A TV Opera in the Aegis Lounge

About Mom on Sunday, July 31, 2011

Dear Suzy and Jonathan,

            Thinking especially of Suzy, I’m going to divide yesterday’s visit with Mom into two parts—one that you can read now, and one you might want to read later after you’re upstairs in your new house with the beautifully finished floor.

            Part 1:

            I went directly from my View and Chew French Brunch Bunch to Ageist, where I found Mom and several others in the TV room with an opera was on the screen and a vacuum cleaner going nearby.  Mom was asleep as were several others, but as soon as I greeted her, she woke up and stayed awake and very alert and intentionally funny—passing judgment, making wise cracks, seeming to enjoy herself and the opera.  She was seated in a low-back chair, and I offered to get her another, but she said, “No, I like this.”  An aide also brought her her shirt, which she’d left in another room, and asked her whether she wanted him to put it in her room for her, and she politely replied that she could take care of it.  She was very gracious.

            Jonathan, I know you don’t like plot spoilers, so I’ll let you figure out what opera we were watching.

            I was beside and slightly behind Mom, who turned around to whisper her remarks from time to time.  I saw right away that the opera was funny (not in the ways the supertitles show all of them to be), but, in spite of the fact that I’d just come from our French session,  it was Mom who realized the opera was in French! 

            “This must be in French,” she said.  “I just heard ‘beaucoup.’”

            Sure enough, I soon started hearing snatches of French too—even in that impossibly high register.

            The opera had a woman pretending to be virtuous in that Cunegonde-in-Candide way, and men dressed up like nuns. 

            Mom said, “She’s not very bright if she thinks that man is a woman.” 

            Later when it was clear that at least one other (and probably all) among the nuns was a man, Mom whispered, “Isn’t it funny that there are two men dressed like that?” 

            When I suggested that the whole regiment of the away-from-home husbands were dressed up as nuns, Mom said, “They’re opera singers.”

            She had that right.

            Quite often, when I responded to Mom’s comments, I didn’t do it in a low enough voice, and she said “Shhhh.”  Once an aide said something in the hall, and Mom shushed him.  He bowed good naturedly as he apologized, and Mom smiled good-naturedly indulgent.

            In the meantime, Franz entered and woke up Bobbie and told her to watch the opera, and Bobbie said, “It’s pretty, but it’s hard not to sleep.”  He then went over on the “love seat,” where Carol was sitting, and she moved a cushion out of his way so he could sit.  May got up and left and later came back. 

            Then, at one point, Franz got up, went to the entrance between the hall and the small piano room and peed on the door frame.  Carol saw it and said, “For crying out loud!”  or something like that.  (“I never!”  “Well, of all things!”) 

            I got up to alert the staff, but no one was anywhere in the Perry section.  (Had they left so as not to disturb Mom?)  I went out the 4,3,2,1 #  door (Is it safe to put this in an e-mail?) and alerted Suzette at the desk.  In a matter of minutes the cleanup had been done.   (Get them over to your place, Suzy!)

            The opera was really funny, but when I laughed too loudly, Mom said, “Keep your response at the level of the others, or they’ll give you a talking to like one you’ve never gotten.” The level of the others, of course, was comatose.  

            I’d brought along a bag of Mother’s Lemon-Frosted Cookies, but when I tried to open it, Mom responded as if saying, “Didn’t you hear the announcement saying to turn off your cell phones and open all bags of Mother’s Lemon Cookies before the curtain opened?”  So I waited until the end. 

            But we went on enjoying the opera,  in which the rich countess offered to the needy  “a feast of bread and milk.”  The “nuns” sang arias to their crates of vin/about Turks and Saracens.  A man and his page both  got in bed with the countess.  (Ménage a trois French) 

            Buxom women prompted Mom to whisper to me, “Don’t ever set your heart on becoming an opera singer.  You don’t have the bust for it.”    She made other comments like “These two women are powerful, but they’re not like that,” indicating a connection with her fingers.  “They know how to create a crush.”  I got the feeling that Mom was in her element and really enjoying being in it.

            Now you can stop reading if you don’t have the extra strength.