THE CRAZY MOTHER THREAD

[Bronxgirl48]

Hello, everybody. You may have read my conversations with Mom over at TCM City, where the level of our movie talks usually reach surreal heights. I am George Burns to her Gracie Allen, and the convolutions of her mind never fail to fascinate me.

Basically, she drives me nuts.

I thought I'd bring her over here to amuse you, but also provide a place to vent your frustrations over the timeless tensions of parent-child relationships; commiserate over senior citizen health concerns and Baby Boomer fears, and in general laugh and cry over the whole insanity of family life. You don't have to talk about films.

Let me kick this off by providing you one of our recent chats:

Me: Are you going to watch FOR PETE'S SAKE?
Mom: Who's in it?
Me: One of your favorites, Barbra Streisand.
Mom: Oh, I love her! Does she sing?
Me: No, it's a comedy part. I saw a bit of it -- she's a wife who needs to get money for her husband, and Molly Picon is in it---"
Mom: Molly Picon, was she alive when the movie was made?
Me: I guess so, if she was in it.
Mom: Does she play Barbra's mother?
Me: Well actually no, but I can't tell you what she actually does play.
Mom: What could Molly Picon play other than a mother?
Me: You'd be surprised.
Mom: Oh, I love her in FUNNY GIRL.
Me: I always thought she actually looked like Fanny Brice.
Mom: No, she never looked like her. Barbra Streisand is prettier than Fanny Brice.
Me: No, she did, she had the same ugly duckling type face, don't you think?
Mom: I don't agree with you, Barbra is very attractive in her own way, but her fingernails, they're too long, I never liked them. I mean, how does she open cans?
Me: She probably has people to do that for her.
Mom: Oh I never thought of that.

[feaito]

Very amusing Bronxgirl. Thanks for posting it here. BTW, For Pete's Sake is my favorite Streisand film.

[Bronxgirl48]

Oh what a treat to see you here, feaito! Thank you so much!

I'm still waiting to hear Mom's "review" of FOR PETE'S SAKE.

I only saw a little of it, and it was funny, but my favorite Barbra comedy is THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT.

[Mr. Arkadin]

Glad you made it here BG! I hope to see more of you (and hear more stories!).

[JackFavell]

Hey, Bronxie, it's so much fun to hear from your mum again! "Was she still alive when the movie was made?"... DOH!

Sometimes I picture you as Edgar Kennedy, king of the "slow burn" ..

[Dewey1960]

Yow, Babsie, how glad am I that your wacky mom will be gracing this site with her profoundly odd musings, as channelled by her mesmerizingly brilliant daughter!!!

[jdb1]

Ugh, I don't even want to think about my mother any more, but thinking about her controlling, malicious and spiteful ways does make me yearn to read about "nice" mothers.

Here's a typical exchange -- this one may seem harmless (but exasperating), but these typical dialogues would invariably escalate into something totally out of control:

A Sunday Invitation

Mother: Can't you over on Sunday? You never visit any more. I'll make a nice dinner. I'm free all day, and I am a good cook, after all.
Me: Are you going to make your usual nice Sunday lasagna?
Mother: Oh, no, I have no time to make lasagna. I'll make baked ziti.
Me: Well, I have a few things to do on Sunday, but I can stop by for a few hours at about 4 o'clock.
Mother: Four o'clock? Wouldn't it be better if you came at 4:13?
Me: What's the difference?
Mother: (Voice rising) The difference is I have things to do too, you know. I can't spend all day cooking just for you.
Me: You just said you were free all day. And what's the big difference between lasagna and baked ziti? Aren't they essentially the same thing? Either one is fine with me.
Mother: (Sob in voice, hands going through hair, ready to pull a few out) Hah!! Shows what you know about cooking. Nobody ever comes to your house for dinner. If you don't know the difference between lasagna and baked ziti . . . . . . And you think you're so damned smart! And I know, yes I know, you insult my cooking behind my back. [Not true, because she was in fact a very good cook.]

And so on.

Now, when I was younger, I would have seen this argument through to an end of screaming on my mother's part, and abrupt hanging up of the phone on my part. If I did actually show up at her place on Sunday, it was very likely she would not be home. But with the passage of time, I learned to just let it go, say "Fine," and make alternative plans for my Sunday dinners. And she just kept on wondering why her children didn't visit.

[moira finnie]

Hey BG, please tell your mother I'm with her on Barbra Streisand's nails!

All through Prince of Tides all I could see were her nails, which I found so distracting--though you're probably right, she must have "people" who open cans for her. B.S. makes me wonder if she read Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class at an impressionable age. Maybe she bought his argument that the more useless you made yourself by adopting goofy grooming habits such as long fingernails and impractical clothing like spiked heels, the more others would realize that you were special and should not be expected to do prosaic activities, like opening cans, taking out the garbage, cooking, cleaning, etc.

But, I digress. Glad to see you and your Mom have nestled in here. Though my own mother could drive me crazy with her fixations on grammar and ethics and correct forms of social behavior, I was lucky--she was also very funny, usually intentionally, (and very sarcastic, a trait that continues to get me into trouble).

[movieman1957]

My mother is a lovely woman. Southern born and every bit a lady. Only once did she cross the line to crazy but it was fun crazy and a laugh for us at her expense.

A friend and I had recently been to see "Network" in 1976. Having seen it we knew she would be annoyed at their constant use of THAT WORD. She did know we had seen it so on the arrival at home my friend asked if they enjoyed it. Mom liked it fine except "that they always said THAT WORD." Knowing she would never say it we urged her to share what that was, playing innocent all along. Mom would say "you know what word I mean." We would answer that we didn't have a clue what she meant. Well, after ten minutes or so of this one last time we asked what she meant when out of sight and in the kitchen my father let go with THAT WORD.

My mother was embarassed and horrified. For some reason she got the carpet sweeper from beside the fridge and started sternly running over the carpet all the while tearing my father a new one. "Don! I can't believe you said that. In front of company and me. You've embarassed me and Chris," etc. She continued on for some time. I love my mom but now and again she is wonderful fun, even if she doesn't mean it.

[bryce]

So, Chris, what word is THAT WORD?

[jdb1]

Hey BG, please tell your mother I'm with her on Barbra Streisand's nails!

All through Prince of Tides all I could see were her nails, which I found so distracting--though you're probably right, she must have "people" who open cans for her. B.S. makes me wonder if she read Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class at an impressionable age. Maybe she bought his argument that the more useless you made yourself by adopting goofy grooming habits such as long fingernails and impractical clothing like spiked heels, the more others would realize that you were special and should not be expected to do prosaic activities, like opening cans, taking out the garbage, cooking, cleaning, etc.

Oh, please, don't get me started on One Of The Worst Things to Come Out Of Brooklyn! Did I tell you all that Babs used to work the cash register at Chin's Chinese restaurant on Flatbush Avenue? Even then, while still in high school, she was trying to set herself apart from us peasants. I can't really remember actually seeing her (she's older than I, but we did patronize Chin's at that time), but I remember hearing about her from others who did once she achieved some small fame: her haughty attitude, her eccentric wardrobe (usually black at a time when nice girls didn't wear black), long hair in front of her face so that all that was visible was the tip of that nose, and the Madame Chaing Kai-Shek fingernails painted orange and/or shocking pink. You have to dial the phone with a pencil, and flip-top cans were only just coming in.

You could say that she was flamboyant, or you could say that she had an inferiority complex the size of Wisconsin and was hiding behind the outlandish getup; or maybe both. Either way, she is one of those Brooklyn types I can't abide under any circumstances. I'd rather spend time with my mother!

[moira finnie]

You could say that she was flamboyant, or you could say that she had an inferiority complex the size of Wisconsin and was hiding behind the outlandish getup; or maybe both. Either way, she is one of those Brooklyn types I can't abide under any circumstances.

Ah, but Judith. She may have been many things, but the important one was that voice, which, particularly in her early recordings, was simply a beautiful gift, at least to my ears.

[jdb1]

You could say that she was flamboyant, or you could say that she had an inferiority complex the size of Wisconsin and was hiding behind the outlandish getup; or maybe both. Either way, she is one of those Brooklyn types I can't abide under any circumstances.

Ah, but Judith. She may have been many things, but the important one was that voice, which, particularly in her early recordings, was simply a beautiful gift, at least to my ears.

I don't hate the voice as long as I don't have to look at her, but I don't love it, either, or her mannered singing style. The voice simply isn't enough for me to get past those mannerisms, the preening, etc, and the not very palatable looks (worst case of crossed eyes since Norma Shearer). I cannot abide her "acting" either. To me Babs is cold as ice. I took an instant dislike to her long ago, before she even started getting really outrageous in her diva-ness, and time has not tempered my antipathy. Just one of those things.

[movieman1957]

Bryce:

Don't make me find the carpet sweeper.

[Birdy]

My mother is partially deaf and totally in denial about it. This leads to many conversations including, "did you say..."
Chicken pot
kitchen hot
digging mop
really shot ..... and on and on and on.

Not to mention she's a retired English teacher and therefore never wrong.

However, she does more in a day than the army does in a week and likes to laugh until she's hysterical. (Literally crying.)
I love her. (In doses.)

B