A Christmas Carol...Sorta
Home for the holidays, always good times. On Saturday morning (Christmas eve for you heretics), absolutely FRESH on six hours sleep having headlined the night before (bloodbath but thanks for asking) I hitch a ride with a couple of fellow Ottawa comics back home. The plan is to crash at a friends and then head out to Casselman to see my mom for Christmas day dinner.
This is going to be different however. My mom had a minor stroke in November and this is going to be the first time I see her. I don’t know what kind of shape she’s going to be in as she tends to be a little stoic so all the “I’m okays” she gave me over the phone haven’t done much for me and I’ll have to see her to be sure. I’m hoping she’s cool but expect the worst. But this isn’t the only reason this is going to be a unique visit. The stroke caused a lot of stress for me since I couldn’t afford to go home to see if she was okay but also because it drove home the fact that if she’d died, I’m not sure I would’ve been satisfied that we’d said all we were supposed to say. See my mom and I have never been close and although I’ve tried repeatedly to start a none gosspi/religion conversation with her, it’s never worked. But now it’s different. The handwriting was on the wall and I understand that as we’re enterting the fourth quarter, there’s no time to have a close conversation organically come about. This calls for drastic measures..
So I decided that this Christmas, my mother and I would get high.
I’d gotten a few tasty treats with “Pixie dust” as the cool kids call it, sprinkled in them from a show I did in November. It was a benefit that was somehow related to pot and potheads (not really sure what but it was a fun little room and I got stoned during my set because of the seocnd hand smoke and the size of the room). I grab one of the Pot Tarts I’d been payed in and smuggle it into Ottawa and then to Casselman crossing two city borders which I think makes it a federal offense. On the train ride to Casselman, I don’t expect it to be that big a deal. My mom’s always been pretty open about stuff and I just assumed that she’d understand the priniciple behind the notion. She’s there waiting for me at the station when the train pulls in. She looks great! No slouching face, no pronounced limp or hook hand. After way too formal a greeting for relatives, we start to head to her house which involves crossing the tracks. I take the lead and hear her cry out as she trips over the one of the tracks. I turn around just in time to see her hitting the ground, full out face plant (by the way, I disocver in this moment that it’s really only funny if it isn’t your mom). I help her up, way concerned but she seems more or less all right. Shaken up and her shins took some damage but the hips held (unless she’s way more rugged than I’d thought) so that’s good. I assumed it was her leg, that she hadn’t been able to lift it was high as she normally would but she explains to me that she’d gotten distracted by a nearby lamp and tripped over the tracks.
It should be noted, we’re still not high at this point.
So back at the Batcave, she feeds me dinner (she’d already eaten as old folks never wait past four to eat). As we’re talking, we of couse end up in religion. She’s Christian, part of some sect of a sect of a sect whose name I can’t remember but has all the guilt of a regular religion but without the nice church). So I start pioking fun. I tell her that maybe she should convert to Judaism or read the Koran . She asks me (with barely veild concern for my soul) if my Jewish friends have tried to convert me. I say no, asking what would make her think that and she says I mentioned the Koran. I point out that that’s Islam and she says “aren’t they the same thing?” Uh...no, mom. Actually the Jews and Muslims have had a few differences of opinion. Like...oh, I don’t know, the prophet Mohammed, the Gaza strip, Israel....everything.
We are still not high at this point.
So eventually I brinig up the tart and ask if she’s going to have some. She tells me that she gets angry when she gets high because she can’t control her thoughts and although the visual of four cops trying to take down my raging mom as she kills her way through Casselman is pretty funny, I relent. It’s Christmas after all. I end up putting together a filing cabinet for her while she watches the year in review of Larry King interviews. So the moral of the story is that you don’t need drugs or alcholol to have a good time.
Then we killed a biker.
This is going to be different however. My mom had a minor stroke in November and this is going to be the first time I see her. I don’t know what kind of shape she’s going to be in as she tends to be a little stoic so all the “I’m okays” she gave me over the phone haven’t done much for me and I’ll have to see her to be sure. I’m hoping she’s cool but expect the worst. But this isn’t the only reason this is going to be a unique visit. The stroke caused a lot of stress for me since I couldn’t afford to go home to see if she was okay but also because it drove home the fact that if she’d died, I’m not sure I would’ve been satisfied that we’d said all we were supposed to say. See my mom and I have never been close and although I’ve tried repeatedly to start a none gosspi/religion conversation with her, it’s never worked. But now it’s different. The handwriting was on the wall and I understand that as we’re enterting the fourth quarter, there’s no time to have a close conversation organically come about. This calls for drastic measures..
So I decided that this Christmas, my mother and I would get high.
I’d gotten a few tasty treats with “Pixie dust” as the cool kids call it, sprinkled in them from a show I did in November. It was a benefit that was somehow related to pot and potheads (not really sure what but it was a fun little room and I got stoned during my set because of the seocnd hand smoke and the size of the room). I grab one of the Pot Tarts I’d been payed in and smuggle it into Ottawa and then to Casselman crossing two city borders which I think makes it a federal offense. On the train ride to Casselman, I don’t expect it to be that big a deal. My mom’s always been pretty open about stuff and I just assumed that she’d understand the priniciple behind the notion. She’s there waiting for me at the station when the train pulls in. She looks great! No slouching face, no pronounced limp or hook hand. After way too formal a greeting for relatives, we start to head to her house which involves crossing the tracks. I take the lead and hear her cry out as she trips over the one of the tracks. I turn around just in time to see her hitting the ground, full out face plant (by the way, I disocver in this moment that it’s really only funny if it isn’t your mom). I help her up, way concerned but she seems more or less all right. Shaken up and her shins took some damage but the hips held (unless she’s way more rugged than I’d thought) so that’s good. I assumed it was her leg, that she hadn’t been able to lift it was high as she normally would but she explains to me that she’d gotten distracted by a nearby lamp and tripped over the tracks.
It should be noted, we’re still not high at this point.
So back at the Batcave, she feeds me dinner (she’d already eaten as old folks never wait past four to eat). As we’re talking, we of couse end up in religion. She’s Christian, part of some sect of a sect of a sect whose name I can’t remember but has all the guilt of a regular religion but without the nice church). So I start pioking fun. I tell her that maybe she should convert to Judaism or read the Koran . She asks me (with barely veild concern for my soul) if my Jewish friends have tried to convert me. I say no, asking what would make her think that and she says I mentioned the Koran. I point out that that’s Islam and she says “aren’t they the same thing?” Uh...no, mom. Actually the Jews and Muslims have had a few differences of opinion. Like...oh, I don’t know, the prophet Mohammed, the Gaza strip, Israel....everything.
We are still not high at this point.
So eventually I brinig up the tart and ask if she’s going to have some. She tells me that she gets angry when she gets high because she can’t control her thoughts and although the visual of four cops trying to take down my raging mom as she kills her way through Casselman is pretty funny, I relent. It’s Christmas after all. I end up putting together a filing cabinet for her while she watches the year in review of Larry King interviews. So the moral of the story is that you don’t need drugs or alcholol to have a good time.
Then we killed a biker.
