Cinci

OK I didn't actually say much about Thanksgiving in my last blog. I have, however, changed my location from my brother eddie's bed in new orleans (he sleeps on the couch downstairs because he gets in so late from being "out" and i'm passing out by 11, and my other brother David took over my bedroom...the only other bedroom is a storage unit now so whenever the whole family's home, we have to fight to the death to claim a good room), to Nashville in the room I'm renting, which will be a nursery in about 6 months. Sad to say (but for some of you who are very evil and don't want me to be confident and happy, you'll be excited to hear this), I'm feeling a little more like a minnow in the ocean and I miss my family. Humble and lonely. I especially miss my mom. She makes me feel like I am the most talented creature on the face of this planet. While I was home, she spent about an hour just listening to all my new songs. And whenever I make ANY sort of joke, she laughs really hard. But my favorite part about my mom, Cinci (short for Cynthia, it sounds like sin-see), is that she is totally weird.

She flushes a toilet whenEVER she goes into a bathroom in our home (in case there's a hurricane and we need to drink water out of the toilet. I'd rather drink my own pee.) This means that every time she enters a room in the house, the toilet gets flushed.

She starts statements like this "You know when you wake up in the middle of the night and you've just had a throw-up burp?..." like everyone wakes in the middle of the night tasting their throw up burps.

She always has a solution to why she is sick. My dad bought this memory foam mattress and my mom said, "I figured out why your father is snoring so loud and why I'm having horrible sinus problems... it's the foam mattress, we're allergic to it."

Whenever she hears a good band (like if we're at a ball or a fabulous part), she goes to the VERY front, usually dragging my sister or me out (because my dad's ears buzz with music that's too loud and he sucks at dancing honestly), and dances for HOURS.

The other morning, my mom was reading newspaper after newspaper and I said, "Mom, you should get a job. You'd do REALLY well with people in some little snooty retail place on Magazine Street" and she said "I have a job, it's called 4 children." then i said "you're reading the newspaper, that's not a job." and she said, "it's part of my job." and I said, "Dad, is reading the newspaper a job?" and he pretends like he's ignoring us but he loves it. and mom really thinks reading the newspaper is part of her job.

My mother goes HAYWIRE when the maids are coming. She cleans the house almost completely and does the laundry and the dishes...I think this is so they deep clean but I'm still not sure. But she kind of gets like a sargeant so we all just have to leave.

She has made up a language that sort of sounds like Spanish and she speaks it to her poodle Cappi (short for Cappucino). Then at the end of the speech, which lasts about a minute and thirty seconds, she says "ring chunk a ring chunk" and rolls the r's. My sister does this as well with her two pugs.

She is the most hyper person you will ever experience. She could literally converse with a wall or a lamp for hours. And be totally fine. I have told her in the past few months "mom, stop asking me questions, i can't handle it."

Cinci makes us (her children) take a "birthday picture" every year. At first, we just had to put a shirt on, then she found this ridiculously huge birthday pin, then she found a hat, and a pair of crazy sunglasses and somehow, the woman actually found a blowup birthday cake. (she also owns a blow up turkey, a blow up snowglobe, and a blowup santa. Ask me what WT means)

She is very passionate and thinks that bee-otch isn't a cuss word.

She is so compassionate, she gives me and my three siblings the SAME EXACT AMOUNT every Christmas...down to the penny. She doesn't want ANYONE to feel like they're favored (even though I am). My dad tells a story about asking each child individually: me, Catherine, Eddie, and David, about who we all thought mom favored. And we each said, "isn't it obvious, she favors me." She loves to spoil her children. I was thinking as I drove home tonight, "Why do I feel so good and full and beautiful and uniquely gifted in New Orleans?" And i think a big part is due to my mom. She loves me for who I am, just where I am and how I am. Which sounds a lot like God. Around this time last year, I started having panic attacks. And she answered her cell phone at 5 a.m. when I called her, or 3 a.m., and just talked me through it. When I came home because I couldn't get a hold of myself, her life stopped and she catered to mine. And she said, "you don't know suffering until your child suffers and there's nothing you can do about it." As a 25 year old, there's nothing worse than being totally helpless to your body as it shakes and shudders and you lose control. Mom comforted me. She told me the most important thing, and it didn't have to do with God or religion or any other thing I was DESPERATLY trying to hold onto to fix me. She said "I have been through this and you will be OK, just like I am." And I AM better, and I think I understand God's love a little bit more because of her.

Then she went to jury duty and when asked if anyone had a problem with doing jury duty, she said "I suffer from panic attacks." AND GOT OUT OF IT. you better believe I'm using that excuse. Well, that's mom. I'm going to try to put a picture up but I don't really know how.

Well i'll leave you with this as I end and go to bed: I got my mom's passion. We used to have knock down drag out fights while I was in the throes of adolescence and we'd both be crying and slamming doors and breaking things. I can't TELL you how many times I said "I will NEVER BE LIKE HER!!!" But now, I hope to be like her when I become a mother.