To Dote or Not to Dote, That is the Question

Dote (verb): to bestow or express excessive love or fondness habitually

Only in my family could we spend a good chunk of a pre-Mother's Day luncheon discussing who dotes and who doesn't, not to mention what constitutes doting.

The subject arose because Sister #5 doesn't care for her daughter's beau, openly stating such despite the fact that he dotes on her.

When Dad tells us that we should all be so lucky as to have a man who dotes on us the way he dotes on Mom, it opens the door to doting discussion.

"So whose husband does dote?" Sister #2 asks of the table.

Sister #6 quickly clarifies that her husband does not and has never doted, despite a long and successful marriage. We all agree that Sister #3's husband dotes unabashedly, but even Sister #4 herself isn't entirely certain if her husband qualifies.

Someone cracks that neither Sister #2 nor Sister #5's husbands dote, but both take issue with this, bringing up meal-making and housecleaning as examples of doting.

Wait, aren't those just examples of shared responsibilities?

Discussion is tabled when housemade ice cream - limoncello, peach, chocolate - arrives, but then Sister #6 remembers a critical point.

"None of us has ever doted," she reminds us. It's true and whether that's a failing or not is up for debate, as is practically everything in this family.

Fortunately, the day ends with a friend who not only wants to hear all about the sister round table, but is willing to knead the family-inflicted tension out of my shoulders after I share it at 821 Cafe over black bean nachos.

I reward him with an evening at Firehouse Theatre seeing "Maple and Vine," a play about an overly stressed couple who abandon focaccia, cell phones and Google for life in a gated community that recreates life in 1955.

Women are pretty and persuasive but men wear the pants in the family, crab puffs and charades constitute a party with neighbors and wives attend Authenticity Committee meetings to ensure they are living properly buttoned up and politically incorrect Eisenhower-era lives.

Their lives are no longer information-saturated, over-scheduled or diverse, so they are more present in their own lives now, even if their roles in it are more strictly circumscribed. But are they happier?

What it comes down to, of course, is how each person defines happy.

Happy (adjective): feeling pleasure and enjoyment because of your life or situation

Now there's another concept ripe for discussion.

Mom, You're the Best

Mother's Day equation on the northern neck.

Nine hours gone,  2 1/2 hours driving windows down to very loud music (Interpol, Bastille, Small Black, St. Lucia), six hours talking to Mom, Dad, sisters #2 and #5, one hour eating on the big screened porch (fried chicken, stromboli, veggie salad, fruit salad, lemonade), two sailboats spotted in the river, one heron endlessly cruising overhead looking for hapless fish.

Best family story told that I'd never heard before: Mom and Fay, her best friend, walking down the street in Provincetown in the '90s with their husbands following behind about eight feet. A woman rushes up and congratulates the two women on being "out."

As if. Even my mother had to laugh at the memory.

We got Mom and Dad talking about their early dating history, their first date having been a triple date where they were not paired up.

On the second date a month later, Dad suggested playing miniature golf at a place down on the banks of the Anacostia river, a clear indicator he did not yet know much at all about my mother, the least athletic and competitive woman on the planet.

She played that once and never since.

Sitting on the porch all afternoon talking, we watched a parade of birds visit the various feeders and bird baths in the yard.

Tiny, timid bluebirds flitted from branch to branch before even considering venturing near the feeders.

Hummingbirds hung in the air at the two red feeders hanging on the other side of the porch screening, casting the slightest of shadows on the shades my father had let down as the afternoon sun made its way onto our faces.

Sparrows and chickadees splashed in the birdbaths still full from last night's rain.

For dessert, I had made gingerbread with dark chocolate icing, a favorite from childhood that no one else but our Mom made and one I hadn't had in years. It was a big hit with everyone, one of those things you forget how much you love until you're presented with it again.

Kind of like a day on the porch with your Mom on Mother's Day.

Hymn to Her: Fabulous and Beautiful

"It took a woman to show us the light." ~Teenage Mother

What sentiment could more perfectly sum up Mother's Day than that?

After a drive to the Northern Neck to pay homage to my own maternal ancestry (sign on insurance company: "Farmers, please report corn acres planted," and sign on gas station: "Happy Momz Day!"), it was time to let the Mother's Day festivities begin.

To ensure mixing with as diverse crowds as possible tonight, first there was a picnic at Agecroft with music by the Richmond Concert Band.

It unfolded under an enormous magnolia tree and with a straight-shot  view of the conductor, a bottle of Chianti and way too much food.

This year's theme was "Virginia Connections" and featured the works of, yep, Virginians.

An outdoor concert sounds so different than an indoor one, with the sound having endless space to move around in.

Acoustically, I know it's inferior but that's balanced by the pleasures of a picnic with live symphonic music.

After the performance and a stroll of the grounds, it was on to Firehouse Theater for mockery.

Film Roasters was doing their monthly screening of a truly bad movie with Mystery Science Theatre-like commentary from a trio of wise asses.

The cinematic gem we saw was "Teenage Mother" from 1967 which featured the Young Set (complete with jerky go-go dancer, mocked by one of the improv guys as, "Some bronzer and a lampshade and she's good to go") and the star's wardrobe supplied by Betsy Johnson Paraphernalia.

I know my fashion history; Betsy Johnson was the mod designer in the sixties. Her clothes made guys say things like, "I want that chick. She's stacked."

The movie told the story of a sex education teacher from Sweden trying to enlighten an American  high school to much resistance.

Translation: between the dated dialog and endless riffing on it, I was laughing pretty much non-stop.

"Health education being taught by a woman? That's something new!" In 1967, I'm sure it was.

As we laughed along to lines about a teenager's $10 allowance and going to a drive-in to see "Girl on a Chain Gang," we never saw it coming.

"It" was the sex ed teacher's last defense to save her job when the parents got mad at her unorthodox subject matter.

She shut them right up by showing a film of a baby being born using forceps.

That's right, in the middle of this corny 1967 movie with every cliche in the world about teenagers, smoking pot and pre-marital sex, we saw an actual clip of a baby being delivered.

With, I might add, a voice over explaining the placement of the forceps and the accompanying issues.

We saw the baby's head and shoulders come out. Um, happy Mother's Day?

Let's just say that the room got unspeakably quiet as the audience tried to process what was surely most people's first actual birth footage.

When the lights came up, we were instructed, "That's it, you can go home and think about that now."

I'm guessing most people did the opposite and tried to block it out for the rest of their evening.

I thought a better solution was to head over to Richmond Triangle Players for the Ghostlight Afterparty, essentially a piano bar where all the singers are actors.

Afterbirth, afterparty, I always say.

The five hour party was underway when we arrived and the first song we caught was a fine one, "My Funny Valentine" by Carla.

With my J-Ward neighbors a few rows behind, the 'hood was representing.

The superb accompanist Sandy, this time on a grand piano instead of last month's keyboard, did harmony for her daughter's rendition of Carole King's "Where You Lead" in honor of the holiday.

Host Matt kept the show rolling with jokes, tambourine playing and his excellent singing voice.

Walking across the stage at one point, he noticed a stool with a cocktail on it and cracked up.

"That's what I love about Ghostlight Afterparty," he said with no clear idea whose drink it was since no one was onstage then.

Jason did a stellar version of "If I Loved You" after talking about his talented musical mother and why he'd turned out the way he had.

Tonight's guest star was Lisa who set the tone by proclaiming that every time she mentioned her adored 11-year old son Jamie, everyone in the room was required to drink.

A deceptively simple rule and yet one with comic results as the night wore on.

She did a "Mad Lib" version of "A Spoonful of Sugar," singing off a Mad Libs sheet of nonsense words.

Because they're actors, the hamming never stops, like when one guy paused mid-song and said, "Dramatic cross" and moved from center stage to the piano for his big finale.

Of course I saw a couple of my favorite boys, in particular Princess Di (blue pants, pink shirt) and the theater critic (on a date), both pleased as punch to see a friend.

B.C. did a terrific version of "When You're Good to Mama," while Matt shook his booty against the tambourine and Maggie danced across the back of the stage.

Afterwards, Matt noted dryly, "B.C. sings songs in women's registers better than most women do."

And that is why we come to the Ghostlight Afterparty.

Around 11:30 the pizza arrived and the hungry audience took a break and descended on it.

Susan killed it with her rendition of "The Man That Got Away" and a duet of "Suddenly Seymour" had half the room singing along.

Pianist Sandy and Audra wowed the crowd with "Just a Housewife" before we got to the last song of the night.

According to the non-actor, non-singer who took the stage, she was a straight white girl rapping like a straight black man about, you know, having what you need.

It was at that point that Princess Di turned to me and sniffed, "There's fifteen men singing along to this in the back row."

Indeed they were and having a grand old time.

And wherever their mothers were, I'm sure they'd have been very proud of them.

Cause especially on Mother's Day, it takes a woman to, well, do it all.

See the light?

Mommie Dearest Okays Wire Hangers

In a twisted nod to Mother's Day (I'm guessing), the Bowtie was showing 1981's "Mommie Dearest," a film I hadn't seen, despite recognizing some of the cultural references to it (maybe because I had read the book?).

It didn't attract a big crowd, but those there were enthusiasts in a way I didn't expect.

I'm not sure if it was Joan Crawford or Faye Dunaway playing JC that inspired such passion for the movie.

One of the guys in the group next to me leaned over to say that "I didn't bring the ice cubes and wire hangers, but I might have to say some dialog along with the movie. Fair warning."

The line that got the loudest audience participation was "Don't fuck with me fellas. This ain't my first time at the rodeo," delivered when Crawford was telling the board of directors at Pepsi Cola that they couldn't toss her off the board just because her husband had died.

The film's high camp made it clear what a good midnight movie it must have been, but it also portrayed a deeply disturbed woman (bipolar, alcoholic) who should have never been allowed to adopt children, much less raise them.

And that got me to thinking about my own mother on Mother's Day Eve.

Unlike Crawford, she was a great mother, if a bit of a worrier (a trait I didn't inherit). And, yes, she was fine with wire hangers.

Looking back, I see where the rules she put in place for me (and my five younger sisters) covered all the important areas of life. Witness:

1. You can always have fruit, even five minutes before a meal. By making fruit constantly accessible, we all developed a love of it. I still grab a clementine or handful of grapes as I'm going out the door to dinner.

2. You don't have to turn out the light at bedtime as long as you're in bed reading. What kid isn't going to defy bedtime with a good book then? All six of us grew up to be avid readers (albeit of very different things; don't recommend chick lit to me) because of this rule.

3. When you lay down on a beach towel in a bikini, your stomach will be flat. Every time one of us complained about our body or feeling fat as teenagers, she reminded us of this fact (it took a few years to realize it was a metaphor). And she was right; we looked great stretched out on the sand (and probably the rest of the time, too).

4. If your hair doesn't look nice, it doesn't matter how great the rest of you looks. Every one of us has thick stick-straight hair, but as long as it was clean and brushed, it counted as looking nice, at least to her (although she loved it when we curled it...and I still do).

5. And the bedrock of her rules for children (and probably essential for a large brood): Never intentionally hurt someone's feelings. Think how your words will affect who you're talking to and adjust what you say accordingly.

I know how lucky I am to have been raised by a mother like mine rather than one like Miss Joan Crawford.

And my mother undoubtedly knows that I'll never write a nasty tell-all book about her.

So to Mom, Happy Mother's Day from Number One Daughter.

Mom Says, So You Have To

I have one of those mothers who thinks it's more meaningful to be visited by her children on Mother's Day than on Christmas or her birthday (she actually told us that).

Of course, when you produce six children, and six daughters at that, I suppose there isn't a more important day to celebrate yourself.

So I always spend Mother's Day on the Northern Neck being the respectful oldest daughter.

This year's trip to the river had a twofold purpose though, because with the recent demise of the beagle, here, it was time to bury his effects and say one last goodbye.

He loved visiting out there; my parents have several acres on the Rappahannock and there was plenty of room for him to run and large shade trees to nap under.

He and I had visited just ten days before his last day and even in his dotage, he'd seemed absolutely content napping in the sun on the porch all afternoon.

The only time he was ever unpopular on a visit was once in his youth when he bounded out of the car and took off like a shot, only to return less than a minute later proudly carrying a dead baby rabbit in his mouth.

My mother, who had been sending me updates on the mother rabbit and her new brood, was understandably upset.

The beagle was mystified at our reaction; his instinct had betrayed him and it was clear he didn't know what he'd down wrong.

But it was the last time he did any hunting at the river.

Two of my five sisters also made the trek down from Maryland, so there was a fair amount of reminiscing ("Remember when she hitchhiked to the beach in her bare feet?" about one of the absent sisters) and sarcasm ("It's a chopped salad but we don't usually use a bread knife to cut tomatoes," to yours truly about her knife skills).

You know, that sort of sisterly affection where the aim is to insult with humor, but always to get your dig in.

Meanwhile, my mom sits there smiling, but reminding us to stop talking about sisters who aren't present and to please be nice, just like she's been doing since we were old enough to talk.

In fact, I believe that's why she wants us to come down for Mother's Day.

I think her idea of celebrating herself is just having us around so she can do what she does best, which is mother us.

Good daughter that I attempt to be, I'm more than happy to oblige.