Much like a starving college student, my mom has been showing up right around dinnertime for the last few days! OK, that's not exactly true, and we have been inviting her over to thank her for helping us out with babysitting, (a sick baby...which counts quadruple), driving kids to (and fro) appointments , and generally donating side dishes to go with our main courses. My personal favorites were the sourdough bread bowls for our night of clam chowder! I can eat clam chowder in a regular bowl but Sylvia always has to stop me before I start chewing on the china. But I digress...
Well last night my mom met the dinner invitation with, "I've been here too often. I have something at home." Which, knowing my mom, meant that she had a handful of tomatoes that were going to go bad if she didn't eat them. We tempted her to stay but she said she was only going to have a taste, not stay for dinner. Good thing. Last night she was privy to a little ritual we have at our dinner table. Before I unsettle a large number of readers who think that having a newspaper at the table should be strictly forbidden, I only have it there for one purpose. You'll see. In our local paper we have a section labeled "Today in History". It tells things like, on this day the Ghandi ordered a 'dog wit' everything' in Times Square thus ending his month long fast. Now don't worry, I don't sit around asking, "OK kids, who was the Russian President in June of 1991?" That would be silly. Of course the kids would both shout out "Yeltsin!" to which I would cackle..."Haha...He didn't become president until July of 1991!" and then we would all laugh. Woooh! Good times!
No, our ritual is much more mundane than that. Under all that brainy stuff is a list of birthdays. That is the more universally accepted game that we play. I'll read a name. The kids will say something like, "Never heard of him...a hundred!" and then I will tell the real age. I do, usually, have to give a lot of clues so that everyone knows who I am talking about. "Remember that movie about the guy and the dog that ate the necklace? This is the girlfriend." It is a lot of fun and everyone looks forward to it. I have to admit, though, that it does chafe a little when the kids know who it is and then say, "Oh yeah! He's OLD! I guess 35." Some days there are only a couple names that the family would know. Yesterday, however, I thought I had hit the mother-lode. There was Taylor Hicks, Simon Cowell, John Mellencamp, and Oliver North. Something for everyone!
I started out on the list, "Desmond Tutu?" My mom, who is no stranger to the game, guessed somewhere in the late 70's. The kids said something like, "He sounds old." Sylvia, on the other hand, guessed really really young! She said, "What kind of a name is that!?" Understandable, during the 80's she was hiking the alps, touring castles in Austria, and windsurfing off the coast of Italy. (and then she hitched her wagon to a teacher's salary and now we explore outlet malls...but I digress) When I announced that Desmond was indeed eighty years old yesterday, Sylvia said, "He made it to 80 and hasn't changed his name yet?"
"Well you see honey, then it wouldn't match the name on his Nobel peace prize." I'm sure the kids' heads were full of visions of an 80 year old man in a bright pink ballet skirt...possibly doing the lead in Swan Lake. Laughter abounded.
I went down the list..."Is that the blond?"
"Oh he was old when we were in high school."
"The kids know who that is, I'll guess 26."
"It's a man, mom."
"oh"
Some guesses came close. Some, mostly from Kristiana, were about three hundred years off. But then someone would call out, "TUTU!" and we would all erupt into laughter again! We discussed the possibility that Sylvia had indeed snorted, she was laughing so hard. This notion was dismissed immediately (by Sylvia) and we kept playing.
"Actor Omar Benson Miller?...I don't know where he is from."
"I think he is in House."
"I don't know."
"TUTU!"
HAHAHAHAHA
Mom said something about being glad that she had come over for "just a taste" otherwise she would have missed all of this entertainment.
And then I read the final name and dropped the laughter bomb! "YO YO MA!?"
Sylvia definitely snorted.
Well last night my mom met the dinner invitation with, "I've been here too often. I have something at home." Which, knowing my mom, meant that she had a handful of tomatoes that were going to go bad if she didn't eat them. We tempted her to stay but she said she was only going to have a taste, not stay for dinner. Good thing. Last night she was privy to a little ritual we have at our dinner table. Before I unsettle a large number of readers who think that having a newspaper at the table should be strictly forbidden, I only have it there for one purpose. You'll see. In our local paper we have a section labeled "Today in History". It tells things like, on this day the Ghandi ordered a 'dog wit' everything' in Times Square thus ending his month long fast. Now don't worry, I don't sit around asking, "OK kids, who was the Russian President in June of 1991?" That would be silly. Of course the kids would both shout out "Yeltsin!" to which I would cackle..."Haha...He didn't become president until July of 1991!" and then we would all laugh. Woooh! Good times!
No, our ritual is much more mundane than that. Under all that brainy stuff is a list of birthdays. That is the more universally accepted game that we play. I'll read a name. The kids will say something like, "Never heard of him...a hundred!" and then I will tell the real age. I do, usually, have to give a lot of clues so that everyone knows who I am talking about. "Remember that movie about the guy and the dog that ate the necklace? This is the girlfriend." It is a lot of fun and everyone looks forward to it. I have to admit, though, that it does chafe a little when the kids know who it is and then say, "Oh yeah! He's OLD! I guess 35." Some days there are only a couple names that the family would know. Yesterday, however, I thought I had hit the mother-lode. There was Taylor Hicks, Simon Cowell, John Mellencamp, and Oliver North. Something for everyone!
I started out on the list, "Desmond Tutu?" My mom, who is no stranger to the game, guessed somewhere in the late 70's. The kids said something like, "He sounds old." Sylvia, on the other hand, guessed really really young! She said, "What kind of a name is that!?" Understandable, during the 80's she was hiking the alps, touring castles in Austria, and windsurfing off the coast of Italy. (and then she hitched her wagon to a teacher's salary and now we explore outlet malls...but I digress) When I announced that Desmond was indeed eighty years old yesterday, Sylvia said, "He made it to 80 and hasn't changed his name yet?"
"Well you see honey, then it wouldn't match the name on his Nobel peace prize." I'm sure the kids' heads were full of visions of an 80 year old man in a bright pink ballet skirt...possibly doing the lead in Swan Lake. Laughter abounded.
I went down the list..."Is that the blond?"
"Oh he was old when we were in high school."
"The kids know who that is, I'll guess 26."
"It's a man, mom."
"oh"
Some guesses came close. Some, mostly from Kristiana, were about three hundred years off. But then someone would call out, "TUTU!" and we would all erupt into laughter again! We discussed the possibility that Sylvia had indeed snorted, she was laughing so hard. This notion was dismissed immediately (by Sylvia) and we kept playing.
"Actor Omar Benson Miller?...I don't know where he is from."
"I think he is in House."
"I don't know."
"TUTU!"
HAHAHAHAHA
Mom said something about being glad that she had come over for "just a taste" otherwise she would have missed all of this entertainment.
And then I read the final name and dropped the laughter bomb! "YO YO MA!?"
Sylvia definitely snorted.
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