Remembering Mimi!

First off the Mimi in the title is not an obsessive Mariah Carey reference. It is what we called my maternal grandmother because my brother could not say any of the common variations of "grandmother" and started hiting her one day yelling "Mimi, Mimi Mimi".

Before Mimi passed away on April 14th 2005 at age 90, we had a shared a very special & close relationship. I am extremely proud to say she will always and forever (even in death) be my best friend, partner in crime and confidant. My blog will be filled with stories of how she made guided me through the important formative years, but also made me laugh. Not only did I think of these memories to help pick my spirits up, but also would use them for entertainment for others. You see when meeting mew people and making a friend or friends, I would really on a Mimi story or stories to close the deal and allow some into my inner circle.

Since my last post was about movies that inspired me, I will start off with listing the movies that I have in my collection because either I saw them with Mimi or it's a movie Mimi saw without me, but a story needs to be told.

The first movie I should begin with is , The Silence of the Lambs. OK, so before I get any comments thinking "you saw that with you grandmother", no I did not see it with her. But it is important to start off with it because she saw it without me and because of it she was never allowed to go to the movies without me.

Back in 1991 when the movie came out Mimi and her other widowed girlfriends, who I affectionately refereed to as "The Cemetery Club" would get together and go out to eat and sometimes go see a movie afterwards. Being they were not too up to date on what a particular movie was about they would get to the theatre see what movie was about to begin. In this case it was The Silence of the Lambs. Throughout the movie they were horrified and appalled by what was going on screen, yet they chose to stay for the entire movie and watch til the end. After the movie, Mimi decided to go to management and complain about the horrors they have just witnessed on screen. In turn, the manger chose to give all the ladies a full refund. (Lesson learned doesn't hurt to complain if you didn't like a movie). Well the following year while we were watching the Academy Awards, Mimi got all excited when Jodie Foster won for Best Actress. I proceeded to remind Mimi she hated that movie and she replied, "I know, but the shit that poor girl had to put up with in that movie she deserved something."

The second movie on my Mimi list is Bette Midler's For The Boys. Not so much for the movie it self but for what transpired before the movie. My cousin Todd and I took Mimi to see the movie and while we were standing in line at the concession stand we repeated asked her if she wanted anything to snack on. In turn, Mimi repeatedly replied with a "No, I not hungry." Well we get into the theatre and take our seats. Since we still had about 10 minutes before the movie start, Todd decided it was a good time to take a quick run to the bathroom. He hand Mimi his full bag of popcorn to hold. He must of been gone for under 5 minutes but upon his return Mimi had eaten about half the bag. The "WTF" look on my Todd's face was priceless.

The last movie I have a fond story to share about Mimi is 2002's Chicago. This was the last movie I took Mimi to see. It has a special place in my heart because it reminds me of the transition & role reversal we can experience as we get older. At the time of the movies release, Mimi was well into her 80's and living in a nursing home due to her declining health. My Uncle Bobby, who BTW is Todd's father usually was in charge of taking Mimi on her doctor's appointments and other various errands. If he was unable to do so, the next in line was me as was the case of this one particular Saturday. After the appointment, Mimi was in good spirits and health. It was such a nice day I decided that it would be a shame to have her waste it back at the home so I offered to take her to lunch & a movie. We went to the mall and had our lunch. While walking through the mall to the theatre, Mimi naturally stopped at the same store her daughter/my mother, Annette, would stop (Don't tell Netty, they're alike). Mimi instructed me to go on ahead and get the tickets, as once again Netty usually did. Upon my return Mimi was holding a lovely red blouse she was found of. Mimi of course did not have any money on her and proceeded to ask me to buy the blouse for her. At that moment thoughts of the times & tantrums I would throw as a child in stores when I wanted her to buy me something rushed through my brain. I proceeded to buy her the blouse and we went on to see the movie and enjoyed the rest of the day.

To end the Mimi & Movies post, I want to make special mention of 2 other movies I saw with her. As they did not have a detailed story but just the fact they were personal favorites of hers and she would always call me and either remind me that they are on TV or tell me the next day that it was on the previous night. However she would always tell me in code.

The first was Rain Man, as this was Mimi's all time favorite movie. All she would have to do is call and state a number, be 3, 30 or 300., and I would know she just saw the movie and the number refereed to the times she had seen it.

Second is Pretty Woman. After seeing Julia Roberts on screen in this performance, Roberts became Mimi's favorite actress and every time Roberts was on TV of at the movie she would refer to her as Pretty Woman, never as Julia Roberts.