MOM, WEATHER, LUMP

Tonight, at about midnight, I was sitting here just scanning various sites on the internet. I was searching for a particular show on hulu.com, checking facebook, twitter, the usual suspects. Mom was in bed for the night and her room is directly across from me. Her home is small, so I'm virtually right outside her room where I sit here at the table. The weather has been up and down, wet and dry, hot and cool this entire past week I've been here so we've wrestled with the thermostat. I believe that in C-bus, in June, there really is never a good reason to turn on the heater. Simply shut the windows...or turn off the air...but don't turn on your heater. Mother, whose house this is, just does whatever she wants. And do you know why my mother does whatever she wants? Yes. You guessed it. She's 90. That's the best reason for doing anything, I'm learning. So...after fanning myself silly, my mother asked, "Oh! Are you warm?"

Silly me, thinking that perhaps I was having a power surge (what our older sisters used to refer to as "hot flashes"), answered, "Why yes, yes I am. As a matter of fact, I'm about to spontaneously combust right here before your eyes." To which she replied, "Well. Go over and check the thermostat before you do that." Don't laugh. She's not that witty. She doesn't hear well and by "doesn't hear well" I mean she doesn't listen. She doesn't listen because most of the time she doesn't really care. She doesn't really care because....she's 90...she's got other stuff on her mind...like...conversations to have with deceased relatives when she sees them (this subject occupies our time and often involve recipes).

Anyway, I adjust the thermostat from "insanely and inappropriately hot" to "reasonably temperate" and forgot about it. A few moments ago (Eastern Standard Time), she called me in where she was laying on the bed and said (and I am NOT making any of this stuff up):

MOM: Debbie?

ME: * I walk into the room*

MOM: Come over here. I want you to feel something.

ME: ?!?

MOM: Come here. Closer. Come here like you're going to give me a hug. Bend down. Closer Debbie! Right here. (She puts her hand somewhere on her lower right belly area and hip.)

ME: I bend down and awkwardly lay the side of my head against that area and listen because I have no idea what I'm doing, listening to, or "feeling".

MOM: Do you feel it?

ME: Well. I certainly hear your stomach noises.

MOM: NO! Don't you feel that?

ME: *as I continue laying my head against her abdomen* What am I feeling for, Mom? A bump? A ...a...what?

MOM: That damn draft! I put you right in the line of fire. Can't you feel that cold air?

ME: OH MY GOSH!!! WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY SOMETHING????? Yeesh, woman. I thought you had a lump or something on your stomach. You're slowly driving me crazy! I'll go adjust the heat.

MOM: *chuckling wickedly*

I've only been here a week....I'm much grayer than I was on Memorial Day....