Edubabble and other Blither

Deborah Dee Devon hangs between two generations. She got her Mrs. degree at a time when the people who are now in the world's most hip retirement commercials were poised to change the world. She met Tripper's father, who was engaged to someone else, and six weeks later they were married. She was not "in trouble," but part of me wonders sometimes.

Some of her contemporaries burned their bras and marched into the 70's to become hippies and lobby for the ERA, but Deborah went back in time to become a 1950's housewife. She gave birth to two sons, grew flowers, decorated her house. She decided she did not drink, even though on weekend nights in their early days, she and Tripper's father played cards and drank a bottle of gin together in their first apartment, playing catch with ice across the old table in their small kitchen. She did not work. She den-mothered and raised funds for swim-team. She went to PTA meetings. She served on the boards of local charities. She baked cookies and clipped coupons and drove to three different grocery stores to find the best deals on meat, dairy, and produce.

When her sons were 9 and 7, she had the save-the-marriage baby.

After twenty-five years, Deborah's husband left her. She insists she has no idea why, even to this day. He slept on the couch because of his back. She couldn't consider getting a job when Carlin was in school, even if they did need the money! She was home to welcome Tripper and Chris from school, and she'd be home when Carlin came home. Of course she didn't go to counseling with her husband-- he was the one who said he was depressed. There was nothing wrong with her.

Deborah lives in a fairly large Victorian house she really can't afford to keep, even though it's paid off. She won't sell, which is her prerogative, but frets about her yard, the roof, the porch. How is she going to do this? How is she going fix that? At Christmas she still bakes thousands of cookies, even though attendance at her Christmas Eve open house has waned to point of non-exitence. She puts a tree in nearly every room, and urban sprawl has blighted her once tasteful and quaint Christmas village.

Appearances are very important to Deborah. It wasn't a good example for Carlin when Tripper moved in with me, but it hadn't looked good to the neighbors when Tripper stopped at home to shower and pick up some things after spending the night at my apartment.When she sends me birthday cards, they are addressed to Mrs. Tripper Snow, not Chrissy Snow. She didn't approve of our being introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Tripper and Chrissy Snow at our wedding reception. But he's not "Mr. Chrissy Snow..." When Carlin and Kelly learned they were having a baby, she was frantic. Because they aren't married, that's NOT Kelly's house. That house is Carlin's. Because they aren't married, she simply couldn't host a shower for Kelly, but she supposed she'd attend one.

She stopped smoking for about fifteen years or so, and won't admit that she has picked up the habit again, choosing instead to hide the evidence by wrapping up butts and ashes in aluminum foil and burying them in the trash. When we visited Chris and his wife, she stood in their bathtub, opened the window, and puffed away, acting like nothing had happened even though the entire house reeked of it.

So here I am, blogging instead of visiting. I told Tripper I couldn't do Familypalooza all weekend. Early yesterday afternoon he went to his dad's with Carlin. (Kelly, Baby Ruth, and I arrived a few hours later, stayed to visit and eat, and left by early evening.) When I found out we weren't eating until five today, I chose not to go over there too early. Tomorrow we have yet another gig at Tripper's dad's if we want to see Chris and the kids, but they simply couldn't ever spend their visit at our home and have their parents come to see them here.

I'm sure Tripper feels somewhat the same way about my family, but he agrees that there's always something going on at my mom's: swimming, watching movies, mixing drinks, making inappropriate jokes. We can sit and read if we want. I never feel like I'm playing a role in a nostalgic, days-of-yore period piece, where my lines go something like this: No, Deb, nothing has changed. You're still the perfect mother, still the perfect wife. What a lovely Jell-O salad. How do you manage to do all this?