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My mother was a wonderful person. She was very witty and creative. She went to college the same time as my oldest sister, and she majored in journalism and wrote for the College newspaper under the pen name of “Peg Palmer”. One day I’ll share some of her poems with you. But she had a few, ah….... shall we say….um…....little quirks. One if particular used to annoy me. She was always going on and on about never hearing from her 5 grown children, in particular my two brothers. “UltraKathy”, she would inquire, “have you heard from Dan or Dave lately?” Well, of course I hadn’t, but even if I had I couldn’t tell her that.
(Hypothetical suicidal answer: “Sure, my brothers call me every other day and tell me in great detail what is going on in their lives. You mean they don’t call you? Hmm, that’s funny.”)
My sisters and I were a bit better. I really tried. I used to make it a point to send my mom several pieces of mail a week (halo appearing) and call her every Sunday (now Angel wings), and visit as often as I could (Hallelujah Chorus). I usually sent postcards cause the postage was less and I was necessarily limited on space and didn’t have to think of as much to write (chorus abruptly halts), and I really didn’t always WANT to call, (wings look a bit bedraggled), and sometimes I kind of thought it was her own fault they didn’t call because when they did, she went on a bit about how seldom they did call (halo slipping). If she could only see me now!
I have 4 lovely, wonderful, resourceful children. One lives about 100 miles away, 2 live about 300 miles away, and one is on the other side of the world (yes, UB, I’m talking to you!). How often do you think I hear from them? Nope, not as often as that. And the problem is that when I do, I spend way too much time talking about how I never hear from them!
In particular I am speaking of the two youngest away at college in Boise. About once a week, I send e-mails trying to lay on the old guilt trip (“Please let me know what is going on in your life. You know I have no life of my own (attempted humor) so I must live vicariously through you! We are fine, but the arthritus is kind of acting up and I’ve got to go back to the doctor about my sinuses. And Dad has really been tired lately. Just drop me a line a couple of times a week. You know much it brightens my day when I have an e-mail from you in my box when I get home from work.” What response do I get? Not a thing.
So, I decided to try an experiment. This week I sent newsy, upbeat e-mails with no guilt trip and no plea for some communication. What do think was the result of this scientific experiement? yeah, still nothing, though I plan to continue for a few more days before writing them out of my will.
So, what’s the point of this post? Actually, I guess its to try to inject a little humor into a subject that, frankly, leaves me feeling a little hurt and bewildered. Well, its pretty late on a Friday night, and I’m sure I’ll feel better about the whole thing in the morning, but for now, I just want to say…....Sorry, Mom.
UltraMom
Apologies for the long period of time during which this site would not remember your name, url, and e-mail address even when you asked it to. I know it was a pain in the neck, and I’m sure that comments will increase steeply now. When I have a few minutes, I hope to dig into the code, and make it remember whether you prefer for it to remember or not (if you selected yes last time it will automatically default to yes).
Also I appreciate the recent people chastising me for not updating this site, and expressing interest in The Neighborhood Project. I hope to get a chance to do something with it soon, and I may start writing here more often too although my Mom consistently shows me up. If anyone has any ideas for site improvements or wants to volunteer to help with The Neighborhood Project please comment here.
and always remember:
skin is only skin deep.
with fond regards,
UltraBob
Well, loyal readers, again my best intentions have come to naught. After a pep talk from my ultra son, I determined to post more often and hone my rusty writing skills. Well, I’m gonna try to polish them up a little bit tonight.
It finally looks like winter out there! We had snow most of the day. We have been in a MAJOR drought in southeast Idaho, so any moisture is welcome. Of course, it creates a few problems, like hazardous driving conditions, but it is so pretty! Growing up in central Calif, we had snow once in 20 years. I remember the December day it snowed; I must have been about 10 or so, and we were out on Christmas break. Well, we headed out to the yard and gathered up every shred of snow we could find to build a classic snowman. Its a good thing we took pictures, cause it was melted by afternoon. We moved to Idaho when I was 17; I at first I marveled at the snow, but by the end of winter was heartily sick of it. My Dad determined that we would take advantage of our new location, and we all took skiing lessons. Later I thanked him (after the bruises healed). After a long dry spell, I am in the positon of marveling at the cold white stuff once again and hope we see a LOT of it this winter. I’ll just put on the snow tires and leave for work a bit earlier.
I have to tell you all that Polly, my favorite cat, is back in the house again. (In case, God forbid, you haven’t been loyally following all my posts, my husband banished all of my cats from the house a couple of months ago). Polly’s reinstatement happened like this: I told UltraDad earlier that of all the pets I had owned Polly was my favorite, so he said we could perhaps TRY to let her back in and see if he could stand it. Well, I decided I would wait til he was gone trucking. But months went by, and he never went trucking! Well, one morning, I went to feed the cats, and Polly wasn’t there. I went to work in Arco, and had a late meeting afterwards, so before heading home, I called UltraHusband and asked if he had seen my cat. He hadn’t, and I was inconsolable. I KNEW something had happened to her. We have foxes around; also raccoons. Lynx and bobcat are not unheard of, not to mention the neighbor’s mean dogs. By the time I got home I was really upset and mad at the world, one man in particular. But when I came in the door, Polly was there to greet me. He had found her and brought her in, and she has been in ever since (at least most nights). He even bought her cat toys at the dollar store. I know, I know, it was really nice of him, etc…...but if he hadn’t kicked her out in the first place it wouldn’t have HAD to be nice of him! So, no Sainthood nominations, please. Also, I have been bringing Brenda, the really old cat, in at night, but she has to stay in the cat room. Toby is still banished, and now he is breaking my heart! He wants in SO badly, and looks so frazzled. He was raised as an orphan kitten, so has no social skills with the outdoor cats. In fact, he has no social skills, period. I’m sure UltraBob will just thinkToby is getting what he deserves, but UB, you really don’t need your face anyway, and I think there were a few square inches he didn’t scratch. I never said he was a NICE cat; but he is interesting.
Whew, I think that’s enough for tonight. I don’t have enough energy to take all the rust off those writing skills at once; its gonna take a lot more elbow grease than I can muster tonight, but I’ll try to keep chipping away at it. So hopefully you’ll be hearing from UltraMom a little more often in the future. For now, enjoy the snow, and kiss your favorite cat for me.
UltraMom
Hey ultrabadspeller, is “plante” Japanese for plant or planet? See your last comment dunderhead. Geez what a whacko.
-Jim McDonald
Jim! I am shocked that your very first comment on the site is so negative! Just for that, I’m going to have to dock 5 points from your brother Johnny! Now, you go to your room, and consider your actions, and how others must suffer when you get on your high horse!
Your Mother