“No matter how far we come, our parents are always in us.”
The nights get cool, even cold. The days stay in the 60’s. The sun slants through the trees in the backyard. The clouds hide the blue. Pine pollen covers every surface. Welcome to spring on Cape Cod.
Today is a quiet day. I did vacuum earlier because the hall floor had clumps of Henry hair which flew into the air when I walked to the kitchen. The only item on my to do list is water the plants. Last night I even made dinner, a real dinner with potatoes. I’ve got leftovers for tonight.
My mother had sayings for every occasion. I don’t know if they came from the mother’s handbook given to her at my birth or from her own mother. I remembered one this morning. I made a pot of coffee with new coffee to me, coffee from Uganda. I ground the beans and eyed the amount to put into the filter. The coffee was strong, but I do like strong coffee, but it reminded me of my mother saying, “It is so strong it will grow hair on your chest.” I don’t what she was talking about, but I remembered growing hair on my chest. “Wait until your father gets home,” was a viable threat. There was the famous, “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” My father liked that one too, but his threats seem real, not like my mother’s threats. I remember her telling me to wipe that look off my face. I’d say I had no look, and she’d counter with you know exactly what I’m talking about. She was usually right. I didn’t get, “Six of one and half a dozen of the other, until I was older.” One of her all time famous lines used to drive me crazy, “Because I said so.”
My father was the last resort, the threat from my mother if we didn’t do what she told us to do. He had his own sayings. In the car he’d threaten to turn around if we didn’t stop whatever we were doing. He often complained he was the only ant in a family of grasshoppers. He described people as being good eggs. He was never made of money.
It’s funny and wonderful how often my parents come to mind.
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May 19, 2023 at 11:10 pm
Hi Kat,
Today we hit a high temperature of 93° with some large thunderstorms rolling through dropping some baseball size hail on other neighborhoods.
My father traveled most weeks from Monday morning returning on Friday evening. During the weekdays my sister and I knew how much we could get away with. My mother would yell at us, “Just wait until your father gets home”. By Friday my mother had either forgotten what we did or she just never told him. My mother also had that same mother’s handbook.
May 19, 2023 at 11:30 pm
Hi Bob,
Yikes, maybe in August we’ll hit 93°, but that is unusual. We are supposed to have rain tomorrow for most of the day. It is about time as it is so dry..
Your mother and mine sound so very similar except our wait was far less. He’d get home that night. Usually the threat was enough to get us to stop so my father was none the wiser.
I suspect most mothers got that darn handbook!