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way to make me feel like a winner every time, grams! ((2004-04-12 - 10:46 p.m.)) I gotta get it out, it's eating away at my insides making me wanna throw a rock at something resembling (but not really being) my grandma. She's icy. She's made of artificial sweetener and a thin layer of frosting, but with no sweet underneath. She gives hugs and kisses, but she doesn't hug long, or wave goodbye with a tear in her eye, like my Other Grandma. She doesn't sit and look at her grandchildren, reaching for their hand and telling them quietly how special they are, making each child feel as loved as the next. She sits with thin lips and big glasses, knitting so-and-so's second cousin's wife's sister's baby an afghan, only pausing to raise her eyebrows, look wide-eyed over her glasses blinking four or five times, lips tightly squinched into a circle, and always completely random and not to anyone in particular, exclaim "Huuuh?" in a nasal voice completely unique to her. We get a kick out of grandma's "huuh?"'s and the "whaa?"s in our family. Anybody whose met her laughs hysterically and says "do it again, do your grandma, do it," not knowing that i dont impersonate her half as well as my cousin's, or her son-in-law who she lives five minutes away from and adores ever so much more than any of the other grandkids. My grandma always had her favorites. I noticed this by the time I was four or five and my cousin, Buttwipe, we'll name him, was born. Then, his sister was born, we'll call her Snotrag. My grandma and grandpa got them a fishing boat when they were teeny tiny tots, and named it, let's just say, "Butt-Snot". Obviously, the grandparents lived on a lake, before my g-ma practically GAVE the house to buttwipe and snotrags parents after my grandpa died. To this day, I can't look at that boat without being consumed in jealousy and bitterness, imagining the first parts of my sister and my name added to the back of the boat. Why didn't we get to live on the lake? Why couldn't we at least have a paddle boat of our own? Anyway, this isn't the point. Yeah, I was jealous when my grandpa died and they got to move into the lake house, and live year-round on a lake. I've always wanted to have grown up on a lake, which I'm sure is a common desire. But the real problem has always been grandma's icyness bringing me down. Let me start with when I was fourteen. fourteen years old. I was babysitting buttwipe, snotrag and my sister on this summer morning. Grandma was gonna be there at noonish against our wishes, we all wanted the freedom of a grandma-less day. My aunt and uncle were at work, and grandma just had to be beastin around till they got home. We had all just woken up and were sitting around groggy eyed and stanky breathed, trying to work up motivation to put our swimsuits on when buttwipe threw a fish-hook at me, hitting me in the face. I bitched at him, telling him how dangerous it was to throw fishhooks, and especially how it's not cool to throw it at the babysitter's face. He said something completely inappropriate, I bitched back. Within seconds, Snotrag started crying like she was years younger than she really was, and soon my sister was on butt-snot's side. Being the walking ball of hormones I was at fourteen years old, I packed a bag and stormed out of the house. perhaps I had read too many Judy Blume books that summer, cuz I was convinced I would finally be found by the police, then beg the officer to drive me back to ann arbor, where I would be greeted by my sympathetic parents who would tuck me into my own bed. Yeah, real life doesn't work this way. I wanted so bad for the town made of lake beside lake I had known for so long to become one long stretch of beaches on the ocean. I was ready to walk, walk, walk on hot, white sand, stopping every so often to splash in the waves to cool off. I walked around our lake, then somehow ended up on an endless two lane highway. I walked miles, later finding out that I walked approximately eight miles on that stretch of road. The shoulder was narrow and rocky, and my feet immediately began throbbing from my brilliant choice of run-away shoes, flip-flops. Roadkill and old, beat-up pick-up trucks with creepy men honking and whistling made me long for my home. I kept thinking I shouldve called my parents, they know what brats butt and snot are. They would have come pick me up within a few hours. But no- I had to make the fourteen year old drama queen exit. I made it to the gas station that seemed to scream, "you made it here, now where the hell are you gonna go?" I felt like I was in a runaway movie as I bought a bag of chee-tos and water and relaxed for a bit on the gas station bench. Every car that passed I made sure to see. I was looking for my grandma's slow moving blue taurus to come up over a hill, filled with apologetic, worried brats. As I said before, life doesn't work like this. At least not with a grandma like mine. By the time i walked back the same way I had came it was late afternoon and my feet were bloody, my shoulders burnt. I got to the house and immediately dipped my feet into the cold lake. Snotrag and my sister came to me, expressing their concern, and apologizing to me. They said they wanted to drive around and look for me in grandma's car, but she wouldn't take them. They walked around the lake looking for me, and became worried when they didn't find me. I went inside where grandma was doing dishes and continued to do dishes, even when realizing i was behind her. "oh, there you are, i meant to go look for you, but then i got busy doing something else, i musta forgot." As soon as I heard the words, I cried. I couldn't stop and the sobs were choking me. I ran away for the whole day, I was only fourteen and not from the area, and she forgot? Ironically, my sister and snotrag were the only ones comforting me in the small kitchen. Like I said, Grandma doesn't do emotions. I think she said something like "what should I make for dinner?" As if nothing was wrong. Artificial sweetener and thick frosting. The reason all this is bothering me now, seven years later? Because, Grandma proved herself again yesterday, Easter sunday. We were all sitting around having a nice brunch my mom had prepared at my Other Grandma's house, and the conversation had been stuck on the topic of my sister's addiction to the library, being the over-achiever, super student she is. So grandma brings up buttwipe's amazing grades and the flow of mail coming to him from all sorts of colleges. after dwelling on the two for quite some time, grandma tapped me on the knee, raised her eyebrows and squinched her lips, all of a sudden super-upclose to my face. "So, you're in your fourth year right now, but you won't graduate until next year, right meg" I shrugged my shoulders, as I tend to do when asked this question and in my most laid back tone said "Eh, you know, im not in a big rush, i think itll be more like six years." She slapped me on the knee, lips pursed in a disappointed looking line and said something like oh, no, that's terrible. Not so calm anymore, I quickly shot back with a pointed finger towards my dad and said "look at y our own son! how long did it take him? Like fourteen years?" She gave me a "yeah, maybe so, but im still ashamed of you" look and said "Well, I had been telling everybody that you'd be done next year, and your sister was in her second year of pre-med...Now I guess I have to change that when I tell people." Ohmygod, I was pissed, but I didn't let it show. Yes, her life is so dull that she has nothing better to do than sit and gossip to betty-jo and marjorie, or whoever else about the grandchildren who are doing well, and shaking their heads in shame when explaining "Meg just told me she will be taking two more years...she'd be done by now without all the parties she has. But at least her sister's doing fine things with her medical studies..." Oh- but I haven't gotten to the best part, the classic grandma make-others-(usually-my-mom-)look-bad-when-comparing-them-to-Uncle-Buttsnots-Dad. He's not even her son, he's her son-in-law, but definitely her favorite in law, made very clear to my mother, the not-so-favorite in-law. He was sitting beside her on the couch, and she slapped him on the knee, made her face, and got way up in his, and said "well now, how long did it take YOU to finish your studies?" Way to put uncle in an awkward situation after she's already made my dad and i look like dumb asses! He turned beet red and quietly said "it took me four years...BUT i did go back for a couple years to switch my degree," I thanked him in my head for adding the last part on to make us not so perfect family members look a little better. She hadn't even left the driveway by the time I blurted out how she offended me, Other Grandma looked sorry for me and she said "well, that's just mean. you like taking your time and everybody should be able to finish school whenever they want to! You're enjoying it, that's what you should do!" At least I have her support and confidence. Other Grandma was especially upset when I told them about how she didn't know what to tell her friends now. It's none of their damn business! My mom just shook her head, not a bit surprised and said that now every single time any of us sees her, she's going to have to go over it again, as if to get it straightened out. Her "huh?" and "whaaa?"s will forever be a positive memory I have of her, but I am beginning to worry that she and I will never get the chance to bond the way I have with Other Grandma. I can't imagine having any of the same feelings with this grandma that I do with Other G, making her laugh until she's crying, shocking her with my stories that my parents say she's just too old to hear,introducing her to funny movies, and hearing her stories of her childhood, eighty years ago and how hula dancing at an all-girl party almost had her parents not let her go back to school. That's where I get my strong family love from. Icy Grandma just isn't equipped to bond with me. I'll love her no matter what but I'm not gonna bust my butt just to kiss hers.
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