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| Joe's view during dinner. |
During the summer months, we stay by my parents on the Jersey shore. There's a huge summer community that dwindles down to non-existence in the winter months. Mom and dad have plenty of room, and it's just my family. It's convenient and beats spending my winter Sundays in search of a summer home. It's fun to watch my kids roam around the house I grew up in. It also gives my husband Joe a sliver of what my childhood must have been like.
A week before we moved in, mom had a personal organizer helping her with her wardrobe. The cleaning extended from her closets through the rest of the house. Newly placed, everything had it's home now.
In addition to having a great eye for fashion, mom enjoys picking up decorative, nonfunctional pieces here and there. Another pillow for the couch, another stone encrusted picture frame for an end table; when she runs out of space on the sofa/table/mantle...she buys another sofa/table/mantle and starts the process all over again.
As a professional organizer, Cheryl's rule became, "You get rid of two, then you can buy ONE new."
With that new rule in place, if mom went over her quota, she started leaving new purchases in her car.
First were the 2 porcelain peacocks on the island in the kitchen, two days later, the mommy gave birth to a set of twins. Their babies were placed on the dinette in the kitchen. Two feet of table space are now devoted to their admiration instead of breakfast.
Two weeks later came a resin amber fish in the dining room. It's really quite beautiful the way the light brings out the colors in this giant fish. On Friday nights, the grand fish makes it hard to see-food, given that he takes up two to three feet of precious serving space.
Joe does not appreciate the fowl, or the big catch. The one thing both objects have in common is that Joey has a front row view of both peacock and fish-derriere.
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| This view makes for a fowl appetite. |
"C'mon Zee!" He pushes the issue. "Anywhere I sit, there's an ass in my face."
Joe requires very little to survive. A cup of coffee in the morning with his New York Post, a t.v. remote on his nightstand, and no 'chachka's' in his line of sight. Joe was not an interior decorator in any past life, nor does he plan to be in any future.
If I had to pick a decorative style for Joe, it would be minimalist, modern, and sterile.
Either that or Amish.
He sees no purpose in accents for anything.
Mom is ALL about the extras. If there is a single inch of space for something, then the room/table/shelf is lacking. Her bedroom is French, the living room is African, the den is ultra modern, and the dining room has an Asian feel. The Parlor or Tea Room is a life size replica of how our great grandparents (if they were Aristocrats) had their morning tea and gossip.
Perhaps the most annoying part to all of this is my mother's excitement over her ever growing porcelain menagerie, and the little known facts that come along with it. The more mom knows that someone doesn't like something, the more she feels compelled to shower them with insignificant facts. One morning, Joey thought the coast was clear. He shuffled into the kitchen in a dark robe, 5 o'clock shadow, and his 'don't talk to me before I've had my coffee' face. Mom was at her place on the dinette, taking her vitamins and stroking the peacock's tail lovingly.
"Isn't it funny Joe," Mom began cheerily, "the peacock is the male. He attracts the peahen with his stunning tail feathers. Their offspring are called peachicks. Don't you find that interesting? That reminds me...I have this dress in a peacock print-maybe it would be good for Zee."
"I dunno mah." He mumbles before a quick return to the confines of our safe from peacock trivia bedroom. Clearly, mom doesn't get Joe's disinterest-and he doesn't get her fascination. He also cautions me to STAY AWAY from mom's bedroom from fear that all will turn Peacock.
Mom's apartment in Brooklyn is no better. As we walk up the stairs for dinner or a visit, Joe swears he's on an episode of Survivor walking up past the assorted spears and African masks. "Just vote me off the island and let me go home." He gives a tired whine. Dinners by mom during the winter months are always over the top enjoyable, but it's not without the price of listening to, or viewing a new purchase.
It's mid July, and as of now our summer's been great. Our kids are loving camp and I've having a considerable amount of relaxing mommy time. Even Joe's managing to relax, other than Friday night dinners where he's faced with Fishtail.
The question remains, are the tail feathers and back fin part of a greater truth? Some strong feeling that mom has about Joe, or his dis-appreciation of all that is chachka? No matter HOW good the summer is, there comes that time that I'm ready to head north, to my simple yet fabulous home. A home where my kids can relax or throw pillows, where nothing is too delicate for human hands, and where a husband can get a cup of coffee-free of all that is Pea.
