My newly-minted teenager (or so she shall be next week) woke up in the middle of the night and wrote me an email (the time said 1:34 a.m.) about personal things, and then left it on my bedside stand. It had all kinds of admonishments about not talking to her in person, please, and this is how she wants it to be, and please, no hugging any more, and don't talk about anything in front of her sister.
Okay!
So last night we were watching Buffy while Eliz was calling everyone on the birthday party list to tell them the party location had been changed to the local forested park, when she headed over to me with the phone. "Phyllis' mother wants to talk to you." And what she wanted to say was that the time we had for the party, 5-8 pm, was prime dinner time for the mountain lions and that we were all going to get eaten. I had no idea what to say to her back. "Phyllis can't come," she said. I told her I'd get back to her, and then never did. I suppose I'll write an email because I sure as hell don't want to be on the phone like that again. What would I say? "Sorry, but I want everyone to be eaten, we're not changing the venue. Mountain lions will be GREAT for the ambiance."
Meanwhile, Badger is arranging a wonderful LARP with Rook. It will be 10 or so 13-year-olds crashing through the woods with fake swords saying "Perrier! Attack!" Badger looked up mountain lion attacks online and there have been five in all of California's recent history, and those happened deep in the wilderness, not at a site near the bathrooms at the entrance to a rather citified park area. Where there are hundreds of people at any given time on the trails, tromping around making noise, especially on a Saturday evening. Badger points out that the first person eaten is always the one in the wheelchair, but I think we should sacrifice Phyllis.
I am reminded of that Shel Silverstein story, "Ladies First." Is Phyllis a real little lady, by any chance?
Posted by: elswhere | May 07, 2009 at 07:51 AM
Ha! I googled it and it's indeed a great poem. Phyllis' mom did admit that she was being overprotective, so I can't blame her too much. It's just her personal fear, I suppose.
Posted by: jo | May 07, 2009 at 08:01 AM
Marlo Thomas reading that story is *burned into my brain* from the Free to Be You and Me album! I didn't know it was by Silverstein.
"*I* am a tender sweet young thing!"
"Oh, far out!"
Posted by: badgermama | May 07, 2009 at 08:09 AM
Hee! Badger, me too! It's particularly on my mind these days as my kid is playing the T.S.Y.T. in her class's production. (My femmy child had her choice of parts & picked that one...)
Posted by: elswhere | May 07, 2009 at 02:40 PM
Poor girl!
What a crazy mother she has.
Posted by: Melissa | May 07, 2009 at 03:12 PM
FUnny!
Posted by: Barak | May 07, 2009 at 04:32 PM
Well, if you lived in Colorado Springs....last year I was a houseguest at a home on Cheyenne Mountain (think ubersuburb) and a neighbor's cat got out their door. Their little boy went out to get it just in time to see a mountain lion go up a tree with it. (!)
We just don't have stuff like that back East.
Posted by: c. | May 07, 2009 at 08:45 PM
Ooh..."LA-DIES first, LA-DIES first!" I had the album AND the book and listened to it all the time. (And saw the TV movie, of course.)
Posted by: Patty | May 08, 2009 at 09:02 PM