There will be a "girls' night" potluck dinner here this evening. People will start showing up in a little less than two hours. My mom is upstairs fluffing the sofa cushions. There's a reed diffuser loaded with something that smells like Christmas without the cloves. Everything has been cleaned.
I think my mother is crazy.
While I was watching this all out of rhe corner of my eye, I was reading the May issue of Real Simple magazine. There's an "article" in there of eight women's accounts of what they learned from their mothers. As is always the case with things like this, I found myself flabbergasted at some people's ideas of good parenting.
If you would, allow me an anecdote.
Some years ago, my mom tore a page out of some magazine. I'm not sure if it was an advertisement or not. At the top of the page, it said "I am..." and the rest of the page was covered in positive adjectives, like "dynamic" and "authentic," all written in different colours and fonts that looked hand-painted. I came across this page and my mom was enthusiastic. I was confused, and so she clarified by giving a thumbs-ups/fist pumping motion and shouting "Yeah!" I didn't know what to say. The notion that somebody--a grown woman--would feel good about herself because a magazine gave her a pretty list of very select adjectives that she should have known applied in any case was bizarre. How could somebody realize that they're an alive person and not realize that there are many, many adjectives that describe them?
I don't mean to sound like some new age hippy or some condescending holier-than-thou type. It's just that... that magazine page might as well have said "You have a liver, so your body can neutralize toxins you ingest!" Yay for being able to drink alcohol and whatnot, but duh...
I wonder if self-concept has anything to do with why my mom feels it's necessary to clean and fluff stuff in preparation for a casual girls' night. Maybe she's only tidy if her kitchen tells her so.
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