Back From Granny's

Song Stuck on the Brain: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring by Josh Groban


Boy, it sure feels good to be home. I spent three days in Springfield with my sister and parents visiting family. Specifically Dad's mom, Granny Boo. If you're new to this blog, you have to understand a little about Granny. I've posted about her before, so if you want a little background read about Granny Time, Grannyisms for Card Players, and Granny's House.

Basically, Granny is one of those people that you love dearly, but struggle living with. She's definitely a unique and colorful individual. She's kind, funny and helpful - but opinionated, independent and demanding. She's also nearly deaf. We have to shout at her and even then she only hears every fifth word. I think some of that can be blamed on selective hearing, but regardless, conversations are loud and difficult. She refuses to get a hearing aid. Says she can hear well enough, everyone just mumbles and talks too soft. She's also quite certain that she doesn't have osteoporosis or any other similar disorder, despite that fact she can only walk at an 85 degree angle. I keep thinking she's going to run head first into a wall. It's kind of funny and really sad at the same time.

The weekend started off pretty well, we arrived at lunch time on Friday and enjoyed a visit with my Aunt and Uncle for the afternoon. While they were there, Angel went in to Granny's rest room and noticed dark smears under the toilet paper roll. Disgusted, she looked for cleaner but couldn't find any. She tried to ask Granny quietly where she kept the cleaner, but Granny kept shouting, "Cleaner? What do you need cleaner for?"

"There are dark smears on the wall. I thought I'd clean them for you."

Embarrassed now and grumpy, Granny replies, "Those are stains. They won't come off!"

"Ooookay." Angel left it at that. However, Saturday we noticed white spots on the bathroom wall. Most of the streaks were gone, just a few white spots remained on the avocado green tile. We thought it was soft scrub soaking the stains.

Oh no.

Granny says, "I took some steel wool to those spots and got most of it off, but I messed up some of the tiles, so I just put white out on the last few spots.

Bet you didn't know that white out could be used to cover stains on tile.

She didn't really start mis-behaving until Saturday. I think what set her off was our departure for the hotel Friday at bedtime. Granny has a very small, very old house. We used to stay with her, but her beds are so old and the bathroom so crowded, it's just not feasible any more, especially for my mother who is in a wheel chair part of the time. We convinced Mom and Dad to let us get them a handicapped accessible room in the hotel where we were staying. Granny said she understood and playfully boo-hooed our leaving, but we thought she was okay. Apparently not.

Saturday, while at lunch at Ruby Tuesday's, Granny made a big scene in front of everyone. In a whiny, loud voice she said, "It sure is dark in here. I can't even see my menu. Why is it so dark. Don't they know we need light? Good grief, look at these prices. Their terrible. Why did you choose someplace so expensive? This is too expensive. I'm not ordering anything."

She went on and on until I said, "Granny, you're not paying for it, so just order what you want."

"Well, I'm not going to. It's the principal of it. It's just too high."

"So just order the salad bar."

"It's not even on the menu."

"Yes it is."

"No it's not. I just won't eat."

"Fine, if you don't want to eat, that's okay."

"Well, I'll just order the white bean chili, but that's ALL. After this I won't even want to eat any dinner."

Yada, yada, yada.

While everyone else was at the salad bar, Granny begin complaining about other things. Things we weren't agreeing on. She unrolled her silverware and shook her bread knife at me from across the table. "You sure are being ornery and difficult. You'd better watch it."

The waitress passed by and chuckled awkwardly, "He, he, Grandma's gonna get you."

I wanted to crawl under the table. I said, "Me?I'm being difficult? No, I think it's you that needs to watch it."

After a meal full of complaints we went back to Granny's. Things did not get any better. We couldn't wait for bed time to roll around. Saturday night we said our good-byes and passed hugs all around. Granny seemed both sad and relieved to see us go. I think as much as she wants company, she's also not used to it.

In relief, we crashed at the hotel and headed down to Mountain Grove, MO to visit my Mom's sister and the cousins. That visit went WAAAAAY better.

Either way though, it feels so good to be back home. And at least we did get to stop at Osceola Cheese. Now I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.

A.