Grandddddddmaaaaaa

Okay, this has nothing to do with my grandma, but when we were younger (my sisters and cousins) we were so bad. I recall some of the stupidest ideas we had (we, as a group, not necessarily ME, mind you!). My father's parents lived on a farm, and so they had a huge red barn and tons of farm equipment and tractors and all of that stuff. Let me tell you, it was a child's paradise. Oh my god, we had the wildest time there. There was tons of land, and since there were tons of cousins, we all got together and played frisbee football and did treasure hunts and tryed climbing the silo and all that. Oooohh, those hot summer nights, running around, playing red rover and tag, trying to catch lightning bugs, getting bit by 100 mosquitos (no, seriously, there was one time in particular that the mosquitos were really bad, but we were young and having fun and we didn't care, so we kept on playing. At the end of the night I don't think anyone ANYONE had less than 30 bites. I counted somewhere around 85 on my body). Oh my god, and the POOL!!!!!! The pool had this candy store with candy that was SO cheap and my dad used to give us each a quarter every time we went (25¢ bought a LOT of candy). Now and Laters, chic-o-stix, tangy taffy, sour patch kids, tootsie rolls and twizzlers. :-D And we even got an extra quarter for the first time that we agreed to jump off the high dive (it was scary!!!!).

And then we went to this one place that had this HUGE pond and across the width of the pond they had rings suspended from like a rope, and you would swing from ring to ring across, but they were so high above the water I never dared to go on. There were slides IN the water, and that oblong cement-ish looking thing that floated and turned with weight and you competed to see who could stay on the longest without falling in the water. There was a lifeguard who thought he was SO hot. He pranced around in just his swimming trunks and sandals, had spikey blond hair, and ALWAYS wore sunglasses. He decided he'd go on the swings during his break when all the kids were watching and he even left his sunglasses on, because he was so sure he wouldn't fall. I think we all SO DESPERATELY wanted him to fall. God, he made me mad. So he was swinging from ring to ring, and as he reached for one he missed, so instead of making it OBVIOUS that he missed, he just pulled the arm back and ran his hand through his hair, as if he had changed his mind at the last minute, because he wanted to fix his hair instead of grab for the ring. HA!

And then, there was a group of young, cocky, teenage lifeguards who did NOT like my cousin, P,(because, what, he was just as much of a stud as them and posed a threat?), and tried picking a fight with him. We all went down the slide on our stomachs and when he went down they yelled at him and told him that he wasn't allowed to go down on his stomach. ...But it was really loud and he either didn't hear them or didn't know that they were talking to him, so he got on again and went down on his stomach, and oooooooh loooooooord. So when he popped up from the water they said "DIDN'T YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID?!?!?!?" "Um..what?" "ARE YOU DEAF?!?!?" "...No, but my dad is..." (his father is deaf), and they responded "GET OUT OF THE WATER, SMARTASS! WE'LL TAKE IT OUT ON THE SHORE!!!! WANNA GO?!?" Oh my god, I hated those guys. Ah, but the memories of summer.....

And so, at the farm, my older sister and one of my cousins thought it'd be neat to oil the tractors, because my grandpa had one of those little tin can things that squirt oil. So they took it and... yeah, didn't exactly oil any of the parts of the tractors that might have needed oil. The next morning when my grandpa went out to the barn and found oil all over his tractor seats he was not too happy. Oooooooh watch out for an angry grandfather!

And then we spent the night at my aunt's house (her house was right on the other side of the farm), we had a brilliant idea. We wanted to know if it was true that if you put someone's hand in warm water it will make them pee. So our cousin (my aunt's son), was 10 years older than us, and sleeping in his room. All of us had been up late, talking and devising our little plan. So we heated up a bowl of water and we tiptoed ever so quietly in the room, whispering and jabbing each other with an elbow if one was whispering too loudly. And we managed to put his hand IN the bowl of water without him waking up (how???). And it must've worked (as I grin), because the next morning we woke up to the sound of my aunt yelling like a madwoman, pissed off that she had to wash his sheets, and whose idea was it to put his hand in a bowl of water, anyway?!?!? hahahaha Ladies and gentlemen, it WORKS, so don't try it. Just take my word for it. And besides, you most likely won't be as lucky as we were in being able to get his hand in the water without him waking up.

But now about my grandmother, who is my reason for creating this new post. The grandmother I'm referring to is actually my MOTHER'S mother, so she has nothing to do with all of the wild little fun I was just describing to you above. But so my mom's mom has always had this crazy little fear of planes, trains and travelling on highways. No, she doesn't care who is driving on the highway, it is being on it that scares her to ridiculousness. So, quite frankly, in all of the days of my life I don't ever recall her having come to visit, although apparently she did when I was like 2 years old. But her fear was so great that every year it was my parents who had to pack all of us rambunctious little kids into the car and drive 5 hours away to go see her. And it had to have been a PAIN, because we fought all the time (me and my siblings). Pulling hair, "Mommmmm!!! She touched me!!!", elbowing, throwing fits if someone was cheating at one of the games we were playing. I was reading a compilation of Nickolodeon songs, and one made me LAUGH because it reminded me of how we were. It was to be sung to the tune of "My darling Clementine", and I don't remember exactly how it went, but it was witty and about stuff like 'this is my seat, this line marks where your seat starts', and part of it the song was "don't you trespass with your butt mass, you'll be sorry if you dare." (break into chorus)

ANYWAY, so my grandma was so scared of travelling that when my sister got married she wouldn't even go to her wedding, and on her wedding day, called her, crying, saying that she was sorry that she couldn't come, but she just couldn't, due to her fear travelling. ahem. Soooooooooooooooo... something happened and my grandma finally CONSENTED to coming to visit (whoaaaaaaaa let's not get crazy now!!!). And why she consented, I will never know. I think it's because she's convinced that she's dying. She's like... in her low-mid 60s, and she's a ridiculous hypochondriac, and she's been convinced that "[she]'ll die in the next year" for the past 20 years. She's in great health, though, so I don't know what crack she's smoking, but whatever it is, it must be good, and now I want to know who her dealer is. ....hahahaa So on Monday my mom drove 5 hours there, picked her up and drove 5 hours right back. And I was talking to a friend of mine, saying "I'm so GLAAAAAAAAAD it wasn't me." and he said "Yeah, you're lucky you didn't have to go pick her up." and I said "Are you kidding?!?? My mom knows that if she were to ask me to drive 10 hours total to pick up grandma I would've said 'Mom, you're dreaming, and grandma can just stay at her house, because frankly, it's not worth the pain.'" hahahaha That's so evil and wrong. So anyway, she's been here since Monday and it's been rather uncomfortable because she's still young enough that she's QUITE together mentally, so it's not like I can talk to her in circles about flowers or pies or something. I actually have to say something of depth. And we never talk to each other, really. We're not super close. So I was standing in the kitchen, and it was the two of us, and I was like, "So grandma..." and I desperately tried to find anything I could to talk to her about. I talked to her about cats, about.... the weather, and stupid stuff. Well it didn't last very long. Before you know it, we both kind of laughed and looked around... trying to find anything to distract us, save us from this THICK air of discomfort. I have been trying to be nice, and so I sat out on the patio at night with her and my mother. They were sitting out there, chatting about... what??!!? Nothing, really. But I joined and just... sat, because I felt that, I knew, that my presence would mean somehow that I cared even if I didn't necessarily participate in conversation.

So yesterday my older sister came over and we had a little family dinner gathering and I was shocked at some of the stuff that was being said in front of my grandma. My sister was talking about how my boyfriends have miraculously been becoming cuter and cuter, with each one I date, and my mom said "I never called you a 'lesbian'!!!!" "Mom, yes you did!" "No I did not. I have no idea what you're talking about." "Okay, whatever." "Oh... well... if I did, maybe it was because the neighbor mentioned it first." "WHAT?!?!?!?!" My mom covers her mouth and my brother and sister are laughing their little booties off. I thought my brother was going to choke on his food. And I said "Why did she say I was a lesbian?!!??" "No, just forget I said that." "No!!!! I've never even met her before, and just because two out of three of her kids are gay, and her sister is a lesbian, it doesn't mean that the whole world is gay." "Well, no... it's just that... you know, she heard about your sister getting married, and she heard about your younger sister getting engagggged... and she never hears about you, and so one day she asked me if you'd ever had a boyfriend." (my mom starts to chuckle, and then continues): "And I told her that, yes, you'd dated K." (K was my bf#2). ...silence... "Mom, you told her I've only ever had one boyfriend?!?!? ...That I broke up with a year and a half ago?!?!? No wonder she thinks I'm a lesbian!!!!!" "Wellllll......"

All the meanwhile, my grandma is sitting there quietly, as we are talking and laughing and whatnot. So my brother finally leaves the table and my sister starts talking about boys and cute boys. And my mom is munching on candy-coated almonds and pecans that my sister bought from a festival. My mom kept eating them, saying "They're so goooooood!!!" And my sister said "Yeah, I know, dad loves them. He said that if I have any left by the end of the month he's claiming them." So we continue to chat, and somehow sex comes up. How did we get on the subject of sex??? OH! Because my mom said "These nuts are better than sex!!!" And I started ranting and raving about how I hate when people say that because not only is it so dumb and cliché, but obviously those people haven't had any good sex before. And then my sister said "Well her sex life probably hasn't been that great. Probably all the sex she's ever had has been like the sex you had with your first boyfriend." My mom then interjects, "Now, I'm not going to start talking about my sex life with my mother sitting right next to me!!!" ...pause.. then my mom turns to my grandma and says "So let's talk about your sex life." and my grandma, whose been quiet the whole time, finally says, "Well I've just been trying to hold my tongue, because look at you! You just got done eating your ex-husbands nuts!" My sister and I just burst out laughing. We were dying. My mom was like "MOM!!! You're mind is so in the gutter!" And we're laughing so hard that our eyes are watering up and my mom is laughing, and my grandma is laughing. Oh my god, that was so clever. Who ever would've been so witty?

And I felt, for the first time, that the ice was completely broken. My grandma is older and I never talk to her, but she's not from another planet. And I felt like I could relate to her, and I knew that she, one day, used to be like me, like my sister, like my mom.... And now I'm glad to see my grandma and I'm glad she's around and I'll be disappointed when she leaves tomorrow. :-(

BUT! Ladies and gentlemen, I'm meeting two young, attractive men out at a bar, so I need to leave. No, I'm not kidding, they are young and attractive and chatty and flirty and OOOOOH it's going to be a fun time. And no, get your minds out of the gutter (little grandma wannabes) nothing is going to happen. :-P