My Fancy Mom
My mom loves designer clothes. I wear sweatpants. My mom prefers going to restaurants. I prepare all my meals. Mom takes a pill for every ailment. I search for alternatives.
My mom is accustomed to pills. After all they’ve been working for 50+ years, staving off hypertension and high cholesterol. (Thank G-d.) Plus mom used to be a nurse and was married to a doctor (my dad) for 20 years. Family med. My dad had access to the hospital pharmacy. Free pills. While my mom popped, I doodled on my dad’s prescription pad. According to mom, every ailment can be treated with a pill. If she gets a sniffle, she’ll pop a Sudafed. A soft stool? Her bottle of Kaopectate might have expired but she’ll down a capful. She relies on Ambien for a good night’s sleep. Her medicine cabinet rivals a CVS pharmacy without the locks.
When I had a cold, she knew exactly what I needed.
“Claritin. For two weeks.”
“All those drugs just prolong the virus.”
“That’s not true.”
“Even dad said so.”
Silence.
Although they have been divorced for 40 years she still claims, “Your father is the most brilliant man I’ve ever met.”
But then she had a rebuttal for me, “Why wouldn’t you want to get rid of the symptoms?”
Good point.
Besides my mom’s bathroom being one of 260 CVS locations on Long Island, her closet would make Anna Wintour1 look twice. My sisters and I know mom could easily be a fashion influencer. A gorgeous version of Iris Apfel.2 (Sorry, Iris-in-heaven but my mom is stunning.) Mom loves her designer clothes she’s accumulated over the last 50 years getting rid of nothing. If I compliment a sun dress she’ll say, “Sonia Rykiel. 1973.”
The last time I went to her house she redecorated, slightly.
“Ma, you left your shoes on the fireplace mantel.”
“Those are Jimmy Choo’s, 1996. No one heard of him when I bought those at Neiman’s. But look at them. They’re a work of art. Why not display them?”
“They are pretty,” I said.
“Don’t touch them. They need dusting. I’ll have the girl do it.”
(“The girl” is her house cleaner.)
My mom’s house is filled with unusual knickknacks she’s either collected over the years while married to my dad or inherited from her other husbands (3). Yet everything has its place.
“My friends want to know who decorated my house. I don’t mention that I just threw everything together and it worked,” she said.
I once told her between her home in NY and the condo in FL she’ll need a pyramid.
My nicest clothes are either hand me downs or birthday gifts from mom. I have a Max Mara wool skirt suit that would be perfect for that power corporate meeting, those gorgeous Burberry pants still need taking in, and I’m always hoping to wear that Armani dress to a $1000 per plate charity gala. Ahem. I was once able to wear a stunning tweed three-piece Christian LaCroix skirt suit to a charity auction. Jeffrey and I won the bottle of wine that no one else wanted. Sometimes I’ll get a random call from her, “What size are you in blazers? I’m online. Bergdorf’s is having a sale.” I would imagine her ogling an obscure Italian designer. I never memorized my European sizes— they’re all different— so I would just mention my American size. Sometimes something lovely would arrive in the mail and other times not. They were probably sold out of my size. She once sent me pants that could have fit Jeffrey. Instead of returning them she had me UPS them back to her. She had the pants tailored and now wears them to the theatre. Another time she sent me a washed wool blazer, but it didn’t fit right. She suggested I send it to my niece who also said it was odd sizing. I wondered where else that blazer relocated. It was the Sisterhood of the traveling Cuccinelli.
Ironically, my mom is not a shopaholic. She has never bought retail and is only lured if she happens to come upon a Friends and Family Sale. She’s the one in her friends group who is tech savvy having introduced her gal pals to the joys of mobile canasta and online shopping. She has an eye for classic fashion that will be eternally in-style which is why she keeps everything. And if something shrinks at the dry cleaner’s or she hasn’t worn it in a year? She is the queen of returns. Even used kitchen items. When I was a teenager mom’s return habit was almost a part time job for me.
“If you take it back you can keep the money,” she said.
“But this Wok is like a year old.”
Sure enough I succeeded in returning and earned a cool $19.99 plus tax.
Mom probably spent two hours online shopping yesterday only to abandon the cart because she learned the retail algorithm secret.
“It’s a trick. If I leave something in my cart, then suddenly, two days later I’ll get an email saying that skirt is reduced further.”
Success.
She lives wisely on her comfortable fixed income. I’m relieved and grateful she doesn’t have to worry about money. She loves her 2016 Porsche Panamera and during the last bull market she bought herself a Valentino purse. I too have indulged in designer purses here and there, probably her influence. But I prefer my faded, torn jeans, combat boots or sneakers and the designer backpack my kids bought me for my last birthday. Mom dislikes my look. What can I say? I’m fashionably comfortable. One man’s sweatpants is another man’s Hermes scarf from an outlet mall.
Meal Cycle
When I visit, our time together revolves around meals.
During breakfast she will say, “What do you want for lunch?”
While crunching on my salad for lunch (at a restaurant) she will inquire, “What should we do for dinner?”
And while tying on the plastic bib for a surf n turf dinner she’ll ask, “What do you want for breakfast tomorrow?”
Diet
My fancy mom eats like a Texas teenager. Sometimes when we FaceTime, she’ll be munching on nacho Doritos, soda and a Snickers bar.
She fantasizes about the food at her clubhouse in Florida.
“They make a fabulous low sodium vegetable soup.”
I’ve eaten the clubhouse food. The Thanksgiving dinner offered mushy, saucy green beans and a fatty roast. The stuffing could have been mistaken for brown mashed potatoes. Given my food intolerances I ate dry turkey breast and salad without dressing. My mom doesn’t understand my diet. If certain foods give me a stomachache, diarrhea, rashes, heart palpitations there’s a pill or cream for all the aforementioned.
“Ma, my body is telling me not to have caffeine.”
“Maybe you need a beta blocker.”
“No, I just need to avoid coffee.”
She didn’t have a point.
So what do we have in common?
Our sense of humor. By the time I was five years old I discovered I could make my mom laugh. My various voices, accents, faces and mimicking grew from there. I don’t know if I was a typical kid trying to please her mom or if I sensed her sadness and tried to make her smile. Maybe a little of both. There’s nothing like seeing my mom hyperventilating with laughter. Years ago, when I was creating comedic characters for my one woman show I tried them out on mom. Her uncontrollable guffaw was infectious and soon we were both laughing so hard we had to hold each other up and wipe the tears off our cheeks.
We both have the sense of humor of a 14-year-old boy. When my kids were teens, she was thrilled to watch sophomoric movies with us like “Role Models,” “I Love You, Man” and “Ted” (1 and 2.)
“That Seth McFarrell is brilliant,” she said.
“MacFarlane,” the kids and I said in unison chortling at my mom’s blunder.
At 87 my mom still remembers Yiddish from 70 years ago, her brisket recipe from 1975 and what she wore to her canasta game yesterday.
And, mom is still gorgeous. 87 is the new 67.
If you’re lucky enough to have elderly parents who are still “with it” you might also be under the illusion that they will live forever. I still see my mom as a Jewish Audrey Hepburn, always the prettiest mom in school when I was growing up.
But mom has fatigue from long Covid and can no longer play golf or travel long distances. She paces herself day to day. Ma Jong and going out for lunch might wear her out. She won’t be able to fly to my daughter’s wedding in September. And so, I am reminded of her age and her other physical challenges. Meanwhile, she can’t keep up with her friends. One is 93 and can play 18 holes of golf and host a dinner party that night.
My sisters and I have encouraged diet changes which have been medically proven to help fatigue, which like most ailments, starts in the gut.
“I went off gluten. It did nothing,” she said.
“You have to give it at least a month. Not three days.”
“It was four. I think. And I may have had a piece of bread before dinner. The club has the most delicious bread-I-can’t-pass-it-up.”
“And what about dairy?”
“Oh no. The club makes a fabulous macaroni and three cheeses.”
Fashion and food are her vices, her greatest pleasures in life.
And I know in my heart that in the last month my mom probably enjoyed a gas station hot dog, the ketchup dripping on her Rolex. And if she got indigestion, she took a pill.
Fancy or casual? What’s your preference?
Do you eat like it’s 1976?
Any sharable stories about your ma?
Mom’s fab book recommendation: Becoming Madame Secretary by Stephanie Dray (about Francis Perkins).
Anna Wintour; widely known as the editor of Vogue magazine and the inspiration for the Miranda Priestly character in The Devil Wears Prada.
Iris Apfel; a successful businesswoman who became a social media influencer later in life. She recently passed at the age of 102.
You both are gorgeous. I loved the low-sodium vegetable soup. That’s her dream?! Such fun, lovely warmth in trying times.
Your mom sounds like a hoot. And, Ted is laugh-out-loud funny. Ted 2, I don’t know.