10 Quirks about my Mom

A few quirky things to know about my mom. 

(1) She would stop every day after work to walk around the river path in downtown Waukesha. She said it was her way of letting go of work stress and time to remember why she loved her job.  Her job was her passion, followed by exercise. Family came third.

(2) She wanted to get her steps in-not that she counted them-no matter the weather. She walked so many miles on 2 treadmills that she burned out the motors. Two separate service guys told her they had never seen anything like it before. I don’t know what was funnier: the shock on her face when she heard that this hasn’t happened to more people or the guy's reaction when she would say: “when can the next one be delivered?”.

(3) When she went to any store, she would drive up and down the parking lot aisles searching for the closest parking spot to the entrance. I teased her how this obsession was like a competition she had to win. She responded that she saw it as a personal challenge to get the perfect spot, forgetting about the steps she could have taken or the time being wasted.

(4) She stopped wearing shorts sometime in her 50s. She said her knees were ugly. I showed her my knees, focusing on the right one that had 3 surgeries resulting in big scars. I commented: “your knees can’t be worse than this.” She replied with a light-hearted chuckle: “you shouldn’t wear shorts either.” I can report that after a total of 5 right knee surgeries I’m still wearing shorts.

(5) She was always on a diet. It continued even when she was in Assisted Living weighing 101 pounds. She would refuse sweets, forget that she did and eat them anyway. 

(6) She loved to eat butter on saltines. I enjoy my pad of butter like anyone and I like saltines in soup, but never the two shall meet to make a snack. These days, mom just wants the butter.

(7) She would be heartbroken and dismayed for a few days after each Packers football loss. This fanatic trait was passed from her mom then to me. We would call each other as if we were calling into a support group for mental health guidance. It was ridiculous. I miss those calls. 

(8) Mom would wear turtle necks, shirts with collars she could button to the top, or t-shirts with a regular neck line, never a V-neck or scoop neck because she thought her neck had too many wrinkles. I begged her to wait until the temperature was at least below 40 before she pulled out her turtlenecks. When it was too much I told her: “your neck has just the right amount of wrinkles to go with the number of wrinkles on your face.” Not a shining daughter moment. She walked out of the room in silence.

(9)  She looked at me in complete wonder when I would go braless. That would be the day Lynn Revoy left the house without a bra! It was the first thing she put on in the morning and the last thing she took off when getting into bed. When she started needing assistance to get dressed in the morning I told her that I was going to get rid of her bras so she didn’t have to try to hook them in the back. She looked horrified when hearing this “threat”. It was only 2 years ago at the age of 87 I finally liberated my mother‘s tatas. 

(10) Until the day she stopped her ability to grocery shop, she cut coupons and stored them in a plastic bin with a filing system I set up when I was in grade school. She never corrected my spelling on the divider tabs so there was “dresssings”, “meet”, “serial” and “diary”.  The tabs were thrown away when my parents moved out of the house. She gave me the remaining coupons.