It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...
For the past few weeks, I have been negligent in my duty to air out Marlene since my husband’s new job started. He now has weekends off, so I have been spending my Saturdays with him. However, I must have been feeling masochistic this past weekend, as I decided to take Marlene out shopping.
The Sisters of Mercy (the nuns, not the techno-band) hosted a holiday craft sale last weekend. The last day of the sale was Saturday. This, too, was half-price day, that is, everything at the sale was half-price to get rid of stuff. Now, on Thursday and Friday, I had passed through the sale on my way to the other wing of the school. I scoped out the stuff: it was all good.
On Saturday, we started out an hour later than we planned, due to some issues with two of my younger brothers. We traversed across the city, reaching the motherhouse around 10:30. The sale was picked over! Everything I had an eye on for the past few days was gone. I did find a cool scarf, some ornaments, a gift for my husband and some other stuff.
Marlene had her eye on a religious statue. Every time we go to a sale run by some religious group, my mother buys some sort of religious statue. This particular statue was at least 2 feet tall. It was either St. Joseph or St. Francis; I didn’t observe it too closely. He was originally $20. However, since it was half-price day, he was $10. My mother studied the statue closely; I could tell this would be the treasure she would take home from the sale. She then said, “I’ll come back for him later.”
This was a mistake.
Five minutes later, when we walked by the table, the saint was gone! Marlene somewhat panicked, looked around, and then said, “Where the hell did the statue go?”
I spotted him sticking out of a large shopping bag. Another shopper had snatched him up when Marlene’s back was turned! “I’m glad he’ll have a nice home with you,” said one of the sisters to the lady.
The woman then walked around the sale once more to find other treasures. Marlene followed her, hoping the woman would relinquish the statue. It never happened.
On the way out of the motherhouse, my mother said, “God must not have wanted me to have that statue.”
“That’s not true,” I said, “You didn’t pick it up right away. Someone else took it. It happens on half price day.” I looked at what she was carrying. “What is that?”
She proudly held up a ceramic figure—a decrepit Mrs. Claus---sitting alone on a wooden bench. “Isn’t this cool?,” Marlene asked. “When I bought it, the guy checking out stuff just held it and looked at it. He couldn’t figure out what it is.”
“I can’t figure out what it is,” I told her.
I wanted to stop at Kauffman’s on the way home to pick up a pair of shoes. Marlene wanted to check out the houseware section, especially the Christmas stuff, as she found a cool nutcracker for my brother there two weeks ago.
It must be popular to collect Santa figurines, as there were many on display. They were not just your traditional red-suited fat man—there was Outdoors Santa, Tennis Santa, Golf Santa, and probably the most bizarre of all, Hippie Santa.
Hippie Santa is about fourteen inches tall. He wears a headband instead of the customary hat, and a leather-fringe vest, tie-dyed shirt, and a huge peace medallion.
Marlene was excited.
“I really can’t afford him,” she said with Hippie Santa tucked under her arm.
“I’ll buy him for you as your Christmas gift,” I offered.
She made a face that indicated this was totally unacceptable. She took Hippie Santa to the register and paid for him.
On the way home, I said to my mother, “You know, you got a little bit of white trash in you.”
“I know”, my mother said with dignity, “But I don’t know where it comes from.”
CoCo Krispies
I had an OB appointment yesterday. I called my mother afterwards to let her know how it went. I know that if she could have, she would have accompanied me to the appointment. Since she's a nurse, she likes to watch other nurses and doctors work. She asks all sorts of questions, and, will put people in their places if needs be. In fact, when Mark and I had to go to genetic counseling a few weeks ago, Marlene went with us. When I was told to drink 32 oz. of water for an ultrasound, and the ultrasound never happened because Mark and I decided against the amnio, I watched my mom rip apart the ultrasound tech. It was so bad, the tech brought the doctor who was head of high-risk pregnancy in. He and my mom talked a bit; she finally calmed down. I apologized to the tech on the way out because my mom yelled at her.
On the way out of the hospital, Marlene became animated. "Did you see how I played 'bad cop' with them?", she asked Mark and I.
"Yeah, Marlene, you're a real Columbo," Mark said. Marlene was distracted by a display in the hospital gift shop. "C'mon, Columbo," Mark told her, getting her to move.
Anyway, yesterday...I called my mom at work and let her know the OB visit went well. I told her that the doctor called her grandson-to-be a "stinker" because he would not stop moving long enough to take his heartbeat. This is good, I said to mom, because this means he has enough oxygen and nutrition.
My mom then launched into her latest sad story, which had nothing to do with the baby:
Mom: Coco's on her way out. That stupid dog. Do you know what she did?
Me: No.
Mom: Well, she got into Katie's room. You know how I bought Katie that big tube of A&D ointment for her tattoo? Well, the stupid dog ate the whole tube of ointment.
Me: (laughing)
Mom: It's not funny! The dog then came downstairs and took an oily, stinky crap in the living room. Oh, it was terrible!
Me: (still laughing) I would probably be sick, too, if I ate all that A&D.
Mom: And then, when I was cleaning up the crap, the dog sneaked into the hallway where Katie has her purse, got into Katie's purse and ate her tanning goggles. The dog's days are numbered.
I recounted the whole story to my father at dinner last night. He said he was talking with a friend who owns an American Eskimo dog. "They're all like that. They're little snots," Dad said. The friend told him that the vet told her during the cold winters, when food became scarce, people would eat the dogs. The more intelligent dogs figured out that if they attached themselves to the Eskimo women, they wouldn't be eaten because the women would protect their pets. My dad's theory is that the dog follows my mother closely around the house, so my mom will protect her. Since my mom doesn't discipline her, the dog acts like a jerk.
This makes sense to me. When I stopped over to visit Marlene last Saturday, CoCo was in the kitchen alone. When I walked in the door, she went nuts. She ran as quickly as her little legs would allow her up the stairs, only to figure out my mom was in the basement. She then flew down two flights of stairs to find my mom, so she could hide behind her legs and bark at me.
The dog's a real bitch.
