Mom's friends

Last night Mom had some guests over for dinner. I sat around after dinner and listened in on the conversation among these "adults" as I like to do. I often think that it amuses me to hear what other people have to say and then reflect on what type of person these people are. The husband has a slow, deliberate way of speaking. His sentences are logical, ordered and neat. You can see that his mind probably operates like that too, in a very deliberate, step-wise fashion. He recounted the experience of his father, who passed away last year after spending five months in the hospital. Some of the experiences must have been painful for him to recount, but he was very in control, very calm and placid. I admired his calm. I also realize that I want to think like him, in a step by step, logical manner. I don't like having undercurrents of thought that act like a monkey scrambling around wildly, from one point to another. It takes great effort to grab ahold of that monkey and keep it planted firmly in one place, all the while, it's struggling wildly to break free and scramble about again. I digress, bad monkey!

So the wife of the dynamic duo is an interesting character too. She talked about her experiences child-rearing. She had two daughters, roughly around my age. Growing up, she disliked the sound of crying. When her younger daughter would cry (after being whipped around), she would tell the girl to go into the storage room and cry, so she didn't have to hear it. However, this one time, the girl wouldn't stop crying in the room and she kept hearing it, so annoyed, she went to the room, yanked the girl out and promptly gave her a second beating. Her daughter, feeling very wretched and wronged, said, "you told me I could cry in this room!" and her loving mother snapped, "Yes, but you were crying way too long. You were just asking for another round!" Holy Canoli, I didn't know Moms come in such shapes and sizes. I mean, I thought my mom was a fierce one for once breaking the hanger in beating me and my sister up, but that probably only occurred once in my life. This mom makes my mom seem like a gentle lamb.

Regardless, now we can look back on such times and laugh (especially me, since I never had to undergo such a treatment).