Extra, extra, read all about it!

Congrats, you guys. She’s a beauty.

Presenting the Sunday edition, now with more bullets!

* Not real clear on why my son was sleeping with a softball last night. (more…)

Bye-bye to one of Grandma’s old Bundt pans and one of her cake pans, too. Steve said uh-uh, so off to Goodwill they go. Something about “aluminum,” “brain damage” “your entire family is crazeee enough already without more crazeee thrown in…” something.

What are you doing for the long weekend? Do you have a long weekend? We do. I wish I could say we’ll be out on the boat, at the lake…

But there is no boat.

In fact, there is no lake.

I’ll be… sorting. WACKY COUSIN 2.0 IS COMING OVER TOMORROW! And his mama, too. She has to drive him, he won’t have his license for another 14 years. The kids are thrilled. They will teach him New Tricks.

(Re: kids. I bought Harry Potter DVDs 1, 2 & 3 — we have 4 & 5 already. Getting ready for 6 this summer!)

And speaking of cult phenoms: reading “Eclipse,” whoa. Whoa. (Yes, I realize that we’re always months and years behind everyone else as far as cult phenoms go. Do not care.)

This weekend we might:

1) assemble an Adirondack chair
2) stain it
3) drink mojitos
4) see family
5) go to church? (like how that’s down the list? after drinking?)
6) hang out laundry on line
7) celebrate my late father’s birthday, which falls on Memorial Day this year. Figures.
8) SLEEP
9) ride bikes
10) play tennis
11) eat a lot of food
12) play Wii Fit and not even leave the house
13) Ha.
14) That’s it!
15) Oh. And try to stay off Facebook. Gorgeous weather, we have to stay away from the computers once in awhile.
16) Can’t wait for Steve and the kids to get here!

I spent a large portion of the day packing up Dear Granny’s white dishes with the fluted edges (those are going to my auntie), the “Arkansas crystal,” the white dishes with the pretty blue flowers — Dresden! It’s this pattern. It doesn’t go with my apple pattern at all, but whatever. I think I need to pack the apple dishes away for awhile. Some of the pieces are antique, some are newer, all are getting chipped. (This is the pattern I crave, but my family in the South collects the apple pattern, so gooooooo, Jonesboro! I went with that. Besides — how girly is the Desert Rose? The girlier the better, that’s what I say, but it’s a little foofy for Steve.) (If I had it my way I would have five china cabinets.)

Tumblers, decanters, lace tablecloths, placemats and napkins, glass platters, painted china from her girlfriends, candle holders… and every time my mom and uncle put a box in the car, they added a box of Christmas stuff, too, unbeknownst to me. Which is why my living room, dining room and kitchen are now full of Christmas wrap, Santa candles, a Santa doll, a tiny baby Jesus (“The replacement!” my sister told me. “Because Josie ate the original Jesus.” That’s right. My grandparents fat, adorable, charming black Lab, Josephine, ate Baby Jesus. Along with two pounds of Hershey Kisses that my Dear Granny had tied to the Christmas in an enthusiastic show of decorating)…

As Planet Nomad would say, that sentence was too long I’ll start over.

Yes.

Am I unpacking/repacking/sorting? No, I’m not. I’m eating homemade tortilla chips, smokey chipotle salsa and garlic cheese curds from the Interstate Farmers Market.

Poor Steve, dear Lord, my poor, poor husband. All he said about Entering Christmasland: Santa Threw Up Here was, “Oh good, we got it back!” when he spotted the enormous Harry & David tin. He was remembering when we sent it to her for Christmas, a few years back.

“Remember? She said, ‘You shoulda seen all the junk that was packed in here!'” Heehee.

Did I mention the candles? OK. Back to unpacking. I am intimidated. And thrilled. Because how cool is this that I get to take care of my Dear Granny’s things for her? Also — and please I hope this doesn’t offend anyone — she and I have sometimes been described as “tacky” or “country.” That is the true reason why I inherited all this loot, not because she remembered me in her will or because I’m extra-special or something. The quilt with the cow, pig, corn fabric, the Laura Ingalls Wilder book set that is tattered and faded, the fake fur coat, the little wooden plaque decorated with buttons that reads “Friends are Sew Special”… it’s because no one else wanted this stuff. The costume jewelry in the plastic box, the 8,000 blank Christmas cards from Bi-Mart, the empty vials of nitroglycerin… excellent.

How could they not want it? This stuff is great. They are all, you know. Sophisticated. So they think. Well nyah-nyah, you just wait til I serve them a glass of ice tea in one of the clunky green goblets. Or some appetizers on the Arkansas Razorbacks platter. Classssssssssy.

Just sayin’.

(PS — Even though they don’t (usually) read my blog, I owe my kids the biggest thank you right this second. I can hear them brushing their teeth in the bathroom, chattering away. Happy and sweet, as always. The past few months have been so rough, and they have been just amazing. Always giving me the hugs, the love, not complaining even when I ask them to repeat themselves four times because I’m nine times distracted. They are such good kids. They’re keepers, as my Dear Granny would say. They are such keepers. Them, and the green goblets. And the glass candle holders shaped like stars.)

I always know what you’re thinking, Internets. Right now you’re thinking, where is that sad little Wacky Mommy with her heartbreak story of the day?

I was going to skip the Heartbreak of the Day. I’m trying to clean my house, study, drive kids hither and yon. Emptying out boxes, filling up boxes, finding space for Grandma’s things in my too-crowded home. (I inherited her cookbooks, a few knick-knacks, yarn, photos. Quilts that I’ll share with my cousin. Old Christmas cards.) Packing away the winter clothes and breaking out the summer clothes. Found a slip of paper tucked inside of her old tattered hymnal. A page-a-day calendar from April 16, 1998:

Bird Migration ETAs
Part 5
The third week in April marks the estimated time of arrival in New England of the green heron. In the fourth week, look for the barn swallow, brown thrasher, black-and-white warbler, myrtle warbler, towhee and white-throated sparrow.

I’m ready to toss it into the recycling bin when I think to flip it over. I am my grandmother’s granddaughter — the same handwriting, the same snarky temper, the same need to scribble compulsively. On the back is written, sideways, her name and my grandpa’s name, over and over:

Margie
Lloyd
Margie
Lloyd
Lloyd
Margie
Lloyd

April 16, 1998 — five and a half months after he died. They celebrated their fifty-seventh wedding anniversary on June 28, 1997. She was hoping they’d make it to sixty. He was exhausted from kidney failure, furious because he couldn’t ranch anymore, insane because my uncles took away his guns. (Because, you know. He kept threatening to shoot himself.)

Margie
Lloyd
Margie
Lloyd
Lloyd
Margie
Lloyd

I looked for a book to tuck the note into — found an old cookbook close by — “Favorite Recipes of Valiant Chapter,” circa 1959-1960. Readers? Any ideas on what a Valiant Chapter is, exactly? (This one is Chapter #168, O.E.S., Portland, Ore.) The “Worthy Matron” that year was Martha H. Taylor; the “Worthy Patron'” was G.C. “Jerry” Taylor. Recipes included: Spanish Bun Cake, Fruit Cocktail Cake and (my new favorite) Good Prune Cake. We also have Meaty Scalloped Potatoes, Salmon Loaf and Creamed Chicken.

I. Love. Old. Recipes. Even if I can’t get my family to eat them.

Took Steve out for lunch — Pad Thai, Pad Kee Mao, iced Thai coffee, such sophisticated tastes. No Holiday Wreath Tuna Shortcake in sight — and showed him the note.

“That’s what I’m writing down, if you’re the first to go — Nancy, Steve, Nancy, Steve, Steve, Nancy.”

He adds, “TLF.”

Yes, TLF. It’s one of the most romantic things I’ve ever seen, that love note. And it sums up, on one little tiny sheet of paper, the agonizing pain of going through someone’s personal belongings. I told my auntie, it’s junk, junk, junk, Grandma’s high school diploma, junk.

I cannot give a sigh that is huge enough to express the SIGH I’m feeling. HUGE SIGH.

Off to pick up kids — be right back.

Also found a recipe written in my Dear Granny’s writing, tucked into the Valiant Chapter Cookbook. No-name cake, so let’s call it…

LEMON BUNDT CAKE WITH ORANGE GLAZE AND HEARTBREAK

Here’s exactly how it’s written:

1 pkg yellow cake mix
1 pk lemon pudd (pudding) (Quote from my Dear Granny: “It is good because there is pudding in the mix.”)
4 eggs
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup water

Beat for 5 min

Tube pan greased

45 minutes

Turn on rock (rack, make that)

Prick with foot (fork!)

1 can thomed orgina pins (Steve: “That says ‘1 can thawed orange juice.'” How can he decipher her hand writing even when I can’t?)

2 3 paw sugar (cool toger) (Okey-doke. Let’s interpret that as 3 cups powdered sugar; cook together)

me: “3 cups powdered sugar and a whole can of orange juice concentrate? Sweeeeeeeeeeet.”

me: “Turn on rock! 1 can thomed orgina pins! No.”

“I believe I have no prejudices whatsoever. All I need to know is that a man is a member of the human race. That’s bad enough for me.” — Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

We’re getting my Dear Granny’s things sorted out — photos, letters, cookbooks, everything. Her life. Quilts, Estee Lauder perfume, surgical razors (the kind that scarred my leg when I used one shaving, age 12), nitroglycerin tabs left over from my Grandpa, in teeny-tiny bottles, safety pins, bobby pins, Chicken Soup for the Country Soul.

When the Bough Breaks, my favorite Lois Duncan book, Christmas earrings, journals, more safety pins. Emery boards, probably 50 of them or more. A girl just cannot have enough emery boards. Christmas, birthday, thank you cards; ones she received, blank ones she was going to send.

We used to build little houses out of the old Christmas cards — we’d punch holes in the sides and weave them together with yarn? Something, I can’t remember and neither could she. We used to do them every year. And we’d make little gift cards out of them, for the next year. She would have loved this site. “I was young during the Depression, honey, we didn’t throw anything away.”

She told my uncle, Make sure Nancy gets these, and left me a few boxes of old cards, letters and clippings. My mom is going through each item, painstakingly. She’s transcribing the old journals, they’re wonderful.

Such a temper in real life, my Dear Granny, but in the journals? So happy. Going up to Larch Mountain to gather firewood, building a corral for their mean-tempered pony, cooking strawberry-rhubarb pie, pork roast, scalloped corn and a million other things for us.

“Nancy’s birthday” she wrote on one page, “and our anniversary in four days. Would I marry the same man again? I WOULD!”

Someday I’ll write more about her, about this, about how painful it was yesterday to sort through her entire life in one fast afternoon, blurred and illustrated by photos. It won’t be today.

Steve is at a birthday party with the kids, I’m studying for my first exam this week. (Psychology 311, Human Development.) Other than Linguistics 390, this is the most difficult course I’ve ever taken. I’ve been out of school so long, married now, I have two little kids I’m chasing after (the hours between 9 and 3 go sweeping by), there has been work, caregiving, grieving, housework.

I need to finish my prerequisites and start on a master’s program. When? How?

Back to studying. And trying not to recall my Dear Granny’s voice, her smile, her telling me, Happy birthday, honey, and “our anniversary is in four days!” (their anniversary is sandwiched between my birthday and my mom and Granny’s birthdays; my Grandpa’s birthday, always overlooked, was just after Christmas), trying not to think of sunny weekend afternoons, lazing in her living room, reading Lois Duncan for the 50th time and listening to her banging pots and pans in the kitchen.

Yelling, One of you kids, come get this down for me! because she was so short she couldn’t reach her highest cupboards. My late cousin, Travis, ambling into the kitchen, reaching down whatever it was, saying, There you go, Little Grandma, and patting her on the head.

Oh, you! and she’d chase him out. But before he left, he’d raise up his arm parallel to the floor and tease her, See? You could walk right under.

She was buried next to Grandpa, not far from Travis, in her favorite red dress and her favorite necklace, the “crystal” beads that my Grandpa gave her, that she loaned me to wear on my wedding day. I found the matching earrings yesterday, going through her things. They’re mine now. None of it is worth any money, her stuff, but it’s priceless. We’re talking about a woman who labeled the slides of “truck in ditch” the “good slides” and stuck ’em in a box.

Internets, why does so much rotten stuff happen all the time?

(OK. I wrote that, then I read this post and I’m thinking, you got to take the sweet along with the bitter, don’t you?)

The service was today. It was nice. What do you say to describe a funeral service? It was “okay.” It was “no one punched anyone in the nose, isn’t that cool?” “No one cursed at anyone else, righteous!” It was a good service. The ministers did not do the whole thing of, “She was a believer/she wanted you to believe/you are all heathen assholes/repent now or you won’t see her in heaven.”

I don’t like funerals or weddings or baby showers or birthday parties. I want to be a good sport. Supportive. A “partier.” But I just do not like the social things. Also my baby cousin Wacky Cousin 2.0 was cracking me up, and cracking the kids up, and Hockey God was instructing us, Don’t laugh you’ll only encourage him… but I am sorry.

Internets, I had to encourage him. I had to laugh.

He is two. He has blond, curly hair, and huge blue eyes, and was wearing a darling little sweater with patches on the elbows. He is outgoing and he is a nutbar. So when he yelled, “I’m going out the window!” followed by “I just pooped!!!” (which was extra funny because he hadn’t actually pooped he was faking us out, whew, wiping tears from eyes…) (Two-year-old humor, It Rocks.)

My kids were enchanted with him. “He is funny. Isn’t he funny? Then he did the chicken dance with us!” (Why does he know the chicken dance? Because he inherited their Chicken Dance Elmo, that’s why. I wondered where it went. To Wacky Cousin 2.0’s house, that’s where!)

I’m just being flip right now because you know why, I think. Here, I’ll put it in my son’s words:

“She was old and she was ready to die but you weren’t ready for her to go.”

No, I wasn’t. So I will keep on trying to let go, but right now, all I’m thinking about is the time we were spending the weekend with her, me, my sis, my cousin Travis in Corbett, up in the Columbia Gorge where they used to live. I found a recipe in Family Circle or Country Woman or one of her mags, and it included a recipe for the most deluxe chocolate cake I had ever seen. I asked Grandma, Can you make that?

She was all, Sure, run up to the store and get me the stuff. (This little country store my sister and cousins and I loved, right up the road.) So we did. And she baked it. And it was perfect.

That was when I knew: Baking = love.

I miss my Grandma and no, I was not ready for that fancy casket and the hymns and the slide show. No, I was not ready for that at all.

So I’m just going to pretend it was a dream. And because I can’t find a clip from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, where she goes all hysterical laughing at Chuckles the Clown’s funeral and can’t stop laughing, I leave you with this, the opening to my dad and mom’s favorite show…

my cousin just called a little bit ago, Nancy this is the call.

my Grandma is gone.

“Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pet peeve: When someone says, I’m only playing devil’s advocate, only they are screaming it at you and not taking time to even attempt to hear where you’re coming from. No, you’re not “pretending” to give me someone else’s opinion, as some cat-and-mouse “devil’s advocate” thing (more…)

Last week my grandma informed me that she was going to stop eating. And taking her medicine. And, eventually, living.

Then along came a platter of bacon. And the Cold War. (more…)