"Daddy's Girl": Chronicles Of An Adult-Child Of Aging Titans (for adults who need to laugh to keep from crying over their parents)

"DADDY'S GIRL", (continued from last week's "I Got Kicked Out!")
"That's right she's a daddy's girl.  If it weren't for her I'd have no allies in this family.  Because you - you are a piece of work."
My dad barrels through the door, drops my mother's shoe just at the threshold of the foyer, and then drops himself into a chair at the table to finish breakfast.  The way he wields his knife and fork - like the Texas Chainsaw Murderer of Breakfasts -  gives one the impression he's all too happy to have his hands busy.
"Oh, Knotty, really.  Must you use the same expressions day after day, year after dreary year?  I've been a 'piece of work' for fifty years now."
"Yes, you have" my dad finishes eating in time to slam down his knife and fork at this, "and I have about fifty more expressions I could use on you right now, but I guarantee you you won't want to hear any of them!"
"You are very agitated," my mom crosses her arms resolutely.  "Too agitated to drive."
The rage my dad emits adds at least two degrees to the temperature of the room and I pretend to be digging in my bag, while stealthily swaying and doing something like a grapevine with my feet towards the air conditioner.
"Listen, Gladys, this car is going up the road with or without you."
"It better not."
"Oh, but it will."
"It will not."
"Will too."
"Will not."
"Tucker, you wanna drive?"  My dad asks this just as my hand is hovering right over the AC switch and when they swivel their heads in my direction, I snatch my hand away and beat it with my other arm.
"What on earth?"
"I saw a spider."
"You did not.  There are no spiders in here."
"Mom, every house has spiders."
"Not this one."
I fall silent because I refuse to go to the mat with my mother over the fact that I saw a spider when I never did.
"Don't give me that look.  Where then?  Where is this spider?"
"Oh, Gladys, leave Tucker alone.  Leave us all alone, for Pete's sake."  While my mother and father engage in another bout of l-can't-stand-to-love-you fury, I decide to saunter by the AC and try to nudge it on with my shoulder.
Of course I miss.
And rip a little hole in the seam of my shirt.
"Oh, can it, Knotty, you wouldn't even know how to tie your own shoes without me," my mother is saying.
And round and round they go while I watch.  And wait.  When they get locked into this type of argument, they normally reach a point where a zebra with translucent fairy wings and red wellies on could make itself dizzy and collapse right at their feet after galloping and leaping around the room in circles unbeknownst to them.
Naturally, the moment I manage to score with the AC, they lose momentum and my mom stands up.

I do a jazz hands move for added insurance but they don't look my way.
"Well, I'm ready to go now.  If Tucker's driving..."
"Sure, I'll drive."
"No, you won't.  I'm driving."
"Dad, I said I'll drive."
"Let her drive, Owen.  It's bad enough you're costing me money."
"How's dad costing you money, mom?"
"Don't listen to your mother.  Anyway, I said I'm driving and that's the end of it." He swings open the door.  "Anybody who has a problem with that can stay here."
"Don't press your luck, buster.  Do you know how much money we could be saving if it weren't for you?"
They glare at each other as she walks through the doorway and I wonder with the internal brio of a reporter what money my mother is talking about.
"Can it, woman."  My dad mutters this with his back turned, locking the door.
They pass by me and I look at the door cheerlessly because I think of the AC and how I never got cooled off and how it's going to be freezing when they get back and they'll run and fling open all the doors and windows with fumbling hands rigid with cold, and pile all the blankets in the house on their shoulders and drink back-to-back cups of tea until the temperature goes back up to ninety-nine degrees.  And they'll be calling me and inevitably I'll miss the call and they'll leave at least five messages apiece which I won't listen to because in every last one of them they will be instructing me to "pick up the phone, it's your [father/mother]".  And then when I do call and try to explain why I didn't "pick up", my dad will testily dismiss the concept of voicemail as nonsense before handing the phone to my mother who will triumphantly declare post-haste:
"You're costing me money!"

~Look for "You're Costing Me Money!", another episode of Chonicles, next week~

#comedy #aging #funnystuff #jokeoftheday

"I Got Kicked Out!": Chronicles Of An Adult-Child Of Aging Titans (for adults who need to laugh to keep from crying over their parents)

"I GOT KICKED OUT!", continued from last week's "Tasteless".
My dad is ejected suddenly from the condo, whirling awkwardly as if in the eye of the tornado of my mother's wrath.  The vacuum from the door whooshing open so forcefully has popped my ears and I start banging on the side of my head at the precise moment the neighbor across the hallway from them decides to open his door to leave his apartment.
He takes it all in with a little tremor; my dad lurching to get his bearings with arms outstretched like he's playing Blindman's Bluff with himself, my mother's shoe still arcing through the air from where she must have tried and fallen just short of kicking my dad in his rear, and me banging my head agitatedly as if there's something rolling around in there that I believe I can force out like coins from a piggybank.
The neighbor starts in one direction then the other then retreats, disappearing through the door.  He's a thin man and since he's barely cracked open the door, he's able to perform something like a magic trick in his utter haste to get back into his condo.
"And stay out!"  My mom directs this at my dad before yanking me inside.
"Your father gets more and more like a buffoon every day!"
"What happened?"  I say just a beat too late, and with all the aplomb I can dredge up from my only acting experience as a leaf in a Thanksgiving play when I was seven.
"Everything."  She responds in a disgruntled huff, plopping down on the sofa.
"And don't you dare touch that air conditioner."  She suddenly snaps upright and pins eagle eyes on me.
"But mom," I fling my arm at the thermostat, in a fit of pique already, "it says it's 92 degrees in here!"
"Can't be.  Feels downright chilly to me."  She shivers and assails me with a look like she's desperately cold.  Meanwhile, I feel as if I'm trapped in a burning house being ravaged by white-hot invisible flames.
As I open my mouth to protest, there's hearty knocking at the door.
"Don't answer it, Tucker."
"Tell your mother I can hear her."
"Dad says he can hear you."
"Tucker, open this door!"
"Let him stay out there, til he can learn some manners!"
"Mom..."
"Ignore him, Tucker.  Come, let's go on the balcony where it's more pleasant."
My dad is now beating on the door in that way that you do when you don't want one area of your hand to get too sore.
"Gladys [expletive]!  You [expletive] well better answer this [expletive] door before I reach the [expletive] number ten!  I'm not taking anymore of this [expletive]!  Not in my own [expletive] house!"
My mom is beckoning me from the balcony but I'm dragging my feet, looking between the door and then back at her balefully.
"UGH!"  She suddenly gets disgusted, vaults herself out of her seat and across the room - unhampered by the other shoe still out in the hallway somewhere - and flings open the door.  "You are such a daddy's girl!"

~Look for "Daddy's Girl", another episode of Chronicles, next week~

#comedy #aging #funnystuff #jokeoftheday

"Tasteless": Chronicles Of An Adult-Child Of Aging Titans (for adults who need to laugh to keep from crying over their parents)

     I'm standing outside my parent's condo, afraid to knock.  It's Saturday morning and I am exhausted from the week and dread over this outing with my parents.  We're headed to a family cookout about two hours away, four hours roundtrip, and I'm wondering if the good Lord'll see fit to let us make it back alive one more time.

     It's my dad and his driving that are   foremost on my mind.  Picture back to when little boys played on Big Wheels, trash-talking at the top of their lungs and hurtling their vehicles at each other at top speed, and here is where my dad would have flourished.  Perhaps if they'd had Big Wheels when he was growing up, it would have saved us and other drivers the harrowing experience that is my dad on the road but as it is - even after fifty some odd years of driving - the aggression has not abated.

In fact, both he and my mom share this trait.  Except she tends to unleash her aggression on him as she is doing now.  I could hear them as I got off the elevator in their somewhat tony building, squabbling over the blaring relentless drone of the news radio station they like to listen to, violating the code of silence observed by all their other neighbors.

"Where is she, Knotty?" My mother is asking him, using her nickname for Nottenwattle, which is our last name.

"How the [expletive] should I know?"

"Honestly, for a former executive you have an astonishingly limited vocabulary."

"It's because of my pea-sized brain."

"It must be the size of a pea.  By now.  From lack of use."

"Yeah, right, whatever, Gladys."

There is a pause where I can hear excessive, loud banging and rattling and clanging, presumably of pots and pans and cabinets, and the aroma of something burning begins to permeate the air before I hear my mother's voice again.

"I'm not eating this."

"What?  Why?"

"This toast is black, Owen!"

"You oughtta be grateful you got somebody to make you breakfast."

"Grateful!" I hear a scraping noise which I assume is her pushing her plate away.  "Burnt toast is not breakfast."

"I'm not making you another piece."

"Where is your daughter?  She's half hour late already, we need to get on the road."

"And I'm not going up the road on two wheels, either."

At this my mother bursts out in her remarkably youthful- sounding laughter that sounds of crystals tinkling.

"What?"

"Nothing, Owen.  Here, you want this?"

"[expletive, banging of table], can't I sit down and eat in peace without you wracking my nerves over the toast?"

"Owen, my egg is getting cold."

"And why is Tucker my daughter all the sudden, when she's late?"

"Thank you, Owen.  You're a gentleman and a scholar."

"Aw, can it.  Acting so sweet now you've got your toast.  It was probably you who changed the setting on the toaster in the first place."

"Now, Owen, you know I never even go in the kitchen, so that won't fly."

"Yeah, but it wouldn't surprise me if you engineered the burning of your own breakfast toast just to keep me hopping up and down, doing your bidding all day long.  I never should've retired."

"I wish you hadn't retired."

"I should have worked til I dropped dead in my office."

"You should have."

"At least at work I could eat in peace if I wanted."

"Ha!  As if.  Don't talk to me about peace, buster.  Before you retired my life was well-ordered and serene.  Now the only place I can go for some peace and quiet is the bathroom!"

"Well....you could always go back to work."

I hear her chair scooting across their hardwood floor, then the dainty clomp of my mother's retreating footsteps.

"Where you goin?  You're not eating breakfast now?"

"Oh, Owen, eat it yourself!  I've lost the taste for breakfast."

"You better EAT this TOAST or YOU'RE GONNA WEAR IT!"

...Look for "I got kicked out", another episode of Chronicles Of An Adult-Child Of Aging Titans, next Tuesday.

#comedy #aging #funnystuff #jokeoftheday

Crochet-etry: Final Words from Lore of the Lookbook

Vol. 6 (continued from last week)
As I was shrugging into the Cinched Cardigan
a lean icy blade of wind

slung itself aimlessly

into the thick lazy honey golden haze of summer

Masquerading itself

among waves of heat

then plunging into the ocean of life

ambushing the revelers

causing them to straddle the hemisphere of Change that surprise visitor

announcing its arrival with big brassy invincible knuckles of certainty

Demanding Receptivity

Or Else
Watching us hide underwater

mutinously against the tides

Knowing the water would be too formidable an opponent  

ionically

that positivity would triumph
like Peace versus two men fistfighting underwater.
But you could find yourself somewhere where you'd have to fight to return to peace.
Dumpster diving through rubbish

in order to brandish a shard of truth
faithfully polishing it

til darkness would look elsewhere to avoid its gleam.
And with truth shining so bright,
you would know where to find Peace

In The Midst Of Change.

~Final Words in Lore of the Lookbook ~

#TravelTuesday

Crochet-etry: Another Ode To Clothes (& So On)

Vol. 5 (continued from last week)

"Not strange, not-strange, notstrange"
the stones seemed to be chanting that afternoon
nodding in vigorous assent
stirring the earth in outrage
as they click-clacked up against
made-new, centuries-old mosaic tile glossy with the toils of ubiquitous hands
the watery onslaught of sand
the maroon of fire, once.
And the stones danced defiantly
up against and around winding
tumbling and blurring the boundaries
of glass remnants of civilizations
too proud to disappear
yet winking merrily
underneath their frosty facades
flirting recklessly with detection
waving algae strewn limbs indolently
on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea.
Where I sat
in the Eyelet Bikini
watching sea creatures
swoop and dive and glide and careen
the bold, the demure, the haughty,
the primitive, the exquisite, the lumbering
the indiscriminate masses, plucky
yet divine
when perceived through the eye of the composition of life
unfathomably
absolute and resilient
legacy species enduring nearly beyond comprehension of time
manifestations of an amen proclamation on the Genetic 5th Day
after already the Spirit of God had moved upon the face of the waters.

~2nd to Last Ditty From Lore of the Lookbook ~

#TravelTuesday