Kids

Sometimes I wonder what it’s going to be like when my kids are all grown up and visit me with their families. Will they learn to accept Ryan Gosling as my new significant other or will they continue to be starstruck in his presence?

I know I’m being presumptuous. I mean, there’s no guarantee that I will be acquitted of the murder charges that will certainly be pending against me if my husband buys the whole milk instead of the 2% one more time. I’m pretty confident in my defense, but juries can be unpredictable.

But assuming things work out, I wonder what our visits will be like. Will there be grandkids? Will they want to look at the photo albums that I have of my children? (reminder to self: shove photos into albums.) You just never know. But it’s nice to think about.

I thought about it a lot when we visited my parents past Sunday. It was Russian Orthodox (Mama’s faith) Easter and we celebrated at my parents’ apartment. We hardly ever go there, all our visits are either at the dacha or at our place, but it was nice to be in their Queens apartment.

At some point one of my kids needed a tissue and Mama brought out a box. “Do you recognize this?” she asked me meaningfully.

It was a box of Kleenex, with a drawing of a bunny in some grass. Maybe more than one bunny, truth be told, but none of them looked familiar.

I shook my head. (Adorably.)

“You sure?” she asked, pushing the box closer to me, as Papa said “not now” in a hushing tone.

Obviously I had to eat the Russian Orthodox Easter lunch as quickly as possible so that I could get to the bottom of the tissue box mystery.

I asked her about the tissues and Mama said that when I broke up with my boyfriend Paul (circa 1994, if I remember correctly) and he was moving out of my apartment, I came to stay temporarily with my parents and I was crying and brought that box of tissues.

Mama seemed surprised that I didn’t remember this event.

So, a few questions.

WHY DID THEY KEEP THIS BOX? (Mama said they don’t use tissues because “my nose doesn’t run because I know how to take care of myself” and Papa uses a handkerchief.) Subquestion: IF THEY DON’T USE TISSUES, WHY DIDN’T THEY THROW OUT THIS BOX INSTEAD OF KEEPING IT AS SOME SORT OF AN INSANE RELIC?

and also: DID THEY REALLY THINK I WOULD REMEMBER THIS BOX OF TISSUES?!

But it also made me realize–the gauntlet has been thrown. How can I possibly top this for when my own kids come to visit me?

I knew I should have held on to that placenta. I’ll have to check on ebay.

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I think this may have been the longest unintentional blog break that I’ve ever taken, and the problem with coming back is that so much has happened, I don’t know where to begin in updating.

First things first, my son found his mitt. It was lost for a week, and then the team who had the practice field after us delivered it to him. It was obviously a huge relief, although I’m wondering why they waited a week to return it to us. I’m hoping the FBI will give this issue the attention it deserves.

Then, my parents “found” a new cat. She came out of the park and my parents, apparently unable to tell the difference between a homeless cat for a pot of gold, clung to her for dear life and proclaimed that she will be their cat. They named her Friday- Frida for short. The only problem was that their cat, Sly, has been on his deathbed and Mama said that she will not bring a younger cat into their house while Sly is still alive. Which is not very Newt Gingrich of her, but whatever. So then Mama and Papa started hinting that I should take this cat in on a temporary basis, until Sly kicks the bucket. And then Husbandrinka, much to my shock and eventual horror agreed, assuming, of course, that the bucket were moved closed to Sly and that we received confirmation that his kicking leg was operational.

So Frida arrived in our home on Wednesday and immediately hissed at everyone, including Nicki. And then she ate all of Nicki’s food, as well as her own. “Why is Frida eating all of Nicki’s food?” I asked. “Maybe because Frida didn’t have any food for a long time,” my daughter told me.

And then on Thursday morning, Husbandrinka wondered if we are supposed to leave the cats alone unattended, because what if they fight and I said that I wonder how those people who hoard cats manage, and Husbandrinka looked very alarmed and said that he didn’t like where I was going with this. So we kept them separated for the morning and then when I came home, I let Frida out and within a few hours she attacked Nicki and then when my son walked by whistling a happy tune she attacked his foot, bit it and scratched him. So I called Mama and told her that Frida must be removed with all deliberate speed and the kids and I huddled in the one Frida-free room until Papa came and removed Frida from the premises. Or maybe we locked Frida in one room and waited for a priest to arrive for exorcism purposes.

Which is too bad, because I had many fun post titles for adventures with Frida- including SchadenFrida and Frida is Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose.

But maybe it’s for the best, because Frida is not very photogenic.