EXPOSED!

I guess even The Innocent get caught without shelter occasionally.

It was a week or so ago. I got an email from Patricia-in-New-York with images of art (Marsden Hartley, Renaissance painting)  that she’d been visiting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I graciously thanked her (of course I was gracious!), but needed to add a bit of reality into her coddled lifestyle:

Just to make you feel really really guilty –
whilst you were gallivanting about the Met I was in day surgery, having a hysteroscopy (a D&C to those of us in advanced age).

And, upon hearing of my venturing out at 5 AM in the sleet/snow/slush of a Portland storm, my daughter, irreverently 47 years old,  ignored the trauma and said the only D&C’s she had ever heard being done were for abortive purposes. As her almost-70 year old mother, I had to draw myself up and ask her why she was laughing! The question, even when delivered with a Loud Sniff, had no effect. She continued to laugh hysterically.

And all the while, you were gazing at Marsden Hartley paintings, eh? Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. I lay this guilt upon you, with full Loud Sniffs.

Patricia’s response was equally galling and lacking in gentility as well as ignoring the tender feelings of the recently hospitalized:

Nah.  I wasn’t given the guilt gene especially when it comes to ladies who were hanging around places not her own with her legs spread for strangers.  Tsk tsk.  What a visual to give me so close to bedtime.  Hmm .  Cartoon?  Hmmm. Nah.

Maybe all the snow will stay on the wrong coast (fingers and toes tightly crossed).

I thought I restrained myself admirably:

DON’T YOU DARE VISUALIZE –  No, NO, NOOOOOOO.

Oops, too late.

Anyway, stay away from iPat, y’hear?

I’m breathing hard toward the east, just for you.

I should have known better: the New York iPat machine started itself up.

And then, she had the nerve to add:

And remember: I have the power to make the door disappear! Or at least bang open all the way!

Well, in the interests of civility and humility and generosity, I emailed:

UNCLE

But iPat was relentless:

And when I remonstrated with her, she pushed the envelope further:

The moral of my sad and woeful tale is a bit murkier than iPat’s. Perhaps we on the left coast should breathe in and not out when the weather is unsightly.  Perhaps we should draw our manikins at the Store Fixtures building and be content with our limited circumstances and humble surrounds.  Or perhaps we should bow to the grandeur that is New York,  and, as Portlanders, raise our eyes only to emulate Wichita.

Personally, I vow not to be drinking coffee when I open Patricia-of-New-York’s emails.  Too utterly . –June

Patricia-in-New_York’s public adventures, as recorded for the most part on her iPad, can be found here;  her private correspondence to yours truly will be revealed only when revenge, or penance, is called for.

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Tags: cartoons, iPat, marsden hartley paintings, metropolitan museum of art, Patricia-from-New-York, Silliness, tender feelings