We do now have a new name for the blog courtesy of my girlfriend’s mother (aka Mama). Yes, her southern mother Mama calls it “the blob.” She makes up words for just about everything. Sushi is “osaka,” and the list goes on and on from there. It actually was fun learning a whole new language the last couple weeks.

Although Mama has now returned home, something crazy did happen on her last night here: we thought we actually had killed her. Earlier that day, Sonja had to go work. Since that meant her mom was going to be left home basically sitting on the couch and watching television, Sonja thought it would be a cool idea to drop her off at The Promenade instead.

The Promenade is a place that you can walk around and check out lots of different stores, restaurants and vendors. The problem is that Mama is 77 years old, and doesn’t really like to walk around that much.

When older people turn 77, they act a lot like kids. They’re basically as needy and as painful as kids, but they’re just not as cute. They can’t really run around (actually sometimes they can’t even run at all because it hurts them).

Anyway, she dropped Mama off there around 2:30 pm and basically said “Mama, I’ll see you around 6:30 or 7:00 pm.” At around 6:15 pm, however, Mama started calling saying “Where are you darling? Where are you darling? I’m scared. I’m terrified!” She called about eighteen times.

Mama wasn’t feeling too well because she was standing outside in the cold. Apparently she didn’t want to go into a store because the store didn’t have what she wanted to drink. So instead of sitting in the store relaxing and drinking something good, she decided to stand outside.

By the time Sonja picked her up, Mama said her chest hurt because she’d been outside and that she didn’t feel well. When Mama got back to the house, Sonja banished her down to her bedroom and told her to go to sleep.

When Sonja and I went to go to sleep, we were laying there wondering “Did we kill her? Is Mama still alive in there?” I woke up at 7:00 in the morning and I was waiting for confirmation that Mama was alive – a door squeak or SOME indication that Mama was still alive in the next room.

I kept wondering “Did we kill her mother? Should we go and check on her?” So Sonja wakes up and starts getting up to go to the bathroom, and I say “Babe, should we check on her?” She says “No, she’s all right.” I said “I think I might have heard her snore…”

After two or three more silent minutes pass, I’m still laying there wondering if we killed Mama. Did banishing her to The Promenade do it? Did the extra walking in the 65 degree cold do her in for good? What exactly happened to her? Then right at 8:00 am on the button, I hear the door creak and a toilet flush and I realized that we didn’t kill Mama.

Did Mama kill us by hanging with us for two weeks? Absolutely not. Is it hard? Yes, at times.

When older people travel and visit you in your pond, they are like a fish out of water. They don’t travel well. Young people don’t travel well either for that matter. The only people who travel well are those people in the middle.

Last night was my other house guest, Cammie’s, last night in town. So as a final treat, we all went to see the show. The “we” were Me, Cammie, Sonja and Mama.

Hearing Sonja call her mother “Mama” the whole time she’s been here raised a funny thing with us. While Sonja, who is from the south, has always called her mother “Mama,” my brother and I who hail from New York have always called our mother “Mommy.”

So Mama was never a Mommy, and Mommy was never a Mama. Funny, all the southern women seemed okay with me calling it “mommy bootcamp” the other day. Must be some kind of north/south/confederate thing.

I don’t know though. Kristen is from the Midwest and tells me that they all just call their mothers “Mom.” Maybe that’s why we fought the Civil War, so we could divide the terms “mommy,” “mama” and “mom.”

By the way, Dirty Dancing was fun, long and had lots of music. It was a lot like the movie . . . and twenty years later Baby is still not in a corner.

On our way home, though, something happened. It all stems from an 82 year old man getting insanely jealous. Yes, Mama’s husband George we discovered had called her about seventeen times while we were in the play.

George in fact has been calling incessantly all week. He is convinced that Mama had been gallivanting all over Los Angeles for the last week while he’s been paying for it.

Now Mama tried to call him during intermission, but George either fell asleep for a few minutes or couldn’t get to the phone. So we get out of the show at about 9:45 pm PST (which is 12:45 am Arkansas/Louisiana time).

In the car coming home, Mama then calls George who at first feigned being asleep but then called back a few minutes later. All we hear is Mama screaming, and then we hear her yell “Bullshit!” sApparently George was still under the impression that Mama has been gallivanting all over Los Angeles on his dime and she repeated what he said to her on the phone: bullshit!

Now Mama never swears. Mommy, on the other hand, has a mouth like a truck driver. That’s probably another reason we fought the Civil War – cause northern mothers swear and southern mothers don’t.

Needless to say jealous men come in all ages. So if a man ever wrongly thinks you have been gallivanting around town, all you need to remember to say to him is “Bullshit!” No one puts Baby in a corner.

For the last week, I’ve had to keep myself from swearing while Mama has been staying with us. I guess now that I heard Mama say bullshit, it’s all fair game!

During what should have been a 30 minute ride to the show last night which actually took an hour and forty minutes, Mama suggested that I get an old Dodge like she used to have so I can ram people. You know what though? If I did, then too many people would be saying “bullshit!”