The Doodle Stare and Celery!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

This morning I called my mother like I do almost every day and got her just before she had to leave to go exercise.  The times you can call her are very specific because she is either leaving to play Bridge, watching Matlock, watching The Price is Right, or out the door for some other reason.  I could be in the middle of telling her I was having chest palpitations and could she hang up and call 911 for me and I can assure you I would be screwed if it happened during one of her shows.  All she would say before she slammed down the phone would be, “I told you never to call me during Matlock.”  Today, however, she was able to spare me a few minutes before exercise and even asked me what I did last night and before I tell you the rest of what happened, let me say that there is absolutely no correlation between my riveting stories and my mother’s hurry to get off the phone.

 

First, we talked about the weather and the dropping temperatures and I told her I took a bath last night because I was so cold, but it wasn’t a long one because my bath time was cut short by Vern.  This piqued her interest and I think her exact words were, “you got two minutes, kiddo.”  Nothing makes you want to tell a good story like a time limit, so I told her I was a little unnerved last night by Vern staring at me the entire time I was in the tub.  Luckily, she didn’t make one of her lame jokes like she did last week when I told her my daughter saw a turkey in our driveway and she wondered out loud if it had come looking for its parents. She stopped laughing when I said, “well, wouldn’t that make you the Turkey Matriarch?”  Anyways, I fully expected her to say something like maybe Vern was reacting like we do when we see a bad accident and even though we know we might see something horrific, we can’t look away.  I guess she was in too big of a hurry to come up with a good one liner, so I went on with my story.

 

I told her I asked Vern to leave and I even implored upon my husband to call Vern, but still Vern stayed, so finally I guided him out the door and shut it behind him.  While I was going about my business, I looked up to see Vern had pushed the door open and his head was in the door frame and his eyes were back on me.  I am used to the dogs coming to find me when they need something and I knew Vern wanted something.  I also knew it was useless to send him out to my husband because I was pretty sure Antique Roadshow was on and I know from experience the dogs could ring bells, drop their poop bags on his lap, and whistle Dixie, and if it was in the price reveal part of the show, all he would say when I asked him why he didn’t’ take the dogs out would be, “how was I supposed to know they had to go out?”  Bath time was over for me and sure enough, when I walked into our bedroom, Vern followed me and continued to stare.  Finally, I had a light bulb moment and said,  “Vern, were you waiting for me to come to bed and I was taking too long?”  Apparently, I was delaying his bedtime with my bath and the stare down was his way of telling me to pick up the pace.  Once we got that all figured out, we both got into bed and Vern promptly fell asleep. Who said humans are smarter than dogs?  When I finished telling my mom my Vern story, all she said was, “that Vern is worse than a kid.”

 

The good news for my mom is after we hung up the phone, Fudge did her own version of the Doodle stare right after I sneezed this morning and now I will have another dog story for my mom tomorrow.  Wednesday is her Bridge day, so I will have to tell her this one in a hurry, before she hangs up the phone like she did one day after she said,  “Do me a favor and look up rhetorical question and see if What riveting story about your dogs do you have for me today falls under that category.”  Other times she just says she can’t wait to tell her bridge club about her crazy dog daughter. No matter, when I tell her that Fudge reacts to sneezes in the oddest ways, she is going to be sorry she ever pooh-poohed any of my stories.  If you sneeze anywhere in the house, Fudge will come out of nowhere and sit and stare at you from a distance. I find it very unsettling, because it is as if she knows something about your health that she is afraid to share with you.  If she is near you when you sneeze, she will rise up and slink off and then turn and watch you from afar.  Sometimes, I will go get her and carry her back to bed with me and she will go to the farthest corner from me and act like she was made to lie in a bed with a leper.  I try and avoid that stare at all costs, so sometimes I do everything short of sticking my head in the hamper, so Fudge can’t hear me sneeze.  I bet when I tell this story to my mom she will say, “that Fudge is worse than a kid.”

 

Well, you know what? My mom has told me plenty of stories that really don’t interest me and never once have I said to her, “Call me when I am not so tired, because this story is putting me to sleep.”  Just last week, she launched into an entire story about celery.  She had herself laughing so hard I could hardly understand her and was afraid she might pass out since she couldn’t catch her breath.    I don’t know if it is a generational thing or less oxygen is flowing to her brain cells the older she is getting, but some of the things that seem to tickle her funny bone aren’t doing a thing for mine. Apparently, she was at her weekly Bridge Club and shared with all her friends the exciting news that she was craving celery. She went on to tell them that her refrigerator was so tiny it made buying a lot of produce really hard.  Sometime after Bridge Club was over, she decided to live on the edge and buy not one, but two, bunches of celery and she didn’t stop there. She went on to buy two quarts of strawberries and now her refrigerator was so full she couldn’t imagine what she had been thinking. I told her if she told me she also bought two gallons of milk, I was going to alert the media that we had a “Senior Gone Wild” episode in the making.

 

She went on to say she couldn’t wait to go to Bridge Club this week and bring some celery to snack on, because she just knew all the other ladies would get a big kick out of it, after all the fuss she made about getting celery last week.  I wanted to tell her that I thought the other women were probably going to turn to each other sometime during Bridge Club and whisper, “who is the kook that won’t shut up about the celery?” but I have found dementia jokes don’t go over any better than celery jokes with the elderly.  I also thought there might be a good chance she would not be asked back to Bridge Club because of the noise complaints I expected would be filed against her by the person sitting next to her, who did not think the sound of celery being chewed in her ear was soothing.  I didn’t want to burst an elderly person’s bubble, so I laughed along with her like a good daughter, even though I wanted to say,   “Mom, if a reporter shows up from the Boring Gazette or the Snoozefest Chronicles, make sure he hears that celery story.”  After all, one person’s Doodle stare story might be another person’s celery story.

[Hayley Arnold]

Very funny, mom! Grandma is crazy!!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Lisa, Awww...thank you. I am honored to know you wake up thinking of me :) You said it exactly right about our DD's....if we miss their calls, they move down their list to the next victim caller.  LOL I do everything in my power not to sneeze and I always yell at my husband if he has the audacity to let one out and scare our little Fudge :)  The part about your dad touched me. How sweet that he answered the phone every Friday. I miss my dad, too.

Nancy, I hope you just buy the celery and don't tell a whole story about it :)

Donna, Wow..someone could have at least warned you. Don't you miss those days? LOL

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

I use to hate waking in the middle of the night and not being able to stop thinking of things enough to fall asleep, but now I say to myself "hey, maybe Laurie posted a blog". You did not disappoint. Not that your blogs put me to sleep LOL.

Your Mom and you are hilarious and I would love to "hang" with you both.

I get the same drive home phone call from my DD....sometimes those calls last up to an hour, amazing. If I miss it and call her right back too late, she has moved on to her next ear piece. Ha ha

Though Daisy does not sit and quietly stare me down she does run out of the room when I am about to sneeze...typically in the ah part of the sneeze. I try to do it without sound now but I think it's the short breaths you take before hand that she catches. I, like you, run from the room if I feel one coming on (why do we do that, it's not like they were doing anything important, they just go back to sleeping elsewhere?) or if I am about to cough because when I cough she rushes to my side and stares at me like I am about to die or something. Strange doodle powers?

As far as parental phone calls I use to call my Dad on Fridays on my way home from work...he expected them, answered the phone "Hello Little Lisa" his nickname for me. They were very short but sweet calls, he never did not answer. Mom told me he had his phone in his hand every Friday evening waiting. I miss those calls every Friday. I call my Mom rarely, it's a loud call due to her hearing...we prefer texting and emails. We also share a book that we write back in forth in.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Celery, yum! Gotta' go to the store now......

[Donna K & Quincy]

At least Fudge only stares at you when you sneeze, I once got punched by a 300lb patient when I coughed. Nobody warned me he reacted violently to coughing. I took great care not to make that mistake again.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Loved your joke Donna.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Thanks, Jennifer and Ricki!

Donna, I guess Vern has a strong stomach for things that are not pretty...LOL!!! I am going to tell my mom that joke, IF she is still talking to me after she reads my blog....LOL!!! Thanks for the laugh! I loved the stalker comment...why didn't I think of that...they both know how to stalk :)

[Donna K & Quincy]

Laurie, I am still laughing at Vern staring at you in the bathroom, who knew Vern was a voyeur and there is no celery story that can top that. Although Vern and celery do have something in common, they both know how to stalk. :>)

The next time your mom tells you a celery story you will have something to share in the conversation.

 

Two Celery Sticks
One day two celery sticks, who were best friends, were walking together down the street. They stepped off the curb and a speeding car came around the corner and ran one of them over.

The uninjured celery stick called 911 and helped his injured friend as best he was able. The injured celery stick was taken to emergency at the hospital and rushed into surgery.

After a long and agonizing wait, the doctor finally appeared. He told the uninjured celery stick, "I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news is that your friend is going to pull through."

"The bad news is that he's going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life".

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

No contest! You win paws down!!

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

Your mom is AWESOME! Celery is more laughable than doodles her grand doodles at that! So so funny.