2156. Ballet class

They simply didn’t get on. What is more, Rose and Jillian lived next door to each another. Whenever one visited the other it would end in an argument. Goodness knows why they even bothered to visit; just trying to be neighbourly I guess.

It came to a head when Rose called in and offered to take Jillian’s daughter to ballet classes. “You know,” said Jillian, “that I’m more than capable of taking her there myself. What’s more, I quite enjoy it. So thank you, but no.”

It happened while Jillian was in the shower. Rose turned up, bundled the daughter into the car, and took her to the ballet class. Jillian was furious, and perhaps rightly so.

It can be a pain living next door to one’s mother.

2132. Rainy days

It had rained all week. Sometimes the showers were quite heavy and accompanied by thunder. Trixie was trapped inside for four days with her five school age children. It was the “summer” break. Her husband was somewhere up in Alaska on some business with oil. He wouldn’t be back for another week.

What does one do with five children aged five to twelve (including the twins) stuck inside for a week? The colouring-in books were finished; the computer games had run their course (at least the time Trixie allotted for computer games had run their course); jigsaws were done; cards were played… Even the guitar sat abandoned and untuned in the corner of a now fairly messy living room.

The rain had caused havoc. Surface water covered backyard lawns. The roads weren’t dangerous rivers but still required much care. The local park was a lake!

“Come on children,” declared Trixie. “Leave your raincoats behind. We’re going to the park.”

Off they went in the rain complete with soccer ball. Never was such muddy fun had! They were a family of drowned rats – including Trixie. Soon they were joined by a few other families, maybe twenty people in all. By now the playing field was in a fairly muddy condition, but Nature sorts out such things, and it is what parks are for.

Back home they couldn’t stop talking about it! All were showered, dried, and changed. Trixie baked some cinnamon buns with lashing of melted butter.

2059. The meanest, nastiest mother

Letitia’s nine-year-old son, Jason, was a brat. It was a quality he had inherited from his mother. Jason’s teacher (currently on strike) had described Letitia as “the meanest, nastiest mother I have ever encountered in my thirty-two years of teaching.”

Indeed, Jason had inherited every inch of his mother’s nastiness, and not an ounce of his father’s niceness. His father visited once a month, for an hour only. That was all that Letitia allowed. The father was there, said Letitia, to “pay the bills and stay out of our life.”

How the tables turned when Paddy came into a considerable fortune! The ink had hardly dried on Paddy’s newly-created will, leaving all to Jason, when Letitia conceived a plot. Next time Paddy visited she would poison him.

Letitia shared her plan with Jason. “You want to be rich? Let’s not hang around. Let’s get rid of him. Here’s the plan…”

Jason was to offer his father a cup of coffee. He was to put the poisonous powder into his father’s mug along with the sugar.

Jason took after his mother – the meanest, nastiest mother ever encountered. When his father visited Jason prepared the coffee as instructed. He gave his mother the special mug.

1873. A sympathetic response

Hi Doozy Suzie. I really love your blog. What I especially like was the photo you put in your header of your dog. I have a dog and it is very special. Every day we go for a walk and he greets everyone he meets. He would be useless as a guard dog because he wouldn’t bark but run up to the thief for a pat!!!

He is a Xoloitzcuintle, also known as a Mexican Hairless Dog, and his name is Buffy. He got that name because when he was born he didn’t have any fur and my grandmother said “He’s in the buff” so after that he was called Buffy.

I don’t know how you think of things to put on your blog every day. Your posting today was really interesting – all about your mother dying yesterday. The blow by blow account of her last hours I couldn’t stop reading. I don’t know, as I say, how you manage to think of something different every day to blog about.

Your posting last week of how your baby sister died of the flu was quite exciting, although I don’t really understand what that has got to do with your header of a dog. Was your baby sister and the dog good friends? Or was it something else?

I showed the picture of your dog to my grandmother – not the one who named Buffy but the other one – and she read what you wrote and said from what you say your mother would have been “a mean old hag”. (These were her words, not mine). My grandmother said the world is better off when people like that are not stealing the air we breathe.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I like the picture of your dog. You never said what its name was. If we get a cat my grandmother said we should call it Fluffy – to go with Buffy. I suppose your grandmother hasn’t suggested you get a cat because she’s dead.

1835. Don’t overfeed pets

When Natalie came home from school she overheard her mother say to her little brother, “You’re not to do that again. It was very naughty.”

“But the cat was hungry.”

“I told you not to feed the cat between meals. It will get fat. So feed the cat only in the mornings and in the evenings. I’ve enough to do without having to run around covering up for your naughtiness.”

Later Natalie asked her mother what was wrong with feeding the cat, and her mother said that it was wrong to overfeed pets. “You should know that because of your goldfish. You can feed them too much and they overeat and die.”

For the rest of the day Natalie noticed that her little brother was pouting. He never liked being told off, and Natalie made it worse by reinforcing what their mother had said, and told him that “he shouldn’t overfeed his cat. You are a very naughty boy” – which made her little brother pout even more.

Later, when Natalie went to feed her goldfish it almost looked the same but she was pretty sure it was a different fish.

1805. Motherly advice

Look, I told my son. Look, I said. I told you how to do it but you wouldn’t listen. And now you’re in deep trouble. You’re just like your father was, I said, always acting before thinking things through.

I tried to warn you, but oh no! Young people always know better these days. Well in this case I knew better, from personal experience. You didn’t listen, so now you’ll have to pay for the consequences on your own. I’ve achieved what you’ve achieved I suppose a dozen times or so, but without any of the hassle.

I’ve come across so many like you. They all thought they knew better. They just ignored common sense advice. And now look at them.

You know I’ve been wanting you to do what you did for a long time, but not in the way you went about it. If you’d asked me I could have given you names to help. From now on it’s nothing to do with me. Just don’t involve me.

If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you twice: if you were going to murder your father you didn’t have to do it yourself. You hire a professional. I could have helped with the cost. Now look at the mess you’re in.

1661. Feet in the Shire

(Thanks to Matthew for suggesting the opening sentence).

He lived on hills resembling ‘The Shire’ and his feet were covered with curly hair. His name was Bartholomew Baggins and his solo mother always said that his father was a hobbit. He thought it was a big fib, but now that he’d reached puberty he began to suspect, with his hairy feet, that what his mother claimed was true.

Bartholomew always wore shoes to school, even though sandals (and even bare feet) were permitted in summer. That was to cover up his emerging hobbitness. He was ashamed to think that his father was a hobbit. No one had seen a hobbit, and even though everyone liked hobbits in books and films there wasn’t a person at his school who believed they actually existed. They would make fun of his hairy feet.

And then, one evening, Bartholomew left his mother’s house. There was a full moon although ragged clouds scuttled across the night sky. He knelt down and drank rainwater that had gathered in a strange footprint in the garden. Bartholomew stood and howled to the moon. He was covered in hair. He was on his first hunt.

1506: Bernard’s disorganized wife

Bernard’s wife does nothing other than complain. She’s a stay-at-home mother, which is a luxury most of us can ill afford. She complains that there are not enough hours in a day. Not enough hours in the day for what? Lounging around watching the soaps while the kids are at school?

Being a well-paid consultant I asked her to write down what she does in a day, so improvements can be made and then she’ll have no reason to complain. Here is a typical Wednesday – or so she claims:

Get the kids ready for school – 1 hour
Tidy the house – 2 hours
Prepare meals- 1 hour
Get the groceries – 2 hours
Do necessary odd jobs, e.g. take the car to get fixed etc. – 2 hours
Mow the lawn and weed the garden – 1 hour
Do the laundry – 1 hour sometimes 2
Pick up the kids from school – 1 hour, sometimes less, sometimes more
Take the dog for a walk and feed the dog and cat – 30 minutes

The list for Wednesday went on and on, but I won’t bore you with more details.

Look, I said to her, just get yourself organized and stop the complaining. Do some of these jobs on another day of the week.

Poem 37: Loss

(The poetic form selected for this month is the Standard Habbie aka Burns Stanza).

For eighteen years I nursed and fed.
I can’t believe, son, you are dead.
I try to fathom things you said.
I weep a bit –
The life that we together led –
The end of it.

I’m here to clean out all your drawers;
Your shirts and trousers, socks and smalls.
I’ll pack them quick before I bawl.
This coat I know!
Too short for someone quite so tall!
Such thoughts bring woe.

I’ll leave it for another day.
I cannot clear the past away.
Someone else can pack, I say.
I cannot hide
The path you took when things turned grey –
Your suicide.

To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.

1114. The short way home

Rachel decided to drive her mother to visit her mother’s widowed brother-in-law. It was a three hour drive. They hadn’t seen each other for several years.

Uncle Herbert had prepared lunch for his sister-in-law, Maureen, and his niece Rachel. They had a lovely time chatting away and catching up. Then it was time to drive home. Uncle Herbert said, “Goodness me, that’s not the quick way home. Turn off down the road at Harrisville and you’ll cut a good half hour off the journey. After turning, just follow the road.”

So Rachel and her mother turned off at Harrisville.

“I never realised where this shortcut was, but I’ve always heard people talk about it,” said Maureen.

On they drove. Four hours later Rachel declared “We seem at last to be getting somewhere”. And they were! One last turn in the road, and lo!

Somehow they were back in Harrisville…