Sputterpub's Blog

The geography is unfriendly. The small island is surrounded by rocky shoals, with a persistent surf pounding against the shore. It rises to a steep peak in the center, forbidding to climb and hazardous to mount. Surfaces at the top are sharp and hard, and the wind seldom slows. Narrow gullies run down the sides of the mountain, formed by water coursing to the sea and ocean erosion reaching up. There’s nowhere comfortable to stand.

I met my best friend for a walk and meal yesterday. Maybe I should have cancelled. Lately I’m experiencing boredom, impatience, exasperation, and even a little contempt around Dana. I don’t want to feel that way about her. She’s a good person, my closest friend, and I love her.

We’re enjoying a little season of weddings. I remember the first time, when we were in our early 20s and dozens of our crowd tied the knot. There was a recurrence when our kids and our siblings’ kids hit that age, right around 2000. Now the younger set of offspring, our Millennials, are doing it. Dana’s 32 year old nephew had a NY ceremony last month, my 33 year old son is doing it next week, and I have a 34 year old nephew who will wed in August. All of a sudden Dana and I are talking about attire, etiquette, music, food and photos.

Which means Dana and I are disagreeing.

We’ve always had a form vs function debate. When we first met at 18, it was about shoes. Dana has small feet and dainty ankles. She’s never had a problem with shoe fit and she’s always chosen style. I wear a size 11 and have foot issues, probably from all the early ballet. I walk for transportation. I don’t select orthopedic-looking footwear, but comfort and correct support are my objectives.

As we’ve aged, we’ve managed to stay close even though our paths haven’t. I married twice, raised kids, established a small business, multi-tasked to near-neurosis. Dana stayed single, mostly idle, and acquired some health challenges that tend to fill her days. She’s always been my model for indolence. She’s always thought I am too busy, fast and frantic.

It’s weird. I come on as strong and intimidating. She is soft and blonde and flirtatious. But I’m the understanding one. Dana is draconian.

She hates the word. She told me that in no uncertain terms around the third time I said it, so now I never use it in her presence. But Dana has all sorts of ideas about what’s good for people, and she makes declarations that brook no argument. “All boys need to play team sports.” Or “I don’t like the way this waiter is responding to me. I’m the paying customer and I want it my way. I won’t be coming back here again.” She writes Yelp reviews but only when she’s dissatisfied.

She wasn’t like this when we met in college. She was a hippie revolutionary, into drugs and sex and rock&roll. And it wasn’t like she did the dismayingly standard retreat into conservatism as she aged. She still reads history. She has creative people in her life and allows us some latitude. But she’s taken to voicing “shoulds” that outdo how my parents once declaimed.

These weddings have brought out the worst in her tendency. She’s got all sorts of ideas about appropriate behavior and attire. She inherited money a couple of years ago and she’s been spending it in high-end boutiques. Hanging around with shop owners and “designers,” imbibing their narrow ideas.

For her nephew’s NY wedding, she dressed herself, her escort, and her sister (mother of the groom). Now she thinks she’s the wardrobe guru for my son’s affair. But Tilden Park is not New York. And Alex is nothing like Ted.

Now I’m the mother of the groom, and Dana thinks she is writing the book on MOG dressing. On the phone two days ago, she volunteered advice on the subject. Told me I needed a new outfit, of course. But it’s not that simple. Apparently, I have to find something that is duly formal, not stodgy but not too hip, nice enough that I appear attractive and confident and sophisticated but not so spectacular that I steal the spotlight from the bridal couple.

Like there’s a secret book, and I don’t have a copy. Like my parents trying to tell me how to dress when I went to high school. Dana knows I didn’t respond well to the parental attempts at sartorial guidance; why does she think I’ll listen to her?

And yesterday before we met for our walk and meal, when I told her over the phone that the couple have opted to have parents speak at the ceremony instead of some officiant, Dana leaped in with her opinion. Except her opinion sounded like she was laying down some rules on the subject. “Here’s what you need to keep in mind,” she said. And “you must remember that this ceremony is about them and not about you.” For the record, I’m aware of my role in this rite, I know my son and future daughter-in-law better than she does, and I’m pretty good with words and with public speaking.

WTF? I thought then. What’s gotten into her? But I met her four hours later anyway.

She was carrying iced coffee. She was abuzz with caffeine. She offered me the clear plastic container and said, “Ever since I got back into cocaine, I’ve been doing afternoon coffee. Hot or iced. I’m rediscovering how much I love to be amped up.”

Even with that, it took several hours before the (en)light(enment) bulb lit above my head.

Cocaine! Coffee. Mania. Maybe my best friend is being frequently obnoxiously opinionated and pushy because she’s sped out. Ya think?

I’m not sure the cause matters. The effect is what needs to be controlled. Dana’s landed on an inhospitable island, where there isn’t a good place to stand.

I watched Compass while I drank coffee. She was patrolling the yard but I wasn’t interested in that; I was looking for signs of intestinal issues. That’s a euphemism. She was a healthy retriever mix when we adopted her at one, but within a year she started showing symptoms of the allergies that would dominate her future. Still, that future had continued for another 13 years so far, and she’s going strong now. She’s my model for how to age.

Silly name, though. She had it when she came to us and we figured it shouldn’t be changed. Then we noticed that it isn’t pronounced how it’s spelled. “Come piss” is how we had to call her, and our ideas about shortening it to Comp or Compy never took.

My landline rang. Mom is the only reason I still have one, so it’s always her or solicitors. I headed for the coffee pot as I answered.

“I talked to Betsy today,” my mother reported. “I called to cancel the ride to the rehearsal dinner.”

“Already? You’re always jumping the gun! The dinner isn’t for another three days.”

“I know, but I wanted them to be able to make whatever plans they need. I know I’ll be too tired to attend.”

“Mom. When I RSVP’d yes for you, I made it clear it was conditional. That you might be too tired. You could’ve waited till Friday morning to cancel.”

“I know, Mel. Sue me. It’s the way I am. At my age, I’m not going to change.”

Mom’s 90. She’s a very young 90, but she’ll be 91 in half a year. And about this subject, her infamous impatience, she’s right. I remember when my son was about four and spent a weekend with my parents. Alex came home and reported that he had a nice time but Grandma kept saying the same thing. “What did she say?” I asked. He looked up at me and flung his plump hands outward while pressing his elbows into his sides: “C’mon Jerry!” (Jerry is my dad’s name).

Alex is now 34. He’s getting married this weekend. My brother and sister-in-law are driving in for the Friday dinner and Saturday ceremony. They were going to stop at Mom’s – change clothes and chauffeur her to the rehearsal dinner, but Mom is opting to rest up on Friday so she can shine at the wedding.

“I can’t believe Betsy is so stupid,” Mom continued while I watched Compass squat. “She’s going to lose her son.” Oh dear: the dog was squirting liquid shit. I checked to see that there were a couple of towels near the door.

My sister-in-law is a bitch. She’s a complicated individual, of course, but the older she gets, the more dissatisfied she seems, the more she drinks, the more she says snarky things about others that are consistently overheard. Betsy is a bitch, we all alliterate. Just like we say Jack is a jerk, about her younger son.

It’s her older boy, Sam, about whom she’s being stupid. Sam is engaged to be married in a few months. His fiancee is gorgeous and charming. Her name is Isabella, she’s of Thai heritage, and she is a hard-working nurse/administrator for an assisted living complex. She’s devoted to Sam, and she sacrificed proximity to her own family so she could be with him in Oregon, while he matures and finds himself. But my brother and sister-in-law think Isabella is a manipulative conniving phony.

I’m surprised at Jeff. He’s not a gossip and he’s a pro at letting bad words and scenes not affect him. It was a skill he honed in our own little family. I think Betsy has pounded the critical opinion into his head with her incessant repetition. That’s another thing about her: she latches onto an opinion and chants it like a mantra.

“Isabella is a plastic, LA princess,” is her current tune. She says it to Jeff, she says it to me, she says it to Mom. She says it on the phone, she says it in emails, and based on the twisted bitter expression on her face lately, I’m sure she says it to herself. With each day of this engagement her hatefulness grows.

“Uh, Mom? I have to go. Compass has just had an ‘incident.’”

“Inside or out?”

“Out.”

“You’re used to it. One more thing…” And then she delivered the punchy line. “Betsy said Isabella hacked into her phone.”

“Wait a minute. Hacked into her phone? Isabella? How? For what? Was she listening to calls? Reading emails?”

“I guess she was reading emails.”

“What were they about?”

“I don’t know.” But of course we do. They contained nasty comments about Isabella. They were probably addressed to Jack’s wife, Lilah, aka “the most wonderful daughter-in-law in the world, who I love like my own.” Lilah is okay. She’s a bit homely but nice enough. She puts up with a lot of temper and selfishness from my nephew Jack-the-jerk. Clearly she doesn’t reciprocate Betsy’s affection, or she would have told her mother-in-law about the second trimester abortion that she underwent last year.

I know about it because Lilah confided in me. She and Jack stayed at my place the nights before and after the procedure. They had to come to the metropolis because late-term abortions aren’t performed where they live. It was a sad visit. I was never convinced that Lilah wanted to terminate the pregnancy. But Jack was adamant.

That’s when Jack outed Betsy about booze and her mouth. My mother keeps asking “Do you think Betsy’s an alcoholic?” but the rest of us know the answer too well to ask. She’s got all the symptoms: drinking alone, looking forward to her next, not stopping till she loses consciousness. And more. I’ve been around a lot of alkies, and she’s the first I’ve known who will drink till she passes out and then immediately resume drinking when she comes to.

Jack told me the reason Betsy has no friends. “Every single person she met,” he said to me about the household in which he grew up, “got to overhear her bad-mouthing them.” Talk about not learning from consequences! Instead of taking any responsibility for her smack-talk, Betsy always accuses the subject of deliberately eavesdropping on her loud drunken repetitive accusations. Yeesh.

Sure Betsy will lose Sam. She already has. Jack was her favorite, as all of us know (another repeated statement she’s made, and overheard more than once by Sam). Being Betsy’s favorite has been Jack’s doom.

Sam is considerate and sometimes affectionate toward his mother, but he’s not exactly respectful. Clearly and naturally, he will choose Isabella over Betsy. Isabella doesn’t have to do anything to make that happen.

Betsy will keep drinking. Betsy will slide deeper into selfishness. And I think she will continue to ruin her looks, more by bitterness than by alcohol. There’s irony there. It’s likely that the real source of Betsy’s enmity toward Isabella is simple jealousy. For Betsy is terrified of aging. She’s classically vain. She has had surgical work in the past and now she’s addicted to cosmetic dermatology. Made up and smiling, she resembles Michelle Pfeiffer, with similar coloring, wide eyes, generous mouth. But she’s no longer young. And even 40 years ago she was unremarkable, compared to Isabella.

We’ll all attend Alex’s wedding this weekend. I’m sure Betsy will drink too much to behave well. But I’m equally sure Mom will be overheard making redundant critical comments about Betsy. And Mom won’t need a drink to trigger her unfiltered mouth.

By then Compass was at the door. Wagging her tail and acting like she’s well. That dog gets up every day, figures out what’s working, and enjoys it. I picked up a towel and opened the door.