Holidays and Lazy Days.

  It has been a long time since I have written in this thing.  I have had a very active social life and my grandma has not.  She spent the last few months in the same spot on the couch, doing the same puzzle book.  She's also been filling up the DVR with things that she never watches because she does puzzles the whole time the TV is on.  That is completely besides the point.

  This year I am proud to say that we decorated the house for Christmas about four weeks in advance.  I am proud because last year we decorated the house six days before Christmas and what we did could hardly be considered decorating.  We basically got some throw blankets that were Christmas colors and put out some fake plants that were Christmas-ish and my gram swears are pretty.  We only did that much, because my aunt had an intervention and told us that we were lazy Scrooges.  So this year Dennis, gram and I set aside the weekend after Thanksgiving to do nothing but decorate.  It happened like this:

  They both woke up and I stayed in bed, full of turkey and sweet dreams.  When I finally woke up I begged one of them to make breakfast and when that didn't happen, I got up and made it myself.  Then Dennis and gram started decorating and I plopped myself in front of the computer and played Diner Dash every few minutes.  When I thought they might notice the fact that I wasn't paying attention or in the room with them, I'd put the game on hold and go back in pretending to be one of Santa's elves right with them.  We ended up getting everything done, but very slowly.  Then spent the rest of the weekend eating junk food and talking about how much we DON'T want to put the decorations away. At the end of it gram told me that Dennis reminded her of my pop, because it was like he anticipated every move she made and where she wanted everything.  She can keep him.


  The holidays were nice and since then Dennis and I have been trying to diet and gram has been trying to force-feed us her food.  It's an ongoing battle and as of right now I am winning.  Only because my new android tells me how much food I am allow to eat and yadda yadda.   Speaking of the new phone, I have a sound clip from The Hangover as my text message notification and every time it goes off gram thinks she hears voices.  We're just going to go with it.  It's pretty funny to see her react to the voices in her head. That is all I have for now, so peace out.

I was a rented piece of meat.

 When I first moved in with my grandma, she decided it was a cool thing to rent me out.  Okay... Maybe "rent" isn't the right work to use here, because she didn't get paid and I certainly didn't.  Her sister-in-law and friend lives down the street and she decided that I should go down to her house every Thursday and take her trash out.  This was all well and good, but Aunt M would fill her trash bags with everything she could manage to find in the house.  I swear there were bodies in there... I once picked up one of her trash bags and discovered what people meant when they said "I saw stars", instantly there was a popping noise in my lower back and the world went black with a few stars.  My aunt stood there watching me with a mild interest and holding the door, hoping I didn't let flies in.  So I tried to lift the bag a second time and this time my entire body made noises that was almost like classical music.  I realized that in order to get this bag outside I would have to drag it through her house, which I couldn't very well do with her watching.  So I asked her to go get me something and I pulled like I have never pulled before.  Of course I walked funny for about three weeks, but I won and the dumb bag lost.

 Anyway the moral of the story isn't that I am now disabled.  The moral of the story is that my grandmother decided that she would volunteer me to do little tasks for people and it was literally killing me.  So this went on for months until one week I got out of work late, only to discover that those ten minutes were important to my aunt and she took out those boulders on her own.  The second week I had a dinner planned with co-workers and she took her trash out herself..  The week after that I walked down the street to discover she had done it herself again.  I figured this was her way of firing me, but I am sure her version of the story is that I stopped going.  I have asked my grandma since to stop offering my services. 

 As punishment for no longer being a slave to every elderly person in our family, she now builds mountains out of our trash and gives me very detailed instructions on how to take it out.  If there are cardboard boxes, then at least one bag has to sit on top of them.  Of course she tells me this once my shoes are off and I am sighing with relief that it's over.  So I trudge back out and do her bidding.  I know my place in this world... I'm somebody's bitch. 

I live with a hermit!

  I've observed in the last couple of years (and it's increasingly getting worse) that the old woman is suddenly "ill" every time she has to leave the house.  She has a pattern and I see it every time anyone invites her to do something... First, she accepts with much enthusiasm.  Second, she waits until about a day before the event and she starts spreading the word that she is sick.  She'll call anyone she can think of and run down the list of her symptoms and she makes sure she tells more than one person, so people will say "You know... She did tell me she wasn't feeling good yesterday."  and the other person will respond "I heard the same thing!  Poor dear."  The next is the morning of, since I am the only person here she will refuse food and drink and tell me how sick she feels.  Then she'll tell me that she doesn't want to miss (insert family member's name here)'s birthday and she loves them more than life itself, so she is going to get it together.  Then she makes a plan for her day out loud to me.  "I am going to drink some tea, lay on the couch for an hour, go upstairs and get showered and then I should feel okay enough to go."  Then instead of doing any of these things, she goes outside and smokes.  Then I will go outside and check on her and she'll say "I don't know what I am going to do, but I just feel awful."  and I'll say to her "Maybe you should just stay home."  Suddenly the color comes back into her cheeks and it's like I just had the most brilliant idea ever.  I gave her permission to fink out on someone.  She'll say "Maybe they will understand if I tell them how bad I feel."  and she will call the person.  To be fair she almost always follows through with her plans after she makes the call.  She will drink a ton of cold iced tea and sleep on the couch for 556969 hours.  Then I'll work on getting her to eat and once I even made her soup, even though it's firmly against my religion.  I hate soup, I think it's the devil.  It smells like pee, looks like vomit and tastes like trash.  I'm totally off topic.

 Since the woman has taken to being sick so often, I am trying to get her to allow me to quit my job and be her 24/7 caretaker.  All I require is food, board, my cell phone bill to be paid and $20 a week for bar money.  I don't think that is too bad, do you? I'll keep working on this and gram will keep ditching everyone in the family.  Together we are a hot mess.

How long does it take YOU to watch a 90 minute movie?

  Dennis had an interesting experience in my house yesterday.   We recently started a tradition where he would come over to my house on Mondays and we'd have dinner with the old woman and then watch Boardwalk Empire, because he doesn't have HBO at home.  The fact the old woman refuses to watch BE with us is another interesting story... She said the sex scenes are too graphic and she can't watch them with me.  So a week or so ago you tell me to get probed in the butt and today you can't watch fake sex on TV if I am in the room?  Whatev.  So back to the point... Dennis couldn't make it this Monday, so we changed it to Tuesday instead.  He lives in the Northeast, so I suggested that he goes right to my house and takes a nap or something until I get home.  He did just that and guess what he found??

  He found the old woman on her usual spot on the couch and she was watching the TV in the way someone would watch someone giving birth, like a bundle of nerves.  He also said that her hair was sticking up all over the place and she looked like the Big Bad Wolf.  He approached her with caution and said something along the lines of  "Gram, are you okay?"  To which she replied in a frazzled way "I have been trying to watch this movie for 4 hours!  The phone rang a thousand times and then people were at the door!  The plane crashed and that woman is pretending to hold her baby!"  and Dennis backed away from her slowly and ran up to my room, where he discovered a body pillow in his normal place on the bed.  Dennis thinks it's just awesome that I keep a pillow in his spot when he's not there and decided to pose with it and send me a picture.  He didn't mention that my grandma was having a mental breakdown about watching a movie and a plane crash until he picked me up from work.  He told me I would have to see her state myself.

  I walked in the door and she was sitting on the couch again looking a mess, but dinner was on the table.  After she told me how hard it was to watch the movie with everyone bugging her, I informed her that she could easily just turn off the phone.  To that she gave me an evil glare and said she could never do that.  This is where I protest.  She turns that phone off EVERY time my nemesis takes a nap and I have often thought she was dead because I didn't realize she'd have the baby that day.  So I told her that I don't feel bad for her and I ate my delicious salad with chicken and watched Boardwalk Empire.  I can't feel sorry for someone that loves a baby more than me and more than herself even.  Pffffft. 

colonoscopies and other yummy topics

  I came home from work tonight to find my arch nemesis here... That is my niece, Irelyn.  My grandma thinks the sun shines out of that kid's ass and it makes me insane.  I could shit myself too and nobody would find me to be adorable.  Anyway, we all made the typical "goo-goo" faces and watched in adoration as she tossed food off her plate and into our hair.  When she finally left my gram decided it was grown up time and she could pay attention to me.  OH JOY!!!

  So she asked about my doctor's appointment tomorrow and told me to urge my doctor to order me a colonoscopy.  She said "You will really like it" and I wondered when I gave her the impression that I like things shoved up my ass.  Seriously... Do I come off as a total freak or something? Who likes having a camera shoved up their rectum?  If you like it, feel free to comment.  She went on to explain that it's not exactly the probing that is so nice, it's the drugs.  Yes, my 70-year-old grandmother is telling me how great it is to get stoned before being probed in the butt.  I told her I'll talk to the doctor, but I am not happy about it.  I don't care how good the drugs are, I think all people should stay away from my ass.  This is mainly because I fart more than any man I know.  I don't know what it is that makes me such a gas-filled person, but I am pretty sure I got it from my mother. 

 I will forever be scarred by the memory of my mother telling me to run through Target, because her fart was following us.  So I ran like the wind and didn't look back.  Sometime around my Junior year of high school I started farting when I was nervous and it happened a lot when I had to take tests.  I sucked at all things Science and so I was extremely nervous during a chemistry test.  I also sat next to a hot 12th grade boy in that class.  To avoid the horrible scene of him looking at me in disgust while I let them rip, I decided to take one of my mother's Gas X pills before the test.  I was two minutes into the test before I realized that the pills were making my gas worse.  I dropped out of school that same year.  Coincidence?  I think not...

 I'm not saying I constantly fart, but I do it enough where I am pretty sure that it's not safe to be back there.  I am probably sharing a little more than I should tonight, but oh well.  We all eat, shit, fart and sleep.  Just because I am a woman doesn't mean I should do any of those things less. 

Shhhhhhhhheeee's baaaaaack.

While the old woman was away I sent her a cute little forward through email (yes, she knows how to email) and this is the response I received:  

Lars,

This is beautiful. Thanks.
Don't miss me too much.
Love, Gram

You see, she can totally use email, but her font has to go.  Of course I was going through it without having her to torture for a whole week, so this was my response...


Gram,


Don't worry... I won't. I'm throwing these wild theme parties every night. Tonight it's the Wild, Wild West and there is going to be a live donkey (couldn't get a horse on short notice) and everything! Don't worry, I'll be sure to have Juan (the Mexican I have living in your room) clean up the poop.

Just kidding. I miss you.



<3, La-La


Because she's not normal at all, that email totally made her day.  While she was on vacation Dennis cut his finger doing the dishes (yes, some men do dishes) and he went upstairs to look for a bandage.  You know what he found in the box of Band Aids??  He found money... So we started to get worried.  Is she losing it?  Is she starting to become one of those crazy old ladies that hides money all over her house?  If she is, where is the big load?  Anyway, we confronted her about our find when she came home and she ate ten Cow Tales and told us we're being ridiculous.  Her sister put the money in there when she refused to accept money for something they bought together.  I thought back to a time when I was a kid and I blamed everything on my sister.  Hmmm....

P.S.

I am by no means touching anyone's balls this week.  I mean I might accidently brush them, but I am not massaging them by any means.  I just thought I'd throw that little tidbit in there to make Dennis laugh.  It worked, however now he wants me to play with his balls.  Can't a girl just make jokes?  :-/