Kiki Mama Takka Takka

One of the joys of life is watching your friends become friends with your mother, being friends with other people's mothers, and maybe one day being friends with your kids' friends. I've been lucky all my life to have a mother that barely embarassed me and that always has been someone to show off to my friends. Besides being an excellent mother in the nurturer-breadwinner-help-you-grow, she's also a pretty cool person who knows how to make my friends happy with out creeping them out. She's accepting of thier flaws and weirdness and the stupid things they do near my house. When Elliott Day drank a lot of cough syrup and wine and then threw up at my 16th birthday party, she sent him outside to take a walk. When Jill and I smoked cigarettes in my room, she let us talk about what was stressing us out. When Abby Moore and my sister poured nail polish all over the bathtub at age 6, she got out the bottle of acetone.

And it's almost the same, wathcing Pilar talk to Jimmy's friend MonKiki (a man, and a normal man at that, a middle school math teacher), but with one degree more of separation and observation. I see Jimmy look to his mother before he speaks, Kiki glad to be in a warm safe place, Pilar so happy and comforatble. And I see myself, glad to be included, not saying anything, in my pajamas, eating nachos. Its not like what I added to the conversation was important at all, and they might not have wanted me there. But to hear about thier lives, Pilar and her stories, Jimmy's jokes. And sad things too, how Kiki's girlfriend had an ectopic pregnancy and how they really want a baby. How Pilar regrets her marriage and how Jimmy misses a father. I nod, I grunt along, I sip my beer fast and eat the nachos.

Pilar lets them swear and put thier elbows on the table because she knows they call each other "broder" and will sleep together on Jimmy's rotten mattress on the floor. She knows they are freinds and she respects with wisdom. I hope, I can't wait really, to watch my children and their friends with that same love.