It's not that I'm selfish, Bob

I was starting to feel really guilty about this blog (again), as my mother worked really hard to alter a suit that I'd bought online (I'm done with buying clothes online). Then, this afternoon, she did something that dissolved (most of) my guilt, and so continues the blog.

She had asked me, when I'd first arrived in Boston over a week ago, to bring back some snow boots and give them to a friend of hers in the area to take to Russia with him. Same friend from whom she'd bought the herbal remedy (see October or November blog). I agreed, and she put the boots where she thought I wouldn't forget them. I forgot them.

I'm not proud of having forgotten them, but I don't think it's the end of the world. If, however, you were a non-Russian-speaking fly in the backseat of the car on the way to the airport, you would have thought from mom's reaction that I'd, say, burned down the house. She also turned the situation into an opportunity to lecture me about how selfish I am. Besides, we were close enough to the house when she remembered that if it were really an issue, she could have easily turned around to get the boots, and I suggested as much. The conversation unfolded like this.

Mom: Unbelievable! World traveler and you didn't even bring a wheeled suitcase or other wheeled bag...
A.: I don't like wheeled bags-- whatever they put in them to make the wheels work usually adds to much weight to make it worth it.
Mom: You knew you'd take a lot of stuff back. Oh, did you remember the boots?
A.: Oh, no! I forgot!
Mom: YOU FORGOT? How could you DO such a thing?
A.: I FORGOT.
Mom: I told you about them!
A.: You told me over a week ago. I did have other things going on throughout the week.
Mom: I even put them right by your duffle.
A.: Well I must have moved them. I forgot that I was supposed to take them. We haven't gone far, if you want to turn around.

[Let me point out again that my mother's house is not light on clutter, nor is the room in which I sleep when I visit. The presence of an object in that room is not necessarily a reminder that I need to take that object with me].

Mom: This is typical. You are so selfish. Of course you forgot, because this is something I needed. If it were something you needed, you would have remembered.
A.: This is really helpful. By screaming, accusing and tying this into a personality fault, you're solving the entire situation and making it better.
Mom: I can't believe you did this!
A.: I forgot, okay? You still have time to send them- it won't cost much.
Mom: Oh, but the time, to put it in a box, take it to the post office...
A.: That's actually much less than the time it would take me to drive them over to Sascha's.
Mom: Well it's time I don't have! Whenever you need something done, you remember it! I didn't even think to remind you to take them, it was so obvious.

[There's a post office within fifteen minutes' walking from her house. I was about to say something about the whole selfish thing, but then I realized she had a point-- selfish or not, the things I need for me are at the forefront of my mind, and things like those boots are just not. It's not that I wouldn't have delivered them-- I genuinely did forget. Clothes and shoes to people in Russia are a noble cause, whether or not I think the same of the endless complaint letters she requests, which I write anyway. I just FORGOT.]

Back and forth on this theme: how could I forget, I only remember to do the things that I need, I'm selfish, and I always save everything for the last minute (the logic there being, had I packed last night, I would have remembered the boots. I didn't pack this morning out of procrastination; rather, I opted to wait until I'd used and put on to wear everything that I'd need for the day). Eventually she got sick of the conversation herself, and we continued to the airport in silence.

Dad answered when I called to say I arrived home safely, and said, "did mom tell you you forgot the boots?" I felt like I was in Office Space (yes I understand the concept of TPS reports, I just forgot; no I don't need three more people to remind e). Later I called him back and asked him to pack up the boots because of mom's apparent reluctance to do so. He said it's not that it's hard for her, it's that she doesn't want to do it, but she'll get over it. I said well she screamed about it; he said she'd have screamed anyway, she screams over the slightest thing, and come visit more often to deflect it because otherwise it all comes my way.

***
Last night, she was up late working on the suit and I was up late so I could keep trying it on, so I took to flipping channels to keep myself busy. Watching TV with my parents is always fun. I caught the end of Ocean's Eleven, and my mother started asking questions.

"What's happening?"
"Who's that?"

I summarized the plot as best I could and asked her to stop asking about every action of every character.

"Why is he doing that?"
"Where's she going? Why does she look angry?"

It was my dad who said, "WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP?!"

***
Over the weekend my dad's second cousin, N., called from New York. My parents told her I'd recently returned from Australia and New Zealand; N said, "oh she's so independent, I remember when she came to New York and I was afraid to let her walk around on her own and I was afraid she'd get lost but she's the one who ended up showing me around."

I thought I was on crazy pills when I heard my mom say, "Yes! It's because we really raised her to be herself and didn't pressure her about anything that she turned out this way."

I wonder if that was as much passive aggression as delusion- my mom thinks N. pressured one of her sons too much, making him insecure. He has cerebral palsy (neck pinched with forceps at birth) and his parents do pressure him, and my mom's theory is that this leads him to trust anyone who treats him well, and people have taken advantage of this (identity theft, etc.). She's probably right.

His brother, on the other hand, gets away with murder. One or two memories stand out from that time I was there not two years ago, but many, many years ago between semesters of my first year in college. We were ordering out and they put me on the phone, since only my English was foreign-accentless. N. thought she knew what younger son (a year or two younger than me) wanted but wasn't sure so she asked him. He yelled at her for disturbing his 90210-watching. She suggested, even though everyone else was hungry, that we wait for it to finish. I was having none of it (and not because I was hungry). Eventually the food came, and he had a fit because he got ginger chicken rather than sesame chicken. His mother was about to fall at his feet to apologize; I told him he should have turned away from the tv and answered her question. The next day N. and I walked all over the city. She had prepared a meal for him and set it in the fridge for him to heat up when he was ready for it. She called him from a payphone to remind him, and he said, "no! I will not eat until you come home and heat up that meal for me!" She was about to return home. If I have made any positive contribution to my extended family, I told her to let it go and let him go hungry if he was too lazy to heat up his own food. She agreed and saw upon returning home that he survived.