Round Tables and Milkshakes

The sun didn't exactly come out after the election.  It was rainy and windy, making  soggy lumps of political signs before blowing them down the street.  I was glad that I had the excuse of staying home with the kids, who were too upset to go to school.  (Well, the girls were, and it wouldn't have been fair to send Josh.  He would be complaining about it for the rest of his life.)

Karen called me during her lunch break and asked how I was doing.  She said the kids at the middle school where she is librarian were very subdued, which was peaceful, but weird, if not creepy,  The guidance department was scheduling discussion groups ("round tables") and private conferences  Of course, I had to ask her how she was doing, and she said, "As well as can be expected."  It might have been my imagination, but I think she was sniffling.

When I went back to work the next day, everyone was subdued there, too.  It turned out that I wasn't the only one who had stayed home, so it wasn't as anticlimactic as I thought it would be. The men looked like they wanted to grumble, but didn't say much.  The women kept patting each other and sighing. At lunch they were either too upset to eat or ordered pizza and milkshakes.  I wanted to get away from the misery, so I went out to the snack bar and watched the students sit around looking like they were at an funeral and/or were hung over from drowning their sorrows.

Emily and Alice called to ask how I was doing.  Emily was in love, so she was fine , and Alice was looking on the whole thing as material.

Kate apologized for not calling sooner, but she had her hands full with Janet, not to mention Missy and the entire congregation of Epiphany.  For a change, I asked her how she felt about it all,  and she said she was praying for guidance and "spending time with Jesus."  I almost asked her how He felt about everything, but caught myself in time.

Ed just snorted if anyone brought up the election.

I thought everyone would settle down or perk up with the holidays.  The children did, although Cilla said she was praying to the Blessed Virgin Mother to save us all.

But most of the adults were talking about impeachment or complaining that they didn't feel festive and didn't know if they should.  I threw myself into everything, which helped.  What I really needed help with was being around all those angry or depressed people.  Karen said that I was in denial.  Nikki said, "That works for me."  She did admit that she and Helmut had talked about moving to Germany, where at least they had a woman Chancellor, but Jenny and Ilse fussed about leaving their friends, Helmut liked his job, and she couldn't face a move, much less her mother-in-law.

So things are continuing.  They will continue for three years and seven months.  Unless something happens.

Kate has a poster in her office that says,

"When things go wrong, you can worry or you can pray.

You might as well pray,"

That works for me.

A McDonalds Mother's Day Clip Show

Cilla learns that Charlie wasn't in the popular crowd in high school:

Cilla started crying. Then she got up and flung herself on me. “Oh, Mother, I am sorry that you were a nerd.” Then she cried some more, just like a Bette Davis movie.

Josh discusses Charlie's parenting style:

Today, after we got home from church, Josh said, “Aidan asked where you’d been today.”  Aidan is a boy in Betsey’s class.

First she looked panicky.  “What did you tell him?”

Josh shrugged.  “I just said, ‘My mom says she’s rebelling.’ [by not going to Sunday School]. Then we got some cookies.” 

“What else did he say?”

“He said he was going to play softball this spring.”

“No, I mean about me.”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, he said, ‘Your mom must be really cool not to make her go.’”

Then I got interested.  “What did you say?” I asked.

“I said, ‘Yeah, she’s OK.’”

Betsey gives Charlie parenting advice:

Shopping with two girls is one of those experiences that “challenge you to grow,” as my mother used to say when I complained about having to do something.  I tell the children to “offer it up.”  And I was given a lot to offer.

Cilla and her friends have decided that “if it isn’t pink, they’re not wearing it.”  And on the first day, everything had to be totally pink.  After that they would condescend to wear contrasting pants or skirts.

 

Betsey told me I was “spoiling her” and looked superior until I reminded her of the year she and her friends wore purple all day every day; even their pajamas had to be purple.

I shouldn’t have said anything because Cilla decided that she needed pink pajamas and wanted to call her friends right now, please, please, please so they could get some too.

Charlie's problems with having a mother who was a scientist:

I could never figure my mother out; I was into novels and movies, which she thought were a waste of time when I could be riding my bike or talking on the phone with my friends who were real people.  She thought I was “a funny little thing,” but I was her “funny little thing” and she did the best she could .

When I was a child counting down to Christmas, I would say, “If you don’t count today and you don’t count tomorrow, Christmas is X number of days away.” 

When I told my mother this, she said, “Why wouldn’t you count today and tomorrow?”

I said “To make it come faster.”

“Now, Charlie, you know that doesn’t make sense.”

Later I heard her telling one of her friends about this on the phone.  “She’s such a funny little thing.  I just don’t know how she’s going to get along in the world.”

If she’d sounded amused, my feelings would have been hurt, but she sounded concerned.  So I never shared the countdown with her again, although I kept it up.

Karen's mother prepares for the worst:

 Then, of course, Karen dug out her wedding album.  She got married in December in a candlelight service.  It was only about ten years ago, but we couldn’t believe how dowdy everyone looked, when they weren’t trying to be retro.  Karen had worn a strapless gown and her mother had worried all through the service that it would fall down.  She’d made Karen’s father hold her coat in his lap so he could run up and throw it over her. 

“What about the reception?  Did he follow you around?”

 “No, I think she figured everyone would be too drunk to notice.”

Nikki's mother on overnight guests :

"My mother tried so hard to be cool and with it,” Nikki giggled.  “She put Helmut in the guest room and asked if I wanted to stay there too.  I was so embarrassed, I turned red.  She said, ‘Oh, Nicole, grow up!’”

Ed's childhood with a politically active mother:

When Missy and Janet became friends again, I thought we were going to be an even bigger happy family.  Ed was not particularly pleased.

He said that his mother and Missy had been Leftist-Hippy Lucy and Ethel in their day, getting together and carrying on and dragging him and Allison and Missy’s kids to protest marches and peace vigils.  “It’s a miracle we didn’t get lung cancer from all the secondhand pot smoke.  And the music!  Dear God, the music!  How many roads can a man walk down before they call him a man?  Solidarity forever!  I caught my mother singing that to Betsey when she was a baby.  I made her switch to 'Jesus Loves Me'.  We’d come home from school and all there would be in the house were about three M & M’s.   We had to eat apples for snacks!”  Ed was on a roll.

A Major Hysterical Event

I thought the drama surrounding the primary election was bad.  Karen and Janet didn't know if they should be for Bernie because they liked what he said (Karen particularly liked the bit about free college and Janet is an old hippie-Leftist who had dragged Ed and his sister to rallies and demonstrations and played Woody Guthrie tapes for them instead of Disney hits.) or for Hillary because she's a woman.

During one discussion, Ed said, "I thought a real feminist would vote for the best candidate, no matter what their sex is."

Janet told him that anyone who had an attitude like his about feminists had no business telling them how to behave.

Betsey look umbrage that anyone would imply that her father wasn't a feminist and Josh and Cilla chimed in, even if they didn't understand.  Then Betsey told Ed that  "Nevertheless," he shouldn't be fresh to his mom and anyway everybody is entitled to his or her own opinion.

Janet said, "It's all right.  I used to change his diapers."

Kate closed her eyes and sighed, "Jesus, give me strength."  Cilla said she should ask the Blessed Virgin Mother too.

Nikki and I figured that they both had their good points, but who had time to get upset?  It seemed most people did.  
 
After Hillary got the nomination, things settled down a bit.  We all bought buttons and t-shirts, and Ed complained about wasting all that money.  I told him he'd thank us in November.

We told the kids they could stay up to watch the returns.  I thought it would be over by ten and was even prepared to move it up to eleven, even if they would be too tired to go to school the next day. After all, they were witnessing a major historical event and anyway it might even be done by nine.

I finally sent them up at eleven thirty.  I stretched out on the sofa with a Diet Dr. Pepper and a bowl of potato chips and fell asleep.  When I woke up, Trump had just gone over the top.  I didn't cry, but Karen called me and then Janet, both of them sobbing.  Ed growled, "Can't their spouses take care of them?  It's the goddamn middle of the night."  I told him to go back to sleep.

By that time it was four o'clock.  I tried to figure out if I'd be any good at work,  if they'd give me a vacation day on such short notice, and what I should say.  It turned out that wasn't necessary.  As soon as Betsey and Cilla got up, they asked who won and then they started crying.  Betsey even flung herself on me, while Cilla stood in the middle of the kitchen in her pajamas wailing, "Why, God, why?"

Josh looked at Ed and they both smirked.

I decided I would say we had a family emergency, which was true.  The girls were too upset to go to school, so I had to stay home.  Josh wanted to stay home too, and said, "Just because I'm not carrying on, doesn't mean I don't care."  That's one of Ed's favorite lines.  Since he had worn the buttons and shirt, I decided that he really could be upset, more or less, and let him stay home.

After Ed left for work, snorting about "Liberal foolishness," I made everyone French toast and we ate it in front of the tv, watching an old movie about an idealist young man who runs for Congress but refuses to make deals.