Mother's Holiday Warmth

It’s that time of year.  The holiday decorations adorn the family room with warm Christmas cheer; the garland glistening with fairytale tinsel; the promise of gifts under the tree and Nat King Cole enticing us to roast chestnuts on our own fire.  Summer is wonderful, but there is nothing quite like a family Christmas.

And is there anyone, besides Santa, who brings Christmas into our homes more than our moms.  Baking sugar cookies, wrapping presents, leaving carrots for the reindeer – yes, it’s mom that makes Christmas the warm family celebration that it is for all of us.  And to toast all the moms who work so hard to make the holidays so special for us, here is, well, a remembrance from a mom that I think we can all identify with.

Happy Holidays to all!

Easy Cocktails from the Cursing Mommy

by Ian Frazier

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Those high-priced bartenders in their red vests and white shirts who your caterers recommended to serve at your last party may know a thing or two, but for entertaining on a smaller scale—for parties of seven people, four, or even just one—a few simple steps to the perfect cocktail are all you’ll ever need. Take, for example, this drink I’m drinking right now. Where the hell did I put it? I just set it down five minutes ago. I had it when I was watching the news, I know that. Now what in hell could I have done with it? O.K.—I found it, thank heavens. I must have set it here on the stairs when I went to throw away the mail. Anyway, as I was saying, making this particular drink, which happens to be a vodka gimlet, is simplicity itself, once you know how. Plus, it’s so delicious! The tangy tartness of the lime juice combined with the antiseptic astringency of the icy-cold vodka—wonderful. 

Now, normally in this column the Cursing Mommy does not endorse any company, product, or institution, but just this once I’m going to make an exception, because, what the hell—I use Rose’s Lime Juice. It’s perfect for gimlets, so I always keep a few extra bottles in reserve in case I run out, as in fact I did just a few minutes ago when I mixed the drink I’m finishing now. The backup bottles, which are down here on the bottom shelf of the liquor cabinet—don’t tell me they’re not here. Please don’t fucking tell me the Rose’s Lime Juice is not fucking here. If Larry took my last spare bottle to use in his fucking Sno-Kone machine, by Christ, I swear I’ll—oh, thank God. Here it is, back behind the Kahlúa and the walnut liqueur. Whew. That was a close one. 

Anyway, you take your Rose’s Lime Juice, you take your favorite gimlet glass (which, for me, is the one I was just using), and—fuck. I have lost my drink again. Somebody please tell me I have not lost my stupid goddam fucking drink again! O.K., it has to be close by, because I had it right before I was hunting around on all fours in front of the liquor cabinet. Wait a minute—can this be it? Here on the counter behind the flour cannister? I don’t think this is it. I’ll just take a sip and—Phewww!! Gahhh! Disgusting! This must be the drink I couldn’t find night before last. Fucking ants in it. Drowned ants. Good Christ, what was I thinking? 

O.K., we have established that that was definitely not the glass I was looking for. In situations like this, the Cursing Mommy recommends that you take three deep breaths, concentrate inwardly on some attractive and relaxing vacation scene, and scream “Fuck!” at the top of your lungs. There—I feel better. Don’t you?  Usually at about this time of the evening I must begin making dinner. Larry and the kids will be home soon. Fortunately, however, tonight is Make Your Own Goddam Dinner Night, a recently instituted family ritual I shared with you in last week’s column. So basically I don’t have to worry about that. Instead, what I’m going to do is just close my eyes, wait until I regain a sense of calm, and when I open them again my missing gimlet glass is going to be right in front of me. 

Oh, fucking hell. Could I possibly have left it down in the basement? Of course not—that’s ridiculous. I haven’t even been down in the basement, not since I vowed I wouldn’t touch another piece of laundry today even if it meant the clothes already in the washer mildewed and rotted away. Regular followers of this column know that at about this point every week the Cursing Mommy flips out due to one problem or another and begins cursing a lot, throwing things, and giving people the finger. Somehow, however, I don’t think it’s quite appropriate to go to those extremes over a problem as minor as a misplaced cocktail glass. Instead, I will begin a systematic search, accompanying myself meanwhile with a sort of general, all-around cursing out of various deserving individuals and things. 

For starters, God damn to hell my father’s fucking girlfriend, who expects me to do all the food and the cleanup at his seventy-fifth birthday party, and then she’ll take all the credit for herself, such a fucking jerk. Fuck the township, also, for changing fucking Bulky Waste Day from Monday to Friday and now I have to haul all that shit that I carried down this morning back up from the curb or they’re going to give us a ticket, the fucking bureaucratic red-tape, petty, time-server assholes. And, just in passing, fuck the fucking Bush Administration—I know they’re not in power anymore, but fuck them anyway, because they’re such a bunch of fucks. And on the subject of stupid fucks, fuck the—
FUUUUUUUCK! OW! JESUS CHRIST! FUCKING SHIT! I STUBBED MY FUCKING TOE! OW OW OW! JESUS! FUCKING LARRY LEFT THAT FUCKING BOX OF ADAPTERS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING DINING-ROOM FLOOR, THE FUCKING IDIOT! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT STUPID FUCKING BOX DOING THERE! I TOLD HIM TO PUT THOSE FUCKING ADAPTERS AWAY! FUCK! OW! FUCK!
(Pause.)
People say that when you misplace an object in your home, instead of tearing the place apart looking for it, you should just be patient, and the object you are looking for will eventually turn up. And now we see the accuracy of this saying, because as I sit here on the dining-room floor cursing and massaging my goddam stubbed toe, I notice that over there on the floor, just behind the door to the kitchen, is the stupid fucking cocktail glass I was looking for. And, thanks be to merciful God, there is still a fair amount of drink remaining in it, so I’ll down it now. What a fucking terrible day this has been.

Next week the Cursing Mommy will show you how to put up the decorations for a child’s birthday party all by yourself with no help from your fucking husband. Watch for her column, entitled, “God Damn This Tape Dispenser to Hell: Party Decorating Tips from the Cursing Mommy.” 

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/09/14/090914sh_shouts_frazier#ixzz18PO0f8Du

2 + 2

When I was 8 years old I struggled with 3^rd grade math.  I sensed that my father thought the nuns at school were a bunch of nitwits who didn’t know how to teach anything so he ventured to a place he had no business being within thousand miles of, he was going to teach me math. 

Of all the tools in the teacher’s toolbox, perhaps none is more important than patience.  This was a tool my father didn’t own and if given to him as a gift, he wouldn’t have a clue how to use it.  Deep down he was a good person and I loved him but his innate march to perfection was unshakable.  He suffered no fools and proved it with a temper able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.  

We sat at the dining room table.  This was the same location where he gave weekly performances in the art of humiliation while trying, with my mother, to balance the “books” from the pork store that bore his name.  Imagine a game show with my mother as the hapless contestant who never seemed to have the right answer.  Her parting gifts consisted of watching her children evacuate the scene and being screamed at for the rest of the night in two languages.

The next contestant is Paul and the category is math.  After a few minutes of listening to Dad explain how addition and multiplication work, my glazed expression brought smiles to my brother's face.  The first question was 2 + 2.  Fortunately, I had some loose grip on simple addition and the answer was as clear to me as the vein already bulging in my father’s deepening scarlet neck.  Then he asked me what 2 x 2 was and as I prepared to answer I simultaneously plotted my escape route from the high octane invective that was sure to follow while my brothers made book on whether I’d get screamed at in English or Italian.          

“Four” I whispered. 

“Right, see it’s not so hard” he said. 

My 3^rd grade brain seemed to have it figured out; multiplication is the same as addition! 

“OK, now what’s 2 x 3?”  he asked.

“Five” I shouted. 

It was a Vesuvian explosion in a heavily embroidered combination of Italian and words I hadn’t heard before.  Lesson over.

Who among us hasn’t come across at least one idea or concept that we just can’t grasp, its secret to understanding secured by a padlock.  And then there are the handful of colossal ideas of the mind that seemingly reside inside an eight inch thick kryptonite box capable of incapacitating any investigator with a massive headache of the ice pick in the temple variety.

One such idea is Einstein’s theory of relativity.  Its complexity makes it easy to ignore except that it helps explain some of the most profound mysteries of the earth and the universe.  It is true genius, born in our century and we desperately want to understand it.  

Here are two of the best and most easily understood explanations of the genius of Einstein’s theory.  Have a seat at the dining room table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgsKlSnUO0k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpbGuuGosAY

Progress

Grand Canyon

The canyon demands your attention.
You stand on the edge for the first time and understand what all the fuss has been about.  

You will tell people about it but they won’t understand. 

You realize how quiet it is, not just because everyone around you is speechless, but because it is so big that it swallows sound.  

“How did this happen?”  

You are changed in some small way. 

Grand Canyon Walkway

The walkway demands your attention.  

You stand on the edge and can’t understand why we needed this.  

You will tell people about it but they won’t understand.  

You realize that someone thought this would make it better but you are unable to explain why it feels like a violation.  

“How could this happen?”  

You wish that some things were just left alone.