Life With Marlene

Tears of a Clown

About a week ago, I went out to lunch with my mother, brothers, sister and husband. We went to the Bill Gray's on Culver by Seabreeze. Up until Saturday, this was my mom's favorite burger joint. She likes the way it is clean, open and bright.

Anyway, as we sat down to eat, I couldn't help myself. "So, Mom, why did you drop out of clown college?," I asked.

You would have thought I said something like, "Mom, tell us about the secret family you've had all these years behind our backs." My brothers and sister were in shock.

"Clown college?!", my brother, Matt, asked in disbelief. "You went to clown college?"

"Yes, I did," said my mother, matter-of-factly while eating a french fry.

"No, you didn't," he said. "You couldn't have. When did you go to clown college?"

"When I was like seven or eight years old," I told Matt.

"Why didn't you tell us, Mom?" Matt pleaded. He was not taking the clown college news well.

"It's not important," my mother said.

"It's very important," Matt told her. He was pretty upset.

"Fine," my mother said. "I went to clown college night school. I even went to Arlene's to buy clown makeup, had a rainbow wig and a clown suit. I could make balloon animals. I quit clown college because the guy who ran it wanted us to be Clowns for Christ. It was creepy."

"I thought you dropped out because you were supposed to come up with a routine and you didn't want to do it in front of people," I said.

"Yeah, that too." My mother paused. "But they wanted us to convert people to Jesus through clowning. It was just weird. I didn't want to be a Clown for Christ . The guy who taught the class wore a Jesus pin on his costume. He was weird."

"Marlene?" My husband said, "You know if they make a musical about your life, I will sing 'Clown College Dropout'."

My mother rolled her eyes at Mark. "Yes, it was very strange," she mumbled to herself as she ate.

Send in the Clown

As I was walking around the mall today, I noticed some clowns hanging around. I think they were there as part of the Easter Bunny and Easter train celebration.

However, they brought back a memory.

When I was about seven, my mother took clown classes at Greece Community Education. It was very exciting to be a child and have a parent who was a clown. How cool is that? I remember my mom investing in honest-to-god clown makeup, a rainbow wig and a purple and yellow clown suit. Once, when she came home from class fully made-up, she woke me up, so I could see her full clown regalia. She even knows how to make balloon animals. I thought I was the luckiest kid on earth.

I was talking to my mother about this the other day when I took her out.

"Remember when you used to be a clown?", I asked her, excited.

"Yeah." She said.

"That was so cool," I told her. I still thought it was cool.

"Yeah, well, I never graduated from clown school," she said. "I dropped out when we had to create our little routines. I didn't want to perform in front of people."

I was so disappointed. "You mean you dropped out of clown school?"

My mother shrugged and changed the topic. I sat there, stunned. Another pleasant balloon of childhood memory has burst.

Tour of the Cathedral

My mother was home Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I called her on Wednesday because I really needed to walk. With the weather in the 20s and snow and ice on the ground, I can't really walk around the block. I usually walk the mall. When I asked my mom if she would take me to the mall, she told me 'no'. I then told her I didn't care where I walked, as long as I could walk.

She picked me up at 10:30 and said, "Let's tour the new cathedral."

The cathedral is across the street from where I live. It recently reopened after a few years of renovation. There were many protests against the renovation. Although she has not darkened the inside of a church in a few years, my mother closely followed the saga of the renovation, especially the protesters.

My mother dropped me off at the new church entrance. I waited for her to park the car and we went inside. The new entrance is in the back of the church. A secretary warmly welcomed us, telling us we were in the narthax.

My mom waddled through the narthax, looking at the new room put in for child care during Mass, as well as peeking inside the cathedral bookstore. I opened the door to the cathedral and we walked inside.

I think the renovated cathedral looks nice. It's lighter and seems warmer. My mother kept pointing at the angels lining the ceiling and saying, "Look at the little angels!"

We then went up to the new baptismal font in the back of the church. My mom dunked her hand in the water and splashed it around. At least she didn't throw a coin in.

The old confessionals along the wall are now alcoves with statues. One alcove had three bottles of liquid in it. "I wonder what that is?", my mother asked me.

"I don't know. We can ask the secretary." I told her.

We wandered up to a side chapel. The ceiling is painted with stars. My mom really liked that.

She then walked onto what used to be the main altar. She looked at the bishop's chair and the two chairs flanking it at either side.

"That's the bishop's chair," I told her.

"What's those two chairs?" she pointed, "For the midget bidgets?"

"Midget bigdets?" I asked. "What are you talking about?"

"You know, the midget bidgets...midget bishops." She annunciated the last part.

"Um, I think for priests?"

"No! For the midget bidgets!" she insisted.

We wandered back into the narthax. The secretary was gone on lunch, so my mother didn't get to ask about the bottles of water.

Last night, I told my father about our cathedral visit.

"I heard," he said. "Your mother asked me, 'What are those bottles?' It took me a few minutes to figure out that she was talking about the chrism oil. She said she didn't like the renovations because the cathedral is now too bare."

"Yeah, she told me that too."

He then said, "Her other big thing was about a 'midget bidget'. Do you know what she's talking about?"

Doctor’s Visit

As I get closer to my due date, my mother becomes more excited.

Last Wednesday, I came home from work with terrible cramps. The cramps then progressed into contractions that were about 10 minutes apart. Since I have never been pregnant nor have given birth before, I did not know what was going on. I called my mom and then ended up calling the hospital (the doctor’s office had closed for the day). The doctor on-call told me to stay home, but call back if the contractions became closer together. My mom was not happy with that advice.

I had the cramps and contractions all weekend. Yesterday, I decided to force a visit to the doctor. I had my mom drive me, as I don’t feel comfortable getting behind the wheel of a car with bad cramps. As she pulled up in front of the house, I could hear the bass pumping. My sister had borrowed the car the night before and had left the hip-hop station on. My mom kept it on as we drove to Greece.

“So you are pimpin’ today, Mom?” I asked.

“I can pimp if I want to, “ she insisted.

I told my mom she could stay in the waiting room while I went to be examined, but she wanted to come back with me. You see, she’s been with me to the doctor’s before. Whenever we go, she’ll insist on coming back for when the doctor measures the baby or takes the heartbeat, but she high-tails it out of the room once the doctor does the internal examination.

After the nurse took my blood pressure and asked me about the cramps, she handed me a sheet to put on while I waited for the doctor. Mom went out to the hallway to sit in the chair next to the examination room. I waited about five minutes and heard a knock on the door. I thought it was the doctor, but it was my mother. She stuck her head in the room and stared at me on the examination table in the blue sheet.

“There’s some nurse talking about a kid who cheated on his English paper at the school where you used to work,” she whispered so loudly, I was sure the nurse would hear her. “I’ll find out some more and let you know what’s going on.”

“Okay,” I said.

A few minutes later, there was another knock. I thought for sure it was the doctor.

“Okay,” my mother said, peeking around the door. “According to this nurse, the kid was so excited to be writing the English paper, that he was talking to his friend about it. Then they ran the papers through some plagiarism program and the kids had the same sentences in their papers. The kid went from an A average to barely passing. Okay, I’m gonna go back and find out this kid’s name.” She closed the door.

There was another knock soon after. Thankfully, it was the doctor.

The examination went okay. I am dilated a centimeter, which means that the baby probably won’t be here for a little while. The baby wouldn’t hold still while the doctor tried to take the heartbeat. Finally, she got a heartbeat on him.

As I put on my pants, my mom gave the doctor the third degree in the hallway. “So she’s dilated a centimeter,” my mom said, “In the textbook definition of labor, how long do you think it will be before she has the baby?”

I opened the door. “C’mon, Columbo,” I said to my mom. My mom got up and wandered down the hall, asking the doctor more questions. The doctor gave my mom vague answers.

In the car, I got the full scoop on the plagiarized paper. According to my mom, the kid was so excited to write that English paper that he talked to his friend about it.

I stopped my mom at this point: “Um, I taught high school for five years. I know of NO 16, 17 year old boy who gets excited about writing English papers. That’s crap.”

My mom sounded serious. “She said the kid was very excited about it. Now he's off of high honor roll, just because he had a few sentences that were the same as his friend. The mom doesn’t think the kid deserves to be kicked off of honor roll. She even called the principal and the head of the English department.”

“That is such crap,” I said to my mom. “No parent ever thinks his kid does wrong. Obviously, the kid knew he was plagiarizing. They teach avoiding plagiarism from the time they are freshmen. I always warned my kids that if something was similar between two papers, they would be done. What is this parent, stupid?”

My mom said innocently, “Well, that’s what the woman said.” She paused. “I couldn’t get a last name on the kid. I wonder who it is.”

I took my mom to Schaller’s for lunch. Afterwards, she drove me to Parkleigh.

Parkleigh is a cool store. My mom is even more like an immigrant coming to the US for the first time at Parkleigh, than any other store. I think part of it is because everything is kinda pricey. I wanted to look at Vera Bradley handbags, but then decided I couldn’t afford one. One of the conditions of my mom taking me to Parkleigh is that I had to buy her something. We descended on the candy counter. I bought Mom a Godiva chocolate bar, and got myself some truffles and a giant peanut butter cup.

On the way home, I gave my mom a truffle. She seemed to like it. However, it seemed to be a distraction, because she soon found herself lost in the city.

“You can get on 490 up there,” I said, pointing.

“I don’t like the expressway,” she said.

“Well, follow the Inner Loop signs,” I told her.

We were back on Monroe for a bit. As Monroe became Chestnut, I instructed Mom to turn left onto Broad.

“I don’t want to,” she said, passing Broad.

We then passed East Avenue and Main Street. She could have made a left on either street to get back to Exchange. We then passed Andrews.

“Where are you going?” I asked her as we passed a sign for Marketview Heights.

“I don’t know,” she said.

We drove for a few blocks. We were definitely lost. There were boarded up houses on either side of the street.

“Mom, we are in the hood.”

“I know,” she said. “I don’t know where we are going, but it all must lead somewhere.”

Very profound, I thought.

We came upon Avenue D. I told her that she could make a left onto Avenue D and it would eventually lead to St. Paul and the Driving Park Bridge.

“What if I don’t want to?” she asked.

“Do you know where you are going otherwise?,” I asked.

“No.” She made the left. "But all roads lead somewhere," she said softly to herself.

It was a Robert Frost moment.