an absolute delight of brilliant comic timing and enchanting silliness.
Feeling super-femme on the day*, I decided to mince about in a Lady Outfit (yellow cardigan, navy pencil wiggle skirt with gold zip, bronze t-bar heels, red lips and a small floral bag swinging from the crook of my elbow). Mum, uncharacteristically, wore jeans. I wondered if they were new as I hadn’t seen them before.
And then yesterday, she revealed all…
Mum: Shall I tell you something that will make you laugh?
Me: Go on.
Mum: You’ll like this. You know I said the jeans I was wearing on Saturday felt a bit tight?
Me: You didn’t, but okay.
Mum: Didn’t I? Well when I got home I realised…they were your father’s!
Me: Ha! And you give me funny looks for wearing men’s clothes.
Mum: (Seriously) That’s different. I didn’t do it on purpose.
*Sometimes I feel feminine, sometimes I feel masculine. I dress and move accordingly. Today I’m wearing very sensible shoes. More on this later…
Conversations with my Mother, Part #3: “Nothing weird”
I am taking my mother to the theatre for a birthday treat. “What do you want to see?”, I say.
“Nothing weird”, she says.
“What do you call ‘weird’?”
“I don’t know”.
“Ok, leave it with me”.
An example of what my mother thinks I will make her sit through if I do not heed her detailed caveat
Barista Crush #7: Over to you
Perhaps I am impatient. Perhaps I am a fool. (Perhaps I just want more to blog about). But I want something to HAPPEN.
She is there again this morning. Looking annoyed until she sees me and her face opens into that huge smile, like she’s genuinely pleased that I’m there. And even though she hasn’t made me a coffee in quite a while, she remembers just how I like it, doesn’t even have to check.
“Hey!” she says
“Hey, how are you?”
“Still alive!”
There is a queue and she’s handling several orders, she doesn’t have time to chat. When she goes back to steaming the milk, her smile leaves her. And I think, hmmm, what now? Should I do something? Should I take this forward? What happens now?
But, but, here’s the thing(s):
- She might be resolutely straight. I had a conversation with my mother recently: “I don’t know how you can tell”, she said, I never know when a woman is gay”. “Welcome to my world!” I said. “I never know either. It’s a bloody nightmare!”.
- We might have bugger all in common.
- Am I just being a total idiot about this and I should just leave it alone and stop poking it with a stick just because people like reading about it and her smile makes me smile and I get a bit excited every time I go to get a coffee and my heart sinks a little whenever she’s not there?
- How on earth, if I was to actually, er, I dunno…ask her out or something, would I do that? HOW?
- Again, am I being a total idiot etc…?
So. I need your help, Dear Reader. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Over to you.
Conversations with my mother, Part 1. In which Mum is concerned there won’t be enough food at my Chanukah party*
Mum: Do you want me to bring anything to your Chanukah party?
Me: Do you know how to make potato latkes?
Mum: Ugh! Never again! Not after the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.
Me: What’s it got to do with the Queen’s Silver Jubilee?
Mum: Me and your father, oh, we made over two hundred of them.
Me: Why did you make latkes for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee?
Mum: We were celebrating.
*Hahahahahaha!
Chez Goldberg 