Memo to head-up-the-ass parents

You know who you are. You think the world is your kid's playground and everyone else is your babysitter. You think fellow passengers on airplanes are subjects in your perverse excessive noise/sleep deprivation experiment. And I'm once again reminded that you think saunas are playrooms. This isn't new, but it is particularly annoying when you presume not only that others in the sauna don't mind your kid's screaming and jumping (doesn't everyone hit the sauna for that kind of non-relaxation), but that it's okay to leave the door open because your kid can't handle the temperature. I hate a cliche as much as the next blogger, but if you can't take the heat, get your kid out of the sauna.

Phone call, cont.

I called again tonight at around 7:30pm. My mom hasn't been feeling well so I've been checking in. At the end of the conversation, about half an hour later, she said, "you're going to bed now?" I told her not quite, amused that it was all or nothing-- true, I recently told her not to be surprised if I don't pick up the phone after 10pm, but how quickly that morphs into an 8pm bedtime!

In the course of the conversation she told me she strongly disagreed with a Times article I sent her (about how a theory she loves has been discredited, i.e. no, getting sick a lot doesn't make you a healthier person in the long run). In her experience, she said, she got sick a lot, and therefore gets sick less as an adult. She added that I was constantly sick as a child, always coughing. I reminded her that even now, when I get a respiratory infection, the coughs are very deep, painful and persistent. She sort of verbally shrugged.

Anyway, not a prisoner of my DNA, I wasn't going to convince her: mine is to send the data, not insist or convince. I just want something empirical out there the next time she tells me not to floss because I should let the germs do their thing.

Did I mention that my parents have really bad teeth? They blame St. Petersburg water.

Phone call

My mother asked whether I had any trips planned. I'd answered that question on Thursday. She needn't worry about my going somewhere and not telling her, because I always tell her and send my itinerary.

Then she asked whether I was done with class yet. I said, relatively calmly, "I have answered that question at least four times. I finished class before I went to Canada. I have not been in class for over a month, and I've told you that multiple times because you've asked multiple times over the last month."

Mom: Well where were you last night then?
A.: I'd already gone to bed.
Mom: So early?

If I hadn't, she would have asked my why I wasn't in bed.

Yes, I sometimes turn off my phone before I actually go to bed, because I don't want to get into protracted conversations, but very rarely before 10pm, which by any standards is pretty late for a phone call, especially for someone who gets up at 5am.

Mom: What did you think of Taming of the Shrew?
A.: It was interesting.
Mom: Interesting?
A.: Yeah, it was okay.

I mean, I feel about the works of Shakespeare the way I feel about Mt. Everest-- they're good but mostly they're "there," and it's often not in line with my beliefs but it's a major pillar of Western civilization, and I don't believe in dealing with things I disagree with by ignoring them. I attempted to convey this in Russian and it mostly went over fine.

Mom: What are you reading?
A.: A short story collection.
Mom: By whom?
A.: Amy Bloom.
Mom: Who?
A.: You haven't heard of her.
Mom: Don't you want to read Bulgakov.
A.: I have it (it being the Master and the Margarita).
Mom: I know that, but don't you want to read it?
A.: Sure.

Leave a not-snide message after the tone

In a voice mail, my mother said, "I don't understand why you're unable," i.e. why I was unable to come to the phone, as I said in my outgoing message.

My mother leaves this message quite often, as long-time blog readers will know. It's generally annoying in its own right, but even more so because she tends to leave it and variations ('where could you possibly be?') at times when it's perfectly understandable that I would be unable to come to the phone... like on a Friday or Saturday night, or anytime, really. I mean, I could be, maybe, busy... I could be doing laundry or cooking. Just leave a $%^&ing message without a snide remark about why can't I come to the phone.

Had I picked up, she would have likely said, "what are you doing up?" or if it had been a different time, "what are you doing sitting around the house?"

Last night's message fits into a second pattern, too: my mom knows I get up early, knows therefore I try to go to bed early, yet insists on calling me pretty late. This is particularly amusing when she wants a response that night (but hasn't bothered to call until 10pm on a weeknight), or when it spirals (I get up too early to call her in the morning, don't call from work, don't call while driving, have a bunch of errands to do, etc. and she whips herself into a frenzy of why I haven't called her, until I do, not quite as late as she called me the night before. She doesn't have my work number, because she is not capable of respecting "I can't talk now, this is a bad time."

I won't call her now, at 3:40 AM (too hot to sleep), but I'll let you know what happens when I call tonight.

This weekend I saw...

*A child (eight-twelve years old) ram an elderly woman with artificial knees in the frozen foods aisle of Trader Joe's. What surprised me was that his mother scolded him for it and apologized to the woman, rather than ignoring her or blaming her for being in the way.
*Dog poop on the Mt. Vernon Trail, on the nice wooden bridge over the marsh.
*A lot of vomit in the metro on Sunday morning, either from partying the previous night or the Army Ten-Miler that morning.
*A bus cut off and proceed to block a fire truck.

Unconditional love

As intermission wound down I returned to my seat and thought about what my mother had said the me the night before. It was less disturbing than thinking about the play or the Shakespeare action figure (book and quill included), among other things, for sale in the lobby. The plot wasn't a surprise to me (in fact, my mother had asked me last night how the play gelled with "my politics," and since this isn't a gender politics blog all I'll say here is, you have to see what's out there, especially when it's as deeply rooted as Shakespeare).

Anyway, this isn't the first time my mother has conveyed a message of, 'I love you but I don't think very highly of you.' I guess this--'your personality isn't the one I would have chosen for my daughter's, but I love you anyway'-- is what she meant by "unconditional love," which she used as a buzzword since I was a child, since before it had any meaning for me. And she would always say it in English, which should set off alarm bells (other words she likes to say in English: "outrageous," "intimidating," etc.).

Anyway, I remember my mother's amazement during my first year of high school that I decided to go to a conference even after the friends I'd planned on going with had canceled. It was a no-brainer; I was interested. Apparently, my mother had gotten the idea that I was very much a follower, without an independent to my name. She would later go on to her friends about how shocked she was that I decided to go through with it and what a departure this was from my past behavior. Which brings back another childhood memory, this one from back in elementary school. I wanted to go somewhere with my friends... I don't remember the exact situation, but it was something like her asking why I wanted to go to a certain movie and my saying, 'because my friends are going.' The next thing I new, she had launched into an angry lecture about how I was too susceptible to peer pressure and she was really worried about me-- would I be able to say no to drugs, being this susceptible to the influence of my peers?

And now I smile thinking about it in this context, because that is so mom: taking something minor and very normal (imagine, a small child or teenager being influenced in how she spends her free time by her friends) and turning it into a major and somewhat negative diagnosis of my personality. I'm not even going to get into how it's a wonder with the hen-pecking that I do have an independent thought. The curtain came up and I let it go until it came time to blog.

Matter-of-fact name-calling down to an art

Mom: Igor and Elena [close friends of my parents that I saw a while back] were telling us what a wonderful impression you made on them. Igor said you were very genuine, that there was no artifice about you. I said you were intimidating. He said not at all.

A.: I'm intimidating? Whom do I intimidate?

Mom: Us, for a start.

Dad: Apparently you intimidate your mother.

Mom: And you, too (to my father).

Dad: No, she doesn't.

Mom: I think she does. Anyway, what have you been up to?

A.: Not much...

Mom: Nor us, we haven't been doing much of anything. It's been a bit boring.

Dad: Because we haven't been out to see any movies.

Mom: No, that's not why.

Dad: It's part of why.

Mom: No, it's not.

Dad: Have you been out to see anything?

A.: No, not recently...

Mom: No theatre?

A.: I'm going to see Taming of the Shrew tomorrow night...

Mom, Dad: What of the what?

A.: Taming of the Shrew... it's Shakespeare... "taming" means making an animal less wild...

Mom, Dad: Oh! [Taming of the Shrew! in Russian]

Mom: How do you spell "Shrew"?

A.: S-h-r-e-w.

Mom: Is that like, smart, discerning?

A.: No, that's "shrewd."

Mom: Oh. [Russian word for shrew]... that's like, someone who's... it's like, you.

A.: What??

Mom: Yeah, it's like someone who always has to be right, and also, this other thing you do... someone who thinks the world revolves around them...

Dad: Who's putting it on?

A.: The Shakespeare Theatre.

Mom: By the way, you're arriving on a Sunday?

A.: On a Thursday.

Mom: Right.

Our beet-salad heritage (apologies to Shteyngart)

Gary Shteyngart's "Sixty-Nine Cents," in the The New Yorker's food issue (September 3 & 10, 2007), is the second thing I've ever read in my life that truly reminded me of my childhood, made me feel it in my bones. The first was "Natasha and Other Stories" by David Bezmozgis, and I highly, highly recommend it.

Shteyngart writes about a family trip to Florida during which, among other things, he really wanted to eat at McDonald's, but his parents, being Russian, packed their own food everywhere. Which is sometimes and in some ways a good thing, but we take it to excess. He wrote,

I considered the possibility of redeeming my own dignity, of leaving behind our beet-salad heritage. My parents didn’t spend money, because they lived with the idea that disaster was close at hand, that a liver-function test would come back marked with a doctor’s urgent scrawl, that they would be fired from their jobs because their English did not suffice.

It's sometimes hard to separate what's Russian-Jewish from what's Russian or what's Jewish, and very often hard to separate what's any or all of the above from immigrant. Almost every ethnicity identified with "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," and so did I even though I thought the movie sucked. Several months back a Chinese friend confided that she grew up believing her family was constantly on the brink of poverty because of the way her mother talked about, dealt with money, and my mother was the same way. Although in my mother's case, it's hard to separate what was concern about money from jumping on any opportunity to make me feel guilty. There's an earlier post about the hiking book incident in Arizona; there was the time I wanted to make sushi and my mother started seething when she found out the powdered wasabi had cost $3; and, perhaps my earliest memory, which was so traumatic I had long blocked it out, there was my tenth or eleventh birthday party, which was actually my last as a child (and now that I think about it, it's probably why I hesitate to celebrate my birthday to this day, and rarely do).

My mom wasn't the only, or even primary reason that the event was traumatic, but she certainly moved the knife around in the wound. My best friend at the time and her sister were very wild, rowdy, and demanding of attention. The theme of the party was one of those murder mystery dinner party things. I think I'd been to another child's party of that theme and liked it. I don't remember exactly what happened, or even vaguely what happened, except that best friend and sister were impatient with the game, started acting up, started throwing food, and the party quickly got out of control. No one could get it back under control, so it was dispersed. Best friend and I fell out, pretty much forever although we probably continued to see each other, but I don't think it was the same and we eventually did fall out of touch.

At the time, I was crushed over this failed party, as any child my age would have been. I suppose, thinking about it now, one option for my mother would have been to comfort me; instead, she guilt-tripped me about the $24 wasted on the dinner game. It's only thinking about it now that I realize that none of it was my fault; I mean, I was ten, or eleven. The dinner game sat there in my room, unopened. It became a fixture eventually and less of a reminder of the disaster that was that birthday party. I'm not sure why she didn't return it. I wonder if it's still there now.

While this is my earliest memory of my mom's making me feel guilty about money, I'm not certain it was the first time it happened.

My mom still packs massive amounts of food everywhere she goes, usually to my annoyance, because it takes up so much time. I still pack food, but only food that packs well, and when it's worth it. I acknowledge that while financial responsibility is important, it shouldn't come at the expense of familial stress, particularly when one isn't constantly on the brink of poverty, which I eventually realized we weren't. Sooner than that, though, I realized that obsessing over money, not to mention using it in psychological warfare against your family, will only make you miserable.

Coming to conclusions

Last night (i.e. 45 minutes ago) was my friend's birthday; her birthday dinner/party was going on as we speak but I had to leave, I got a splitting headache from the combination of noise, sugar, alcohol, even though I only had once glass of wine, which was very good... and one piece of cake, which was even better. Heavenly, actually. Chocolate cake is my vice. I'm not addicted to anything-- I stop taking prescription drugs, even vycodin, as soon as I can-- except chocolate. And no it's not the sugar or the fat, it's the chocolate. Which comes with sugar (and fat). And everything I read, everywhere, tells me sugar is bad-- it makes you dumb (see NYT article: Lobes of Steel); it gives you cancer (if you care, e-mail me, I'll send you the reference for the book); etc. So I've tried to cut back but as long as chocolate comes with sugar, purging sugar from my diet will be an uphill battle.

But I digress. My friend-- a very close friend-- understood. I left, and paced the floor of the metro stop to try to walk off the sugar rush, and as I did, my heel occasionally fell through and pierced the caulk. I looked down and there were other heel marks. I don't have Carrie Bradshaw feet, and I don't look fabulous in strappy sandals, but I look even less fabulous in anything clunkier.

I digress again. I wanted to get my friend flowers, because she likes flowers, but I thought this place was more club and less restaurant, so I didn't pick up any flowers earlier in the day. I got there unfashionably early, saw that it was a restaurant (and club), and went to a nearby supermarket and got some flowers. This is in Columbia Heights, which like much of DC is both very high income and very low income.

In front of me in line was a woman buying exactly $20-worth of groceries. She had $20 in cash, and when her total came to $21.50, she had to return something. Also in her shopping cart was a 24-pack of bottled water. Which (not the water, but her choice to sacrifice something else for bottled water) made me think of something.

I remember one of my grad school colleagues telling me, not long after I first moved to DC, that he babysat, maybe tutored, for a well-off family, and that family drank DC tap water so it must be fine.

A year later, one of my roommates, a teacher [of low-income kids] said that her kids' families, no matter how poor they are, all drink bottled water, won't touch DC tap water.

what did I do, why the hostility?

A.: Hello!
Mom: Well?
A.: Well, what?
Mom: Why did you send me your itinerary? Are you coming down on business again?

Okay, my mom knows that I've been planning on going to a wedding in the Boston area in late October. That's why there's [the same dress I wore to the September wedding] hanging in the guest room, and I repeated it when she said it was too bad they'd be out of town during my business trip a couple of weeks ago. I don't expect mom to keep track of my wedding attendance, as I can barely keep track of it myself, but this one should not have come as a surprise.

A.: No, I'm going to a wedding. I'm coming down a couple of days early, though, so we should get a chance to spend some time together.
Mom: You're coming on Sunday and leaving on Thursday?

Now I know where I get my numerical dyslexia.

A.: I'm coming down on Thursday, leaving early Monday morning.
Mom: You could at least come down for my birthday.
A.: I would have loved to but I can't miss that much work and it just doesn't make sense to fly in just to leave three days before I'm flying in again.
Mom: I see.

Mom: Why are you sitting around at home? Or are you not at home?
A.: I just got back from a bike ride.
Mom: Where?
A.: Along the river.
Mom: Oh, okay. Bye.

Some things are relative

Dressing appropriately can be tricky.

I say that only somewhat facetiously; it is often a challenge to dress not only for the occasion but also for the fast-changing weather. This morning, I had to decide what to wear to a meeting in the city... something that would look professional yet comfortable enough to not make for a miserable twenty-minute walk to and from the metro. Then, you have to consider the weather: it's hot outside, it's air conditioned in the metro-- but if the air conditioning there is broken you don't want to arrive at your meeting covered in perspiration-- but the office will be air conditioned... which blazer won't wrinkle when you take it off and sling it over your forearm... and so on.

In this light, I understand why my mother thinks I need help deciding what to wear. She'll call and ask about the weather, and then ask what I'm wearing. She really does concern herself with my temperature control:

Mom: Is it hot in D.C.?
A.: Yeah, but it's not bad on the porch.
Mom: What are you doing? [This is often followed by, 'if you were here you could come to the lake with us. How can you live somewhere with no lake?]
A.: Just sitting on the porch, cat's sitting on my lap.
Mom: That must be uncomfortable, since it's so hot.

That can also be filed under 'mom misses no opportunity to slam my cat.'

Anyway, as I walked out the door, blazer in hand, I thought about how throughout the three-plus months in 2000 during which I lived with my parents and commuted to Boston, before I'd found an apartment closer to work, my mother would follow me to the door and sometimes out of the house saying, "you don't need that blazer/sweater, you're going to be hot in that! It's [N] degrees out, leave the blazer...and by the way, what time will you be home...and..." and I would answer back, "I have to go, I'm going to miss the train..."

She still does it, all the time. This is amazing to me for the following reasons:

A. I am thirty years old (shhhhh... this is actually privileged information). I can dress myself. Even at 23, at the time of that commute, I could dress myself.
B. Temperature changes, especially in the evening, and especially when you take a boat to work, which I did then.
C. A blazer, or a sweater, is a layer. The whole point of layers is that you can remove them when the temperature changes.
D. My mother didn't take the boat, I did. I had a better understanding of the temperature of my commute than she did. Also, different people are comfortable at different temperatures.
Most people realize all of the above and let it go, but my mother, every time, argues with me to try to convince me to leave the extra layer. She also announces proudly that, well, she's not cold, implying that I shouldn't be, either.

The things that many people see as relative or in any case variable among individuals, including the relationship between temperature and comfort level; the placement of rear- and side-view mirrors; taste in clothing; tastes in just about everything; working at Google; etc. are in mom's view absolutes.

I was happy with my choice of blazer, although had Mom seen me leave the house, she would have told me that I didn't need it.

What can I say? I feel his pain

Perhaps it was because my mother was busy preparing for her trip to the Catskills when Shinzo Abe resigned that she didn't bother to send me news of the resignation, despite her confessed sense of responsibility to ensure my awareness of what's going on in the world.

Fortunately, I actually read the newspaper... many newspapers, and a couple of news magazines, as it were... so I was able to educate myself on Mr. Abe's political demise. While I had known that there was no love lost between Mr. Abe and scholars of the region, some of the rancor exceeded my expectations. I heard one well-respected regional expert respond to news of his hospitalization for stress-related gastrointestinal troubles with an emotional "good!"

I don't know enough about Japanese politics to pass judgment on Mr. Abe, although to the downfall of, among other things, a war crimes apologist, my inclination would be to react with relief. It is in that light that I was surprised to find myself feeling some sympathy, on account of something I read in the
Economist.

"Mr Abe had all his life been groomed to be prime minister—not least by his domineering mother, who last year insisted he grasp the chance even as grandees of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) urged him to wait."

I sent this to a friend before posting it. His response was, "he's still being bossing around by his mother in his 60's? That's scary."

And that's the lesson: learn to say no now, or you have no idea how far it will go. I wouldn't even apply to Google, and I'm not even a head of state.

New on my $hit list: Budget Rent-a-car and Lebanese Taverna

First of all, just don't rent a car in Boston unless you're leaving the city. And if you do, don't rent from Budget.

The cars are a ways from the terminal, and it took a good twenty minutes to get there by shuttle bus (which is longer than it takes to get anywhere in Boston by cab). To make matters worse, it was at least that long before we got a shuttle bus; at least three drove right by us. Other rental companies' shuttles stopped at the designated area. When we finally got to the office, we were first, and there were four open counters, but we waited for at least five minutes for anyone to call us over. None of the employees said anything, either; a simple, "we'll be with you in a minute, our systems have been down," would have gone a long way. Finally, just when I thought we were on our way, I had to stop at a booth by the exit of the parking lot. I didn't realize that, however, because the booth wasn't lit at all. I almost drove over nails trying to get out. The guy in the booth asked to see my rental agreement; I went back to the car and got it for him. Then, because he couldn't have asked for both at the same time, he asked to see my license, too. Now, this is by no means the first car I've ever rented, and while I haven't seen this keys on the dash/show ID to exit thing before, apparently it exists. However, unresponsive shuttle buses, rude counter people, a dimmed booth and annoying dim counter guy, added up for a very unpleasant renting experience.

***

I went to meet Marcela at the mall, we were going to have lunch. When I arrived and called her, she was in Marshall's, which meant we'd cross the big mall to get to where the good eating was. I suggested Lebanese Taverna, mostly because I didn't want to eat at Thaiphoon, but remembered, out loud, that we'd had a problem at that one before, in that they forgot our order. We thought we'd give it a second chance. As we walked into the big mall, Marcela caught me subconsciously gravitating toward Banana Republic and quickly set me back on course; she was hungry. We got to Lebanese Taverna, were seated, and sat for a good ten minutes before anyone in the almost empty restaurant had come to take our order. So we got up and left, and tried the tapas place across the square. It was quite good, but more importantly, we were actually served promptly.

We sat outside, which was lovely, apart from the children in the square who would practice their screaming from time to time, to get it just right for their next trip.

Proportionality

For someone who dishes it out all the time, my mom sure can't take it. Or not even "it," for that matter.

She called just now. I asked how her trip was. She answered in great detail and length, which was fine, until, apparently I didn't make any "listening noises" (although I was listening) and my mother said, "hello? helllllooooo?" as she often does for no good reason. I actually find it kind of annoying.

"Yes, I'm listening," I said, in a completely neutral, if not reassuring tone.
"Oh, you're listening. You're doing me a huge favor there."
"Is something wrong?"
"Is something wrong with you?"

Whatever it was, she quickly recovered and went on talking about the trip.

For someone who regularly insults people (albeit with the motivation of improving them) and accuses them of oversensitivity, mom is very sensitive. She can't take a joke, or even a lighthearted comment. If I, say, request that she stop invoking the fact that I gained weight every five minutes, or ask her to hold any of her many critiques of my personality, she says I'm too sensitive and should be more open to self-improvement. If I tell her that something she does bothers me, I must have a complex. My dad and I joke all the time; my mom takes a lighthearted joke as a grave insult.

I was in Boston this past week for work (my parents were in the Catskills so I didn't see them). Knowing the city, I played tourguide for my coworker, and occasionally included personal references in my commentary:

"The red line is so named because it goes to Harvard Square, and Harvard's color is crimson. The river thins as we leave Boston and enter Watertown. This MDC (Metropolitan District Commission) skating rink is where I used to take lessons as a child; in fact, every time my mom and I drive by it, she makes a point of reminding me that I took lessons but wasn't very good, at that or anything else she tried to expose me to." To be fair, my dad does this too (though not nearly as unrelentingly), but if, say, needle him for how messy his car is, he doesn't take it as a declaration of war.

Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?

I'm thinking I need to make "atrocious customer service" another label on the blog, but I'm also hoping it hasn't come to that.

I understand that sometimes one has to get woken up in the middle of the night, or that sometimes it happens and it's no one's fault or there's nothing anyone can do. It's not ideal, but it's city life (or on-a-plane-with-babies life). I'm pretty good at falling back asleep when it's a one-noise thing: a dog barks a few times and stops; a car alarm goes off, but it turned off; a baby cries and is comforted rather than ignored by its parents; etc. Even this morning, around 2am, Gracie Cat broke into my room because she wanted to cuddle, and I was able to remove her and move on with my life. I'm less forgiving when the waking-up just should not have happened in the first place. My mom woke me up at 3am a few years ago when we were spending a long weekend together in Florida, because she wanted me to see the stars. I was not amused.

What amuses me even less? Getting texted by my cell phone provider at 3:30am. This has actually happened a few times, and once I called and asked them to stop, but apparently they didn't. I usually turn my phone off at night (I wouldn't put it passed my mom to call me at 3:30am to tell me the stars are bright where she is at the time), but last night I forgot. So I was awoken at 3:30 in the morning my a text alert.

It actually wasn't a big deal, I was tired enough that I was able to ignore it and go back to sleep. I was fairly annoyed when I checked it this morning to see that it was from AT&T, so I called them.

The first thing I got was a pseudo-apology. We're sorry you're having a problem with this. They're apologizing for my irritation with a middle-of-the-night phone call.

Then, the woman on the phone checks it out, and says that the text was about my auto-pay card expiring. Do I have auto-pay?

Now, I am not my mother. I'm generally polite to customer service people, because whatever the problem is is rarely their fault, and besides, even if it were, that's no reason to be rude. But I was tired and she was wasting my time.

A.: Yes, I do have auto-pay. That's not the point. The point is, I DO NOT APPRECIATE BEING NOTIFIED ABOUT THESE THINGS BY TEXT AT 3:30AM. And no, my card is not expiring/has not expired. It was to expire in July and I updated it, and have been billed since.

Does she deal with the matter at hand, i.e. the medium of notification? Nooooooo. She says, "well, it may have expired since you last updated it."

WTF???

Anyway, eventually we were able to communicate, and she supposedly updated my preferences, removing AT&T from the pool of things/people/alarms that can interfere with my attempts to get a good night's sleep.

Multiple Choice

The LePresse in hand, my mom:

a) Thanked me for providing her with a press;
b) Told me to make sure to thank the friend who had brought it up from DC;
c) Criticized me for adding to her clutter;

Mom: I love that A.J. Wright by the Russian food store... they really have great prices.
A.: What do you buy there?
Mom: All sorts of appliances.
A.: Do you need a lot of appliances?
Mom: I detect criticism in your voice.
A.: I don't mean any. I'm asking. What appliances do you need?
Mom: Well, you've just given me another one, to add to the clutter.
A.: You asked me for it.
Mom: No, you offered it to me.

***

A.: Hello?
Mom: Are you busy?
A.: No...
Mom: So, here's the deal with Verizon...


How long has this been going on? Which month's blog was it that mom first started going on about Verizon?

It's not the time; I like to do things for my parents. It's just that with these complaint letters, if it's not one thing it's another, and half the time I'm not sure that the complaint is valid.

Note, however, that she asked whether I was busy. This is a first.

pot...kettle...

On the way to the airport:

A.: Oh, I moved the side-view mirrors. Don't forget to readjust them.
Mom: Why would I readjust them?
A.: Because I moved them.
Mom: Oh! I can't see a thing out of these mirrors! Why did you move them?
A.: So I could see.
Mom: But I can't see anything!
A.: I moved them so I could see yesterday.
Mom: But that wasn't a good position! I couldn't see a thing.

***

At the airport, saying our goodbyes:

Mom: You have to control your temper.
A.: Bye, mom. I love you.
Mom: It's most harmful to you.
A.: Bye!
Mom: It's something you need to work on. I mean, it'll take work, but it's worth it.
A.: Bye!

***

At the airport, I was asked to leave the plane for lack of a paper ticket. Yes, I was already seated, when the gate staff discovered that I lacked the paperwork, apparently, to board the plane. They made me disembark. I asked the gate agent what the problem was; he said that my ticket probably hadn't been paid for. The fact that my credit card had been charged; that I had been issued a boarding pass; and that I'd already flown four legs on the same ticket, was beside the point. Ten minutes later, I was issued an apology and allowed to re-board, at which point one of my row mates had helped himself to my window seat. I don't blame him, and he didn't try to fight me for it, nor did he elbow me the whole way, sing, or speak German. Nonetheless, I repeat my advice to travelers: online seat reservations are a beautiful thing.

***

I was ready to leave the Rockies... my soul was full. Now I'm ready to go back. It was such a perfect trip-- the weather worked with us the whole time, raining a lot but only when it didn't matter; the beautiful views captured in the photos were accompanied by beautiful sounds, fresh air, and often, on the hikes, the smell of pine. The stars were very visible, and our campfire was perfect. I'd say it prompted the quote of the week. I'd told Elisabeth I wasn't sure I could handle a campfire, that I was too ADD. As we were searching for kindling to keep it going and prodding it with the poker, Elisabeth said, "see, a campfire is a perfect ADD activity!"

It's a wonder I can tie my own shoes

The wedding was beautiful and reception a lot of fun. I actually enjoy watching other people dance, even when I'm not willing to do so myself-- there's something to the synchronicity of a dance floor. Anyway, I got to my car (well, my dad's car) around a quarter to midnight, and found on my phone a message from my mother, asking whether I was planning on returning home. I don't want to give you the impression that I don't appreciate her concern, but I do want to emphasize how much I value not having to tell anyone when I'm coming home. Even if everything else that made living with my mom difficult wasn't there, one huge reason that I wouldn't want to do it is that I can't deal with someone expecting me all the time.

My initial plan was just to get a hotel room out in Worcester, where the wedding was, but my mom talked me out of it. She even tried to talk me into letting her drop me off and pick me up (it's almost an hour's drive each way), but that's where I drew the line. Then she offered to drive with me so I could follow her, so I wouldn't get lost. Then she said, "you know, dear, they've been stepping up their patrols, looking for people who have been out partying." I had to actually verbalize the fact that I had no intention of driving under the influence.

Lest you think mom was content to just let me drive to the wedding without providing any more help, think again. She wouldn't let it be that I wasn't willing to take confusing backroads to get to the highway, which would shave two minutes from the trip, so she insisted on at least escorting me to the highway along those backroads. She was going to a lake anyway so it was on her way. Except she was dilly-dallying, which she does. And after five minutes of waiting, I said, "that's it, I'm leaving." For five more minutes, we went through "no, we're coming," and "well, it'll take you longer." Finally we all made it outside, but ever the dilly-dallyer, I was at the car for a few minutes before she and dad got to the other one. Eventually we left, and I followed them.

Shortly before the highway (and back on road I knew well, i.e. from which I knew the way), my dad decides to pull a Chinese fire drill. At a light, he gets out of the car my mom's driving, and comes up to mine. I roll down the window, but that's not good enough: he wants me to unlock the door so he can get in. I do so. He tells me that they need to get gas and I should keep going. I ask him how I'm going to let him out, since we've started moving again. I don't ask why he couldn't have told me this through the window. Eventually we stop at another light, and he manages to get back into the other car.

***

Earlier, I was getting ready and asked mom if she had a sweater or shawl I could borrow. I'd known what sweater I'd planned on bringing, but I'd lent it to someone at a birthday dinner for a mutual friend, and it was returned to me with curry-like stains. Anyway, I asked her for something white or grey, possibly black.

Mom: What color is your dress again?
A.: A dark pink.
Mom: How about this? [Holding up a lilac shawl].
A.: That doesn't go with my dress. Anything white or grey?
Mom: Sure it does! Lilac goes with everything. It certainly goes with pink.

I did not say, "yeah, when you're five years old." Several more times, after I'd decided on a white shawl, she asked me why I didn't want to take the lilac.

***

An earlier, unrelated conversation:

A.: Kevin says Gracie's been an angel and very friendly. She even slept up on his window sill, which she usually only does when Chloe (Kevin's daughter, who visits every other weekend) is there. Gracie loves Chloe.
Mom: Maybe you could give her to her?
A.: Why do you hate my cat?
Mom: [shrug].

Complaint letter déjà vu

Tonight I wrote a complaint letter to Verizon on my mother's behalf. As she described the situation, I calmly asked her whether she had considered resolving this issue by phone; she got very defensive, raised her voice, and told me she didn't need any comments from me, that I should just write the letter. I asked her to lower her voice, and she said that asking me for a favor always brought too high a cost. For some reason, she has started to use this often, and I’m not sure how she would back it up if I pushed back on it.

She said that when she called, she waited on hold for forty-five minutes and that that was a key part of what she wanted me to write: that although Verizon's customer service for internet and television was exceptional, that for local phone service was horrific.

It went like this: I wrote the letter, she would look at it and disapprove, claiming that I had forgotten something. I would then point out that something to her in the letter, but she was displeased with my phrasing or something else. She would nit-pick at my wording:

Mom: You wrote that she put me on hold-- she hadn't put me on hold, I was waiting for someone to pick up, listening to their repeated message.
A.: That does not say that anyone put you on hold. It says that you were on hold for forty-five minutes...
Mom: No, I wasn't on hold... I was waiting and listening to their recorded message.
A.: That's called being on hold.

Finally, she approved the letter or at least acknowledged my limitations in conveying her thoughts, and said we could move on to the letter to 'that evil company that [I] continue to bank with.'
Mom: Do you deny that they are evil?
A.: I don’t really care whether they’re evil or not, their banking services meet my needs. [Note: I would care if they were evil in the sense of, say, nazi gold, but evil in the sense of having policies that inconvenienced my mom just doesn’t cut it].
Mom: They’re liars, they’re frauds, and you still defend them.
A.: I’m not defending them; I’m not passing judgment on their morals. I am maintaining that their banking services meet my needs.
Mom: This isn’t about me! I was lucky, I had money in a different place that I could draw from, but imagine an elderly woman, her spouse is in the hospital, she doesn’t know his account number or pin, she can’t withdraw the money she needs for his hospital bills.
A.: Right. I am not elderly, and I don’t have anyone else on the account, so that scenario does not inspire me to change bank accounts.

It’s like Bill Clinton’s continued popularity among women: I vote for a president, not a husband, and I choose my bank based on convenience and interest rates, not policies that don’t affect me.

Mom starts describing the situation.

A.: Wait, I’ve HEARD all this. I’ve already WRITTEN this letter for you.
Mom: No, you haven’t.
A.: Yes, I have… I’ll find it in my sent mail.
Mom: Oh, no, that letter was useless! That letter had nothing to do with anything.
A.: Well, then I’m not sure how useful another letter will be.

I’m not sure exactly what happened next. Her voice kept rising, I kept asking her to lower it—I was still finishing up the Verizon letter and her franticness was distracting me. She started, and kept, screaming, and then kicked me off the computer.

Mom: Get off the computer, now!
A.: Okay… can I just print directions to the wedding first?
Mom: No! I’ve been waiting for the computer all night?
A.: You have been? You didn’t say anything. Besides, I’ve been here because I’ve been writing this letter.
Mom: Oh, I see. Every time you do something for me, it’s this huge favor. Everything you do for me comes at a cost.
A.: Well, in this case, that cost is that I need the computer.
Mom, yelling: Why is this so much easier when Irina writes letters for me? Why doesn’t she act like it’s a huge favor? Everytime you need something, it has to happen right away. When I need something, it’s this big deal!

I just got up and left. As I walked to the other room, she followed me, continuing to yell.

Mom: I am just amazed at how we managed to raise such a selfish person!

We have very different concepts of urgency

I was, am hopping on and off the computer whenever it's free-- don't worry, I have a life, we're going to the beach in a minute, but I do want to get these photos organized, and I do need to blog. Anyway, I was creating folders in Picasa (so the links I sent won't work soon, go to my root folder and see the Canadian Rockies subfolders). I was in the middle of a name on the folder, had a few words left, when I heard,

"GET OFF THE COMPUTER, NOW!"
"Let me finish this sentence, please."
"NO, NOW!"
"This is taking longer because you're screaming. If you stop and let me finish, it will be another two seconds."
"I'M GOING TO TURN THE COMPUTER OFF IF YOU DON'T LEAVE THIS SECOND!"
"That will just take longer. There, I'm done. If you hadn't screamed at me, I would have been done a few seconds after you first asked me to leave."