my mom loves to talk and loves a rapt audience. it can be about anything from the weather to neighbourly gossip, but she is always talking. i have mastered an art of pretending to listen, while inwardly wincing at the volume and tone of her voice. at those moments, i can cluck and respond appropriately while not paying the slightest bit of attention to her. it's an act i've had many years to perfect and i'm damned good at it.
talking about yesterday's pickle story reminded me of many foods that were not ever seen within the four walls of our home. i never touched a kiwi fruit until i was long out of the house. mom never would buy it for unknown reasons. same with peppers. i always had a preconcieved notion that they were disgusting. quite the opposite. i find both food items to be particularly curious and i have no idea why she balked at buying them but she did. now they are staples in my diet.
mom went through many bizzare phases, one of which was buying powdered milk instead of the real deal. it was disgusting and i could barely choke it down. it was never mixed quite right, always weak, with stupid unblended chunks floating lazily on the top. those things got me gagging each time. she also had a desire to force us into eating liver. neither of us would eat it and she knew it, yet she continued to serve it and force us to sit there until it was gone. let me tell you that there were plenty of nights where i sat alone in the kitchen stubbornly refusing to touch that disgusting piece of organ meat. even she would admit she hated it, yet she still cooked it, claiming it was for dad...why she never made a separate meal for us is beyond my comprehension.
i swear my mom had some kind of perverse desire to save every penny while spending irrationally in other areas. at dinner she would go on about how cheaply she made it and how every single solitary item "only cost" ___. every. single.dinner. and because my mom loved to have an audience, she had three willing listeners. i dont remember anyone ever commenting back to her how wonderful it was that she saved the family money each meal. my dad never said anything and thinking back now, we were so conditioned to her pleasure with herself that we tuned it out.
on the flip side, mom would buy craft supplies till we were literally tripping over them all throughout the house. in corners, on tables, in bags we'd find balls and balls of wood and thread. also in those bags were pattern books and dog eared corners of cross stitch patterns she was aching to try. when i recall that, i wonder how many hundreds she spent on this stuff while completely cheaping out on dinner and providing things for us.
in grade 9 i had TWO pairs of pants, which was completely fine in her eyes. TWO. one pair of jeans, one pair of leggings. she didnt give one red hot damn either. so i'd wear the jeans monday, wednesday, and friday and the green leggings tuesday and thursdays every single week of grade nine. it was terrible. god only knows why she let me do that, all while coming home each week with a new knitting or cross stitching project. it was like she was trying to torture or punish us for some imaginable hurt. in our home ec class i made an ugly pair of pink sweatpants and she figured that solved my fashion dilemma and to stop complaining about not having clothing. afterall, she did spent thousands (in her eyes) on the material and supplies to make those fucking things. you can bet that the fabric was bought in the discount bin...and really, how much IS elastic for a skinny grade niner's waist? you do the math.
i remember when she'd fight with dad because she always dragged us into it as if we had a place there by her side to defend her. all day long we'd listen to her berate and complain about my dad and because i was gullible and naive (there probably wasnt a more gullible kid on earth back then), i believed her and sided with her. so dad would walk in the door from work and i wouldnt talk to him. meanwhile, she would act as if nothing was wrong and be pleasant and happy and it would be on my 11yr old brain to try to figure all that out. how confusing and utterly unfair. i'm just grateful that they stayed married because i'm sure that had they divorced, i'd never have talked to my dad because of the lies she would have told.
one fight in particular resonates with my sister and i. it was in the 80's sometime, back when wearing fur was de rigeur and chic. grandma always had fur coats and i think her daughter got one, which just got my mom's goat. now she HAD to have one and it became her quest to attain it. she went on to jan and i, trying to justify why she wanted one. her reasoning was that she was allowed to feel special and beautiful the same way our aunts did and it was her right. nevermind that the coats cost $3000, nevermind that her kids were outfitted in hand me downs and our dinners were nickled and dimed, she had a right to wear fur. on a saturday she even dragged us into the bay in southcentre mall and looked at fur coats and picked out the one she wanted. i remember being terribly bored by it all but wanting to run my hands over each soft coat. i think it all culminated in her pleading her case all the way up to calgary, a case, i might add, that was soundly ignored by my dad.
i think she pouted for a good long while and then set her sights on something else.
meanwhile, i retreated to my room, no doubt in my green leggings.
my mom loves to talk and loves a rapt audience. it can be about anything from the weather to neighbourly gossip, but she is always talking. i have mastered an art of pretending to listen, while inwardly wincing at the volume and tone of her voice. at those moments, i can cluck and respond appropriately while not paying the slightest bit of attention to her. it's an act i've had many years to perfect and i'm damned good at it.
talking about yesterday's pickle story reminded me of many foods that were not ever seen within the four walls of our home. i never touched a kiwi fruit until i was long out of the house. mom never would buy it for unknown reasons. same with peppers. i always had a preconcieved notion that they were disgusting. quite the opposite. i find both food items to be particularly curious and i have no idea why she balked at buying them but she did. now they are staples in my diet.
mom went through many bizzare phases, one of which was buying powdered milk instead of the real deal. it was disgusting and i could barely choke it down. it was never mixed quite right, always weak, with stupid unblended chunks floating lazily on the top. those things got me gagging each time. she also had a desire to force us into eating liver. neither of us would eat it and she knew it, yet she continued to serve it and force us to sit there until it was gone. let me tell you that there were plenty of nights where i sat alone in the kitchen stubbornly refusing to touch that disgusting piece of organ meat. even she would admit she hated it, yet she still cooked it, claiming it was for dad...why she never made a separate meal for us is beyond my comprehension.
i swear my mom had some kind of perverse desire to save every penny while spending irrationally in other areas. at dinner she would go on about how cheaply she made it and how every single solitary item "only cost" ___. every. single.dinner. and because my mom loved to have an audience, she had three willing listeners. i dont remember anyone ever commenting back to her how wonderful it was that she saved the family money each meal. my dad never said anything and thinking back now, we were so conditioned to her pleasure with herself that we tuned it out.
on the flip side, mom would buy craft supplies till we were literally tripping over them all throughout the house. in corners, on tables, in bags we'd find balls and balls of wood and thread. also in those bags were pattern books and dog eared corners of cross stitch patterns she was aching to try. when i recall that, i wonder how many hundreds she spent on this stuff while completely cheaping out on dinner and providing things for us.
in grade 9 i had TWO pairs of pants, which was completely fine in her eyes. TWO. one pair of jeans, one pair of leggings. she didnt give one red hot damn either. so i'd wear the jeans monday, wednesday, and friday and the green leggings tuesday and thursdays every single week of grade nine. it was terrible. god only knows why she let me do that, all while coming home each week with a new knitting or cross stitching project. it was like she was trying to torture or punish us for some imaginable hurt. in our home ec class i made an ugly pair of pink sweatpants and she figured that solved my fashion dilemma and to stop complaining about not having clothing. afterall, she did spent thousands (in her eyes) on the material and supplies to make those fucking things. you can bet that the fabric was bought in the discount bin...and really, how much IS elastic for a skinny grade niner's waist? you do the math.
i remember when she'd fight with dad because she always dragged us into it as if we had a place there by her side to defend her. all day long we'd listen to her berate and complain about my dad and because i was gullible and naive (there probably wasnt a more gullible kid on earth back then), i believed her and sided with her. so dad would walk in the door from work and i wouldnt talk to him. meanwhile, she would act as if nothing was wrong and be pleasant and happy and it would be on my 11yr old brain to try to figure all that out. how confusing and utterly unfair. i'm just grateful that they stayed married because i'm sure that had they divorced, i'd never have talked to my dad because of the lies she would have told.
one fight in particular resonates with my sister and i. it was in the 80's sometime, back when wearing fur was de rigeur and chic. grandma always had fur coats and i think her daughter got one, which just got my mom's goat. now she HAD to have one and it became her quest to attain it. she went on to jan and i, trying to justify why she wanted one. her reasoning was that she was allowed to feel special and beautiful the same way our aunts did and it was her right. nevermind that the coats cost $3000, nevermind that her kids were outfitted in hand me downs and our dinners were nickled and dimed, she had a right to wear fur. on a saturday she even dragged us into the bay in southcentre mall and looked at fur coats and picked out the one she wanted. i remember being terribly bored by it all but wanting to run my hands over each soft coat. i think it all culminated in her pleading her case all the way up to calgary, a case, i might add, that was soundly ignored by my dad.
i think she pouted for a good long while and then set her sights on something else.
meanwhile, i retreated to my room, no doubt in my green leggings.
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