Mad or Eccentric?

Last night, my son was talking at me.  I was sitting in front of the telly, doing my usual, reading a beading book, whilst trying to bead with those fiddly seedy beadies, whilst having a glass of wine and trying to stop the daft dog from sitting on me and upsetting the whole precariously balanced lot over me and the floor. 

Anyone with teenage kids, knows that you only really half tune in to what they are saying and over the years I have honed my skills, I listen for the key words, sex, drugs and do you want a cup of tea?.  Sex, because its been that long since you could be bothered its nice to know if its still in fashion.  Drugs, because the last time you were deliriously happy was when tube feed legal drugs during childbirth, and finally, 'cup of tea' because anyone with teenage kids also knows that the rarity of being asked is not worth missing it.  So there I was half listening, nodding occasionally and using the daft dog leaning on me as a screen to carry on with what I was doing. 

My son is 18 now, so we are usually treated to the grumpy mutterings first thing in the morning when he is locating all the kit he needs for college but didn't put away or wash last time, so its now a search and find mission and strop over the stink, being a Sports Ed student it all stinks!  Other than the grumpy mutterings and search and find missions, we usually only communicate when he is drapped, Orangutan style over the fridge door complaining that there is nothing to eat, or I am demanding a date and time for the bedroom to be rediscovered, a search and find mission of epic proportions.  So there we were, he was happy and chatty and I was half listening.  Then I heard new 'key' words, 'mad' and 'eccentric'.  I realized he was talking about me.  The cheeky sod.  I was in the room. 

Ben, thats the boy, works part time in town and has befriended to his advantage, the woman across the road from where he works and whom owns the cafe and feeds him, regularly in exchange for his brawn in moving her fridges for her staff to clean behind.  When he turned 18 on New Years Eve 2010, she gave him a card and he had a drink with her, his first legal one!  I was really disappointed as he didn't want to have a drink out with me, so took to calling her his second mum, as a bit of a joke, and it stuck.  He now refers to her as his second mum, and to be fair her cooking is sooo much better than mine.  He has arranged that we meet.  This second mum and I.  She being a loud Brummy lass with a language to match even the most urban dictionary clued up teen and I am...well....just me, the odd bad word escapes my lips, but on the whole I stick to the safe words of bugger and blimey, a throw back from my Londoner roots on my fathers side East End!  So this coming Saturday I am, with the hubby, having breakfast at the cafe.  Now, Ben was telling me how similar we are as women, unless she is 6ft tall, blonde and a figure to die for, we will have nothing in common...yeah right! ..except the boy, but apparently, according to my son, we are both 'mad' and 'eccentric'.  Which did get me thinking, she is a cook, so arty and creative, I am an artisty person, I don't cook, but am creative.   So.  To be arty and creative do we have to be 'mad' and 'eccentric'? 

I just hope she doesn't have the wacky sticky out dyed bleach blonde just taken the hat off look and washed out faded clothes with the odd hole, because then we would be twins!