It's like Tuesdays with Morrie without all the wisdom
Posts tagged family of origin
A Granny in My Inbox
12November 12, 2008
Dawn sent me a link to this sweet and cushy granny. I never had a sweet and cushy granny and now I do. Her name is Clara and she cooks cheap meals while talking about the Depression. I love her and I cry every time I watch her peel a potato and talk about not being able to afford socks. All my grandma ever talked about was, “Don’t you think your parents could’ve stayed married until you graduated high school?” And I’d be all, “No, because then my mom wouldn’t have been able to marry that rich dude and I would still be driving a poop-brown Chevette* with no muffler instead of my sweet red Beretta. Duh!” Old people just don’t understand what’s important.
*It’s not that we just ignored the fact that the Chevette didn’t have a muffler; it’s just that the stupid thing rejected it every single time we put a new one on. We’d just pick it up from the shop and then by nightfall, sparks would be flying out from the under carriage where the muffler was dragging on the road. It was hot. Literally. From the friction.
Anyway, here’s my new grandma talking to me in a soothing voice, teaching me how to cook cheap, which is nice because I need to get groceries today.
Tongueless
2November 3, 2008
We’re just getting back and unpacked from our trip to Chesaning. I think I might have bitten my tongue off at certain points, but it grew back and the trip was still lots of fun. And my husband is proud of me for just shrugging, shaking my head, and hiding in the other room from time to time instead of shrieking, “ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS TERRORIST CRAP?” over and over. Because, really, I can handle most any other reason why a person doesn’t want to vote for Obama, but the terrorist stuff? That’s just ignorant.
A couple of times when he saw my face turn red and noticed the arch of my eybrows and the cock of my head that usually signifies the beginning of a verbal onslaught accompanied by The Tone, he had to squeeze my shoulder and whisper through clenched teeth, “Do not get involved. Promise me you will not get involved. Here, drink this! Drink it faster!” I don’t know what he was so afraid of.
For the record, there are lots of Obama supporters in the family on both sides, but it was still plenty disconcerting scary interesting to be around the very few McCain supporters. My dad accused me of brainwashing my children, so I had to tell him and his girlfriend that brainwashing wasn’t necessary, as my daughters are afraid Sarah Palin is coming for their uteruses, which made Maya say, “Does Sarah Palin want to take my uterus?” To which I replied very sweetly, “No honey, she just wants to be the boss of your uterus. But we know she’s not the boss of your uterus, right? Who’s the boss of your uterus?” And she very proudly pointed to herself and said, “JUST ME!” Good times. In fact, that visit was so fun and has me feeling so bipartisan-ish today that I’m going to post a “Women for McCain” video that my sister-in-law, Tracy sent me.
Don’t forget to vote tomorrow!
Things I Love So F*cking Much
2September 19, 2008
by Abby
in I have a friend
1. Electricity. I got some, bitches!
2. Dawn. She works my blogs and she invites me to free spaghetti dinners. And she makes me laugh.
3. Kristen. She makes her husband deliver coffee to me and she sets up free coffee for her neighbors because she has a generator. And she makes me laugh.
4. My other friends here and in Chesaning, and my extended family. They invite me to do laundry at their house and they invite me to stay with them and use up their electricity in order to get me to shut up with the whining. They remind me that I’m very lucky to have several places to which I could flee if I really needed to. And they make me laugh.
5. My husband and children. They’re just awesome. Bryan’s awesome because he puts up with me for-evah! And he’s cute. And the kids are awesome because, well, they’re 50% me. I’m kidding! They’re their own little bundles of funny electricity-addicted awesomeness. And they make me laugh.
6. Margaret Cho. Thanks to Dawny for this link because I couldn’t have said it better myself. And it makes me laugh: I’m Christian You Fuckers
The Olympics Hurt Parents the Most
12August 19, 2008
In the summer of 1984, my father built me a hurdle. And then he tried to teach me how to jump over it while running. I was 9 years old and there was nothing in my physical make-up that would have lead him to believe that I would be able to hurdle things. Mostly, I was the sort who would run into things, lumbering solidly, not gliding swiftly. I didn’t have long limbs that could stretch and snap over a hurdle in just the right way. My body was made for sturdiness, not grace.
The same day he made the hurdle, he also gave me just a plain piece of wood, explaining that I was to run up to the wood and then, just as my foot hit the board, I was to jump and hurl my body through the air, hopefully landing far away from the board. Yes, he made a long jump marker thingy.
I’ve often thought back to that one day that summer and wondered what in the hell my dad was thinking. At that point in time, I was playing softball and I was pretty good at it. I didn’t need another sport, and Track and Field wasn’t even an option for an extra-curricular activity until high school. Finally, after 24 years, I think I know what my dad was thinking. Watching the Olympics this year has given me a little bit of insight into his psyche during that time. Yes, I was a good little softball player, but softball wasn’t an Olympic event back in 1984. I think my dad had a brief bout of Olympic fever and he dealt with it by building a hurdle and a long jump board. For me, his short, sturdy little girl. It hit me while I was watching Misty May and Kerri Walsh play volleyball. I found myself looking at Lena and Liberty, thinking, “We should really buy a volleyball.” In that instant, I knew that watching Carl Lewis in 1984 had affected my dad the same way. My brother and sister would have been 15 and 14, way past their prime. All of his hopes rested with me. And then I dashed them. Just like my children are dashing my Olympic dreams for them.
I didn’t buy a volleyball because I’m sure they would just whine about how it hurts to hit it. And I don’t know why they can’t do a perfect cartwheel, let alone an entire floor routine. I don’t know why they won’t even attempt synchronized diving. And I don’t know why they insist upon running all willy-nilly, limbs swinging about with no rhyme or reason. They don’t pace themselves; they just sprint and then collapse giggling in the grass. That’s not technique! That’s just tom-foolery! The Olympics have taught me that my children don’t care about me and my needs, just like I didn’t care about my dad’s needs. That Michael Phelps’ mom is a lucky woman. You can tell how much he loves her just by looking at all of his gold medals. *sigh*
In Which I Face My Mortality by Taking Pictures of Myself
7July 30, 2008
We’re all going to die. We’re all going to die and then people are going to run around trying to gather pictures of us to either put up on display at the funeral home or put into a nifty little slideshow set to music in order to play it at the funeral. While I was visiting Michigan this last time, I attended the funeral for the father of one of my oldest friends. He was one of those involved types, close to his daughters and their friends. His funeral was beautiful and sad and he had a slideshow with all of these pictures of him and all of the people he loved. Sad and lovely. Here’s what I did with my grief:
Those were all taken at my sister’s house immediately after the funeral. My kids weren’t there. They were camping, but I hooked up with them later:
We’re all going to die. Take pictures of yourself with people you love. Even if you think you’re ugly because you’re not. You’re somebody’s mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, daughter, son, niece, nephew, granny, pop-pop, cousin, or friend. And even if you really are ugly, your loved ones will want to look at pictures of you after you die.
