A Wonderful Man

Yesterday morning,I overheard the following conversation between my mother and my 10 year old daughter.

My daughter: Do you remember the first time that you ever met my daddy?

My mother: Of course I do! Your mother came to me and said, 'I met a wonderful man, mama! Would you like to meet a wonderful man, too?'


There are two things that strike me about this conversation.

First, my mother's not a native English speaker, so sometimes articles trip her up. Actually, articles are sometimes challenging for the me, as well, but since I had formal education, it is less the challenging for me than for my a mother.

Anyway, because of the articles, the retold conversation between her and me sounds a bit like Fiddler on the Roof meets a match.com commercial. You may think that that's just a Jdate commercial, but since I've never seen one of those, I'm going with my original scenario.

And second is that if I recall correctly, the actual conversation that led to her meeting my future husbanbd went something like this.

Marinka (late 20s, clock ticking): I'm going out tonight.

Mama (clutching "Is Your Daughter a Lesbian? 10 easy ways to know For Sure" quiz): Going out again? Have a great time. All my friends' daughters are getting married and having babies, but have fun. More the vodka for you?

Marinka: GOD! You're driving me crazy! There's more to life than marriage! I am an independent woman! Like Gloria Steinem! I need a man like a fish needs a bicycle!

Mama: What with a bicycle? You don't even know how to ride a bicycle. If you did, you could exercise. And what is this fish nonsense? Everything is about food with you. Eat less, exercise more, you'll meet someone nice.

Marinka: I don't need a man! I can take care of myself! By the way, can you lend me $20?

Mama: $20? For a cocaine?

Marinka: Yeah, like you can get cocaine for $20.

Mama: Oh, so now you know the price of cocaine. Heroin, too, I suppose. This is God punishing me for my sins. There is no other reason that someone like you would be unmarried. And not even seeing anyone. Just hanging out with your whore drug-addicted friends. Don't think that I don't know what the they do.

Marinka: You know nothing about life! Julie is not a whore, she is a dancer.

Mama: A naked dancer. And people give her money.

Marinka: It's less debasing than working at McDonalds for like minimum wage.

Mama: The food again. It's like an addiction with you.

Marinka: I'm just saying-

Mama: You need a man. You'll go crazy otherwise with all these fish and lesbians.

Marinka: I am not a lesbian!

Mama: Just go, I'll be fine.

Marinka: OH MY GOD! I am seeing someone, ok? We have been dating for a while.

Mama: Stop this nonsense. Who is he, the Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel?

Marinka: No, he's like a real man. With a job.

Mama: Stop your the hallucinations.

Marinka: YOU ARE GOING TO MEET HIM NEXT WEEKEND!

Mama: Ok, if you want to bring him by.

Maybe she's saving the real story for when my daughter is 11?

Beep? Burp.

When I first moved into my very own apartment, on the Upper East Side, no less, in the early 1990s, I couldn't figure out how to get things done. Like, how was I supposed to be at work and at the same time have the window cleaning guy come to wash my windows? Certainly I couldn't leave him in the apartment alone, because you know, he could steal my perfume and hide in my closet and dismember me later that night. Which now that I think about it, seems like a fair trade for clean windows, but I did not have this wisdom back then.

So, I solved that problem in a way that I've solved most problems in my life--I asked my parents for help and and mama said that she would stay at my apartment and guard my Soap Opera Digest and Ravioli Maker and possibly save my life.

Sadly, mama and the window guy did not hit it off. I think it was because window guy assumed that mama, since she spoke with an accent, was the cleaning lady. I'm sure the fact that she read a magazine while he worked made him think that she was a really lazy cleaning lady to boot. Mama, for her part, didn't take to the window guy because he was drunk. I can't remember now what the tell tale signs of inebriation were, but for argument's sake, let's say that it was a Budweiser can with a straw in his back pocket.

He washed all the windows except for the kitchen windows and when she asked him to do that one too, he refused. "Why?" she asked. "Because I'm tired, that's why," he said. And maybe burped.

What I love about this is that I think we've all been there. Don't want to do something--home, work, wherever because we're tired. No fancy excuse necessary. No explanation. Tired.

Which leads me to my update about my efforts to get a driver's license. I have the social security card, but still no learner's permit. I didn't even look at the DMV site this week to go over the sample questions. Why? Because I'm tired. And if you give me enough time, drunk.