Interstate 5 runs down through the
state of California like an artery in a giant body. It gets atherosclerosis when it reaches Los Angeles, which
is where I live.
Driving down to my parent’s house
is always a stressful time for me, especially during the Holidays. It’s about sixty miles or so to their
house, but because this is Los Angeles the drive can take anywhere from one hour
to several days, depending on what time you leave the house. My dad found a back route one time,
which is a longer distance but takes less time. Good luck doing the math on that one. I’m always stressed out when I have to
drive long distances. Being herded
down a cement channel at eighty miles an hour with three million other cars
always brings me to the brink of my mental stability. The only thing I can think of once I’ve arrived at my
destination is, “Shit. I’ve got to
do that all over again.”
We usually bring Cheryl’s mom,
Diane, with us, as she has fit in quite well with my parents. She has a style of speech where her
sentences start out high and then drop down sharply to those negative notes. They’re declarative statements, nagging
almost, where every third word is rounded off so that the entire sentence kind
of just pours out of the mouth like water out of a bucket. Early on, Diane and my mother quickly
bonded on the subjects of homeopathic medicine, astrology and the strong belief
in the psychic teachings of Sylvia Browne. There is a small part of me that honestly believes that, as
children, these two women were taken from the same gypsy family somewhere in
the Appalachian Mountains and deposited to two different families in Southern
California, where they finally, unknowingly, reunited at our house some four or
five years ago for a taco dinner.
My mother-in-law’s conversations
are quite entertaining, as they have no real beginning or no foreseeable end in
sight. They’re usually just one
long speech interspersed with the occasional haranguing of how homeopathic
medicine will fix that irritating cough I have or that the right medicine will
help me sleep better. When she’s
not trying to push homeopathic medicine on me she’s gossiping about this person
or that one. “I talked to Sally yesterday,” she would begin rather benignly,
“Yeah, she has cancer. It’s terrible. It’s okay though, ‘cause they’ll just
scrape out all her innards and she’ll be good as new.”
My mother, Steffani, decided some
years ago to learn American Sign Language with no prompting from anyone in the
deaf community. There are no deaf people
in our family and we have no deaf friends. I don’t remember ever knowing anyone who’s lost their
hearing, except for a kid in San Diego who used to deliver the paper. Unless my mother has secretly reunited
with him on one of the social networks, I can’t come up with a practical reason
for why she suddenly needs to communicate with the hard of hearing.
When she talks she intersperses her sign language with her
regular speech as if she’s translating for someone that we can’t see. She looks like one of those people down
in the corner of the TV screen translating for the deaf during a political
speech. Again, there are no deaf
people in the house at all. The
only reason that I can figure out why my mom decided to learn ASL and not, say,
Spanish is so that even the hard of hearing can be made aware when she’s being
passive aggressive. She remains to
be the only person alive that I’m aware of who can take an invitation to
Thanksgiving Dinner as an insult.
I’m not sure how well passive aggressiveness comes across in sign
language, but for the hard of hearing’s sake, I hope that most of it gets lost
in translation.
Cheryl and I don’t have any children of our own, we’re too
busy being selfish with our careers and planning this party and that one. Cheryl does dote on her nieces and
nephews, though. She would
probably be a good mother while I would most likely be known to our children as
‘that guy’.
I know that everyone likes to brag about how smart their
kids are and, we who don’t have children just can’t get enough of that
subject. Parents often have a way
of telling you how intelligent their kids are while making you feel like an
uneducated baboon, and that once their kid reaches driving age you might as
well stay inside your house for the rest of your life because you will not be
able to compete with the awesomeness.
We see my sister Lara’s kids whenever we come down. She has five wonderful, unspoiled,
intelligent children. Ian is the
oldest. He was named after me as a
result of some serious negotiations.
As it was explained to me it came down to a flip of the coin as to which
name would do the honors and lead the family. Little Ian plays baseball, football and soccer and reads a
book about every two days. He’s
already making me look like a complete buffoon as he masters every sport they
offer in that school of his.
Olivia, who is eight, has only begun to have conversations
with me. Up until recently she was
so shy that she wouldn’t even look at me when I said hi to her. I couldn’t help but feel a little
offended, seeing how she would usually talk it up with my brother or my parents. I’m sure she’s not aware of the six
years we didn’t speak to each other, not counting the two years where she only
spoke gibberish and screamed a lot for no apparent reason, but I’m glad we’re
on speaking terms now.
Nicholas is the middle child. He’s only six, but he’s taller than most eight year
olds. There’s an intelligence
about him that makes me feel that I’m speaking with a college educated uncle who
works for NASA instead of a kindergartner. His recollection of just about everything he’s read is quite
impressive and at the same time, a little intimidating. I don’t know what he does in his spare
time but if he told me that he builds weather balloons for his friends, I
wouldn’t be surprised. I know the
day is fast approaching where he is going to look me right in the eye and tell
me that I am a complete buffoon.
The sad part is that he probably won’t be wrong.
The twins, Liam and Stella are relatively new to the
planet. They’re just over two
years old and, like all children that age, manage to capture the spotlight at
any family gathering. Liam likes
to show everyone that he can run really fast and doesn’t seem to tire of that,
running around and around and around, only stopping briefly to look sideways at
everyone and make sure that we’re all taking note on, not only his speed, but
his form.
Stella already has her own unique sense of style as far as
fashion is concerned. One look at
her outfits and you come to the speedy conclusion that this kid probably laid
out her ensemble the night before, perhaps making a few last minute adjustments
before dressing herself. Any input
from mom was probably duly noted and then stuffed away in the part of her brain
that remembers math problems.
There were never any matching tops and bottoms that you usually find
kids with no fashion sense wearing.
Stella loves her boots.
They’re only about eight inches high, but on her they go almost to her
knees. Complimenting the boots is
always some sort of loudly colored, festive skirt. Tying everything together is the pink, puffy, hooded winter
jacket. This two year old manages
to pull off the unbelievable in that she has everyone convinced that not only
does she put her outfits together herself, but she somehow she probably goes
out and purchases them as well.
Since Ian is the athlete, Diane has now trapped him with
questions about anything that hurts as a result of being an athlete, and then
suggesting he take various types of homeopathic pills to relieve the pain. I’ve been lectured by her before about
the positive attributes of homeopathic medicine. I’m not the Michael Jordan of San Juan Capistrano like my
nephew, but I manage to keep in shape and eat fairly healthy. It might be safe to say that I’m probably
the only one in Cheryl’s family that exercises on a regular basis, and yet,
Diane has a multitude of suggestions about how I can become even healthier. I remember this one time when Diane threw her back out and
was nearly immobilized by the pain.
Visiting at her condo for New Year’s Day, she proceeded to lecture me,
from lying in the most painful looking position on the floor, I might add, that
I need to take care of myself and that the only way to do that was to begin a
strict regimental intake of homeopathic pills, powders and ointments. “That,”
she declared, “is to guarantee that this,”
trying to point at her lower back, “won’t happen to you.”
My dream is to never celebrate any holiday ever again. An extreme position, yes, I agree, but
I believe extreme situations call for extreme action, or inaction in this
case. Why is it that it’s not
really considered celebrating Christmas until your bank account is nearly
drained empty? Why does Thanksgiving dinner take two days to make and only five
minutes to eat? Why can’t we send
postcards to each other and give a brief description of what we’re up to and be
done with it? Why must pain and
suffering be involved at every turn?
Who is responsible for this? Is it Santa? Is
it the Pilgrims?
All I’m trying to say is that I think we’re placing too much
importance of reluctantly getting together at the end of the year to appreciate
each other’s existence when we should be grateful any time of the year. We should call each other and let each
other know how our savings account is going along instead of buying a random
gift from Pottery Barn to give to someone because they seem as if they would be
the types to have a party where people ate cheese from a marble platter. Let’s stop wasting each other’s time
and money. If sometime during the
year you’re thinking about a family member that you haven’t seen in a while
call them up and have a good chat and then continue on with your life, happy
that you’re not stuck with all the other chumps on Interstate 5.
