Two weeks ago, Mimi underwent surgery to uncross her toes. The index toe had lapped over the middle toe. I think they got stuck when Mimi was praying to win the lottery. If it wasn’t bad enough that she couldn’t wear sandals without drawing undue attention to herself, Mimi was in pain.
The surgery was scheduled on a Friday, and I took the day off to go with her. When the surgeon walked in with the purple Magic Marker to draw on her foot so that he wouldn’t uncross the wrong toes, his eyes opened wide in recognition.
I was a little sister in his fraternity when I was a college freshman. I drank cheap beer in those days and did crazy, uninhibited things like dance on bar tops. And here I was all grown up, wearing another 20 pounds and accompanying my mother to toe surgery.
Times change.
Now I drink moderately priced chardonnay and act like an idiot at little league basketball games when Bean 1 plays well, which is actually a frequent occurrence.
After the surgery, Sissy moved in with Mimi to take care of her. Within the first 10 days, Mimi had read four bodice rippers (thank you, Pamelot), watched 11 movies, and learned to cheat at Whirly Word.
Aside: I taught Belle to cheat at Whirly Word, and Belle taught Mimi. Belle showed up at Maison Bean one day. She had won 1951 games since Christmas when Papa, who thought he was going to die, bought us all iPads. There were two words that had Belle stumped, and she wasn’t about to relinquish her winning streak, so she came to me.
The letters were L-Z-O-Y-S-T. I thought about it for all of three seconds and then opened Safari and did a Google search on word scramblers. I know they exist because I play Scrabble with people who cheat. The words were “zloty” and “zlotys.” Then I did a Google search on zloty because I had no idea what the hell a zloty is. But Google is good, and I learned a zloty is a Polish form of currency.
Finally bored with traditional entertainment, Mimi moved on to my blog. Mimi knows I blog, but she’s just not a blog reader. So I get this email while I’m at work. “Did Moose really drink Clorox?”
“Yep,” I wrote back.
Then she called me. “Why didn’t you tell me Moose drank Clorox?!”
“I don’t tell you everything that goes on. It was late. I got up at 4:00 the next morning to go to San Diego, and every time I called after I got to California, things seemed chaotic. By the time I got home, I forgot.”
“You. Told. Me. You. Were. Going. To. A. Conference. For. Work.”
Ooops. She was referring to BlogHer.
“No, I didn’t. I said I was going to a conference. You just assumed it was for work, and I didn’t disabuse you of that.”
Mimi laughed. The oxycodone the frat boy put her on for pain made her giddy. Then she said, “Well, you make us sound like a bunch of drunks.”
And there it is—the first signs, gentle reader, that censorship is on its way.
“Mimi, we are a bunch of drunks.”
But I’ve got bigger problems than Mimi’s censure right now. A 37-pound Moose has taken up residence in my bed. A rogue virus whose only symptom was a very high fever put him in my bed for a couple of nights, and now I can’t get him out. He sleeps sideways and he kicks!
{ 11 comments }
I have that same Moose problem. I moved the crib into my room, in it’s toddler bed form, and so long as the roaming kids goes to it, and not bed where I will be beateng, I decided not to care 😉
Sorry Mimi, no censorship allowed. We appreciate knowing our own families are not the only ones that might seem like “a bunch of drunks” to outsiders. 🙂
Frat boy… LOL
Nothings better than mommy’s bed!
No, no, you’re not drunks! You’re a family that likes to party!!
Drunks smell and live in double wide trailers.
Irene, we live in a single-wide but hope to move in to an almost new double in the spring, assuming the lotto number we got from Lola the Card Reader for 50 bucks really works.
One thing always trumps censorship and that is the Bean inability to keep a secret. With the blog it’s all the better…we can tell the world. Since not everyone in the world reads Jenny’s blog, we count on the readers to help spread the word.
How about a shot and a beer?
Papa
You are a great daughter was the first thought I had!! and, it sounds like their great parents, too. My parents have just moved to town and we’re having quote a bit of wine ourselves. It does help!!!
Wish I could “like” Papa’s comment just like on facebook. Do you have a facebook page for your blog yet??
We made a little bed beside ours for Oliver thinking we could sleep while he was next to us on the floor. But he breathes really hard and I’m a light sleeper. That was years ago but I still get up….. I love to sleep but it hasn’t been in the cards for years. Oh well!!
Papa,
But you don’t live in Pennsylvania.
PowerBall lottery is up to 310 Million since there wasn’t a winner yesterday. I bet every convenience store in the area is going to be jammed with lottery ticket buyers. Would you like me to purchase one for you? 😀
Mimi, you’re gonna have to toughen up. Censorship just won’t work here. My poor Mother in Law has lost ten years of her life over my blog, mostly because I am prone to exaggeration, which means I tell the truth in a more interesting fashion. People need to know these things about the Bean clan. Ya gotta go for the greater good.
Jenn, love, you’re so welcome 😉
I just left my comment in the wrong place, so here goes again–gotta love that frat boy–when I was in labor (twenty three hours in, but who’s counting) the anesthetist who came to give me my epidural turned out to be somebody whose papers I’d edited in college. The moral to this story is be kind to everyone–you never know who’s going to be coming your way with a needle the size of a fencepost.
Oh, and about the censorship? Block. Your. Mom. It’s hard, I know, but you’ll all be much, much happier. You. Your mom (trust me on this). Everybody needs a place to be themselves, online and off. A censored Jenny Bean would be no Jenny Bean at all.
I agree. Block your mom, if you can. This blog will never be the same with censorship 🙂
I don’t think you need to block your mom. Just do what kids of all ages have done since the beginning of time. Manipulate. Okay, Mimi, I won’t write about you anymore. Good thing Papa’s okay with it. I’ll just blog about him exclusively. Ten to one she’ll be begging you to include her. 🙂
Comments on this entry are closed.