Lah-di-dah

[cosmolinguist]

When the previews started my mom asked me "Do they have the same movies in Ing-ga-land?" (That's how she pronounces it, three bizarre syllables, so that's how I'm going to spell it.)

"Um, yeah, they do." The question seemed awfully random; it caught me a bit off-guard. "Usually. They show up later there, but they do have most of them."

"Because I heard you and ... Andrew (the way she says his name is weird, too, but not in any way I can identify) talking about ... that one Dad wanted to see."

"Oh, Million Dollar Baby?" Dad asked.

"Yeah, that."

I did talk to Andrew on the phone yesterday and we did talk mostly about movies, but I don't think I even mentioned Million Dollar Baby more than once, so the degree of eavesdropping apparently necessary for her to know this is somewhat terrifying.

But this talking-to-Andrew-on-the-phone thing has been the subject of an inordinate (if you ask me!) amount of interest to my parents.

A conversation on Friday—our first in a while—was cut short by my dad and I having to leave, to pick my mom up from work so we could go run errands and eat and stuff. He asked me who I'd been talking to and I told him, thinking nothing more of it. But when we got my mom he quickly struck up a conversation about this: "Holly got a call from Andrew this afternoon."

"From Ing-ga-land?!"

"Yes," I mumbled reluctantly. I explained to them how cheaply he's now able to do this, but they were still fascinated almost to the point of mortification. Especially my mom. I swear I can see them thinking This is important! This Means Something! (And that, I think, is why Mom seems to say his name strangely.)

I don't understand this. Do they think we never spoke on the phone before?

Then Mom was talking about Valentine's Day at dinner today. She looked at my brother and said, "I suppose you'll have to call Rachel and tell her you're sorry you didn't even get her anything for Valentine's Day, and here she sent you a nice card and all..." My brother just looked at her as if he didn't think he "had" to do any such thing.

For once I agreed with him; I think Valentine's Day is silly, and ignoring it is the best remedy. Still, I was all ready to smirk in silent superiority when Mom turned to me. "And Holly didn't send Andrew anything either!"

"He'll live. Besides, he didn't get me anything either!" I thought the latter would impress her more than the former.

"He's paying for your ticket!" Ooo, good point, that. "And a vacation in London besides."

I had to laugh at that. "I'm flying to London. That's not a vacation."

"And staying there for a couple of days!" Mom said. She doesn't know how funny this is, accusing Andrew of vacationing in London. Even at the time I thought I'll have to remember to tell him that...

From that she went right on to "Well, do we ever get to meet him?"

"Yeah, I told you." I did; she interrogated me on the subject of Andrew as soon as she saw me on Wednesday. "He says he's coming here in the spring." I shrugged.

"Because we'd like to see this guy..." she went on.

"Yeah, I know, I—"

"His family all got to meet you already..."

"Well—"

"I mean, we'd like to see who we're sending you off to."

"Sending me off to"? It's the same place as before. With the same person!

But, I guess, all this intense interest and inquisition is some indication that she's caught on to the potential permanence of the situation.

Which is scary and cool at the same time.

For both her and me, I think.

Comments

[lulybunny.livejournal.com]

"Well, I'd like to at least meet him before I send you off with him."

Spoken by my mother, when for some crackass reason, she thought, I wouldn't bring Dave around the night that he is town before we set off for Colorado.

[cosmolinguist]

Moms are so weird.

Mine has decided that her kids will not tell her anything important unless she asks it of them, will not do anything she wants unless she demands it of them. Usually repeatedly, with much complaining of how difficult we make things for her. She has thus proceeded to drive us crazy for most of our lives.

[lulybunny.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly! Course, this is why she can never ever know that I met Dave online. Or that I really went to see him in Colorado, and not a fictional "Diane." Cause then she'd be WORSE.

[cosmolinguist]

Oh, mine totally doesn't know how I met Andrew. She's not exactly wrong in thinking that we don't tell her anything "important." But then, I don't think that the way I met him is particularly important ... I just know that she'd think it was. It's an obvious indication of him being some kind of degenerate, you know. She knows all about this; she's seen the episode of 60 Minutes that tells you how everyone you can meet on the Internet is a rapist or a murderer or something.

[lulybunny.livejournal.com]

Heh. Freakin' 60 Minutes. Even had me freaked out. :p

Though to be honest, even if I hadn't met him online, my mom would completely freak at the idea of me staying at a man's house.

[davmoo.livejournal.com]

I can't fault your parents when they don't understand how cheap long distance can be now. They, just like my mother, grew up in an era where AT&T charged you a couple of fingers and your first-born child to call another country.

My mother is just now coming to terms with the fact that she gets free long distance on her cellphone when she is in her home calling area. She still has trouble putting her mind around the concept that I have a cellphone plan that is not restricted to a home calling area.

[cosmolinguist]

It seems important to me that I convince my parents that the international phone call thing isn't as expensive as they seem to think. I guess it's because it makes it seem less of a big deal for him to call me if he's only paying half a penny a minute or something. I'm sort of trying to minimize the severity of this relationship because I think my mom really doesn't like the idea of me having such a relationship with someone so far away and so completely unknown to her.

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

1. both sarah's parents and my parents say stuff like that so it's not just you

2. both sarah's and my own parents struggle to understand the idea of the modern steam powered interweb, let alone talking on! the! phone! i mean how does that work? they just can't quite fathom it out

so it's just average parental weirdness about stuff they don't really find themselves able to relate to. nothing else really! so don't get too worried about it!

[cosmolinguist]

Steam-powered interweb indeed; that's funny. I'm not too worried, really, but I definitely found it worth note. I know I'm not alone in this.

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

well it may as well be as far as my parents were concerned. when they had a computer they were terrified of the thing. utterly petrified of it... it's alien to them, so they find the concept just - odd. my parents have never left britain which in american terms is probably like never leaving your state or the next two neighbouring states really...

[cosmolinguist]

My parents finally got around to buying a computer when I was 15 or 16, after years of me bothering them about it. But it didn't have the Internet for a few years after that; my mom seemed to think it was all evil. It is, of course, entirely composed of pornography and chatrooms where pedophiles prety upon innocent teenagers and all, you know. She learned this from watching the news on TV. They don't know yet exactly how I met Andrew for this reason; it'd just make him seem scarier than he already is.

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

mum and dad just don't understand the internet - they're like me and turn their brain off if they don't understand anything. like randy and andy pig off of the muppets tonight really...

they had a computer. for a year. couldn't get it to work. gave it to my sister. who can't get it to work. but better her than other sister because - how do i put it tactfully? - her "friend" who she left her bro-in-law for is a destroyer of computers even though he thinks he knows all about them. i'm so relieved he never got hold of it... it'd be a doorstop or cat litter tray by now

[cosmolinguist]

Your new icon is terribly cool.

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

why thank you! i think this weekend we'll try and match it so sarah has one with her facing the camera and me kissing her on the cheek... wish us luck!

[cosmolinguist]

That's great; I'm jealous now. Somehow I think the odds of me ending up with an icon resembling that are not so high, though. :-)

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

eek! sorry! eek!

[cosmolinguist]

::laughs:: It's all right; I think I'll live.

[hephaestos.livejournal.com]

I know we've had an inordinately mild winter so far this year, but I still think I should go on record saying he's smart to wait 'til spring. ;)

[cosmolinguist]

He insists that he likes cold (he did most of that insisting when he was asking me if I'd do the shopping any time it got over 60 or 65). And he claims to hate the sun, saying it's "all shiny."

I laugh at the climatic weakness of Britons (a friend of mine from London was recently worried that she'd be visiting a place that had temperatures I calculated to be 3 F; I couldn't help laughing...).

Anyway, if he comes here in April or something like he says he wants to (or, at least, his other USian friends and I want him to), he might still catch a blizzard if he's likely. Or if I am, at least. That'd be funny.