Gems from my evening–

My mother telling me that because of her allergies her eyes have been so red that when she puts on make-up she looks like a demon from a Noh play, as her face is pale and her eyes remain rimmed in bright red. She punctuates this by attempting Noh dance, as if that’s what would make me get what she meant.

My Dad looking out the window and saying “Oh, I thought the slugs were eating the plants but it’s that damned rabbit!” (My parents have a wild rabbit that lives in their yard.) Setting me off on a hilarious thought train of my dad doing battle with this rabbit a la Mr. MacGregor. Probably funny only to me, as my dad has long been doing battle with the lawn and has recently dug up most of the grass and replaced it with flower beds full of plants now being eaten by the rabbit. Poor Dad.

My mother listing off the ways she’s weaning herself off dependence on me so she won’t be bereft when I move away. Her main accomplishment is booking a vacation and making all the arrangements for herself (I usually do this for her, it’s, uh, not that hard). Also she claims my sister is now better than me about knowing what band is singing a song on the radio than I am, so she doesn’t need me for this anymore either.

My mother’s hilarity telling about how she was buying ice cream at a convenience store and she asked the clerk for chocolate syrup and when she came back with it the clerk (an Asian, non-native English speaker) said, “Oh, are you going to put the chocolate syrup on the ice cream? What a good idea!!” My mom was thoroughly amused at the idea that this might be a new concept to someone.

My sister just got back from Paris today (a school trip) and was regaling me with tales of her wacky French teacher, who apparently stood on an escalator in crowded department store and said loudly, “Does anyone need to pee pee or poo poo?” and then turned around to discover that none of the people around her were the kids from her group, they were all random strangers.

Being in the dinning room with my sister who then goes into the other room, so I go into the kitchen and my mom turns to me and says, “Well no wonder I couldn’t find my wallet. It was in the freezer with the ice cream.” She had her very cold wallet in one hand and thing of Haagen Daz in the other. At which point I start laughing so hard I almost rupture something and my sister is calling from the other room, “What did she say?” I go and try and tell my sister, but I’m laughing too hard. I finally get it out and set my sister off. We both come back into the kitchen clutching our stomachs and dying of laughter and mom’s like, “Oh ha ha, you think I’m so funny.” Well, yeah, crazy insane, memory problem lady, you are. We remind her of the time she bought Xmas presents, put her wallet in the bag with them and then hid the presents in the closet and spent FIVE DAYS looking for her wallet. Then the sister and I discuss how when mom is really old we’ll have to check her bags for her every time she comes back from errands. Comedy gold.