Link: https://wapo.st/3p5jZQS

Nick's Cartoon: "What do you think, Ma-- Baking, Parchessi, or just screaming until we can't make any more sound?"

LW: My mom makes me feel like dirt when I visit her. She lives alone and either lost or never did have the ability to converse normally. Everything turns back to her own praise: I bring her homemade muffins, she brags on her cooking and never thanks me. I mention a friend who got divorced, she rhapsodizes about how great she handled her divorce. I'm supposed to praise, and I can't do that to her standards, I get annoyed, so she criticizes me. I pity her loneliness and boring limited life. How do I shrug this off?

Hax: Even somebody with decent conversation skills would flail at some point in a "boring limited life" and lapse into muffin monologues. That's the issue: people don't become happier or more interesting when they're mentally fallow. I also see a problem in your.. (contemptous attitude?)... at letting herself get to this point.

Been thinking about this lately, as our lives get duller and the news gets more bizaare: sometimes conversation is too much to ask. Maybe it's time to dig out the scrabble board, whatever, read aloud, dust off the piano, play cards, and just have time together? Maybe bake muffins together. If she has or had a craft, ask to be taught. Or a movie night. In short, take the focus off talking and onto doing.

This advice hinges on this attitude being recent, that you feel bad about it, etc. If the bad feelings run deeper, then a board game won't fix it. But people working on a joint project they both value usually find things to talk about, and it could be good for her health, too.

Me: I'm with Hax on shifting from conversation-making to memory-making and enrichening your lives instead.

Dirty lens here: Deaf people suck at conversation, often feel left out of family gatherings. Board games, card games, and other collaborative projects really help make them feel included at holidays and other major gatherings, so this advice is not just for parents, but basically for all family gatherings. Make fun, not just food and small talk.

Mr. Monopoly: If all else fails, give her THE card. You know the one. "Go directly to jail. Do not Pass Go. Do not Collect $200."

Drunk Deanna Troi: Sigh... No, won't work. Ever tried to play cards with my mom? Even "Go Fish" becomes a litany of all the guys I could find to marry if I only stopped playing around with a career in outer space. Thanks for trying, though. Now I'm kind of curious what Ask Amy would say to my letter. I hope it's something to do with dairy cows. I could use a real laugh.