Happy Birthday Ma

Today is my Mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Ma! My Dad's birthday was October 5th. Happy late birthday Daddy! I am writing this post in their honor, though embarrassing them in a semi-public forum (okay, Mom and Dad are the only ones who read my swill anyway) may not be their idea of "honor." What can I say, that's just the sort of thoughtful daughter I am.

Parentage is a interesting thing. One of the joys of step-parenting has been to watch the boys and pick out all the various little aspects of my husband divided amongst them. I suppose we are all strange hybrid composites of the stuff that makes us (kindly donated by mom and dad) and the various other spiritual filaments we pick up from our environment. So in this post, I will attempt to dissect myself (gruesomely apropos for the season, no?) and see what of my parentage spills out.

There shall be two categories (categories, like lists and check boxes soothe me. Sue me.) "Characteristic" - trait as manifested in Cyndi, and "Parent at Fault" - parent at fault for said manifested trait.

Characteristic - I am a klutz (as has been multiply elucidated by my many self-inflicted-injury posts, and more recently, in a heretofore undocumented event resulting in a broken toe.)
PAF - This one is going to rest firmly with my Ma, who over the years has regaled us all with both story and working example of various impossible slips, falls, injuries and accidents. IE, a black eye from opening a cabinet door into her face. Yes, this is absolutely something I would also do, and likely will do at some point in the future. My father, graceful and lithe, was an athlete of the first order and lept like a gazelle over high jump bars throughout high school and college. Were I to attempt anything of the sort, it would likely look like something like a heifer getting a running start to jump a barbed-wire fence. The result would be all flailing hooves, pained mooing, blood, and the always inevitable shame.

C: I am lurpy. The aforementioned lurpiness is the result of my odd shape combined with above-average height.
PAF: Actually, this one goes to both parents. Like my father, I am tall and have slender wrists and ankles. My father and my brothers have often bemoaned the fact that their delicate wrists could be fractured with only a delicate thwap of a rolled up newspaper. I don't mind the wrists so much. Being a girl this presents me with less of a problem. But combine gangly height with squat-in-the-potato-field-and-drop-a-kid German birthing hips (thanks Ma), and you get a rather odd combination that baffles many a sales girl when shopping for jeans. Thus the ensuing "lurp" factor.

C: I am a book nerd. When I don't have my nose buried in a book, I am usually rattling on to some uninterested party about a book I read, recommending several books I think they should read, or detailing the many uses of books in decorating and furniture propping.
PAF: This one is going to my Ma. My mom is an avid reader and kept me in books from the time I was old enough to begin reading. Not surprisingly, the first thing I read was food-related, the back of a package of ham. I have many fond memories of visiting used book shops with her and lugging home a treasure trove of dusty tomes that enabled me to retreat solidly into geekdom.


C: I am a snark. Snark: (according to the urban dictionary, source of all pertinent knowledge for my generation) "Combination of "snide" and "remark". Sarcastic comment(s). Also snarky (adj.) and snarkily (adv." You may or may not have picked up on this already, since you are reading my blog. Hopefully leaning towards may. I lay it on pretty thick here people.
PAF: This one is all Dad. My father is a deceptively quiet man, but behind this placid exterior glows a hotbed of pure liquid snark. Evidence of this can be found in any Richards home video where in my father's voice can be heard firing off the occasional quip from behind the camera. Perhaps the most famous being his remark about a lady in double-wide stretch pants lumbering across the street to the hospital - "Whoa. There goes a sick patient," he snarks. Like me, my Dad would walk on his lips through a bed of hot coals before knowingly hurting anyone's feelings, but every now and then, one of those snide little buggers leaks out.

So here's to parents! I will be forever grateful for mine for putting up with me for all these years and loving me even when I'm a dork (which is almost always).

Cyndi