Point/Counterpoint...

Yesterday Googie, Trouble and I decided to take a car ride half way around the free world. We were in search of some shoes for her size 4/5 miniature feet.

DSW the world's largest shoe warehouse here we come.

She found one pair.

And they were over priced.

Oh, well...we had our backs against the wall, flip flops have no place with a skirt in Googie's new work place.

Back in the car and ready for our big ride home Googie and I started talking "dinner".

"I'm hungry for spaghetti" she said.

"Okay, spaghetti it is" I said.

"I'd like to make a special request" Googie said "can you please PLEASE cut the onions real BIG so they are easier to pick out?"

"I'll put them in the blender" I offered "and you'll never even know they are there."

"NO, NO!!... if you put them in the blender then I'd be eating tons of them" she yelled.

"But you'd never know" I rationalized.

"They'd be all mushed up beyond recognition...you'd never even know they were there" I explained.

"They'd be spread ALL over the spaghetti and I wouldn't be able to get them off" Googie countered.

"I don't like onions MOTHER,

I don't like them, and I don't want to eat them!!!

Iiiiiiiiiiii... doooooooon't.... LIKE .....ONIONS...what don't you get about that?"

Googie was beginning to get a bit hot under the collar.

The debate raged on...and on.

Googie can be a stubborn little thing.

Especially when I am not getting her point of view.

"MOTHER, can't you just CUT the onions in BIG PIECES? Googie asked.

PIECES LARGE ENOUGH FOR ME TO EASILY PLUCK OUT?

Maybe I like the flavor, but I don't like them in my mouth!" Googie ranted on.

"I guess I could just put in some onion powder instead" I offered weakly "but it wouldn't taste the same."

"Or maybe I can just peel an onion and toss it in in one big ball?"

"That would be easy enough for you to pluck out (monkey girl)!!!"

"BUT it wouldn't taste the same, just so you know. The sauce would not be the same!"

"If I put it in the blender, it would be squashed into oblivion and you'd never know it was there" I offer again.

"The blender will turn it into onion water" I continue.

"M-O-T-H-E-R!!!!! Can you please just cut the onions into big pieces and not make onion mush for the sauce? Can you do that, can you make the onions big mother?"

"Big so that they are easily pulled from your sauce?"

"Pulled out so those who don't like eating them don't have to eat them..."

"And no mother, I don't want them turned into onion mush so that I am eating a whole bunch of onions!"

"I don't like onions mother. I don't like them. And even if you mush them up there will be white onion stuff all over the sauce and I will be eating it."

"Can you make the onions big mom, can you do that?"

"Googie, cutting the onions big is like asking me to smear lipstick all around my lips...it just doesn't feel right."

Trouble uncurled himself from the fetal position he'd assumed when our "little discussion" rolled into its 25th minute, he perked up, trying to understand my analogy.

"WHAT!!! Googie screamed " what are you talking about?

How are lipstick and onions at all connected?"

"Eric...do you hear her?" she hollered to Trouble.

"This is what I have to put up with!"

Our verbal tennis match went on and on until we pulled onto our street.

"Wow, I feel invigorated" Googie said as we drove toward our home.

"Me too" I laughed.

Trouble looked feverish.

I made the spaghetti and quartered a large onion.

The onion looked horrible that big.

It looked like floating flower petals.

"How is the sauce Googie?" I asked later at dinner.

"WHY? You mushed one up didn't you? You mashed one up and you tried to trick me ?"

"I respect you too much to do something like that!" I replied.

(Our blender is broken)
 

"Sparkle Shirley.....SPARKLE"

What a whirlwind weekend. Googie had a show and I agreed to do the hair.


The poor dear was sick (any relationship between massive amounts of stress and frequent colds and infections?)....But as they say in show business "the show must go on".


She had the lead in a silly little musical called Urinetown.


It’s about pee.


I sat in the audience on Saturday, with a couple of nuns sitting to my left. I cringed a bit when I saw them walk in and take a seat. Not like it was me on stage singing about pee or anything, but I knew what lyrics were coming and I know a little bit about nuns.


No matter how it’s cut, nuns and pee never mix, not even in the same sentence.


From my vantage point I could see by their posture they were quite stoic… I think an uncomfortable squirm would have not have been as bad. But nothing. No movement. Deathlike stillness.


Oh well, it is called Urinetown…..


On Sunday I sat in the audience as well. This time there were a couple of blue hairs (old ladies, not young punks) sitting in front of me a bit to my left. When the character Penelope Pennywise uttered her first “pee”, one blue hair nudged the other. I watched to see what they would do next….(yes, I was missing a portion of the play, but Googie didn’t have a big part in that song and I was dying to know what the ladies were gonna do when Penny belted the words “piss” and “defecation”).


Sure enough, the minute the word “piss” left Pennywise’s mouth the ladies looked at each other and both shrugged their shoulders. And then shook their heads.


Looked like Two Thumbs Down to me.


After intermission, their seats were empty.


Too bad they left, Urinetown was really funny.


I’ve acted as Googie’s personal dresser for as many years as she has done theater.


I don’t dress her, really, I help with her microphone, or her bobby pins or I just look her over and give her the a-okay.


A last minute hair fluff and a peck on her painted cheek.


Lastly I take a line from my favorite stage mother and I say.... “Sparkle Shirley... sparkle”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


( "SPARKLE SHIRLEY...SPARKLE" : Shirley Temple's mother's instructions from the side of the stage.)


Then I sit in the audience and enjoy.


This day, she stripped off her top, I handed her the starched pastel yellow costume she wore for the show.


She slipped it on and I did a double take.


Googie’s brassiere was showing right through the shirt.


She called to her cast mates and asked if anyone had a tank top she could borrow. One girl agreed to take her own right off her back and give it to Goog.


Once on Googie’s little 94 pound body it hung like a sack and it was much too bunchy to fit properly under her costume.


Okay…now what?


I knew what.


Later in the audience it was a bit hard for me to breath.


Not just that my heart swelled to take in the wonder that is my daughter,


but it was hard to breath wearing Googie’s too small bra.


I couldn’t let her go on stage, the lead in a show called Urinetown, wearing a pea colored bra that showed through her shirt.


A mother’s suffering knows no bounds.


(And for what’s worth, this is the SECOND time I’ve done this for my daughter…at least this time her bra size was larger than a size AA.)


PS....Her most sincere appreciation via this coffee pot note (and some stalks of beautiful white flowers, stolen from the restaurant where they ate after the show) made it all worth it, of course.