Mom, The Hunger and the Catholic Cop

I’ve been thinking about my mother a lot these days and really missing her. Sometimes the rooms in my house feel like my heart, like there’s something missing. An emptiness. Lots of tears. And sometimes depression.

It’s strange to think that I got through my 1st Solstice parade without my mom. Tonight I performed for another big event in Santa Barbara, Fiesta, in a band with my dad on drums, my niece on guitar and vocals, and 5 other musicians. Even though Mom wasn’t there physically, I could feel her presence and her support and love.

I have many stories to tell about my mom since she went beyond the veil. I promise to share as many as I can before the end of the year.

We are in Lammas time (in NH at least), when the veils are thin and we’re celebrating with gratitude all the bounty in our lives. Our fruitfulness. Our accomplishments. Our joys. There are plenty of Mama Rosa stories that are in the vein of the supernatural. Like the time I walked into my bedroom and it smelled like a florist placed a million fragrant roses inside! The strength of the scent nearly knocked me over. “Hi Mom,” was all I could muster. The smell dissipated within seconds.

There is more to tell about her visitations, but I just had a memory of her and have to share it. Like right now.

Once upon a time … a long, long time ago when I lived in Chicago with my mom … there was the guy that I’ll refer to as The Catholic Cop. He really thought my mom was attractive, which was true, she was a knockout. He constantly hounded her to go out on a date with him and she kept saying NO. But that didn’t turn him away. Very problematic for a beautiful young, single woman, right?!

She asked me one night what I thought she could do to get rid of him, so he would stop bugging her. I told her that I actually had a brilliant idea. She was eager to hear about it.

The funny thing is I was probably only 11, maybe 12 at the time. She looked younger for her age and I appeared older. We liked to pretend that we were sisters just to mess with people. We looked very much alike as well. I told her about my devious plan to rid her of the odious C.C. (Catholic Cop):

“I think we should invite him to this new movie I wanna go see with David Bowie called The Hunger (1983). It’s about vampires and there’s two vampire chicks that kiss. I bet that will totally freak him out.” (The tagline of the film was brilliant too – “Nothing human loves forever.”)

She thought it was a splendid idea.

The next time he asked her out she said, “Why don’t we take my daughter out with us too. She really wants to see this movie called The Hunger.” Of course the C.C. was overjoyed that she finally agreed to go out on a date.

The fateful day arrived and we met the C.C. outside the front of the movie theater. We went inside, bought the popcorn, Cokes and sat down in our seats … and waited as the film progressively became more, violent and steamy.

We both saw that the C.C. was becoming more and more agitated. Then came that much anticipated scene in the film when Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve tongue each other. Pretty HOT.

The C.C. literally jumped out of his seat, ran down the aisle and out of the theater. My mom and I couldn’t keep from laughing and were high-fiving each other! We didn’t make it to the end of the movie because we thought it was boring.

We left the theater and as we walked outside, The Catholic Cop was waiting for us!

We were completely shocked as he came up to my mom and said, “I can’t believe you took your daughter to see that horrible, inappropriate movie.”

My mom put her arm around me and smiled. “I love lesbians!” I still, to this day, cannnnnot believe she said that!

This poor man just couldn’t even fathom the thought and ran away as fast as he could.

I honestly don’t remember laughing as hard with anyone as I laughed with my mom watching that silly man running down the street.

With her arm still around my shoulders she said, “Let’s go to your favorite place for dinner.”

Lawrence of Oregano! Yep that was my place. Well, it was our place.

Is there a moral to this story? Some important lesson to share? Perhaps it is that life is too short to go on boring dates? Or, never go out on a FIRST date with a woman who wants to bring her kid as the “wingman?”

Not particularly deep or anything, but it suits me perfectly right now!

I have always loved a good story. If you have one to share that comes to mind after you read my zany story, post it in the comments below. Let’s share our laughter as often as possible. It really is the best medicine!