Birthday Disaster

Here's mom at our celebratory lunch at the Olive Garden yesterday.  She got a new lesbian inspired haircut from an amateur beautician.  It's the only haircut she knows how to give.  One trick pony.  And fuck off if you are going to give me shit for saying "lesbian haircut."  Some of my best friends are lesbians.  And also. . . you knew exactly what I meant.  

You know I love me som K.D. Lang and (presumably) Ana Egge.  

O.K.  I'm going on a tangent now. 

“You had a play where they threw it to you, Bijan,” Sherman said. “They threw it to you in the backfield, you made the first one miss, then legged three people. And I said, ‘This boy grew up in the backyard.'”

Robinson seemed to understand the sentiment. However, he used a derogatory term associated with an informal “keep-away” game.

“Smear the queer, that’s what we do,” Robinson said.

I sent this to some friends old enough to remember that that is what the game was called when we were kids.  One of them wrote back, "I thought queer was no longer derogatory? Should they remove it from their lettered coalition on LGBTQ+…?"

"Guns don't kill people, words do."   

Yea, that went way off the tracks.  It would have been much easier just to delete "lesbian haircut" and move on. 

Let's get back to mom' s birthday.  

It didn't go well.  I did all the usual things, got her presents, flowers, balloons, a card.  I even made a card.  I got her a new walker, a bright red four wheeler.  It scares her.  She's back to using the two wheeler that drags across the floor.  I got her new slip on shoes in the size she told me.  Too big.  I took her to lunch at the Olive Garden.  I told the waiter it was my mother's birthday.  He didn't bring her any desert.  We were joined by another woman for lunch.  When our waiter abandoned us, a new waiter showed up to give us the check.  He called us "ladies."  The woman sitting next to me looked at me with pop eyes to see how I was going to respond.  Really?  I've gotten shit my whole life.  It has no effect on me at all.  When the waiter started to stumble, I said, no, don't try to make up now.  He was a half-black mulatto kid with funky aborigine hair.  I just said, "If my mother wasn't here, I'd give you my usual response to redneck and cracker assholes."  The woman sitting next to me was curious so I sort of whispered to her, "Right.  Now get on over here and suck your girlfriend's dick."  

The kid heard it and jumped back with a big laugh.  He thought that was great.  Now he really wanted to talk.  I told him I grew up in the redneck south with very long hair and was used to getting harassed.  He said he was twenty years old and grew up in what I know to be a real cowboy town here in my own home state.  He said he often had long hair, etc.  

Still. . . no desert.  

My friend came back to my mother's house with us to cut the cake.  It was a chocolate raspberry cake, but the icing was wrong.  The major grocery store in this state hires special needs people to staff the store.  It is a long story, but they had a law suit once and now do this, so the fellow who bags my groceries has only one arm.  The girl at the checkout is blind.  Etc.  When I ordered the cake from the bakery, the only person there was. . . well, he was special.  He got the order form and a pen.  Now the long, torturous process began.  When we got to "icing" I said chocolate.  

"Butter cream?"

"No, chocolate."

"Butter cream?"

"No. . . I want a chocolate frosting."

He nodded.  "Butter cream chocolate." 

I gave up.  Maybe I should have said "fudge."  So, when I picked up the cake, the icing was wrong.  

Selavy.  

When we cut it, it was very moist.  And as it sat on the counter, it began to move.  

"I think they put too much raspberry filling in it," my friend said.  

The cake was collapsing and sliding toward the floor.  

"Yea. . . maybe."  

None of us had ever seen such a thing.  

Just then, there was a knock on the door.  It was one of my mother's old friends.  She is blind and can't drive, of course, and she was with her 80 year old neighbor.  This was unexpected.  They just showed up.  

My mother's friend is 88, blind and deaf, and never shuts up.  She is repetitive and tedious, and she grew up in Italy and has an indecipherable accent.   My friend was going into a coma of agony when she said, "You know you have to take me home, right?"

It was going toward sunset when we pulled into my neighborhood.  

"Tonight's the neighborhood holiday party at the lake," I said.  

"Oh, yea.  The boat parade."

Every year, there is a boat parade, all the boats decorated and lit.  They drive around the chain of lakes and drink.  I've never been interested in it, but it is a thing that people do.  They get drinks and stand on the banks of these big lakes and wave and "marvel" at the miracle of light.  

I guess.  

"Are you going?"

"No."

Just then, my neighbor's drove by and stopped to chat.

"Are you going to the party?"

"No. I have to get back to my mother."

Chat chat chat.  Then, "Are you getting a new roof."

"Yes.  They are supposed to do it this week."

"Didn't you just get a new roof."

"It's been ten years, but it has always leaked in a hard rain.  I figure this is probably the last roof I will have to get, so why wait?"

Bleak.  My neighbors are as old as I.  

"Yea, we talk about things like that all the time."

My friend said that wasn't a good way to look at things.  Ha.  

When I got back to my mother's house, her friends were still there.  Oy!

When they left, it was well past dark.  I was exhausted.  I turned on the t.v. and fell asleep sitting up.  Every few minutes, I'd wake up.  I assumed I was choking or snoring.  

"Are you O.K.?" my mother asked.  

"I'm exhausted."

"You keep talking in your sleep.  You are shouting out something, but I can't understand."

Oh, I was sure I must have been yelling out for help.  

I woke up a bit and asked my mother if she wanted to watch a movie.  I put on "Jay Kelly" with George Clooney.  After fifteen minutes, of course, my mother said she was going to bed.  

"Happy Birthday," I said.  

I watched the movie for awhile.  It was pretty good, but as I say, I was exhausted and so I turned it off and started my evening ablutions.  I hadn't slept well for a couple nights, so I took a Tylenol and an Advil PM.  It didn't work.  I was up and down all night.  

And that was mom's birthday.  

I have more to say about other things.  I have A LOT to say about the release of some of the Epstein files by house democrats.  Oh, yea.  I have A LOT to say about that.  But I'll save it because I need to make breakfast for my mother.  It will keep.  

Let me end with a make-up offering.  I love her music and her seemingly gentle ways.  Country lesbian.  What can I say.  I'm not a hater.  I get called "lady" enough to know.  I don't care.  But. . . C'mon. . . the hair.  My mother got the Egge.  

Here's my mother two years ago. . . .  Just sayin'.  I think I just bought my last roof.