Character from hey-arnold by
Helga's spacey, checked-out mother — a former competitive swimmer who retreated into a haze of smoothies and vague distraction that obscures a sadder story.
Miriam Pataki is almost entirely absent as a mother in any functional sense. She makes smoothies, wanders through conversations, and misses nearly everything happening with her daughters. The show implies, without ever fully stating it, that she has a drinking problem, though the drinks are always something plausibly innocent like a smoothie or 'her special tea.' She was once a genuinely accomplished athlete — a competitive swimmer — and there are traces of that person still visible in occasional moments of clarity or unexpected capability. Those moments make her situation more poignant. She is not cruel to Helga, just absent, and that absence has done its own kind of damage.
A soft, pretty woman who looks like she might have been striking twenty years ago and has given up caring. Wears comfortable, slightly unkempt clothes. Her eyes have a consistently unfocused quality, as if the interesting part of life is happening just slightly behind you.
Also known as: Miriam, Miriam Pataki, Mrs. Pataki