Have a good Pearl Harbor Day, or as we call it in my family, Grandmother Lucille's birthday. I was always hugely proud of my grandmother, and when I look back on it it was because she didn't fit the mold of "grandmother." She knew enough French to sign my autograph book and swear. She let me read the National Enquirers my Mom had expressly banned. She would tell me stories of decadently reading novels in her childhood attic and then falling though the ceiling. She had three dots right across her nose where her father had planted a fork in her for not eating her turnips.
Other people's grandmothers did not have battle scars like this. "Losers," I would think when I met these tremulous old ladies, "Fermez la bouche!" Grandma could speak Pig Latin as well as French. She used the Pig Latin only to protect the identity of relatives she cared for, other's crimes were laid out for the world. I have quite a genealogy of rum-runners, pedophiles, opium addicts ... don't you? Bet you do, your grandmother just hid it from you.
The other day Gary was shrieking to my Mom about how ably I slammed back a glass of Baileys, and Mom sighed, "She drinks just like her Grandmother." I swelled with pride and demanded more details. Seems Grandceil also declared wine and beer a waste of time and would have nothing to do with these ineffectual drinks that did not get you instantly hammered.
I won't go into it, but the details of her life are just a staggering litany of horrors. She never became a drunk, and never ran off. She worked like a dog making that man three meals a day and snacks at night and bitching about it. She overcame dementia on the very last day we saw her enough to call my Mom by name, point at that man and hiss, "Don't let him get the money."
So, happy Ballsy Grandmother Day, everyone.
Happy Grandceil day! In her honor, will partake in the hard stuff this weekend.
Posted by: Vaguely Urban | December 07, 2006 at 07:12 PM
I think I love your grandma.
Posted by: Caroline | December 08, 2006 at 10:26 AM
No wonder I blend into the bathroom wallpaper, wedged between the two of you!
Posted by: Queen Mother | December 08, 2006 at 02:32 PM
oh PLEASE! The Queen Mother pretending to blend in to the wallpaper.
Posted by: TheQueen | December 08, 2006 at 04:55 PM
Funny you should mention Pig Latin. I may have been channelling Granceil at the office party last night, and you weren't there to witness. :-(
And for the record, I was stone cold sober.
Missed you like crazy!
Posted by: Marcia | December 08, 2006 at 08:32 PM
Wait - Mom - the bathroom wallpaper? The only bathroom wallpaper I remember is our red flocked velvet bordello wallpaper.
Posted by: TheQueen | December 10, 2006 at 04:19 AM