The Funniest Person She Knows

We were in the car, just cruising, when daughter Erin called to wish her Mom a happy Mother’s Day.  We talked over the hands free, Erin talked, I talked, Marty talked.  It was a nice Mother’s Day conversation.

After we disconnected the call I said, “That was very nice.”

Marty, “Yes it was.”

Me, “Did it warm your cockles?” making a reference to the idiom “cockles of your heart”.

Marty, says with some degree of faux earnestness, “So that’s what that was, I thought it was heart burn.”…..Rim Shot….

We were at a red light, I looked at her sipping her Diet Coke wearing a self-satisfied smile, and I laughed out loud.

“That was good,” I said.

“Yes it was,” she replied with an air of confidence.

That’s Marty; she is still the funniest person she knows.

Watch Marty; watch her eyes when conversation is going on around her.  At times her brain is simply overwhelmed by the stimuli around her and she checks out and her mind turns completely inward.  But, if she is not over stimulated, if the distraction meter is not too high, watch her eyes and you can see her brain slip into comic drive.

At supper (that’s dinner in the south) I try and reduce the distractions.  We may have the television on briefly to catch the weather and the latest “wheel of justice” segment as the local news rallies to catch the next most wanted criminal.  I generally turn the television off so Marty can focus on the task at hand, eating.  This is when we can talk and laugh a little.  

One of our caregivers has new toy Chihuahua who goes by the name of Majyk, or some such corrupted spelling of a normal word.  It’s a grey little rat that has made herself at home running around our house.  We are dog people and this dog, despite its rodent like appearance,  is pretty darn cute.

The dog was running away from her mistress, Nykkie, and Nykkie was fast walking after the dog, yammering.  She yammers a lot.  She was calling to the dog and talking to her and asking her things like, “What are you doing?  Where are you going?”

The dog kept running around, her rabies and name tags jingling as she ran.  Nykkie called out to her again, “Where are you going?”

Marty looks up from her plate, stops chewing and looks straight at me, a twinkle in her eye, her brain fully in gear, “Shh, be quiet, let’s see if the dog answers her.”

Marty then is seized with suppressed laughter, trying not to spit out the mostly chewed food in her mouth.  She started to turn a little red from trying not to laugh at her own humor.

I’m telling you, watch the eyes; they will tell you the real story.  Marty’s still the funniest person she knows.