Vroom, vroom!
It's Attack of the Mid-Life Crises month here in the little green house on NE 21st Avenue.This weekend, my mother comes to town to make sure that I still love her despite the recent upheaval in our family. (Note to our readers in Bellingham, Washington: I do. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to give you a hard time about it.) And hard on her heels comes the other half of my genetic pool: My motorcycle-riding, God-fearing, Tobacco Road-living father.
Actually, part of my father arrived yesterday. His Harley. It's big and blue and mean-looking (except for the Yuppie silver coffee mug in the cup holder) and makes the same noise our old gas-powered lawn mower used to make whenever I ran over a large stick, except 10 times louder. I cannot believe my father allowed someone -- a nice man with a semi -- to take it across the country without him. (I also cannot believe my stepmother has agreed to ride all the way back to North Carolina on it.)
This man is serious about his bike. Very, very serious. Daddy called last night to make sure it had arrived and greeted Judybat with the something like the following: "I hear you have my two favorite things there with you." I'm pretty sure one of those was TheBoy, and I'm pretty sure one of those is not me.
And yes, I call my father "Daddy." It's the Southerner in me.
posted by AnnaRay at 11:14 AM
6 Comments:
I call mine Papi (a Spanish/Cuban thing) and my Southern mother is Mama. I hear you loud and clear, even over those loud pipes!
I like it when you crazy southerners call your moms Maw and your grandmas Maw Maw, leading to conversations like this:
"Where's you're mom?"
"Mah Maw Maw is with mah Maw."
Also funny is "Grand Daddy" and "Grand Baby."
I think my Dad once hailed my mother with the following: "Yo, Momma!"
I use the simple Mom and Dad. Mom referred to her folks as Ima and Tatang (they were my Apu and Ingkung). Dad referred to his folks as Mami and Bapak (my Embah and Embah).
Not that I plan to, but if I had children I think I would call them my miniscules, and they could refer to me and the missus and their majuscules.
I can't figure out who is having the midlife crisis. AnnaRay is much too young. If she is referring to her parents, I don't know about her father, but her mother deeply appreciates being considered in her midlife. She thought she was well beyond that period.
What a lucky young woman that AnnaRay is to have such interesting parents.
We're teaching TheBoy to call you "NeeNaw," Anonymous.
And as Judybat would note if she were here, you're barely midlife, given that you're much too spirited to ever die.
Actually, spirited isn't the term she uses.
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