The Oldest Mother

One Sunday morning, our pastor has a special request after his sermon,“Would all the mothers in the church please stand up?” About half the congregation rose to their feet.

“In honor of this Mother’s Day, we would like to honor our special mothers! Let's give them a hand!”

My mother scowled during the applause. “See, you’d better appreciate me! Look how everyone else appreciates me! You never clap for me...”

I rolled my eyes; I never win these arguments. “Mom, I DO appreciate you, remember that time I...”

“Shhh!" She interrupted, "Be quiet, the pastor is talking!”

The pastor smiled upon the rows of women, all glowing in a maternal light. "Today, we would like to treat our oldest mother! Mothers under the age of forty, please sit down.”
My mother immediately sat, even though it was a complete lie. She gave me the killer, "Don't you dare say a word," stare.

He continued, “Any ladies under fifty, have a seat..." Fewer women remained standing. "Now anyone under sixty, please be seated.”

Nagymama sat down, “This is stupid, my legs hurt,” she said in Hungarian.

My aunt pleaded, “Stand back up! They are trying to honor the oldest mother!”

Meanwhile, the pastor continued to speak, “Anyone below seventy, please sit down.”

My mother and aunt tugged on Nagymama's elbows and she swatted at them like flies, “The both of you are crazy! Go into the water and go under it!"

“Anyone below eighty sit down.” Only one woman remained standing. The usher ran over to give her an extra microphone.

"Mrs. Daga! How old are you?”

“Eighty-two,” she said sheepishly.

“Is there anyone in the congregation older than eighty-two?” The entire church fell silent, except for the Hungarians arguing loudly in the back.

"This guy talks too much," grandma complained. "He's just always going, 'Pa pa pa pa pa,' spouting off nonsense! Let’s go home.”

The pastor ignored the bickering and continued, “Okay, so I guess the prize goes to…”

“Vait, vait, vait!" my mother yelled as the ushers started to hand the Bath & Body Works gift set to Mrs. Daga. "I tink we haf dah oldest modder!” All heads turned to my grandma.

“How old are you?” the pastor asked. Nagymama looked like a deer in headlights as the usher put the microphone in her face.

One of the other ushers chimed in, “Pastor, she doesn’t understand. Here, let me try in German…” He walked over and yelled right in her ear, “Wie alt bist du?”

My mother looked at her, "Anyu! Hány éves vagy?"

My aunt grabbed her arm, "Câţi ani ai?"

It didn’t matter if we asked in English, German, Hungarian, Romanian, or Pig-Latin, Nagymama just clutched her purse and sat with her lips sealed.

“This is ridiculous,” I said, “She’s ninety-”

Before I could even finish that number, Nagymama leaned into the microphone. “Hallo?” she said, her voice echoing through the vast church walls.

“Yes, Karolina! How. Old. Are. YOU?”

Nagymama laughed, “Sex-ty four.”

“No, wait, she’s not sixty-four, she’s-”

Nagymama looked over at me and glared. She softly but firmly said,“You shut your mouth before I shut it for you."

So, on that day, Mrs. Daga was accredited as the oldest mother and received the complimentary Bath & Body Works Gift Set, regardless of the fact that Nagymama had at least ten years on her.
Moral of the Story: You are only as old as you feel. If you feel good, you might as well skip the door prize and lie through your fake teeth.

Photo by Julia Freeman-Woolpert

American Goulash - Part 4: Still in Dah Kitchen

Nagymama reads through some of the fan letters that were sent to her during her simultaneous YouTube & MySpace Feature! Note: I printed them all out with really big text so she would have an easier time reading them.

Thank you, again, everyone, for giving my grandma her 15-minutes of fame after being alive for almost a century! (She will be 97 in April! Doesn't she look AWESOME?!)

Special thank you to Cameraman Matt, for his assistance with capturing our family events on film.

Songs used: Brahm's Hungarian Dance No. 1, performed by Leo Christopherson.

Before you click "play", here are the original videos (in chronological order) in case you're a new reader that has missed some Nagymama action:

Nagymama
The Real Nagymama
Velcome to Piscataway
Velcome Back to Piscataway
Velcome to the Kitchen

If you are having any trouble seeing any videos, you can probably view the slightly pixely-er YouTube versions.

Quick Bite: Burst Day

(some of you might already know this story from The Quiz, but a few people asked me to elaborate so here goes:)
My family waits until the last minute for everything. My cousin Liz was about eight months pregnant before the planning and preparation for her baby shower even began. By the time we reserved the room at the church, invited everyone we knew, researched different type of party games, and painstakingly crafted baby-themed gift baskets and decorations, poor Liz was already busting at the seams.

Despite the event’s tardiness, the shower went extremely well. The room looked fantastically festive, the food was delicious, and a ton of people showed up, even Nagymama!

Of course, as soon as Nagymama stepped through the door, she pushed everyone to the side, and hustled towards Liz with a beautifully gold wrapped box with a big red bow on it. She immediately stuffed the present in Liz’s hand, kissed her on the cheek, and yelled, “Hoppy Burst-day!”

Everyone laughed and assumed that Nagymama was joking, until she walked over to us and loudly muttered in Hungarian, “Boy, Liz got really fat.”

Must have been that 8 pound baby she had for dinner, huh, Nagy?

Photo by Neil Gould

The Secret Language

Although one in five people in the U.S. speak a second language at home, my family seems to think we’re the only people on the planet that are multi-lingual, so they call Hungarian “The Secret Language”. Although my mother and I usually have conversations in English, she starts speaking in Hungarian when she wants to tell me something that she doesn’t want anyone else to hear (including the government, who she is convinced has tapped our phone lines).

Of course, they never taught me Romanian because this was the “Super-Secret Language” they could use to talk about me. I complained about this to my Romanian roommate in college, so she phoenetically wrote down, "Mom, I know what you are saying, stop talking about me" in Romanian. I did the best I could to memorize this, and when mom started speaking to Nagymama in Romanian about their secret plans to kill me or something, I repeated, "Mamă, nu mai vorbi despre mine, ştiu ce spui." They both looked pretty shocked for about a minute, and then they just continued their conversation...in German. Damn you Europeans, you’re all too smart.

I will never forget the day when we went to a full-day festival and stopped by the local administration building to grab a schedule of events. We hadn’t even entered the building before we were halted by a woman blocking the doorway, obviously too busy talking on her cell phone to pay attention to where she was walking. Nagymama doesn’t like waiting for anyone, so she looked at me and loudly proclaimed, “Néz,es a kövér disznó! Az arca pont ug nez ki mend eg ló.” Rough English translation? “Look at this fat swine walking here. Her face looks just like a horse.”
Nagymama must have forgotten that The Secret Language” does not work when you are at the annual indoor-outdoor festival of New Brunswick that features dancing, food, and most importantly…Hungarians. Yes, dear Nagymama said this right in front of the Hungarian Heritage Center, and judging by the look on the woman's face, she definitely had some Hungarian Heritage in her.

Eh, what can you do? You shoud be able to say whatever the heck you want when you're in your 90's.

Photo by ACS

Anyu's Christmas Gift

No matter how hard I look for "the perfect gift," every year my mother opens her present, make a sour face, and says, “Oh, is dis from the Dollar Store?”

“No, Mom, they don’t sell 24K gold necklaces at the Dollar Store, but you keep looking.”

She then looks at me suspiciously. “Did somevon just gif dese to you and you’re givink dem to me?”

“No, Anyu, I just bought them online last week. Wanna see the receipt?”

“Oh, my God, you didn’t buy dem on Dah Ebay did you? Are these used? I don’t vant to catch AIDs…”

"No, actually, I bought them off some diseased hobo on the street corner for $5. He gave them to me for a great price - all I needed to do was give him my social security number and your maiden name. Pretty good deal, huh?"

This is when I usually get dirty looks. My mother doesn't appreciate the full range of my sarcasm.

Last year, out of sheer frustration and lack of time, I simply printed a photo of myself and framed it. To be honest, it gave me a weird sense of relief to give her the picture because it featured a photo of me in Japan. I’ve been wanting to tell her that I went to Japan to visit a friend, but I think the sheer shock of telling her that I have boarded a plane might send her into cardiac arrest. I’m sure one day I’ll just have to buy her a nice bottle of wine and pull out the slide show:

“Mom…here’s a picture of me on a horse.”

“Ah!”

“And here’s a picture of me in the ocean. In Japan.”

“AHH!!”

“…And here’s a picture of me in Colorado, meeting my father and his brand new wife for the first time.”

“OH, STEPHIE, NOOOO!”

“Yeah, I know, right? He’s already been married like four other times…”

(At this point I would probably realize that my mother has exploded into a fiery pile of ash.)

So, to keep it simple and alleviate some of the guilt I have been feeling for lying to my mom about traveling, I gave her the Japan photo (Okay, I didn't mention that the photo was from Japan, but hey, at least I'm trying.)

Go figure, for the first time in my life, she freaking LOVED it.

"Wow, look at dis beautiful picture! I haf to show dah people at church...you're actually dressed up so you don't look like a man!"

I guess I'll take that as a compliment.

And you wanna know the most satisfying part of that gift? I bought that frame at the Dollar Store.

Photo by Lawrence

The Christmas Cards

My cousin Erin usually hosts the family Christmas party. Over the years, Erin has learned that if she wants a party to get started at 2 pm, she has to tell my aunt Sophie that it is at noon, so my aunt will have sufficient time to wake up late, shower, make a sumptuous breakfast for her husband, do her makeup, vacuum the house, wash and wax the car, run into some burning buildings to save some orphaned children, and go last minute Christmas shopping. Erin then has to tell my mother that the party is at 3 pm because or else my mother will arrive three hours early, just in case there is traffic on the two mile stretch of highway she has to travel every day in the New Jersey suburban nightmare we call our home.

Last year, everything seemed to work out just right and Nagymama arrived with my mother right on time and marveled at my cousin’s beautifully decorated bi-level home.

“Some day, I’m gonna vin dah lotto and buy bi-levels for everyvon!” she says, in very cute, broken English.

"Yah, yah, you've been sayink dat for 40 years, give it a rest," my aunt said from the doorway, bearing boatloads of gifts.

As Nagymama removed her coat, her attention immediately turned to the several dozen Christmas cards that were neatly hung on the staircase. She immediately grabbed my cousin’s arm, pulled her down, and whispered in her ear with a whisper full of hot, wet air and cookie crumbs, “I know your secret, my child.”

“What are you talking about, Nagymama?”

“These Christmas cards…these cards were not sent to you. You just bought a box from the store and wrote them out to yourself so you would look more popular.”

My cousin couldn’t look more shocked.

Nagymama nodded knowingly, “Shh! It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone.”

Photo by Alaina Cherup

A Lesson In Hungarian: What's Szorít?

This video answers the age old question -- What is Szorít?

Okay, maybe it isn't an age old question.

Basically, I was letting my cousin's Erika's son play with my video camera while my other cousin gave Erika's husband a lesson in Hungarian - "szorít" (to tighten, to constrain) vs. szólit (call) .

This is mostly just a silly home movie, but I thought some bilingual people would get a kick out of it.