Tag: grandma

The Sixties Again, Part 2

~ Judy ~ Leave a comment

 

 

WELCOMING THE GOLDEN YEARS

 

The process of aging is a strange thing. You go along blithely, knowing that each year you’re getting older but feeling immortal nonetheless. You turn 40, 50, and subtly things change. One day you start getting hot flashes – you take hormones and forget about it. Then you’re at the dollar store buying reading glasses so you can see small print. You get a pill from the doctor to take care of that acid reflux in the morning. And if you aren’t on blood pressure or cholesterol medicine, your friends are. It’s only in hindsight that you start adding things up, and then you think, “This sucks.”

But it’s turning 60 that really starts the train moving. Friends you still picture at 18 or 25 or 30, aren’t. People you used to laugh and drink with half the night start talking about their heart stints and knee replacements and won’t stay out past ten. The guy who partied too hard and got in fights on Saturday night, who should have died behind the wheel more than once, dies of cancer instead. And then one of your dearest friends in the world, who sat next to you in Sister Mary Mark’s first-grade class, dies of complications from ovarian cancer, and part of what you feel is the Sixties punching you in the nose and saying, “Pay attention, fool!” Which you sort of do. But you sort of don’t.

I went for my annual physical last month. Had to. They wouldn’t refill my prescriptions anymore. I was a little wary, as my doctor of 15 years moved on and left me in the hands of someone who could pass for 24. (She’s 34. I asked.) There were times during the physical when the new doctor just sat there studying my medical history, looking worried and saying nothing. My old doctor used to do that too, so I figured the new one knew what she was doing. I know she’s thorough, because she signed me up for more tests.

Which is what led to the discovery of two nodules in my neck, one on the thyroid gland and one on the parotid gland. They call them nodules because the word “mass” tends to alarm people, but if you ask them what a nodule is, they say, “Well, it’s a mass.” The next step, of course, is any number of tests and scans, because God forbid you should skip one and jump ahead to the place you know you’re headed anyway, The Biopsy, where they plunge a needle into your neck a lot deeper than the so-called numbing stuff goes and you end up looking like someone jammed a golf ball down your ear canal. Excuse me, that was Biopsy #1. #2 is coming up.

I don’t know for sure yet, but my nodules are looking distinctly more nodule-like than mass-like. A welcome thing, but they may have to come out regardless, which means a 3- to 4-hour surgery per nodule. A little something for me to look forward to this winter, along with quitting smoking. Because although my nodules are unrelated to smoking (hard to believe, isn’t it) you’d have to be an idiot not to see the handwriting on the wall. And that means becoming intimately acquainted with the bathroom scale again. There is absolutely nothing easy in this life. Not one thing.

It’s unseasonably hot for Minnesota in October, in the eighties yesterday and today, which makes blowing leaves a worse job than it already is. The Twins have dropped two games to the Damn Yankees in the AL playoffs. Randy Moss recognized the error of his ways and came back to the Vikings, where he was welcomed with open arms. I’ll be out in the yard blowing leaves and contemplating my nodules.
 

 

MY LONG-TERM PLAN

 

 

Inflation and the Price of Popcorn

~ Judy ~ 1 Comment

My grandson Christian, who is six, came over to spend the night last Saturday. I like to have the grandkids over individually now and then in order to study them more closely. So far I’ve learned that I have next to no control over my own actions let alone theirs. There appears to be some force within them that saps my will. I think it’s situated behind their eyes somewhere, as that is usually what does me in.

It is not my intention to spoil the grandkids. It just works out that way. Thinking frugally, I took Christian to the cheap-seat theater, where two tickets to Despicable Me cost just $5. Then I paid $18.50 for two small popcorn, two small drinks and a box of Dots. He didn’t touch the popcorn and ate about three Dots, although when we were standing at the concession stand, Dots had been indispensable to his happiness. We now know he doesn’t like Dots. Then you can’t escape the theater without passing the videogames in the lobby, where weak people will pay $3 in quarters for two rubber bands shaped like familiar household objects.

Nevertheless, I was grateful Christian didn’t suggest going to Chuck E Cheese, because I would have had to take him. Chuck E Cheese should be avoided at all times but especially on Saturday afternoons, when the children run free like animals on the Serengeti. You lose track of what you’re spending at Chuck E’s, because you have to change your cash dollars into Chucky coinage, which is all the arcade games will eat and faster than you can say Vegas slot machine.

The next morning I had to drop Christian off at church, so on the way we stopped at Target to buy a toy. Because that is what we do. I was thinking something from the $1 Spot. Christian was thinking giant LEGO Star Wars set for $99.99. Negotiations ensued, as they always do, and we settled on one “big” toy for $19.99 and one “small” toy for $9.99. Also four toys from the $1 Spot, two for each sister. Can’t forget them.

Got lost on the way to church, which happens sometimes when you drive to St. Paul. People from Minneapolis can wander for days over there searching for a freeway entrance. So we were at least a half-hour late for church, where my son-in-law Lynn was waiting unruffled on the steps. He’s pretty easy-going about things like that. Also, he likes me.

Christian and I had a good time. He was happy, I was happy, money is replaceable. Next up, Maria. She doesn’t come cheap.

Try the Punch, Judy

~ Judy ~ 2 Comments

My granddaughter Cosette celebrated her third birthday last month with a party in their backyard attended by eight kids, two infants and twelve adults. You need extra adults. Like everything else, Cosette has her own ideas about birthdays. She likes the cake and the singing part but has surprisingly little interest in opening presents. There we were, twenty-odd people gathered in common cause, people who had thought long and hard about what a three-year-old who never stops moving might like, had shopped and wrapped and picked just the right greeting card, people waiting to see the expression of joy on her little face when she opened their gifts, and all she wanted to do was hit a plastic ball off a plastic tee. Her father finally put the tee in the garage. It helped a little. Not much.

My assignment for the birthday party was to put on a puppet show. This is an excellent example of the things my children don’t mind asking me to do. I have never expressed any interest whatsoever in puppetry. I am simply available and not likely to refuse. So I went on the Internet to learn about puppet stuff.

There is no shortage of politically correct puppet show scripts online. There is a shortage of funny puppet show scripts online. I finally found an old Punch & Judy script. If you’re old enough to remember Howdy Doody, you probably remember Punch & Judy. They’ve been around for about 300 years and never in that time had a problem with family violence. Besides beating each other with sticks, they (baby)sat on the baby, put the baby in the oven to dry and perpetrated a number of other abuses against the baby. Naturally, I had to take all that stuff out (I also had to change their names, as my daughter didn’t want a puppet named Punch and I didn’t want one named Judy), but it was still a pretty funny script.

Punch & Judy, before puppets were cute, bland and PC

I went shopping for hand puppets. Nothing fancy. One boy, one girl. Apparently puppets are not the hot toy this holiday season, because I couldn’t find one in the seven-county metro area. Back to the Internet. Lots of puppets – dogs, cats, cows, bears, bees, mice. Humans? Not so much. I tried making sock puppets, paper bag puppets, even dish towel puppets. In the end, I ripped the heads off two old dolls in the basement, added some fabric, and voila! Two puppets who couldn’t hold their heads up.

Show time. Puppet theater set up on the grass. Little people lined up in front, big people in back – a group, fortunately, with few or no expectations. And despite several theatrical mishaps, such as props rolling off the stage into the audience, the show received rave reviews. This is what I learned: 1) try to have at least one dress rehearsal, lest the puppets go out there and forget their lines; 2) don’t use anything that’s round or has wheels as a prop; 3) it’s okay if you forget #1 and #2, because the kids don’t care anyway – just make a lot of noise and send enough objects flying through the air and they’ll think it’s hilarious.

As we say in the theater: fini, thank God, fini.

Welcome to Judyland

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I’m thinking I’d better introduce you to the grandkids, so you’ll have a better understanding of what I’m facing. I love them, of course, and I think they love me. You would love me too if I bought you things and let you do anything you want and constantly told you how perfect you are. That’s because every one of them is indeed perfect, a mysterious thing since their parents clearly were not.

My oldest grandchild, Maria, now ten, inherited the family sarcasm gene and then elevated it to an art. It’s a little disconcerting. As it is, I can’t tell when she’s joking, and now along comes pre-puberty with the inevitable eye-rolling and withering looks. It was just the two of us for quite a while, so Maria is special and knows it and appears to simply tolerate the others as inconveniences that won’t go away. Her brother, Christian, is the bane of her existence.

At six, Christian is all boy all the time. From the time he was able to pick up a stick, he’s been brandishing something, which is how I learned to play pirates and robots. I don’t know what I’m doing, can’t make the right sounds or fight properly, but it doesn’t matter since my role is always the same – I am the hapless chump who dies. Christian can surprise you though. Like when his little sister Grace is sleeping and he brushes back the hair on her forehead to kiss her. It’s enough to make you weep.

Five-year-old Grace is basically uninhibited, sometimes shy, terminally cute. Her fashion signature is tutu with jeans, and she will smile for a camera at the drop of a hint. Grace has a soft little voice but sings very LOUD, and after last year’s Christmas concert, her pre-school teacher kindly called her “our star,” which I think is pretty much what Gracie sees when she looks into the future.

Then along came Cosette, one of those bright first-born children who starts talking early and then it’s off to the races. I feel a little sorry for her parents. She misses nothing and I don’t imagine it will be long before she knows more than they do. In the past year she’s told her father, “Calm down, Dad,” and her mother, “Focus, Mom.” She turned three this month. Cosette likes to tell people what to do, which usually means just me and their dog and sometimes just me.

And finally there’s Cosette’s baby brother, Bret Jr., just two months old. The only trouble he’s caused so far is that no one knows what to call him. This happens with juniors. Usually the parents have a nickname in mind, but these two did not. How long can we call him Baby Bret? Eventually it will be Toddler Bret, then Boy Bret, and I refuse to go any further than Boy Bret. Even that’s too far. “Oh, well,” his mother says, “Something will work out” – a rather cavalier attitude, if you ask me, but nobody ever does.

And that’s them. I have a life apart from being a grandmother, of course, and some time I’ll tell you about it.

The Grapefruit Story

~ Judy ~ 4 Comments

Grandchild behavior can be interesting to say the least and sometimes makes me wonder what awaits them if they continue down this path. A few years ago, for example, when the family was over one day, I didn’t think much of it when I saw 8-year-old Maria cutting up a grapefruit in the kitchen. After everyone left, I sat down to read, and a few hours later headed for bed. I went upstairs, turned on the bedroom light and found hanging there a chunk of pink grapefruit stuck on the wall with a hat pin. Which probably wouldn’t have been a big deal except that I had just been reading The Killing Floor by Lee Child, which is exactly what it sounds like, and at first glance the piece of grapefruit looked remarkably like a piece of human flesh to me and it took about ten minutes for the hysteria to subside. I ask you, what would possess a child to pin grapefruit to her grandmother’s bedroom wall? Truly, it is troubling to me.