I read not too long ago in Newsweek a column wherein a famous writer gets to tell you the reader a book that he/she thinks upon re-reading is total crap (or something along those lines). This author wrote, 'A Catcher in the Rye'. I beg to disagree. When I first read it I thought it was overrated, granted I was in the 4th grade. When I re-read it in the sixth grade, the first page made me change my mind. I am paraphrasing here (although lightly):
"IF YOU REALLY want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my childhood was like, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me,...
How can a book that starts off like that not be good? Anyways, I am not going to share with you about my birth but the word on the street is, "Joo were a hairee baybee."
I am going to share with you my Tristmas day with Marie and the Fancy...
When we got to Marie's house she gave me my present, I gave her hers and she gave the Fancy his. I must preface this by my first comment:
MISS B.: "Marie why do you have two stereos on at the same time?"
MARIE: "Oh, doo Ei?"
MISS B: "How could you not know? Are you having trouble with your hearing?"
MARIE: "Wha?"
Sigh...I asked the Fancy to open his present. He obeyed, he's Jewish so this whole cutting down a live tree and bringing a dead one into one's house covering it with sparkly things and electric lights has him mesmerized. He ripped his present open gleefully. It was a giant bottle of...Isopryl alcohol. Wha? The Fancy shrugged his shoulders sheepishly and smiled and whispered to me,"Well, I told her I needed some the last time we were at Costco."
FANCY: "Thanks Marie!," he held up the bottle and beamed.
Marie can do no wrong in his eyes, they are each others fan club presidents.
I was afraid to open mine, what could Johnny-one-up a giant bottle of rubbing alcohol to her favorite person? Maybe a package of Hefty bags? I opened tentatively. I could see it was clothes, oh dear. She knows better than clothes. It was black so that was a first, I pulled it out and truth-be-told it was a relatively cute coat.
MISS B: "Oh Marie, you shouldn't have spent your money! I have plenty of coats but thank you."
MARIE: "Joo hubbie wanted to get joo extra small, I said no small, she haz long arms."
FANCY: "Like a monkey." (insert peals of laughter here from both of them).
MISS B.: "Excuse me?"
MARIE: "Jes, I told heem joo have munkey arms and legz."
She then pulled out a ziploc bag, another present perhaps? Or much needed illegal drugs to put me out of my misery? She handed it to me like it was the Hope diamond.
MISS B: "Another present?"
MARIE: "Jes, from thee eestate."
My grandmothers' last living sister passed away recently and they had just settled the estate. Could it be I was being granted a seaside villa in Chile or Spain? My heart pounded, it certainly looked like papers. I opened the bag gently.
It was BETTER than a villa. It was photo's the likes I had NEVER seen prior. Photo's when my parents were in love. You can see it in their eyes and the photographs they took of each other. It was the best present she ever gave me.
{No my father NEVER smiled, trust me this is a happy face, really, practically a grin}
MISS B: "Tell me about the day my big brother was born, was he hairy too?"
MARIE: "OH NO! He waz purfect! Every other mom wanted to take heem home, he was so perfect!"
NOTE: For the record I think she misunderstood the looks/stares of horror from the other mothers in the hospital at her giving birth to basically a toddler/teenager and I would rather have been born hairy with munkey arms and legs. So there.
