Mother-Daughter Mayhem

Mother-Daughter Mayhem

Tomorrow is the Mother-Daughter Style Show and Luncheon. This is an annual event thrown by my daughters’ school. It is possibly responsible for more migraines, more tears, and more curse words being uttered than any other event held at the school.

The reason behind all this angst is that this event is a style show and members of the senior class are the models in the show. They throw in a child from each grade level, but don’t be fooled. This event is about the seniors and their mothers. The rest of the school is invited and they come out in droves, but they are there simply to watch the seniors be celebrated.

This year, my oldest daughter is a senior. So, we have been in the midst of all of this. Since one of my co-workers oversees the event, I have a slightly different perspective on the event than the other moms. Somewhat to my surprise this event has turned into a ‘Really Big Deal’ for us. So far we have come up with photos for the slide show celebrating the senior class and gone for fittings for the outfit my daughter will model. We have also finally gotten Sara contacts, much to her delight. I invited both Grandmothers and they will be attending with us tomorrow along with my sister-in-law (Carolyn) who will be driving my mother-in-law (aka GiGi) today. I took off work yesterday to fetch my mother from Rockport. This afternoon, after work, we have to go out and buy the right shoes (black, round-toe pumps) for Sara to wear with her outfit tomorrow. I am hoping that at some point in our expedition I will find something to wear that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, because I spent $360 on tickets for this event, plus an addition $25 for the dvd of the actual style show.

Once we complete our shopping expedition, we will be hustling back home to fix supper for all of our guests. Thankfully, Carolyn booked a hotel room for the two of them, so I don’t have to make up couches tonight.

Tomorrow morning we will get up extremely early as Sara has to report to the hotel ballroom at 7 am sharp, with freshly washed hair, manicured nails (in a shade called Merlot) and with foundation makeup on. She will be turned over to the hair stylists and make-up artists who will transform her into the vision that will appear on the runway. The rest of us will get there around 10:30. At some point in this event, Sara will take a solo turn on the runway while the MCs read something she has written about how she feels about me. With any luck, she came up with something other than her first choice, which was “She’s not completely insane.” While it’s true, it’s not exactly touch the heart material.

We’re baaack…

The Democrats that is. The public sent the President a big message yesterday and put the Democrats back in control of the house. This morning my husband reported the news to me by telling me that Nancy Pelosi was now Speaker of the House. I responded by saying “Good. It’s about damn time we had a woman in that position.” I’m not sure he was happy with my response. But he’s delusional if he thinks that I’m going to suddenly start agreeing with him about politics. It’s kind of like the whole sports thing. He’s obsessed with sports. And for some reason, he keeps thinking that if he keeps asking me to watch football games or talks about it to me, then I’ll suddenly become a sports fan. And that’s just not going to happen.

But enough about Larry’s delusions: Back to the election results. While my personal fave candidate for governor (Kinky Friedmann) didn’t win, Tom DeLay’s place in congress has been taken over by a Democrat. But the result that really made my heart sing was the race for the House seat between Martha Wong and Ellen Cohen. Martha (a Republican and the incumbent) had been running some really hideous ads. Or I should say that the Republicans ran some really hideous ads on behalf of Martha’s campaign. They were full of the sort of fear-inducing crap that the Republican party resorts to on occasion. Stuff like “Ellen Cohen isn’t strong enough for Texas. She’s soft on terrorists.” And the viewer is supposed to deduce from these ads that Ms. Cohen is in favor of letting terrorists stream across the border; which will no doubt lead to gay marriage being made legal and the downfall of society as we know it.

Thankfully the voters in that race saw through the Republican fear factor ads and decided what really scared them were Martha and her buddies in the Republican Party. So Ellen Cohen won. I should mention here that Ms. Cohen’s ads (or at least the ones that I saw) did not stoop to the fear-inducing, accusation flinging, quote out of context tactics that the Republicans used. They simply stated her views. Good for you Ms. Cohen and congratulations on your election. Now go do a good job.

And that goes for the rest of the people who were elected yesterday as well. Go work your butts off for us. Cause if you don’t, we will turn on you.*
* A side note: When I finally made it to the polls yesterday evening, sometime around 6:45 pm, the line to vote was extremely long. I waited in line for at least an hour to vote. I was standing next to one of my neighbors and a friend of his came up after she had voted and commented that this was the biggest turnout for an election that she had seen in a long time. Another friend of mine got to her polling place around 5 pm. When she arrived, there were only 8 people in line ahead of her. By the time she left fifteen minutes later, the line was out the door.

The Return of Mourning

This morning, I found myself fighting back tears. One of the parents of a Lower School student died this morning and I found myself weeping not just for the child’s loss, but for my own. This sort of thing hits too close to home for me. I was the same age as this child when my father died. One would think that at the age of 50, I would have reached some closure about my father’s death. But it still sneaks up on me and hits me hard from time to time. The clearest memory I have of that time is my father’s death. I can’t remember most of my classmates and for the most part I don’t remember much of anything about the first two years of school. What I do remember vividly is my father’s death: Hearing the noise he made when he had the heart attack; kneeling alongside my parents’ bed as the priest, illuminated by the bedside lamp, gave my father the last rites; going into the kitchen the next morning to tell my mother not to worry, that Daddy would wake up only to be gently told that he would not.

But it will be all right again. I have learned to let myself cry when these memories return and the pain strikes fresh in my heart. And I am, in some way thankful, because it means I still love my father and miss his presence in my life.

Goodbye Ann

Back on Election Day 1994, I sat in my car outside my polling place in Houston and cried. I had had one of those impossibly busy days when everything seemed to work against me. I hadn’t been able to go and vote before work because I had three children to get to school and then my to-do list at work was not only huge, but being added to every 10 minutes. So, I decided I’d just hit the polls after work. But I didn’t get out of work until late which meant a frantic dash to pick up my girls and then I had to track down my son, who was at a friend’s house working on a group project for school. By the time I found the classmate’s house, it was dangerously close to 7 pm and of course, my son still had to gather his gear. With the kids in the car and rain coming down, I made a frantic dash to my precinct polling place. But it was 2 minutes after 7:00 when I finally arrived and I was too late. So, I wept.

Given the outcome of that night, chances are my one vote probably wouldn’t have helped. But I still feel that I let Ann and my fellow Texans down. My feelings that night weren’t helped by the comment made by Michael’s classmate’s mom when I explained to her I couldn’t stay and talk as I was afraid I’d be too late to cast my vote for Ann. The mom, a rather rabid Republican, expressed her hope that I would indeed be too late to vote. (This is one of the reasons I will never convert to being a Republican. Too many of the ones I know wallow in meanness and intolerance.)

So, Ann, I’m sorry. I let you down and the end result is a president who measures patriotism, not by actual love of and support of this country, but love of and support of himself. He has confused respect for the office with respect for him. You never made that mistake.

I wish you could have had that second term as governor. And I wish that you were still with us, talking sense and taking the air out of those who believe just because someone voted for them must mean they are set above the rest of us. You always knew that wasn’t the case. You always knew we voted for you because you were one of us.