Scene I.
Main room of lakehouse. Older woman is bustling to pack up a mountain of luggage, baskets, tote bags, a cooler, etc. in preparation to leave. Younger woman observes with dismay, but wisely chooses not to remark upon the volume of stuff. She is, instead, having a glass of chardonnay.
Nance: Mom! You'll be happy tonight! Guess what's on TV!
St. Patsy: (looks up expectantly; is honestly excited) What? Give me a hint.
Nance: It's a Tragic Heroine Double Feature tonight on one of the old movie channels! Guess what's on.
St. Patsy: (smiling; really happy now) No! You mean on TNC?
Nance: (laughs) Mom! What the hell is TNC? It's "TCM" or "AMC". Turner Classic Movies or American Movie Classics! But yes, one of those, and I think it's AMC. Doesn't matter; you can look at the guide. Guess the movies. Remember, both are tragic female leads.
St. Patsy: (now completely not packing at all; unable to multi-task) Oh, well! Has to be Camille.
Nance: (proud, but a little surprised) Yes! Camille is the first one. What's the second?
St. Patsy: (leaning on a barstool now; thinking really hard) Now...is it...well, don't I even get a hint?
Nance: (teasing) What a wimp. Okay, here's your clue: Same leading man in both of them. Robert Taylor.
St. Patsy: (frowns; then brightens) Oh! Oh! Gotta be D-Day 6th of June!
Nance: What?! How is that a Tragic Heroine Movie? Now you're just grasping at straws! I'm so disappointed in you. I could not be more--
St. Patsy: (interrupts)--well, what's his character's name?
Nance: I don't know! Besides, that's not even fair. Here's your next clue: He is military and she--
St. Patsy: (triumphant) Oh, Waterloo Bridge! Oh, boy. I will be crying tonight! I better have plenty of tissues.
Nance: I know, right? I knew you'd be happy.
Scene 2.
Interior of car on the ride home. Rick is driving, Nance is up front, St. Patsy is in the passenger seat, crowded by several pieces of luggage that would not fit in the hatchback of the Prius. Nance and St. Patsy have been reminiscing about the myriad car trips of her youth.
St. Patsy: (fondly) Remember taking the long way with your father down 511? It was way out of the way, but you kids put up with it because he would stop at the ice cream place and get you all a twist cone.
Nance: Yep. I remember.
St. Patsy: There were a lot of cows that way, Nance. (very bright and happy now) And those goats!
Nance: What? Why would you say that to me?
St. Patsy: Say what?
Nance: About the goats.
St. Patsy: What about them? There were always a whole bunch, remember?
Nance: Mom! I really cannot believe that you would be so cavalier in your mention of goats to me, considering my Childhood Trauma with them!
St. Patsy: What childhood trauma?
Nance: (turning fully around in her seat; indignant) What childhood trauma?! Don't you remember that travelling petting zoo at the mall when we were little and we went in to it and that goat ate my favorite dress that Grandma made me? How upset I was? How do you not remember that? Oh. My. God, Mom.
St. Patsy: (giggling) Oh that's right. I do remember that.
Nance: (aggravated and wounded) Holy crap, Mom. That was traumatic for me. And you are laughing! (more laughter from the backseat) Wow. I bet if it was Patti* who had her favorite dress eaten by a renegade goat, it would be a whole different story. Because Patti-- *(note: Patti is the eldest and perceived favorite daughter)
St. Patsy: (interrupts) --Oh, Nance! (begins to mock-sing a tragic violin/movie music interlude) Da da daaaa da da, da da da daaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Nance: (horrified at her callousness) Mom! Really? First you don't remember my childhood goat trauma and then you mock me?
St. Patsy: (calm) But I remember your attraction to cattle.
Finis.
I think you and your mother are both funny and delightful. And you deserve one another.
ReplyDeletelaughing. Get's your goat, does she/
So did mine.
I adore your conversations with your mother. They remind me of me & my mom, except this part: "wisely chooses not to remark..." I never wisely chose not to remard. Ever. My poor mom :)
ReplyDeleteThe very mention of Camille takes me back to the Carol Burnett Show.
ReplyDeleteCarol's audience gave her the longest laugh on record and she did not speak one line.
The scene opened with Carol, playing the part of Camille Gautier, lying on her chaise lounge
waiting for the love of her life ,Armand Duval, to enter.
Just as Armand steps into the room,
Camille begins to rise to greet him, then falls back onto the chaise and gives a very small muffled cough.
The audience went wild and laughed for 10 minutes!
THE COWS!! Things we could count on always cheering you up in class: pictures of bunnies, Daniel Day-Lewis, and cow-related anything.
ReplyDeleteYou still have that blanket Jessica made you?!
AP--Of course I do! And I still love it. Nice to see you here again. I stop by your place every now and again, you know.
ReplyDeleteNancy--I remember that skit very well. My mother used to call us "Camille" if she sensed we were faking illness or over-dramatizing ours for sympathy or a day off of school or any other excuse. For ages, we didn't know what the hell she was talking about.
The Bug--Oh, my valorous discretion is a very recent trait, believe you me. And if you ask my mother, it comes and goes. I suffer from Capricious Wisdom and Random Bouts Of Tact.
Mary--She is far braver calling me out when Rick is around. She knows he will protect her.
I pink puffy heart your mom, you know. And Rick. And you. I may move next door to you and take over.
ReplyDeleteMoms & daughters & sibling rivalry. I think we all deserve medals for just surviving with a sense of humor in tact. St. Dorothy (may she rest in peace) had a lot of goats in her pen. And The Older Sister--- well, let's just say we agree to disagree on how certain scenes from our childhood really played out. (My version is the right one, of course.)
ReplyDeleteOrtizzle--Patti is completely oblivious to any favoritism on the part of Patsy. Susan and Bobby, my sibs, admit to its existence and we all give Patsy a pass on it. None of us can ever say it truly had a deleterious effect on our childhoods, really. Poor Patti. She got stuck being a Surrogate Mom to us plenty, so she can have that perk. Now, about Dorothy's goats--metaphorical or real?
ReplyDeleteJ@jj.com--Bless your pink puffy heart. Just hearing that you'd give up Kallyfornya and all of its avocados to come here and take charge of us is adorable. Don't do it or even think of it. Read any of my January, February, or March archive posts when I'm bewailing the endless winter weather and pining to see a glimpse of green in my yard or temps above 32. You'll soon realize that it's enough to just read the Dept. and maybe plan a visit. LOL.
I had a dozen roses sent to my mother today with a nice card. She was absolutely thrilled! She said they were beautiful and perfect, and she's going to try and plant a couple in hopes that she'll end up with a rose bush. Love, beauty, and a possible project all in one present. Epic win :-)
ReplyDeleteMetaphorical. She could get my goat more than anyone I have ever known. Even my siblings admit that I was picked on to the point of ... well, let's just say I deserve one of those medals and then some. It took a very long time for me to realize what was behind it. St. Dorothy had a lot of baggage she never got rid of--- I don't think she really even knew how--- and I was just the hapless victim. Which is why I left home the minute I could, put myself through school and moved to another country. (Play tragic violin music, lol.) In spite of that, I think things worked out pretty darn good. I often think about nature vs. nurture, and I am coming to the conclusion that nature has as much to do with how we turn out as nuture has to do with how we are "turned out."
ReplyDeletePeeking at what you're reading...Are you enjoying Freedom? I liked it, but it just seemed a bit too long to me. Hmmm. I've not read any Dickens, sadly, which I must rectify at some point.
ReplyDeletej@jj--I'm not sure I'd say "enjoying." "Appreciating" is more like it. I always feel as if Franzen is trying very hard to make his characters very, very complex and symbolic; ditto his plot. Felt that way about THE CORRECTIONS. I think it is impossibly long, has too many characters, and I feel bashed over the head with the theme. Also, he created the Extremely Icky adjective "milfy" to describe a middle-aged woman's flirty voice. Ugh. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteAs I've mentioned in an earlier post--or two--I am a sucker for the Victorian novellists. Not so much Dickens, but the genre has my scholarly-literary old heart. I specialized in 19th cent.BritLit in college (so naturally, I taught American Lit almost exclusively for the greater part of my career!!), and I'm happy to revisit some old friends.
Ortizzle--Sigh. What a relationship is parenting! So fraught with pitfalls and perils...I wonder why anyone ever signs up to do it? Rick and I often do Parenting Postmortems: we talk about whether or not we did the right thing in such-and-such a scenario, some of them aeons ago. It's too true--you're never, ever done.
Mikey--Savour that victory. Who knows how soon you'll rack up another? Hee hee hee.
I don't have anything clever to say, Nance, but I loved reading this post! Thanks so much for sharing your conversation with your mom. I found them very enjoyable!
ReplyDeleteShirley
Shirley--Oh,thanks. I do love spending time with her, and it's fun to get her going.
ReplyDelete