THE OTHER WOMAN - HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN
BEST HISTORICAL NOVEL
THE TWELVE CLUES OF CHRISTMAS - RHYS BOWEN
WELL DONE, LADIES!!!
IT'S OFFICIAL, I'M TURNING INTO MY MOTHER...
ROSEMARY HARRIS: I cannot tell a lie, I saw this heading on another blog. The content is not the same (and we all know you can't copyright a title) but props to Jenny From The Blog for giving me the idea.Not having kids, this isn't about repeating mom phrases like - "You'll shoot your eye out" or "your face will freeze like that." In our home the most popular one had to do with the Brooklyn Bridge. But I can remember looking around our Brooklyn apartment and thinking "why does she need all this STUFF??"
Lo and behold, I find myself collecting lots of the same stuff my mother collected. China. Linens. More vases, gloves and scarves than anyone really needs.
I bake the same holiday treats - struffoli - that she did.
And I have an embarassing fondness for things with my name on them "It's a pot with the word Rosemary on it...I should buy it!" Somewhere Mom is smiling and saying "I told you so."
So Reds - we know all of our mothers were wonderful, this is not about work ethic, joie de vivre or smarts - have you picked up any goofy, silly, surprising habits or traits from your mothers?
HALLIE EPHRON: My mother loved words -- she'd recite poetry after dinner (Edward Arlington Robinson "Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn..." and Vachel Lindsay "Then I saw the Congo, creeping through the black..." and Edna Millay "My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - it gives a lovely light...). Words were dessert. She was also bossy and opinionated and loved food (sound familiar?) She didn't cook, clean, or collect, and she hated to shop unless it was at a used bookstore. She had a dark side, too, all which I write about in a piece called "Growing Up Ephron" that's runs in the March issue of "O" Magazine -- on the shelf 2/12!
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: And a fabulous piece it is, Hallie!
My mom--stylish, artistic, opinionated. No cleaning, no cooking--well, when we were kids, I guess, but not later. Hmmm. She had SO MANY CLOTHES. Hmmm. And oh, she would sing snippets of songs when she heard part of the lyrics. "Why look so awfully gloomy?.." Now, sadly, I do, too.
She was incredibly critical. I mean--incredibly.
HANK (a few years ago) Mom! I won another Emmy!
MOM (pauses) Oh, honey, do you still care about that stuff?
I'm pretty critical, too...but I try to keep quiet about it.
But she used to talk to the checkout people at the grocery, which embarrassed the heck out of me. Now I do it, too. And she'd just comment to strangers who are shopping--"oh, that looks terrific." I DIED when she did it. Now, I do too--and can't believe someone wouldn't be fascinated by my opinion.
Here's her wedding photo, circa 1948.
Am I my mother? Oh, yes, indeedy. Sometimes I look in the mirror and flinch in surprise.
RHYS BOWEN: Hank, did we have the same mother? Mine was a school principal and tough and unsympathetic.
Me: I didn't get that part in the school play that I wanted.
Mother: What a stupid thing to care about. As if a play matters.
It did to me...
So I made a supreme effort always to be supportive to my kids when it came to making teams, being asked to dances etc because they did matter.
So I would have thought that I was nothing like my mom. And yet... yikes, I'm starting to look like her. And she loved to shop and had hundreds of purses and I'm starting to gravitate to the purses in Macy's.
Strangely enough when she retired and got old we became great friends and laughed at the same things. And she talked to her dog in baby talk, something she never did to me. And I find myself using exactly the same words to talk to my daughter's dog.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: My mom was a fusser and a "fixer." Always worrying about everyone's diets and health. I say "was" because although she will be 92 on Monday, the 11th, she's suffered from Alzheimer's for a good few years now. So every time I worry that my daughter is too thin or that my hubby eats too much junk food when I'm out of town, I pinch myself. Stop that!And oh, the lists! She wrote everything down, notes and lists constantly on every scrap of paper. Now, of course, I understand why. And I'm doing it, too. My to-do list, my grocery list... I can't function without them. Very scary.
The photo is from Thanksgiving, 2010, when she was a little more alert than she is now. The three generations; mother, daughter, granddaughter.
LUCY BURDETTE: My mother has been gone longer than I knew her--that's kind of weird. She had four of us kids and a job teaching grade school. So when she got home, she'd retreat to her bedroom with a snack and a book to get some space. I definitely got the "need for space" gene too. And there's no better place to get it than bed.
She was absolutely pet mad and every one of us kids picked that trait up too. Like her, we haul our pets around the country because we can't bear to be without them. Of course Tonka comes to Key West, but now the cat has been added to the travel team, much to John's dismay.
I may have already told you this, but her famous sex education talk with me went like this: "Some day you'll feel about a man the way you do about the cat."
John is still waiting.
By the way, Hayley Snow's mother is named Janet, just like mine.
ROSEMARY: Sex education...that's a whole other blog post! On that note...
