A letter from my mother

I’ve blogged about my mom on numerous occasions, particularly around the time of the primaries. Though she is 80 years old, I don’t think most would regard her as feeble or soft-spoken.

With each letter she sends newspaper clippings and these reflect her unique Berkeley-style take on the political scene. I haven’t read all the clippings yet. Each time the size of the envelope grows—she’s now using yellow manila to pack it all in. But I did read the letter.

One has to know this about my mother: she has a not insignificant interest in home decorating. Though she lives in one tiny room in a very modest retirement home in Berkeley, there was a period in her life when she moved in and out of diplomatic circles (my father worked for the UN, actually at the time that Bush Sr. was the US Ambassador) and she studied carefully that which she herself could never have: the glamorous life of privilege (the UN itself was an odd assortment of wealth and modest means, depending on which country you came from).

This time she writes:

“Incidentally, did you see the picture in last week’s Newsweek of Bush with the Saudi prince inside the Crawford ranch?? What an ugly, ugly house with those ugly dining room chairs, ugly tall windows, ugly bookshelves and ugly sofa chairs. Ugly, ugly, ugly.”

You heard it here. Listen, the woman knows classic high-end décor, so I’m taking her comment seriously. The operative word here is ‘ugly.’