Stories My Grandma Tells Me Part One

I've had to be flexible for a couple weeks. The point of a blog isn't to keep the audience updated on all of the ham sandwiches I've eaten or women at whom I've swooned, is it? I'm struggling if it is.

I went to DC today to be a part of The Rally to Restore Freedom and/or Fear. I failed, if my idea of participating was to be listen and watch the rally. I succeeded if my idea of participation was being slammed into a crowed of ten thousands with funny signs and silly costumes.

I'm going to lean towards the latter. There were too many people there. Jon Stewart joked that there were 10 million. All of Gresham showed up, that's for sure. I think all of the East Portland suburbs showed up. That's about how many people were there. 300,000, give or take 100,000.

The entrances were closed, but what can you do? I read in a magazine (whichever, they're all the same) that it's better to spend one's money on experiences, rather than goods. Higher emotional capital.

It was AARP magazine.

I'm flexible.

I really enjoy my grandma. She's crude and old. I used to ask how old she was and my parents would estimate and then tell me "Old." That's an answer, thank you. She has the same birthday as me and in March, she'll be 97. She needs to slow down. Too many years. Somebody should tell her.

Sometimes she traps me in her room (I'd gladly be trapped, with the sugar-free Werther's and yarn) and tells me stories, most of them I've heard before, but they resonate differently each time I hear them. She tones them differently, different context, shifting point. The same ten stories.

I really like the one where her brother accidentally drinks breast milk that he found in the refrigerator. That one is hilarious, but sits the same every time, on my shoulders, like lightning.

She told me this one today, involving her last late husband,

"He was going, you know, but I didn't know it. It makes me angry that he didn't tell me he had Alzheimer's. I didn't know what it was. He didn't either...

"One night he told me he felt great. 'I'm taking you out,' he said. I said, 'okay, I'll go get dressed upstairs and I'll come down and you'll get dressed.' I used to lay his clothes out for him, you know.

"So I got dressed and I called him and he said he was in the shower. I went into the bathroom and he was showering with all his clothes on. 'I feel great,' he said. 'We'll get you out of those wet clothes and into dry ones and right into bed.' That was the frosting on the cake. That was it."