I think I may have finally mastered the art of mother appeasement, at least in “bonding day” form.
One parts each of outing (especially the beach), shopping, snacking (preferably guacamole and some sort of alcohol) and lots of reassuring shoulder pats- that’s PATS, not PADS.
This seems to please, and even lets you get away with the possibility of a night to yourself, since you can always pull the old “peopled out” defense by the time you get home.
Tonight, after such a mother-daughter day out, we had dinner with my mom’s friend Mary, who I dare say is more spry than my mother, although 20 years older. Mary absolutely adores me for some odd reason, something about my ‘energy’, but not in the cloying way that some new agers say that everyone has ‘special lights’ about them.
Mary is fantastic and at times I enjoy her company so much that I start to think of her as normal, until she starts in about extraterrestrials or some such thing. She likes me, even though I do not necessarily agree, I’m not sure why, except that maybe she appreciates a skeptic.
Unlike my mother, Mary appreciates my sideline stance on aliens, among other things: sure, it’s all possible. Doesn’t mean it’s likely, or that the proof, as yet, is strong enough to support all the claims. My mother, on the other hand, will believe anything she reads as long as it is sufficiently bizarre enough to make most people balk.
I don’t care what ‘most people’ think, but I also don’t think everyone who’s ever claimed to have touched god or space or truth has actually done so. And I think you have to filter things through your own system of refection before deciding one way or the other (or neither, as I prefer to do more often than not).
But what the fuck do I know?
Mary hugs the trees in her backyard to make them better when they are dragging ass. My mother is all about the new age manifesto but I guarantee she has never embraced a maple. She doesn’t live it, like Mary, or her friend Victoria, who gives a back massage to you before she even knows your name. And you can tell this about my mom, because when other drivers cut her off, she still calls them assholes.
I don’t call bad drivers ‘assholes’, partly because I am one myself (an asshole, and a bad driver). But I do criticize my mother to no useful end, and therefore, despite my pleasing ‘energy’, my new age status is in serious question.
