October 30, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

Saturday night after the birthday cruise for my mom, one of my aunts (who is on my list at the moment) suggested that we go to the VFW. The VFW. The VFW is a notoriously awful place for me and my husband. Since my mom loves to celebrate Halloween, and the VFW always has a party, that’s usually where we go. It’s not a bad place particularly, it’s just that there’s not much for a younger crowd. I mean no disrespect to our venerable veterans, but these are our primary complaints:
1) Because most of the people who frequent it are…um…of a mature age, the music is often deafeningly loud.
2) The regulars tend to be of the demographic who enjoy a good fag, in a one lit off the other sort of way. Since both my husband and I are allergic to smoke and I have asthma, this is a considerable drawback for us both.
3) This last one is strictly my husband’s complaint. Being British, he comes from a country where women don’t pass up any opportunity to share cleavage, so when my husband thinks of “party” he thinks of a view and the VFW is verily lacking in this.

I miss my family terribly and since I don’t get to see them much, of course we tagged along even though we were secretly dreading it. (Only a few hours in the bar and three days later I am still suffering the consequences.)

One thing I admire and envy about being of a certain age, is the freedom that comes with it. Once you pass a certain birthday, you’re given permission to freely say whatever comes to mind and do whatever you want because you long ago stopped caring what other people think. It must be so liberating. The downside is that sometimes there are victims, as we were on Saturday night.

The VFW owns a karaoke machine. I suppose the regulars thought, “Hey what the hell! I can’t hear what I sound like anyway.” On Saturday night, there was one couple in particular who sang together most of the evening, much to our chagrin. The husband wasn’t bad, but his wife made William Hung sound like Pavorati. My aunt knows the couple and told me that the husband doesn’t enjoy it, but sings anyway to make his wife happy. Here are some adjectives to describe her singing: atonal, flat, cracking, savage. Each time after they sang, even though we had to mop up the blood dripping from our ears, people (not me) applauded cheerily and generously. Bunch of dysfunctional enablers, if you ask me.

Even though I didn’t enjoy the cacophony (emphasis on caca), I admire them for getting up and enjoying life. Who the hell cares what anyone else thinks. That’s really the way to live, though it certainly would have been more polite if they showed up with free earplugs for the rest of us.

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October 30, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

I apologize that this week’s edition of “That’s Love” is a few days late. The reason will become clear shortly.

My mother is about to celebrate her 65th birthday, and how should I say this…she likes to know what’s going on. So, because she comes from a sadistic family that likes to torment her, her sisters organized a surprise birthday party, withholding all the details, including the date and who was attending. The only thing my mother knew was that at some unknown point in the future she would be told to be ready in Halloween costume. She would then be shuttled to the party destination, possibly blind-folded, and maybe gagged and bound, depending on how much trouble she was making, or just for the fun of it, depending on our mood.

One of my aunts did the majority of the planning and organizing, but we all derived great pleasure from tormenting my mother for months. A week ago, one of my great aunts leaked the date of the event by asking in my mom’s presence, “What should I wear on Saturday.” Her subsequent words were quickly drowned out by my aunts protesting in unison, “SHHHHHH!!! SHHH!!! She’s not supposed to know anything!”

Friday, my husband and I flew up to D.C. and spent the day sight-seeing. Then my technically brilliant and slightly devious husband spent an hour setting up our Vonage in the hotel. Saturday morning, I called my mom from our home number, for the benefit of her caller ID, which she always checks before answering the phone. I spouted a stream of lies about fake errands, inquired about the weather “up there” as I looked through the hotel window at the passing clouds and wet road, and felt my shoes to see if they were dry yet after a day of walking in pouring rain in Georgetown, and laughed along at my mom’s stories of trying to extract more information about the night’s happenings from my aunts. Just in case my mom considered the possibility that I was attending the party, when our home number displayed on her caller ID, I was sure it would quash any notion that I was coming. I emitted a silent “muhahahaha” in delight, even though my heart was racing in fear that I would blow it.

Saturday night, we took a Halloween Cruise on the Bay Lady in the Baltimore Inner Harbor. An hour before the cruise, we changed into costume, or “fancy dress” as my husband calls it, in the car and arrived on the cruise a few minutes after my mom. She looked directly at both my husband and me, but didn’t figure out who we were. Proof that everything we know and understand in life is dependent on how our brains decide to interpret “reality.” Eventually synapses fired and my mom realized who we were. My mom was happy and a bit overwhelmed to see how much we all love her. Mission accomplished!

My mom and her sisters are the best of friends, and of course, I love her more than I know how to express. And that’s love.

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