Archives of Our Lives

***Preface:  This post is about my mother-in-law, a daily reader and occasional commenter here at Archives of Our Lives.  See, here’s the thing about my in-laws: I love them.  Dearly.  I know I am lucky to have such a good relationship with them—some people aren’t nearly so fortunate.  Now, I have hesitated to write this post, because it seems somehow disloyal to my own mother—and trust me, I love my own mother very much; nobody could ever replace her, nor would I ever want such a replacement.  However, the month of May hosts not only Mother’s Day (May 10th, everyone, be ready!), but my own mother’s birthday on May 4th.  Therefore, I anticipate several solid tributes to my mom in the coming weeks, and I hope she will not feel betrayed by this glowing report of my MIL.

Anyway, I don’t consider my mother-in-law a mother figure at all, but instead, a very good friend who happens to be 100% more experienced at life than I am.***

Okay, glad we got that taken care of.  It’s time to answer another reader question!

Q [From Anonymous]: Though I would not be so coarse as to inquire publicly into your relationship with relations, could you say something about Camille and Linda Rae? I’ve only met one of you, but you seem to have a similar slant…in certain ways. Since my first exposure to you, I’ve thought thee and she might get along famously.

A, from me: Right you are, Anonymous. Right you are.

Linda Rae is my husband’s mother, and I can tell you one thing about her: she is a really great mother-in-law. No, really. I’m not just saying that because she reads this blog. It’s true.

See, I live in a place where all the people my age have children.  Poor Kyle and me?  We are child-free.  It makes hanging out with people our age a difficult task indeed.  Poor Kyle and I do have some “couple friends,” but, you know, people with kids can’t exactly drop everything at a moment’s notice and go to a movie on Friday nights—they need to arrange babysitters. And is it just me, or do people with kids seem more…noble…than Friday night movies?  It seems to me like people with kids don’t even have a desire to leave the house anymore, because they love their kids so much. [And I know I’m good-looking, but even I can’t compete with a soft squishy baby.  If I had one, I probably wouldn’t want to do anything but cuddle its chubby legs all day, so I can’t really blame anyone else.]

Enter my mother-in-law. Her kids are all grown up. She’s basically retired, and I basically live like a retired person until my legal paperwork is finalised, so we’re already a lot a like.  She enjoys scouting good deals at kitchen and home décor stores. She reads cooking blogs. She loves a good read. In a lot of ways, we’re very compatible.

And I think she has pity on me, too. We were already friends before I married her son, but since October, the number of our day trips and excursions has increased exponentially.  Maybe people think I take advantage of her, but when we go out for lunch, we take turns paying for our meals.  We get along famously, and I can honestly say that she is my best friend in Canada, second only to Poor Kyle.

BUT (and there’s always a BUT), that bond has come at a cost.  I have been forced to grow thick skin with my mother-in-law—she has taught me, probably without even knowing, that being sensitive is for the birds.

Case in point:  A few nights ago, I was dropping off some cookies at Poor Kyle’s parents’ house, and my mother-in-law said to me, “Hey, today you got a lot of people on your blog thinking your hair is luscious and beautiful—you really fooled them, eh?”

Yeah.  Thanks.

That’s how my mother-in-law is.  Painfully honest (unless she’s eating my baking, in which case she lies outright and tells me everything I bake is “to die for,” because she would never go so far as to hurt my feelings that way {although the happy little lies have proved problematic in cases when I actually need to know how something tastes—for example, when I’m taking treats to someone who might judge me on the quality of my baking skills or lack thereof}).

I used to get offended when she’d say stuff like that, but she would not allow hurt feelings: “Meh,” she’d say, “you’ll get over it.”  Well…okay then.  I do what I’m told.

I have learned to take her honesty the way she means it—simply.  She doesn’t mean to hurt my feelings, so I don’t let them get hurt.  It works out really well for us.  I could spend my entire life feeling threatened by her snarky comments, and never have a close relationship with her, or I can just take it all in stride.  At the end of the day, I think her honesty helps me see myself with a different perspective, and that’s always a good thing.

I have learned a lot from this woman, actually….

She taught me that it is incredibly tacky to accompany one musical number at a funeral and then leave, even if I never knew the dead guy.  Bummer.

She taught me that real butter screws up even the best cookie recipe, and that Imperial™ margarine is the only way to go.

She taught me that angel food cakes have a special pan all their own, and said pan cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be substituted with a bundt pan.  Then she loaned me hers and taught me how to use it.

She taught me that to build character, I should do at least one thing per day that I don’t really want to do (although I secretly suspect this is something she’s made up to coerce me into doing her own annoying chores for her).

I wish all my wedding photos had been candid like this. It makes me smile.

She’s taught me a lot more than I could feasably note on this blog.  But most importantly, she birthed a really stellar guy for me to marry, which was so kind of her (even if she didn’t teach him how to put his dirty clothes in the basket that’s ONLY TWELVE INCHES AWAY FROM WHERE HE TAKES THEM OFF).

Love her.  Love him.  Love ’em all.

Does that answer your question?