My grandmother. (PG13)

Oh my grandma is a 5ft 8 child. She was the only adult who would spend hours on end playing games with me and never complain. She actually *enjoyed* it. My mother and aunt whisper that there is something mentally wrong with her but I think she just never wanted to grow up and therefore, didn't. She has a lot more fun than most of us do and she never grew up to be an "old fart" or one of those "fuddy duddies" <---- her words.

She's very much alive today and she adds a certain spice to our life. I like to call her frequent faux paux's "grandma-ism"s.

I'm going to share a few random Grandmaisms with you. Some are stories, some are words, some are things that if anyone else said them you'd go pale and smack them. But g'ma is well, grandma. Set in her ways, harmless in that she speaks better in front of the kids, & very lovable despite the non-pc things that come out of her mouth sometimes.

So my first memory of my grandma saying strange things was when we went camping together Upstate, NY and she let one rip in the middle of the night and I heard her exclaim to my grandfather, "Ooooooooh Bud - that was a flabbergasser!!" My cousin and I could NOT contain our laughter for a long time that night.

Then I remember often as a child waking up to her singing, in her Edith Bunker voice (I'm not crappin' ya folks - she could be a voice-in for her!), "Ohhhhhhh what a beautiful mornin'... Oh what a beautiful day!!!". She was relentless. She just stood there at the kitchen window bellowing it out until my grandfather and I begrudingly joined her int he kitchen.

In Jr. High I had a friend come visit her house with me and my friend didn't want to get in the pool, she said it was too cold. She stayed with a towel wrapped around her on the pool deck. I was pretty bored with her not coming in and my grandma knew it so while my friend was standing there grandma just pushed her in, towel and all. Umm my friend didn't think it was funny. I still do. ;-)

High School. She drove me home from school somedays and we had to pass a house of one of my ex-boyfriends. She knew I was really pissed of at this guy and so she asked which house was his. I pointed to the house and my innocent, church going, singing grandma promptly rolled down the window, blasted her horn and gave him the finger. !!!!

That's when I got a clue that she was more fun then I had ever suspected. ;-)

When I was dating my husband I had to break the news to her that he was half Cuban. I didn't know how she would handle it. Her mother and father were strict Germans and honestly I'm not proud of some of my ancestry or what they did in the states. My grandma loves everyone but she has these assanine prejudices that you just can't get out of her head. So, I was a bit nervous when I told her. She already knew and loved DH but no one ever knows he's Cuban just by looking at him. She looked at me for a minute, pondered it awhile and finally said, "Well, I've never been to Puerto Rico but I hear it's beautiful". Clueless! That's one DH and I still use today. ;-)

So I'm pregnant with my first child and I came over to visit after the sonogram. "What does he look like?" she asks as if it's like a photograph. I couldn't help myself. I said, "Well, he was playing the bongos so we're thinking of calling him Ricky Ricardo" And she looked at me for a moment and shook her head at me. Yeah, she can dish it but she doesn't take it so well about half the time.

Oh - I almost forgot! In high school she gave me her car, put her ailing dog to sleep and moved to Florida after my grandfather died. Two weeks later, complaining of the intense heat she came back and took her car back from me. So it shouldn't have been a surprise the other day on the phone when she asked me if I could mail her back the hook latch she sent me. I wasn't doing it fast enough and she wanted something to do with her hands anyway. I rushed it out to her right away and when she got it asked if she started working on it. "Oh no!" she says, "My hands are too bad right now, It will have to wait awhile" *sigh*

OK so what prompted me to write this post? Another grandma-ism my mom shared with me recently. My great aunt in-law (g'ma's brothers wife) is from Great Britain (or somewhere around there). Apparently she has a British accent which is to be expected! My grandma was complaining to my mom on the phone that her brother put his wife on the phone and "...she still had that Limey accent". My mom sort of sighed (she's the most PC woman ever my mom, drives me nuts sometimes). My grandma wasn't done: "Yeah, I just don't understand why she has to talk like that! Like she's better than everyone else. I mean, this is America, learn to speak English!!!"

Anyone else see the irony in that statement? Oh my she keeps us all entertained.

*disclaimer* I love my grandma more than words. I take good care of her. I listen to her. I talk to her. I send her things. I genuinely love being with her. But man she's just plain nuts sometimes. ;-)