Welcome Jamie!

Jamie is going to do some Grandma blogging. Take it away Jame.

Grandma on strike.

From the long absence you’d be almost correct to assume that I am on strike, but I’m not. I’m just lazy, drink too much and think my friends and life in general are more fun than hanging out with Grandma. Grandma, for the past 6 weeks, has had all the personality of a toe nail. An ingrown one at that. To add the anal exam to the ongoing pap smear that is my life, my sister makes sure via phone rants that I don’t miss a moment of the non fun. I don’t begrudge her this because, well, she has to fucking live with Grandma. Enough said.

In order to give Jamie 20 hours of sanity a week I have been spending Saturday nights at her house in care of Grandma. It’s a blast. Yesterday I did it with a level 5 hangover and now officially know what hell will look like for me when I get there. I will have an eternal smashing headache, be forced to serve as a cafeteria worker for the other residents while listening to Lawrence Welk reruns on a loop, and in my off time I will be on dog shit pick up duty. Or so it seems. If the Devil is feeling generous, he could always change the Lawrence Welk soundtrack to a crying baby scratching it’s nails on a chalkboard and give me a stick of tinfoil gum to chew on, just to switch it up a bit.

Having survived the evening, this morning I got to play the Breakfast Game with Grandma. The rules are simple. The key is to figure out what, if anything, the toenail will eat, without any clues at all from her. I present you the exchange as it went down at 10:00 am, and yes, I know an elderly diabetic should probably eat before 10:00 am and I don’t care, thankyouverymuch.

Me: (chipper, no hangover) Good Morning Grandma! Why don’t you meet me in the kitchen and we’ll get the coffee going!

Toenail: Okay. (Spends 5 minutes shuffling to kitchen as if every step will be her last, which they won’t, trust me.)

Me: How about some pancakes and bacon Grandma!

Toenail: That’s too much work. (Translation: I don’t want pancakes asshole.)

Me: How about some toast and a poached egg?

Toenail: Whatever. (Translation: I’ll eat that but I’d rather have an omlette you lazy little shit.)

Me: (frustrated now) HOW ABOUT SOME WAXED BEANS AND HOT SAUCE WITH WHIPPED CREAM!

Toenail: Okay.

You can not win when Grandma is on strike. It has been, and before anybody gets a wise ass idea that she’s being ignored we fucking beg her all the time, 6 weeks since she has been to get her hair done. Her hair looks like a cat, sprayed with Pam cooking spray and then dunked in a toilet. Smells about the same too. It’s disgusting awesome.

Anybody want a free old person with attitude? No? Really? No takers? Huh.

So did she enjoy the waxed beans with hot sauce and whipped cream? No, of course not, being the totally made of patience, angel wings and xanax Grandaughter I am, I made her the poached egg and toast.

Love you toenail Grandma. Please wash your fucking hair.

Grandma Voted for Obama!

 

At this point in her life it’s really hard to impress Grandma by relating the historical significance of any one particular event. A glance back at some of the things she’s seen, experienced and endured it makes sense. The elation they experienced on V-Day, seeing a man walk on the moon, shit, she can’t believe that I can take her virtual shopping on Blair.com for those beloved jog suits of hers, so in her world, I’ll give her that electing a black man to the presidency isn’t the most impressive thing she’s ever witnessed. But for me, it was huge and a personal triumph of sorts.

Grandma is 88 years old and has to be cut a considerable amount of slack when it comes to her views on race. Jamie and I considered it a huge achievement when we were able to convince to her stop referring to African-Americans as Colored people. We know exactly how far to push any particular issue, so we are satisfied that she now says black. The PC term African-American is never going to happen and we accept that.

Grandma is and always has been a Democrat. That being said, she is the most conservative Democrat you’d ever meet. Socially speaking. She’s never met a government program that she couldn’t get behind, provided that it benefited her, but in the late 80’s and early 90’s she was seriously swayed by some of the divisive Republican arguments circling around so called Welfare Mothers and like issues. She watches Fox news incessantly, so I was worried some of that William Ayers, Rev. Wright stuff might rub off on her. Turns out those worries were unfounded.

Me: Okay Grandma, what’s it going to be? Who are you voting for?

Grandma: I guess I’m going to have to vote for the Color..-black guy, Osama.

*head desk*

Me: Obama Grandma. His name is Barack Obama.

Grandma: Whatever.

Me: Why are you voting for him Grandma?

Grandma: Because he’s smarter than the rest of them.

And so we went to vote. Well, first we fought it out. She insisted that since she owns a home in Illinois, she is an Illinois resident and she should vote by absentee ballot. I assured her that she was, in fact, a North Carolina resident, having changed her address and physical situation to North Carolina. I pressed the issue further by showing her mail from both the Social Security Administration and Medicare in her name at her North Carolina address. She insisted, an when I say insisted I mean yelled, that ‘IF YOU OWN PROPERTY IN ONE STATE YOU MUST VOTE THERE!’, and I hesitated briefly because, giving her full credit for knowing what in the hell she’s talking about, she may have lived through a period when that was the case. In any event, I prevailed. We left for the voting station.

We parked and made our way to the end of the two hour line. We were early voting in North Carolina in record turn out and in need of re-registering her. She was absolutely going to vote that day. She’d brought with her the following: her birth certificate (1920, the original. How damn impressive is that?), her marriage certificate (1938, again, stunning), her most recent bank statement, her Medicare card, and to her credit, a Power of Attorney showing me as her legal representative. She held everything in a folder in her lap and was set to wait her turn. Thankfully, an extremely dedicated poll worker approached us and suggested that she proceed to a special area for those not physically able to wait in line, which we did.

The poll worker then brought one of the electronic voting machines curbside and reviewed the process with Grandma. Grandma stood with the aid of her walker and asked me to steady her shaky hand as she touched the name of her candidate. BARACK OBAMA lit green with a check mark. She sat back down in her wheel chair, a tear slipped down my cheek and we thanked the poll worker. The sun came out, we took this picture, and Grandma said on election night as we watched the returns as a family:

“Looks like I won.”

A moment passed and she said, “Well, really, we all won.”

I can’t say it any better than that.

Ways in Which Grandma Tries to Make Jamie Insane

Technically this post title could be used over and over, but for today’s purposes we’re going to use it in reference to Grandma’s love of doing a mental inventory of her home in Illinois. She lived there for over 40 years and the entirety of our lives. In the 40 year plus span of time, things rarely, rarely ever moved.  Pretty much the only things that moved were small appliances that gave up their lives in the line of service to Grandma, but they were never truly shed or discarded, just relocated to the basement (or coal bin-another post entirely), as if placing them there would have some sort of healing effect that they may one day be returned to service. As a child of the Great Depression, rule number one is and was, never throw anything away. Or Waste Not Want Not, or some other old person saying.

So nothing in the house moves, as I’ve established. For instance, in the top kitchen drawer there is and always has been the following: a pair of scissors that should really be in some sort of scissor museum. They date to her wedding to my Grandpa, again a testament to the times, that one would offer something as mundane as a pair of scissors as a wedding gift. The hinges are rusty and they couldn’t cut hot butter, but alas, there they are. A flatware tray which contains no less than 6 different patterns. Grandma was Shabby Chic way early. Grandpa, early in his career, before joining the Navy, rode the back of a garbage truck in St. Louis. They’d make the rounds of hotels in St. Louis in the wee morning hours and I have no doubt half of these forks and knives were pulled from the trash. Jamie’s baby spoon. Jamie was born in 1969, but should she ever revert back to not being able to feed herself, we’re covered there. Lastly, an address book. This used to be a great source of entertainment for Grandma and also helpful to us. Ever had to fill out a credit ap requiring the last 5 years of addresses and find you can’t remember? Well, if your Grandma is like ours, no problem. While we relied on it for memory back up, she used it to torture us with hard proof of our inherent gypsiness. A quote: “You girls never hold still long enough to get anything done! Just look how many times you’ve moved! TN, FL, NJ, CT, NC….I was born in one house and moved here when I got married. You girls don’t know if you’re coming or going. No wonder…”

No word as to what the ‘No wonder’ was referencing.

If you were patient enough to read the about section, you’ll know that Grandma is now several states from her home. She uses her down time (all day every day) to do a running inventory of the things she’d like to have or may have need of from her home as further evidence that we are #1) keeping her from her shit, #2) incapable of caring for her because we lack…, #3) wasting money by purchasing ‘x’ because she has a perfectly good ‘x’ at home.

Case in point. Last year I gave Jamie a roaster for Christmas. Join me for the gift exchange and Grandma commentary:

Me: I hope you’ll use it.

Jamie: Oh, I so will! This is cool dude. It can even do a turkey!

Grandma: Why is it red? I have a perfectly good roater in the basement. Stacey? Did you take my roaster? Is it still there?

Me: Where Grandma?

Grandma; MY ROASTER! IN THE BASEMENT.

Me: Probably, unless the rampant thefts of roasters is still ongoing in Fairview Heights….

Grandma: Well that’s a waste of money. I have a perfectly good roaster. You should have taken it when you came to get me.

Me: Right Grandma. Me, you, a walker, a wheel chair and the roaster going through security at the airport. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Jamie: I’m going to refresh my drink. Any body else need a drink?

Jamie gets to play, “Don’t I have…or, Do I still have my….?”, no less than 10 times a day. Grandma has all. Looking for a rubber band? Well, I keep a baggie of rubber bands in the top drawer… Out of paper towels? I keep two extra rolls in the basement. WD-40? Tire gauge? Sewing kit? Spare part for the Hubble Telescope?

Damn it Grandma, we get it. You have a perfectly good one at home. We are no good, gypsy wastrels. We don’t know the value of a dollar. But we’ll spend every last one of our’s taking care of you. And when I go clean out the house next month, you can bet your ass, I’m grabbing that roaster.

“You know, That Guy….”

Welcome to the first post on The Grandma Blog. There is a great amount of responsibility in caring for the elderly and almost no care or relief for care givers. These posts are meant to be a few funny minutes for those caring for an elderly person of their own. For more information on our situation, how this is just for fun and the dedication we have to the care of our Grandma, please visit the about page.

 

I will introduce Grandma with a detailed explanation of her favorite game, “You know, That Guy….”. We spend a great amount of our time playing and plan on posting recent games so you too can play along at home. The rules are simple and predicated on Grandma’s inability to recall names of famous people. The most frustrating part of You know, That Guy is that you are never aware you’re playing it until it’s too late to decline. It begins like this:

A shout from Grandma’s room where she is currently watching the news, usually and unfortunately Fox news, or if a slow news day, an outdated sitcom, “Who was the guy he was in that movie with?”

Entering the room to check the television for a clue as to what she is talking about and finding only a commercial, you respond: “What guy?”

Once she utters the next phrase the game is officially on. “You know, That Guy.”

From this point forward the games gets trickier and is a lot like feeling your way around in the dark. The game is not to be confused with Twenty Questions. You do not have twenty guesses to identify this mystery celebrity, actor, politician, singer, guy that used to be the Brawny paper towel guy or who ever in the hell she is thinking of but can’t recall. After three or four guesses she will become highly agitated, so start broad and think in terms of eras rather than decades.

I will generally start with, “Has he ever been on Lawrence Welk?” because this classic Grandma reference sweeps from 1951-1982, a pretty decent chunk of Grandma’s TV watching life. Also, talking about Lawrence Welk is always welcome in Grandmaville.

Unfortunately nine times out of ten the answer is no. Though this will buy you a momentary delay of game as you revisit the fact that Lawrence Welk is dead (bonus points if you can tell her the year he ‘passed on’, it’s 1992) but that if we wanted to, we could still go see his show with some remaining cast members that runs in Branson, Missouri.

After this brief delay Grandma will try, through a series of extraordinarily vague clues, to move you closer to the the decade and the nature or profession of the guy in question. “He was in that movie, you know, with Russia and that other guy that I like that’s bald, he’s in it too…oh, and he’s on TV.”

More rules: Guess number two must be an actual name and not a follow up question. In her mind you have already been provided all of the information you need to deliver the name of the unknown (now assumed to be actor) person.

I like to try Harrison Ford as a general rule. She likes him (but do not mention Calista Flockhart) so it won’t piss her off that he’s being suggested. That and he has been in an assload of movies. Of course, it is not Harrison Ford. Her agitation is now approaching code yellow. In a raised voice you will be given your final clue.

“NO. NOT HARRISON FORD. I KNOW WHO HARRISON FORD IS. THIS GUY WAS IN THAT MOVE WITH HIM AND WE JUST SAW HIM IN THE DEBATES.” (aside: by ‘debates’ she means Republican National Convention, which you would know had you spent two solid weeks being questioned as to when the ‘debates’ were coming on and being reminded daily that she wanted to make sure to watch them)

Which bring us to third and final try before Grandma gets pissed and huffs a breathy, “just forget it…”, so make it good. If you guessed Fred Thompson you’re a gifted You know, That Guy” player and are ready to go toe to toe with Grandma.

If you missed it, the buried clues were: Hunt for Red October, Law and Order and the RNC. I hope you’ll play along often.

Lastly, there is no prize for correctly answering You know, That Guy, other than getting to be done with the game and fix Grandma a snack. This provides an opportunity to return to the kitchen, grab the hidden bottle of vodka from under the sink and top off your cocktail before Lawrence Welk. He comes on at 7:00 you know.