But now I see
Mabel, feeling her way around the kitchen: “I’m blind.”
Me: “You’re blind?” (I’m reminded of an afternoon I spent being blind when I was not much older than Mabel. I was a particularly helpless, pathetic, needy blind person, and although I found my state to be quite deliciously sad, my friends did seem to rather quickly tire of giving me assistance.)
Mabel: “Yeah. What time is it? I can’t see.”
Me: “Um — 10:28.”
Mabel: (Still with her eyes closed, she makes her way into the living room, where the little ones are watching PBS): “What show is this? I’m guessing it’s just the ads.”
A couple minutes later (10:31) Mabel comes downstairs with her eyes open. “What would be really bad would be to be deaf and blind, because if you were deaf, people would have to do sign language with you, but if you were blind you couldn’t see the sign language.”
Me: “Yeah. I should have taken you to that play at the Hale theater — the one about Helen Keller.”
Mabel: “I already know about her. I read a book.”
Mabel alternates between being blind and peeking at the computer screen while I’m writing, offering some minor corrections in between glances. Returning to blindness, she gropes my face with her hands, and says, “Is that your face? Or is that [starts to choke with laughter] a pig’s rear end?”
——————
A bit later (10:42) Mabel asks, “Mom, how old were you when you were blind? Twelve?”
Me: “Yeah, something like that. Probably 10.”
Mabel: “That’s kind of old to be blind.”
——————
Mabel’s suggestion for alternate post title: “The Hilarious Mabel.” Yes, indeed.
May 7, 2008 at 9:54 am
I changed my mind. I don’t want it to be called, ” The hilarious Mabel”. I want it to be called, ” The great and beuatiful Mabel that you owe a twinkie to.” Oops. Typo. I meant a Twinkie, ding dong, five oreo’s, and sixteen donuts.
-Love, that bueatuful marvelous girl who spells bueatiful wrong, Mabel.
May 7, 2008 at 11:13 am
OK, maybe I missed something—but you were blind? I need to hear that story!!! I love the evil part about is this your face or a pigs rear end. She is quite a funny gal! Remind her that mother’s day is coming up and now she will have to doubly make up for that comment!!!
May 7, 2008 at 11:27 am
Well, I was blind the same way Mabel was being blind — I was pretending.
May 7, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I needed to laugh like that tonight!!! Thank you Mabel and Zina for sharing. I was thinking about you the other day when I came across a book called Four Zinas: A Story of Mothers and Daughters on the Mormon Frontier by Martha Sonntag Bradley and Mary Brown Firmage Woodward Have you heard of this book or read it? It sounds VERY interesting.
May 7, 2008 at 9:26 pm
It’s one I ought to have read and fully intend to read (I know my Mom’s read it.) I’m descended from the first of those four Zinas (Zina Baker Huntington), through her son Oliver Boardman Huntington (brother of Zina D.H. Young, the 2nd Zina in the book.)
May 8, 2008 at 11:33 am
I changed my mind. Again. It’s “that wonderful bueatiful girl that you owe a twinkie, a ding dong, 5 oreos, sixteen donuts, and 107 animal mother’s(TM) cookies to.”
-Love, (I’m not going to mention that I spell bueatiful wrong. wait a minute! I just did! Grrrrrr.) That lovely amazing talented bueatiful wonderful marvelous girl who spells bueatifu…….Never mind, anyway, the person is Mabel.