My Grandma

I feel like writing an introduction to this post, because it's different from my usual day-to-day stuff. But I won't.


My grandma was an enormously fat Bohemian woman with short, gray hair curled up all over her head, small, blue eyes and wrinkles all over her face. She had reading glasses that she hung from a chain around her neck like a piece of jewelry. Her glasses sloped up at the edges and came to a sharp point—perfect granny glasses—and every time I saw her, she wore the same flowery, formless sack of a house dress.

Grandma’s age and weight worked together to create the most amazing upper arms I ever saw. Her skin draped over the muscle and bone of her arm and hung down at least 4 inches below like a sheet. The first thing I did when we came to visit her was to sit on her lap and lift up the sleeve of her house dress so I could push and knead the soft flesh of her arm, then swing it and swat it and watch it sway back and forth. She laughed and indulged me because I was only a small child—just three or four—and I didn’t know yet that you shouldn’t call attention to someone else’s flaws so exuberantly. But to me, her arms were superhuman. All of that prodding must have hurt after awhile, because soon enough she would gently push me off of her.

Once I was off her lap, I would beg her to show me her teeth and she would push her dentures out of her mouth with her tongue just for a second and suck them back in before I could examine and analyze what was happening. I’d plead for her to do it over and over as I stood in rapt attention in front of her with my own tongue poised on the roof of my mouth, waiting for the magical moment when her teeth would fly out of her mouth and back in. I was thrilled and deeply disturbed by it and no one would explain to my satisfaction how she did it. After indulging my fascination with her body, Grandma would tell me that she had to make dinner or chat with my parents or give one of my brothers or sister a chance to say hi. She would push me along to go play and I would stagger away, off-kilter, like I had been on a theme park ride.

When I knew her, Grandma was a widow. She lived by herself in a bungalow in Cicero in the house my dad grew up in. We visited multiple times a year, my dad driving an hour or more with four kids and his second wife from the north suburbs where we lived to the southwest side. I remember little of what we did when we visited, other than exploring the house or running in circles around the large, unfinished basement. I remember the bungalow clearly—a long, narrow, single-story house with bedrooms along the left side of the house and a kitchen in the back. I remember almond-flavored cookies in the shape of a moon that were sprinkled heavily with powdered sugar. I remember a bathroom that smelled strongly of Dove soap and a kitchen that smelled strongly of beef stock and a gas stove.

My memories of Grandma can only be images and snippets, because she died of cancer when I was five and she was 75. No one knew where the cancer started, but my dad told me that she didn’t notice anything was wrong until it spread to her lungs. Even then she didn’t think she had a problem—just a little shortness of breath that she could compensate for by breathing harder and faster and more continuously. As long as she kept breathing, she felt fine. But it was an unwinnable race and by the time breathing took precedence over talking, she had only a few weeks left to live.

My dad got her a bed in the hospital where he was on staff. Children weren’t allowed on her floor, so Dad decided to use his pass card and sneak the four of us up the back stairwell to see her one last time. We had to be quiet and not talk or yell or push each other as we trudged up many flights through the dark, enclosed stairwell to Grandma’s room. By the time we filed in and Dad placed us in a huddle at her bedside, we were all exhausted and out of breath. We filled the room with the sound of our inhales and exhales, the loud whooshes of air getting softer and less labored until we had all recovered except Grandma, who sat up in her bed, unable to talk, just smiling and waving and stroking each of us on the head and cheeks while she breathed and breathed and breathed.

She must have died just days later. It was nighttime and I was sitting on the floor of the kitchen in my pajamas, propping my animals next to each other in a perfectly formed line from tallest to smallest. My mom sat at the kitchen table smoking cigarettes and waiting for my dad to come home. Our kitchen was long and narrow and I was far from the door that led to the outside of the house. When my dad walked in through that door and turned into the kitchen, he faced my mom.

“Well, she’s dead,” he said.

My mom responded to the announcement with a loud “Oh!” I wasn’t sure if they knew I was sitting there. I put my head down on my chest and concentrated on my animals while my parents talked about funerals and Bohemian National Cemetery and calling Aunt Alice, Grandma’s sister. I had a sudden and uncontrollable urge to laugh. I knew it was an inappropriate reaction and I felt sorry that I wanted to do it and worried that I was going to, so I curled myself tightly around my animals and stared into their inanimate eyes and stroked their faux fur. I hoped that my parents wouldn’t notice me.

In the few days after my grandma died, I asked my parents over and over about death and how long I was going to live and how long they were going to live. I asked question after unanswerable question.

“It’s too far away to worry about,” my dad told me. “You are not going to die tomorrow. You are going to live a long life and you won’t die until you are an old woman so far from now that you can’t even imagine it.” I made him paint the picture of forever for me. How long until I’m 75? Is 70 years practically forever? Could I live to be 100? Is that the same as forever? Is it longer than I can imagine? Are you sure I can’t imagine it? Are you sure?

The last time I saw my grandma, she was lying in her casket at the wake. We all stood in a line, walking past her body and lingering in front of it for just a second or two. My dad had explained the process of embalming to me, so I knew that even though she looked like she was sleeping, she was dead and her eyes were sewn shut and her mouth was glued tight and her body was filled with formaldehyde instead of blood. I wanted to touch the skin on her face to see if it felt different. I wondered what it would be like to climb into the casket with her. I wanted to stand and stare at her for a long time, examining every feature of her face. But there were people behind me in line and my parents were watching me closely, so I shuffled my feet as slowly as I could and kept moving. I knew it was the last time I was going to see her. I knew they would not allow me to go back to the end of the line and walk past her casket again and then back and past it again.

Damn you, Oprah!

Oprah interviewed Michael Pollan yesterday morning and I watched it for about 20 minutes after I got Ellie off to school. Michael Pollan is the author of some books about our terrible food industry and how it's giving all of us diabetes. He has a simple formula for a healthy diet: Eat food. Don't worry about fat or carbs or nutrients or anything. Just worry about whether it's real food or processed food. I decided to make pizza for dinner last night, but if I want to eat actual pizza, I have to make it myself. Frozen pizza isn't food.

Luckily, I've been doing a lot with my bread machine recently, so I had things ready to go to make homemade pizza dough. I just needed the stuff to make my homemade pizza sauce plus the toppings. So I ran off to the grocery store to get my ingredients. I also picked up ingredients to make homemade granola bars, homemade mac and cheese, homemade ketchup and mustard, and homemade hummus.

On the way back, a guy rearended me, which I will note would not have happened if I hadn't made that special trip to the store. I was fine, but the back fender was smashed. When I got home, I had to talk to my insurance and his insurance and the mechanic to arrange for the estimate and Ellie had to go to gymnastics. So I asked Greg if he would take Ellie to her class while I started dinner. There was no way I was going to deal with four pounds of roma tomatoes after all that, so homemade pizza sauce was out of the question. Thank goodness I had some Trader Joe's pizza sauce in the fridge. It's all natural and it doesn't seem to have a bunch of chemicals in it, but I'm not sure if Michael Pollan would call it food or not. In the end, the pizza was yummy and a lot of work.

I love Michael Pollan's message. It's so simple and I do think he's right. But it's impossible. Also, I made my homemade granola bars last night and I gave one to Ellie and she took one bite and announced she doesn't like it. I made enough to fill a 9x13-inch pan. And she doesn't like it. I even put chocolate chips in it specifically so that she will like it and she doesn't like it. What am I going to do with that much granola?! I made it so that I can send it to school with Ellie as a snack. Oh screw it. I'm going to send it to school with her anyway.

I am still going to make the mac and cheese, ketchup, mustard, and hummus. Maybe not all today, since I have to take the car in. But it's a good thing I'm not totally committed to this homemade thing or you'd never hear from me again. I'd always be cooking.

The power went out last year

I've been blocking big time on what to write. So I'll post something I wrote and was going to post last year after the power went out while we were staying with Nana and Papa (they were out of town at the time). I didn't post it because it got kinda moody and ....eh, I dunno.

Here it is:

I sat at the computer watching a segment of The Daily Show on Hulu. The guest had just walked out and Jon Stewart was doing his nightly dance of firmly offering a chair so that his guest will sit down first and Stewart can maintain the illusion that he’s tall. All at once, the guest and Jon Stewart and the entire studio, as well as the computer and the desk and the bookcase around it and the entire room disappeared and was replaced with black. I searched around in the darkness and said, “Woah.”

“Power’s out!” Greg yelled from the other room, where he was getting Ellie ready for bed. The house was impossibly dark. I walked slowly across the small hallway to Ellie’s room. She was already in bed with the blankets to her chin and she didn’t seem particularly scared, so we kissed her goodnight and left her with the dog in the room. Then we fumbled our way through the pitch-black house.

I opened the front door and looked outside. Across the street, a tree had split apart and a large branch and part of the trunk were lying the middle of the road. The neighbors lost their lights, too, and without their lamps and TVs glowing into the small lane with no streetlights, it looked like the world outside almost disappeared. Greg grabbed his coat and gloves and headed out the door to move the branches off the street.

The moment the door opened, the dog started barking. The moment the dog started barking, Ellie started crying. Her crying got louder and more panicked, so I went to her room to calm her down. “I think there’s an animal in my room!” she called to me. “Abby keeps barking!”

“I know what Abby is barking at,” I told Ellie. “Come with me and look outside.” I pulled her to the window to look down at Greg as he walked to the other side of the street. We could barely make out his form in the dark night. “See? Abby is barking because she heard Daddy leave the house. He’s out there picking up the tree branch that fell.” Ellie nodded as she watched Greg pull the largest branch off the road and rest it on the grass under the broken tree.

She was still scared. “I’m too scared to sleep in this room,” she said. “I still think there’s an animal in here.”

“Come downstairs and sleep in our room just for tonight,” I told her. “But it’s going to be dark everywhere.”

”Okay,” she answered, and we walked downstairs, through the kitchen and to the bedroom at the back of the house, where the light from the highway dimly lit the room. She was able to fall asleep there, but I was worried she would wake up with nightmares.

Greg decided to go to sleep too, but I wasn’t tired. I wandered through the house as it sat inert, pulling energy in from outside instead of sending it out. I sat on a kitchen chair and leaned on the window, trying to force my pupils to widen so I could see as much as I could in the backyard.

All of the ambient noise we normally hear in the house was gone. The whir of the refrigerator, the whoosh of hot air blowing through the vents, the sound of computer fans. But it wasn’t silent. The cars got louder as they zoomed by on the nearby highway. The wind blew through the branches. A pump under the house made a grinding noise periodically. These sounds were not welcoming. It occurred to me that all the sounds we hear inside the house become like a barrier. Now that they were gone, the house felt more fragile.

I was getting creeped out, so I woke up Greg. I stood over the bed and nudged him and said, “Get up, it’s too creepy in this house. And there’s nothing to do.” He grumbled a bit and got up, then went to find some candles. I followed him around, talking the whole time to try to fill the house with voices.

“Do you think ComEd knows about this?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Are you sure? What if everyone is thinking that someone else called it in?”

“They know,” he answered again.

“Well, I’m going to call them,” I announce, getting my cell phone and finding 411.

He was right---they knew. The recording said that it could be hours before power is restored, so Greg and I stretched out on opposite ends of the couch with a blanket, talking and listening to the clock above us ticking and the pump under the house with its intermittent grinding. I felt better with someone else to stay awake with me and it didn’t take me long to get sleepy. Soon we were both dozing on the couch and decided to head to bed.

That night, I am the one with bad dreams. I am standing alone at the window in Ellie’s room, looking down at the street below where Greg had moved the fallen tree branch. Instead of Greg, I see a thin, unshaven man in stark white clothes standing in the middle of the street. In my dream there is a moon and its light is hitting this man’s uniform, making it glow. He is agitated and he is emanating sadness and anxiety so strongly that I can feel it all the way up and through the window where I am standing. I’m worried that he will look up and see me. But I’m even more nervous about what he is looking at. He is staring at the house as he paces back and forth on the street…staring and staring at the front door…trying to figure out how to get in.

Happy Religious Freedom Day!

Every January 16th is Religious Freedom Day. It commemorates the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson and passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1786.

Here it is, and I will make an aside that if the Founding Fathers had used some editors, there would be a lot less confusion about what they meant.

Statute of Religious Freedom

I. Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of the tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment; and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. 

II. Be it enacted by the General assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, not shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, that that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

III. And though we well know that this assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

Another funny comment

Ellie and I were dancing around the house and she decided to change into a pretty dress to dance in. After she changed in her room, she told me to follow her into my room and wait for her while she went into my closet to find me something to wear. So I'm sitting on the bed and she yells from inside the closet, "Now, if I were you and I had your legs, I'd wear this!" And she jumps out of the closet holding a skirt. I know where she got it from---it's a line from the movie The Parent Trap. But she owned it. She was holding a floor-length skirt, so she obviously doesn't understand what the movie line means, which is just fine by me.

After we changed into dancing dresses, we did each other's hair and Greg put on a button-down shirt and a tie and we turned dinner into an extravagant ball. I still had to make dinner, so we decided that the normal cook was sick and I had to take over for her. We all drank water out of wine glasses and toasted to our wonderful party. Then Ellie painted tiger stripes on our faces with the makeup Nana left for her and we each put on one of the hats that Nana left for us. We had a lovely, elegant dinner with our fancy clothes, tiger-striped faces and white winter hats. Just another evening in Crazytown.

The Piano

Here is some music that I aspire to play on the piano. If you haven't seen the movie it comes from (The Piano), I highly recommend it. I warn you that the movie is very slow moving. But the movie and the song are both beautiful.

A pointless story about me buying the Wii Fit Plus

Greg and I decided that because it's the New Year and we have resolutions to lose weight and get toned up, we would get ourselves a Wii Fit Plus. We made the final decision to do it while I was starting to make dinner, so I stopped making dinner and Ellie and I got in the car and drove to the nearest Best Buy to get it.

Well, they didn't have it. Sold out.

Because the customer service at Best Buy sucks and always has sucked from the moment the chain went into existence, I had to ask the bored, sullen, put upon sales guy if he would get him and his soul patch over to a computer and see if it's at another store. By the way, have I ever mentioned how ugly I think the soul patch is? That is some jarringly unattractive facial hair. The Hitler mustache is more flattering than the soul patch.

Anyway, soul patch guy grudgingly informed me that the store in VH had 11 Wii Fit Pluses on the shelf. Then Ellie whiningly informed me that she didn't want to drive around with me to get it. So first I dropped her off at home, then I called Greg and told him to take the potatoes out of the oven, and then I headed to the other store.

Just as I was walking into the store, a woman was walking out holding a Wii Fit Plus. I said, "Do they have many more of those?"

"Nope," she said, holding it up proudly. "This is the last one!"

"WHAT?!" I yelled. "The store by me was out and the guy said they have 11 more here!"

"Yeah, I was at another store and they said they had 12 here. I'm glad I called ahead and reserved mine. They are selling out everywhere." She headed off to her car.

So I walked into Best Buy mad at myself for not thinking to reserve one and mad at Best Buy for selling out and mad at soul patch guy for being wrong about how many were left and, most of all, mad at that woman who got the last one. "Glad you called ahead, huh?" I muttered to myself as I walked through the doors. "Aren't you a busy little beaver? Aren't you a paragon of efficiency, you self-satisfied, super-competent little...."

I walked up to a young guy in a blue shirt and gave him my saddest, most worried look---the look I might give if I had, say, lost Ellie---and asked, "Do you have any more Wii Fit Pluses?"

He said, "Sure! They're right over here!"

And wouldn't you know it, that overachieving little thief was WRONG! There WERE more Wii Fit Pluses! I was saved! Hallelujah!!!!

I was so happy to get it home and set up that very night, that I wasn't even too upset that Greg forgot to take the potatoes out of the oven and they were tiny, shriveled, and completely black. Greg ate them anyway.

And now we have a brand new exercise game that we've played every night. It's a lot of fun. I know Greg will drop a ton of weight quickly. I will stay the same because I have a set weight point that doesn't move more than five pounds in either direction no matter what I do. And we will both build more muscle and tone up our flabbiness. Yay!