Author: Judy

Pages from Grandma’s Diaries: Cosette, part 2

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May 1, 2009
I babysat for one-year-old Cosette last weekend. Spent Saturday night at their house while Mom and Dad went out of town. She’s a pretty easy kid to take care of. A lot of time is used up just tormenting the dog in the name of love. And then we have to practice putting on and taking off our Mardi Gras beads a few hundred times. And we never get sick of watching “Elmo’s Potty Time” (accidents are okay, you know). So I have to say that the time just flew by. By 8:00 she was asleep and so was I.

Cosette’s parents told me that she won’t eat with her right shoe on anymore. I didn’t see how that could be true, but of course it is. You put her in her highchair, and the first thing she does is work her foot out of that right shoe. You give her a snack and off comes the shoe. It makes no sense to me. Why not the left shoe? Why not both? I’d like to ask her, but her vocabulary consists of one-syllable words, none of which is shoe. I don’t imagine anyone will ever figure out the reason for this behavior. It bothers me a little.

Sept. 2, 2009
Cosette left me a phone message today. It was brief (she’s only almost two) but exciting. Because just about everything is exciting to Cosette, and all of her comments end in exclamation points: “Pickle! Jeep! Ursa! Broccoli! W!” So then I started thinking how sad it is that we lose the enthusiasm we had at two. I thought maybe I’d just start walking around the house saying things to myself that end in exclamation points. “I’m out of mayonnaise! I should vacuum under the sofa cushions! I’m going to turn up the heat! I’m sick and tired of putting on makeup every damn day!” (The last one really did need an exclamation point.)

April 7, 2010
Somewhere in the Grand Cosmos I’m sure there’s an answer to winning the lottery, if only we could figure out what it is. I was thinking I might have one of the grandkids pick numbers out of a hat. Kids are closer to the Cosmos; their brains aren’t all cluttered up with old regrets and broken dreams.

Cosette is almost always happy and her little brain is usually working overtime. So the next time she comes over I’m going to have her pick some numbers, if I can get her to quit fishing long enough. I have two plastic fishing poles with magnetic hooks and eight magnetic plastic fish. We fish in the closets and down the stairs. We fish in the bathtub and in the bed covers and behind the sofa. She always catches the blue fish. I always catch the green. No switching. I suspect Cosette knows some things I don’t. It’s worth a try.

June 9, 2010
Gina and Cosette are coming over this weekend while Bret paints the bedroom for the new baby. I’ll be anxious to see what progress Cosette has made with “potty boot camp,” which started on Monday. Potty boot camp consists of taking trips to the potty every 15 minutes. It is Gina’s contention that Cosette, who turns three in September, is more than capable of mastering this skill. Also, Gina is seven months’ pregnant and insists she won’t have two children in diapers at the same time.

Cosette, meanwhile, has chosen to ignore the potty. Maybe it will go away. Diapers, underpants, it’s all the same to her, and potty time is mostly just an interruption in her busy day. So…the irresistible force meets the immovable object. My money’s on Gina. She can be amazingly stubborn and she’s stockpiled a large supply of underpants. Go, Cosette!

Pages from Grandma’s Diaries: Cosette, part 1

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Ah, Cosette. Three years old now. Named for the orphan girl in Les Miserables, which her parents attended in their courting days and following which Gina told Bret if they ever got married and ever had a daughter, they were going to name that daughter Cosette. Which must have been something of a surprise to him since he hadn’t thought much about proposing; but being the kind of man who knows when to get with the program, he did eventually propose and marry Gina and they did have a daughter who they named Cosette.

Cosette never stops thinking. Cosette never stops talking. Cosette never stops thinking and talking. “I think, therefore I talk,” that’s her motto. Cosette never stops moving, except when her mother lets her watch TV, which isn’t very often. She never stops trying to get Baby Bret to play with her. He tries. He does his best. But he’s only 10 months old and things still bounce right off him. Quite often she takes things away from him, which he has decided he does not like. She doesn’t care. Cosette likes to call me on the phone and give me reports on what’s going on in her household, including regular updates on how old Baby Bret is NOW. She loves Buzz Lightyear. Sometimes you have to call her “Buzz” or she won’t answer.

Gina and the kids came over last Saturday, so that Man Bret could stain the siding Cosetteless. I have a playroom upstairs. Sometimes the grandkids play there; more often they haul out the toys and deposit them in various inconvenient spots around the house. Cosette came out of the playroom with a 16-inch Frankenstein monster robot. “He’s a big man,” she told me. “He’s a REALLY big man.”

“His name is Frankenstein,” her mother said. “Frank-en-stein.”

“Frankenstein,” said Cosette. But he was “the big man” all day long.

And all day long we were tasked with keeping a watchful eye on him. We went outside to work in the yard and, of course, the big man came along. When Cosette went to look for a shovel, I was in charge of security. “Grandma, you watch the big man,” she said solemnly. I swore my undying devotion to his care and well-being. Once I forgot myself and walked around to the front of the house without him. “Where’s the big man?” Cosette wanted to know. “He’s in the backyard guarding the flower pots,” I said. That was okay then, so long as we knew his whereabouts at all times.

Cosette took the big man’s picture with her mother’s camera. She took pictures of him sitting down and standing up. Then she scrolled through the pictures to show them to me. She knows how to work the camera better than I do.

I thought she would want to take the big man home with her at the end of the day, but she didn’t mention it. So I took him back up to the playroom. The thing is, now I know he’s there. All the time. He’s a big man and he is always there.

THE BIG MAN

Back to the Blog!

~ Judy ~ 1 Comment

My, how time flies. I got lazy and skipped a week of blogging. Then another, then another. People started to complain. Well, things got away from me, as things will do if you aren’t paying attention every minute of every damn day.

For example, I started dating this man and, despite the fact that I wasn’t at all sure he was my type, I’m still dating him, which is a little time-consuming and a lot weird. I keep thinking we need to discuss why this may not work, but he won’t stop talking long enough for me to tell him. If there were a talkers marathon, I’d sign him right up and start taking odds. By the end of the evening, I have abandoned all hope of gaining control of the conversation.

Okay, that wasn’t entirely truthful. He sort of isn’t my type except for being bald and funny. For some unnatural reason, a sense of humor as dry as the Gobi Desert appeals to me. That and the fact that I can’t offend him. Not that I try to offend him – I don’t try to offend anyone, but let’s face it, it happens. The man is nearly unoffendable. You gotta like that. Also, he’s a former smoker who cheats, and since I’m a former smoker who will cheat at the drop of a match, the dating continues, just two people being a bad influence on each other.

And speaking of imponderable guy stuff

In the news: a recent study suggests men in their mid-forties are afflicted with “hotness delusion syndrome.” Apparently there are about 15 percent more women than men in this age group now, and too many women chasing too few men can mean only one thing: a whole lot of guys thinking they’re hotter than they are. Or so the theory goes. It isn’t my demographic, of course, but I can see where it might have validity. We all know that for every woman who detests shopping for swimwear, there’s a guy walking the beach in a Speedo and black socks carrying fifty extra pounds and thinking he looks just fine.

Pages from Grandma’s Diaries: Grace, part 2

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March 11, 2009
I babysat for the grandkids on Saturday. As usual, I spent a lot of the time trying to figure out what’s going on in their little minds. Grace is three and can talk perfectly well, but sometimes she won’t. She gets upset and stands there with her chin down and her lip out, mute as a stone. “What’s the matter, Gracie? Tell Grandma, honey. Tell Grandma what’s wrong. What’s wrong, Gracie? Grace…speak!” Hopeless. I have to get Maria to interpret: “She wants applesauce.” Really? How did you know that? And why is it a secret?

Then there are the little unsolved, probably unsolvable, mysteries that come up after they’ve gone. Why are the paints in the refrigerator? Where is the lint brush? Why would one of you want the lint brush? Did you suddenly become tidy? And so it goes. You can ponder till you’re blue, it won’t make any difference. One day the lint brush will turn up, and that will be that.

Sept. 1, 2010
So I babysat last Friday night and ended up nonplussed yet again. I was having a conversation with five-year-old Grace for about ten minutes, at the end of which she spit out a penny, just as if she always keeps one tucked under her tongue for emergencies, a last-minute gumball purchase or something. It shook me a little, as she seemed to be talking okay before that. I thought it must be an act of whimsy, but when I mentioned it to her mother, Jill said, “I told her not to do that. Grace! Don’t put pennies in your mouth. You’re going to choke.” What are they thinking? That’s all I want to know. What the heck are they thinking?

Pages from Grandma’s Diaries: Grace, part 1

~ Judy ~ 1 Comment
THE INCREDIBLE GRACIE B.

Went to hear my five-year-old granddaughter Grace sing last Sunday afternoon. She takes lessons at a small music school in St. Paul that’s funded in part by the state. You aren’t likely to find a future Isaac Perlman or Beverly Sills there (although you never know), just a lot of earnest-looking kids who want to sing or play the piano or tenor sax or trumpet or clarinet or violin or acoustic guitar. They don’t have a big auditorium and don’t need one. The recital was in a large room with the stage one step up. There was a program but they didn’t seem to follow it very closely; I think if the kid looked ready, they just sent him up.

Gracie has a soft little voice but sings rather loud, and when she looks into the future, I’m pretty sure she sees a star. She had to introduce herself and say the name of her song, “Lullaby of Broadway,” which she sang with hand motions and great composure, until about the last minute. Then she wasn’t smiling anymore, and you could see the tears sliding down her cheeks, although her voice only wavered a little bit. She finished the song and jumped into the arms of her mother (who by that time had stood up from her chair in the first row), and buried her face in mom’s neck.

And because Grace is the youngest student in the school, and because she was adorable in her hot pink leggings and hot pink shoes, and most of all because she was brave, of course the audience erupted when she finished. At which point the emcee had to stop and get me a tissue, and then offer a tissue to anyone else who might need one (no one did), before moving on to a boy tackling Handel’s “Sarabande” on the piano (or maybe it was the clarinet, I sort of lost focus).

I guess you’d say it was one of those moments. Never in my life will I get out of my head the image of Gracie’s face, singing away with a tear about to drop off her chin.

Too Much Ketchup

~ Judy ~ 1 Comment
SURROUNDED BY WOMEN

Last week was interesting. Daughter Jill and family stayed with me for four days while the painter and carpenter were busy at their house. The invasion discombobulated me a little. I kept forgetting to take my calcium tablet before bed. Also, I forgot what I had in the refrigerator because I’m not used to seeing that much food in there. Mysterious food. The kind I never buy.

But other than that, things went fairly smoothly. The grandkids were on their best behavior. I’m sure there were threats along the way, but I don’t need to know about them. One evening it was just them and me around the dinner table, when the conversation, as it will, drifted to Christian’s food allergies, a subject on which every female in his family is an expert. It began when he was squeezing ketchup onto his plate and, as I recall, went something like this…

Maria: That’s too much. You aren’t supposed to have that much ketchup.
Christian [still squeezing]: Leave me alone, Maria. I can have ketchup.
Grace: He can have ketchup.
Maria: [To Christian] Stop that. Mom said you aren’t supposed to have that much.
[To me] Mom doesn’t let him have that much ketchup.
Grace: He can have ketchup. Ketchup isn’t in the nut family.
Maria: Ketchup is in the tomato family. He can’t have that much.
Christian: I keep telling Mom I don’t have food allergies, but she doesn’t believe me!
Maria: [To Christian] Ketchup is in the tomato family. Remember when you had that spaghetti sauce? Your eye got like THIS.
[To me] Mom doesn’t let him have that much ketchup.
Christian: Ketchup isn’t in the nut family.
Maria: [Heavy sigh accompanied by eye rolling]
Grace: Chili is in the nut family.

Too many nuts in the family, if you ask me.

Bloggery Potpourri

~ Judy ~ 3 Comments

We’re all lucky to be alive
Slowly but surely the winter from hell is passing. It was a long, treacherous haul, and I’m just glad no fool driving his truck too fast for the road conditions slid into my little car. Back in January, a Minnesota man ended up in the hospital when his car hit a cow and it went through the windshield. Thank the lord, the man wasn’t seriously injured, because how embarrassing would it be to die in a car-cow collision? His mother, who was in the car but unhurt, said she felt sorry for her son but she felt bad for the cow too. So that’s something else to be watchful for in winter. A cow wandering in the cold isn’t going to be as alert as usual, and a cow isn’t the smartest animal in the barn to begin with. Pigs. I heard pigs are pretty smart.

Happy Birthday to me
I had a birthday this week. I didn’t want to, but it was forced upon me by people who supposedly love me. They are not the kind of people who will leave something like that alone. This year I got handmade cards and money from three of the grandkids. Maria gave me a very crumpled dollar bill with the suggestion, “You can buy a dounut in the morning.” Christian glued a dime in his card and wrote, “Dear Grandma, I know it’s your birthday and I want to know when are we going to sleep over?” No money in Grace’s card, just the inscription: “Dear Grandma Judy, I love you very much. God loves you eternally.” So a whole different direction there.

So now I’m a Pisces?
You may have heard that some astrologers are now questioning the accuracy of the dates assigned to the zodiac. Big brouhaha. I won’t get into the whole gravity thing, but they’re saying because the earth wobbles on its axis, the stars’ alignment has gotten out of whack and we all have to back up a month. Well, I for one am a little peeved. Just how are we supposed to tell the sensitive, idealistic people from the friendly, adaptable people now? I have been an Aries all my life. We are fiery, take-charge kind of folks. I don’t want to be a Pisces. Fish are wishy-washy and they can’t make up their minds about anything. On the other hand, this may explain why things didn’t turn out the way I planned on May 11, 2008.

Proof again that crime doesn’t pay
From the local news: a St. Paul man was sentenced to 60 days in jail last month for stealing packages off front porches over the holidays. He was caught with twelve bathrobes, a box of ornaments and a box of steaks. Obviously, the steaks are long gone. So basically the guy is sitting in jail for a dozen bathrobes. What an idiot. Not as big an idiot as Charlie Sheen, but an idiot nonetheless.

Dating: It’s A Lot Like Not Dating

~ Judy ~ 1 Comment
THE IDEAL MALE. WHO KNEW?

So I’ve been at this online dating thing a month or two now, and it’s amazing what you can learn in such a short time. For example, I have learned that I am attracted to bald men with beards. I have never been particularly inclined toward either bald men or men with beards. But a bald man with a beard is apparently a different animal.

What I’ve learned about men is that they probably are as uncomplicated as they say they are. Women are always trying to figure men out, as if they harbor deep and inscrutable secrets from birth to the grave. “For the love of God,” we ask, “what’s he thinking now?” Unfortunately, what he’s thinking is probably what you think he’s thinking. Also, it’s highly unlikely he will stop thinking it. Move on, woman.

I’ve also learned that men have some odd notions about women. Many complain about women who only want to go out with them for a free meal. What is that about? I know literally hundreds of women, and I can’t think of one who’s that hungry. Even lobster loses its appeal if you have to look at a stranger and make small talk through the entire meal. So, personally, I think men are just off the wall on this one. Pass the clarified butter.

And then there are the people who have simply been doing this too long. You can tell because they don’t care what they say anymore, like this man:
“Okay, it’s become clear to me that I’ve set the bar too high. Looking for a woman with a face, arms and legs. Arms and legs should preferably come in pairs and be of roughly the same size, i.e., arms should be same size as each other (same for legs), rather than arms being same size as legs. Graduation from grade school preferable, though not essential. You should not have worked as a bouncer at a biker bar.”

As for the whole online dating experience, the primary lesson seems to be: 1) you will receive messages from lots of very nice people you have no interest in whatsoever; and 2) the handful of people you do find interesting won’t be interested in you. No point in feeling bad. You don’t know these people, they don’t know you, and God knows what anyone is looking for. Sometimes you’re tempted to write some guy just to give him a clue. (“You are 65 years old – you might have better luck if you broaden your search beyond women under 45.”) But, of course, you do not.

And, yes, I’ve had only the one “date” so far. One per decade…seems about right.

Pages from Grandma’s Diaries: Christian, part 2

~ Judy ~ 2 Comments

Nov. 21, 2008
Called daughter Jill last night to talk about the upcoming weekend. As usual, it was a multitasking nightmare on her end – i.e., talking to me and making turkey sandwiches while getting the kids to come to the table, stay at the table, and not fight over the condiments. While his sisters were content with turkey, Christian, of course, wouldn’t have it. Said he’d make himself a grape sandwich instead. Jill, who goes with the flow now, said fine but he’d have to wash the grapes first. This momentarily stunned him, as in his four years on earth no one has ever given him permission to wash food before. But he did wash the grapes (in the bathroom sink), cut them up, put them on bread and maybe even ate it, who knows. He’d do it.

Nov. 4, 2009
All the grandkids, ages 2 to 9, went trick-or-treating on Saturday (an Indian, a Superhero, Snow White and a China doll). Everyone remembered their manners and said thank you when they were supposed to, until they got to the house where a man answered the door holding a big bowl of vegetables while his wife stood behind him with a camera. “What would you like?” he asked the kids. “An onion, a carrot or some broccoli?” The three little girls were speechless. Christian looked at the vegetables, turned around and said, “I’m outta here.”

Jan. 20, 2010
If you ever start to think you’re indispensable, get yourself a grandchild. I haven’t seen the kids for a while and was missing them a little, so I called over there yesterday and Jill put Christian on the phone.
“Hi, Christian,” I said. “I miss you!”
“Oh, Grandma,” he said, “I miss you too. Here Maria, talk to Grandma.”

March 26, 2010
My son-in-law Bret couldn’t come over to hunt mice last weekend, so I couldn’t go down the basement to wash clothes. Five-year-old Christian spent the night on Saturday, but he’s a little young to hunt and I wouldn’t want to scar him psychologically. I may have to bite the bullet and go down there soon. Or I may just buy more socks.

You’d think Christian would want to go to a movie or McDonald’s or the Science Museum once in a while, but all he ever wants to do is play. With me. Even though I’m no good at it. Even though I approach play with great reluctance and the sure knowledge that I’m going to be hurt. I will be hurt, because all toys fight. Not just Spider-Man and the robots but the toy animals and the K’Nex and the videotapes and lumps of Play-Doh. Dixie Cups make an excellent army – just line them up and smash them flat. I think what he likes is that I’m always willing to be the roundly defeated loser. You can’t get that with a lot of playmates.

My Left Foot

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THE VIRGIN FOOT (NOT VIRGIN'S FOOT), PLAIN AND WHITE, THE WAY GOD MADE IT

I finally got a tattoo this week. It didn’t take long, maybe a half-hour, but it hurt like hell, yes it did. Also, it’s a bigger tattoo than I expected to come out with, which is the kind of thing that happens to me. It isn’t that I’m unprepared. I’m a big planner. I plan and plan. Then I leave the plan at home and take off running as fast as I can, until I land in a spot that may or may not look familiar. It sort of works for me.

Uptown Tattoo looks exactly like you’d expect a tattoo place to look – kind of old, dark and funky, with every available surface covered in weird art. Not necessarily tattoo art, just weird art. And of course the artists have a lot of tattoos themselves, so you almost don’t know where to look. There is a stereotype of tattoo artists that didn’t seem to fit. For the most part they seemed smart, friendly and well-spoken. And covered in tattoos.

I like my tattoo a lot. I’d say that I should have done it sooner, but then it wouldn’t be this tattoo but some other tattoo that I probably wouldn’t like as much. It was designed by my friend Sunshine (a talented art director and undoubtedly old soul) and then fiddled with by me. So it is a one-of-a-kind tattoo. It includes five stars, one for each grandchild, with the option of adding more stars if people continue to be as fertile as they have been. I have no regrets.

FOOT WITH INK