29th August 10
This e-mail came in just after I posted her last one (I wasn’t exaggerating when I said she frequently sends three e-mails in a row and bombards me with this nonsense). I should have known once I got the honey bee e-mail that the discovery of these background images on her AOL e-mail account would lead to a flurry of interesting messages throughout the day. She’s probably still looking through all of them right now, firing off e-mails to everyone she knows just so she has an excuse to use them. I think I will leave it at that, because really, there’s just too much to say.
29th August 10
modelstruck asked: Does Venus know about this blog? I suppose it may be obviously that she doesn't, but I can't be sure! Also, I think you should post a voice recording of Venus so I can use her voice in my mind as I read the entries.
Haha - it’s only a matter of time before she does find it. She used to Google my name on a regular basis, though I don’t know if she still does. She’s known about some of my previous blogs where I have also posted about her, but would constantly interrogate me about what I wrote. Not necessarily the posts about her, because if she were truly upset, I’d stop putting it up (I’m not as vicious as I guess I make myself sound with these posts…). If I posted about visiting my best friend in the city, I’d get frantic e-mails about my safety or a creepy voicemail saying “I didn’t know you were going to the city.” You know those stories you hear about girls from YouTube or popular bloggers who get harassed via the internet, have their phone number leaked, and start getting harassing messages from their stalker(s)? It was sort of like that. Except it was my mother. So, I changed my main blog address (at which point I got a frantic e-mail saying “where did UR website go?!!?!?????”).
Anyway, I’m hoping to get a video up one of these days. I’m not living at home so I’m not really able to film her, but perhaps one of her wacky voicemails will suffice for now.
29th August 10
My mother’s e-mails used to be even more hilarious than this, but she has toned town the netspeak in the past few years. She will still occasionally replace words with single letters and numbers (e.g. “B sure 2 take the time to study 4 UR test”), but she has broken the habit now that she uses her e-mail to communicate with professional contacts, teachers, etc. However, she still makes no attempt to correct her grammar (even though, believe it or not, she’s actually a pretty decent writer), and is a big fan of emoticons. More recently, she has started using this honey bee background, which is interesting, because as she notes in the e-mail, she is “sweet enough already.” Backstory on that coming soon.
"I would like to visit for dinner but let me check big foot’s work schedule etc & get back to you."
4th August 10
— E-mail from Venus
I don’t think my mom understands how nicknames work. I have never heard anyone call my dad “Big Foot” in my entire life.
4th August 10
Well, my house was broken into on Sunday. My MacBook was stolen, as was my roommate’s, and needless to say, I was a bit shaken up. I had been watched through the window, my personal space had been violated, and I lost my most treasured possession in the world.
After talking with the police and securing the house, I called home to tell my parents what had happened. My mom and dad raced down to the house with my my brothers. As I’m sure many readers have picked up on, my mom is a bit anxious, and paranoid, and basically in a frenzy all of the time. I mean, Venus thinks she’s being violated when someone stops her from stealing food at the grocery store, so I’m sure you can imagine how scary it must be for her to realize her daughter’s house has actually been broken into. So, what did she do upon entering my house? After hugging me, and crying, and calling me her baby girl, she runs to the pantry door, practically shouting:
“Lauren, this is very serious. I need you to think very hard. How much peanut butter did you have in here? Are you absolutely sure they did not take any of it?”
31st July 10
“We can go to that restaurant your friend works at.”
“Kayla? My roommate? I mean, I’d prefer to stay on speaking terms with her for the remainder of the year…”
“Well, we don’t have to take your mother. That would be cruel and unusual.”
We have a running joke in my family about the amount of spit my mother has probably consumed in her meals at restaurants over the years. The highlight of her inappropriate restaurant behavior was probably the last time we went to Houlihan’s — a place I will never return to, out of embarrassment — when Venus brought her own mustard and a printed list of ingredients she would require for her salad. She usually orders a salad from the menu and requests to remove this, add that, and so on until the salad resembles what she would make for herself at home, but this time, she simply created her own recipe, printed it out, and then continuously demanded various additions to it throughout the night, only to complain about how “ridiculous” they were to not bring it out in the first place. Because who wouldn’t think to serve oranges and bananas on every salad they serve? Plain balsamic vinegar and vinaigrette (on the side, of course)? Raw broccoli and steamed broccoli? Cayenne pepper, black pepper, fresh garlic… on top of the oranges, mind you. How ridiculous of them to not think of that, really!
30th July 10
From: Mom
To: Ray, Chris, Patrick, Lauren
Subject: http://www.betterworldcafe.org/
I am so excited!!!! I found a way for us all to eat for free FOREVER!!!!! We just volunteer one hour at the soup kitchen & eat for free!!!! Oh HAPPY DAY!!!! I am done cooking & grocery shopping!!!!! This is really great!!!!
"Mom just pronounced entrepreneur en-TREY-pruh-new-er."
18th July 10
— Chris, my younger brother
Venus likes to add her own “twist” to words that she does, in fact, know how to pronounce. For example: jacket is sometimes pronounced ‘juh-KET’ and tomato is pronounced ‘toe-mah-toe’ (despite the fact that we are from New Jersey and that she continues to pronounce potato ‘po-tay-toe’).
17th July 10
Venus sent me the following e-mail about my brother’s girlfriend. Her typing has improved over the past few years (she used to, wherever possible, replace words with numbers and single letters), but she still has a rather unique writing style. I only removed a few words containing personal information, so the random elipses and run-on sentences are part of the original e-mail.
“She is a doll. Really cute, just precious. She has my vote & her mom is really nice. Very nice person & she is a paralegal. I kept saying how beautiful & wonderful the house was as she showed me & told me it was (removed personal information about the house and family). Beatrice is a happy, bubbly one & she seemed happy to meet me… like she had my approval or something…. I’m glad I insisted on meeting them & I think her mom was as well….it’s just rude not to care about meeting them & Chris was nasty about it…. but too bad…. I did the right thing… Beatrice is definitely a good one… I referred to her as the mystery woman & she really giggled…. all happy… oh send me the restaurant link again & I guess we should make a reservation & check the vacuums out at BB&B”
I’m told that when she met Beatrice’s mother, she informed her that she liked the house so much she was going to start sleeping on their couch. Of course, when my older brother was 17, our mom pulled aside his girlfriend to talk about condoms and interrogate her about producing grandchildren for her as soon as possible, so I guess this should be considered an improvement.
17th July 10
“Apparently your brother has a girlfriend.”
“I know.”
“You know? What do you know about her?”
“Nothing. I just know he has a girlfriend.”
“Well, he doesn’t know anything about her, either. I asked him what her parents do for a living, and he doesn’t know. I asked him what her last name was, and he wouldn’t tell me. I said to him, ‘you don’t know her full name, you don’t know what her parents do, you don’t know anything about her… what do you do when you go over there all the time?’ He says they hang out. Well, you know, that’s ridiculous.”
