seven words and a question mark: Is this a good time to talk?

I feel a little bit funny about being annoyed at my mother for something that isn't her fault, or isn't in the most obvious terms annoying behavior. It does come down to her never asking whether it's a good time to call, which would be less annoying if a) she hadn't trained me to just answer the phone when I can, out of dread for the "where are you" message, and b) if she gave me a chance to say it wasn't a good time to talk, rather than launching into a monologue. As for the former, she left me one of those on Thursday night. I'm not sure exactly when she called, but as I returned home about 10:30pm, starting her message with, "I don't understand it! At this hour, you shouldn't be unable to take my call!" As for the latter, today's monologue was about how she found a "chicken of the woods" mushroom that was apparently great in risotto and what is risotto and how do you make it, morphing into the problems she's been having since she's switched to Verizon and why is Outlook the default when she tries to e-mail something from the internet and do I know her Google password and so on.

To her credit, she did ask me if something what was wrong with my voice and later said, "what, are you just in a bad mood today?" so she wasn't being completely obtuse, although writing this makes me realize that she sensed that I wasn't up for prolonged conversation, but continued to engage me in it.

The other thing is, it would be one thing if I could say, "no, now isn't really a great time to talk," without having to get into details but she would ask questions and I just wasn't interested in prolonging the conversation in the interest of getting out of the conversation. I did get testier as she continued asking me questions about her e-mails and passwords and I think she did eventually act on her sense that I wanted to get off the phone.

I'm not actually in a bad mood but I was toward the end of "A Mighty Heart," which is an excellent book and an emotional one. It's as inspiring as it is sad, but it's something I want to experience perhaps privately but certainly not mixed with details of internet connections and risotto recipes. More importantly I wanted to finish it.

By the way, I'm not going to see the movie. I wanted to read the book but didn't get around to it, and with the movie coming out I decided that now was the time. It is definitely worth reading.

I'm not criticizing my mother for failing to read my mind (although I could hold her to account for reading my tone but not acting on it), or for dwelling on the mundane (I'm known to revel in the mundane). I am annoyed that I don't feel free to not answer my phone when really I wanted to be in the mental realm of this enormously powerful book, and, as I mentioned, at not being given the chance to quickly return to that realm. As usual, I'm frustrated at the part of the iceberg that's underwater-- mom's underlying belief that no one's ever in the middle of anything, that I am at her beck and call. I'm frustrated that she never asks whether it's a good time to talk, to look at whatever she has on the computer, etc. And as I went back to the enormously powerful book, I reminded myself that she is that way, that I need to get over it, that it really doesn't matter.