As many of you know, things haven’t been completely fabulous in Frumpy Mom land lately.
I’ve been having high-dose radiation treatments for pesky cancer that leave me spending way too much time drooling in my recliner. This isn’t as much fun as you might think. On the plus side, I’m glowing so I can save on electric lights.
Even worse – for some horrifying and inexplicable reason – I’ve completely lost my taste for liquor. This is an occurrence that I never would have predicted. I’m not trying to stop drinking. I just don’t want to drink. Recently, I even ordered a (gasp) Virgin Mary instead of a Bloody Mary and, afterward, pronounced that it didn’t even need the vodka to taste good. I know, I should have been committed at that point.
All my Mormon cousins are now reading this and thinking, “See. She’s now seen the light.”
But the problem is that I don’t want to stop drinking. It just seems to be done with me, at least for the time being.
And it’s ironic that this should occur at the exact moment when I have more liquor than ever before – left over from Curly Girl’s wedding in May. I have cases of leftover wine in my garage that I haven’t been able to give away. If I wasn’t drooling so much, I’d have a party and try to get rid of it all, which shouldn’t be a problem because all my friends are winos.
Some of you are loosening up your fingers right now, about to email me and tell me to “get some gummies.” Yes, there’s a weed store in my nice suburban neighborhood. I even went there once. Remind me to tell you that story sometime. But that doesn’t interest me, either.
However, having said all that, I did have two glasses of wine last night. I got snockered and had to practically be carried into my house, but it was worth it.
See, my daughter came to see me. With her new Now-a-Husband, who she married in May. She is 23 years old and only lives two miles away, but I hadn’t seen her in about a month and I was starting to get pretty morose about this.
She works the early morning shift in a dive bar so I could have gone to see her, but since I’m not drinking right now I don’t have all that much interest in going into a bar at 8 a.m.
Plus, I wanted her to come and see me. I didn’t pester her because I’m terrible at mom guilt and she ignores me anyway. We used to have a mother-daughter date every Wednesday, but lately, she had been blowing that off, telling me she didn’t feel well.
I didn’t have too much time to worry about the fact that my daughter wasn’t visiting me, because I was too busy drooling, going to radiation treatments and visiting my son, Cheetah Boy, who’s currently in an assisted living home in Torrance while his bones go from looking like a jigsaw puzzle to becoming a normal skeleton.
As many of you know, he was in a terrible motor scooter accident last month, and after nearly a month in the hospital, he graduated to this assisted living home.
It’s a beautiful house in a gorgeous neighborhood. They have 24-hour nursing care, which he needs because he’s not going to be able to walk for at least a couple more months, due to a fractured pelvis. If he were Elvis, he’d be out of a job.
But back to my daughter. She and Now-a-Husband came over the other night because they wanted to talk. This is never a good sign. However, I was trapped there without a glass of wine.
“Now, mama, I was afraid to tell you this, because you might get mad,” my 23-year-old daughter began. Never an auspicious start to a conversation.
She then proceeded to tell me that she’s four months pregnant and they’ll be having a baby in April. She and Now-a-Husband, who is 22 years old, are delighted by this and are eager to become parents.
They were so happy that I couldn’t help but be thrilled for them, even though I do think they’re too young. My daughter thought I would yell at her for this, but one look at her glowing face ended all that.
“You’ll be glad because I’m getting more healthy,” she said. “I stopped vaping and drinking and whenever I have cravings, it’s always for salads or fruits or vegetables.”
This was exciting because her idea of a healthy meal previously was putting ketchup on her In ‘N Out fries. After the announcement, we went out to eat to celebrate, and I had two glasses of wine. They had to carry me into the house.
So, that’s the news from Lake Woebegon, my friends. I guess I’m going to be a grandmother next year. I’ve been thinking about what I want the baby to call me, and I believe “Your Majesty” will work.
Maybe the two of us can drool together.
Related links
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: We made it through the wedding. And no one died.
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: Recovering from the wedding mania
Frumpy Mom: The next round in our healthcare odyssey
Frumpy Mom: Yes, I got one of those phone calls again
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: Cancer isn’t as much fun as you might think it would be