Chip Kinney 'Jazzturbation'

Again, I feel that it's necessary to tell you that each blog entry title is the music that I'm listening to the day it's entered. That's for those of you that are confused and for the folks just joining in on this internet orgy.

Thank you and on with business as usual...

It’s become quite obvious to me that my mother has cracked.

If you read this blog with some regularity, you’ll recall where my Aunt Penny lost her battle against cancer. If you missed it, you’ll find the entries under August 2005.

Penny was just a couple of years older than me and she was my mother’s baby sister. My mother counted on Penny for insight and a shoulder to lean on. They were much closer than the years between them.

To be quite honest, I fully expected Mom to flop onto Penny’s casket before it was lowered into the ground with all kinds of screaming and hysterics. Luckily, that didn’t happen.

Since Penny has been laid to rest, my mother has been wallowing around in self-pity and attending grief counseling classes. If she weren’t my own mother, I would be laughing my ass off about the things that go on with her.

She calls Penny’s voicemail just to hear her voice, which throws her into sadness. She calls Penny’s widower and stepdaughter, Harry and Stacy, to talk and talk about her grief. Oh, it never seems to end.

Now my mother is letting her “grief” affect my nephew Preston and niece Chloe. Mom doesn’t feel like celebrating Thanksgiving because it’s just not the same without Penny. And if you were to ask her when the last Thanksgiving was that she spent with her departed sister, I don’t think that she could give a truthful answer.

Mom put up a different Christmas tree this year. It’s VERY different, but not like the horrendous macramé tree that she created back around 1974, this one is a fake plant. Yep! She used a fake plant that takes up space in the corner of the living room and decorated it with colored lights, bows, ribbons, and a star sort of on top.

My first reaction was, “What the hell?” followed by a laugh and a shake of the head. It’s like the kind of tree that you’d find in a Frat house except without all the farting, belching, and drunken futures of America surrounding it. It truly is a sight to see with a few gifts placed underneath to give it that down home feel.

Please keep in mind that I’m not a Christmas tree kind of guy. Personally, I find it disgusting why anyone would cut down a living thing to put it in their living rooms to make it look as unnatural and gaudy as possible. Then, once you’re done with it and it has served “your” purpose, just toss it out with no remorse.

The important thing to consider here are my niece and nephew because they are at that age where Christmas is a magical time of the year. Their parents are fine with lying to them, telling them Santa Claus is keeping a watchful and judicious eye on them. And, against my own beliefs, I have gone along with their deceitful plans to keep the Santa myth going. If you’re going that far, then you must put up the tree. With subterfuge, there’s only one way to go and that’s all the way.

My mother’s little pity-party seems to be all about how it affects her. Meanwhile, everyone around her has to suffer until she gets the attention that she feels she deserves or, she’ll lose her own family too.

I can’t help thinking that if Penny were able to visit my mother for 5 minutes; Mom would be lifted up by the lapels and the words “Get over it” would be shouted into her face. Because, Penny was all about living life and she would be tremendously angry at how my mother is acting about this. Penny would want my mother creating memories with her grandchildren instead of sitting around and moping about how she’s affected by Penny’s death.

It’s driving us crazier than hungry flies at a pig farm lagoon.

How’s that for a visual image?