Grandma Norma's Coming

This past weekend, we had our office holiday party and I had a great time. I usually do but this year was different in the respect that I remained sober through out the event, which is completely out of character for me.

Last year, my boss's wife was pouring the cocktails. One second, I was pleasantly buzzy, seeing the world through a gentle, soft glow. The next minute, I couldn't seem to make my mouth work the way my brain wanted and I ended up a slurring, staggering, abomination in four inch heels. It wasn't pretty. So, in an effort to avoid being water cooler conversation fodder, I decided that I would have a single cocktail and then make Perrier my friend for the rest of the evening.

Sometime during the party, looking around at the decorations and participating in a pipe playing session, it hit me that Christmas was only a couple of weeks off, which meant that there was a little over a week before my mum arrived in town. I am consumed with excitement and dread. I suppose I had better explain that.

My mum is a force of nature.

She is equal parts tornado and gentle summer breeze. She calls me, breathless, about books. Her entire life has gravitated around a quest for information. In fact, if she had the desire, I believe that my mother could waltz on to the Jeopardy! stage and dominate the game although it's likely that she and Alex would have words before the end of the first show because he would do something silly like ask her to clarify her answer and she would fix him with her withering, laser stare and beg his freaking pardon and then accuse his Canadian ass of bailing on his country in favour of an American passport. He'd never be the same.

Anyway...

My mother will arrive and I know that we will be having a discussion about the merits of raw food before I even get her suitcase out to the car. But I have a plan and it doesn't include foraging in the backyard for our Christmas dinner. I am going to ply her with date bars and gin, two of her weaknesses. And then, I'm going to usher her to the play table because we have had some of our funniest, most heartfelt conversations with heads bent, presbyopic eyes straining, over the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I have a new one waiting for our attentions.

I know that she is likely to rearrange at least one of my cupboards and honestly, it doesn't bother me at all. She is a better organizer than me and my kitchen welcomes her critique. Besides, she's baked a fruitcake and I'm quite content to sit at our breakfast bar eating myself into a coma while she deliberates where our dishes would be better housed.

My mum and Dallas haven't had much of an opportunity to get to know each other so I'm looking forward to that. She didn't care for my first husband ("Beth, if it quacks and waddles, it's a goddamn duck.") or my second ("I just couldn't warm up to him. I don't do Neanderthal well.") but I'm not even remotely worried this time around. Dallas is every mother's dream.

The only thing I dread is how I'm going to feel the day I have to put her back on the plane to Canada.