TheBanyanTree: Visiting Grandma

[Pam Lawley]

Great story!

But mostly I want you to hear me cheering on your writing!!  AGAIN!!  :-)

On 9/18/13, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com> wrote:
> Grandma called last week. Andrew's, not mine, because mine are all gone
> now, up to the big rocking chair in the sky.
>
> I don't recall ever seeing any of my grandmas in a rocking chair, but
> still.
>
> Anyway, Grandma, the mother of Andrew's father, called. I'd just gotten
> back from California, first in SF then in LA, and the day after I got home
> she called. She was in Walla Walla, had gone there after visiting her
> sister on Whidbey Island, and after she'd left her sister and gone to Walla
> Walla, the sister had died. She was 95, so it wasn't entirely unexpected.
>
> I'd just spent days bonding with my family and was still in a family sort
> of mood, so I said, "Well, we must go see her."
>
> Grandma usually lives in Anchorage, but she still has the house her father
> built in the 60's, which happens to be in Walla Walla (I just like saying
> Walla Walla repeatedly because it's such a silly place name), and she likes
> to visit once or twice a year, staying for a couple of weeks each time,
> usually on her way to judge a flower show somewhere in the US.
>
> Because Walla Walla is on the way to everywhere. In the fall, she lets a
> visiting conductor for the local university live there -- she considers it
> a community service. She doesn't charge him, and he keeps his scores and
> piles of papers there year round.
>
> Grandma also used to own the larger and older house on the corner, but she
> sold it some years back.
>
> I made reservations at a hotel in Walla Walla, even though Grandma had
> urged us to stay with her, but there was no way. When we called her back to
> confirm we'd be there on Saturday and we'd be there until Monday she tried
> to talk us into staying with her, enticing us with entreaties like this: "I
> have a double bed! Can you fit in a double bed?" (No. Have you seen the
> size of us?") And, "I have a couch! I could sleep on the couch while you
> sleep in the bed!" (No.) Etc. And, "I think I have air conditioning." (It
> was a particularly hot week in Washington.)
>
> We were going to leave after Andrew got off work on Saturday, and so
> Grandma urged him to have everything ready so we could leave AS SOON AS HE
> STOPPED WORKING.
>
> We're not anywhere near that organized, so it was closer to 4 by the time
> we left, us and Ash, who was very excited to be going to Walla Walla.
>
> It's Walla Walla, after all, famous for onions and wine, neither of which
> Ash is allowed to have.
>
> We got there about 8:30, and though Andrew hadn't been to the Walla Walla
> house in many years, he managed, with the help of Vickie, our trusty
> phone-based GPS, to find the narrow alley behind the house, and he pulled
> up behind a ramshackle garage. Next thing I knew, he and Ash were out of
> the car, and I considered my next move. Should I get out of the car and
> follow him? On the other hand, I was pretty tired, and had also worked much
> of the day, so it was a tough decision. After a couple of minutes Andrew
> and Ash came back for me, so I had no choice but to follow them into
> Grandma's house.
>
> Turns out the house is a small log cabin, on a street of houses. It's cute,
> if you like log cabins that look like they may fall down at any time, and
> it was small, and there was nothing in it that was newer than, say, 1965.
>
> I'm just guessing at that.
>
> The kitchen had the original stove, and there's a fireplace, and one
> bathroom, and a couple of smallish bedrooms, one with a double bed, and one
> with a couch.
>
> Grandma started talking, and I have no idea what she was saying. Sure, I
> knew at the time, but she's prolific in her speech, and doesn't take time
> to draw breath, and can keep up a conversation quite well without anyone
> else participating.
>
> This is a useful skill. I can't even keep up a conversation with other
> people participating.
>
> Eventually the old wooden chair that I was sitting in, at the old wooden
> kitchen table (all of which were made by great-grandpa, who owned a
> furniture store) became harder than it first appeared, as if sensed my
> discomfort and chose just then to undergo molecular changes to make itself
> more painful. But it worked out because then Grandma wanted to show us
> where we had not had the foresight to elect to stay. "I put sheets on the
> bed," she crowed, "Just in case you decided to stay here! And here's the
> bathroom, and here's the other room with the couch, someone could sleep in
> here!"
>
> Yes. I'm sure someone could. Meanwhile, Ash was having the time of his
> life, exploring the place and being his usual irrepressible self. I knew
> when we got to the hotel he'd collapse, right next to me (on the KING SIZED
> BED!) and sleep all night, but he sure wasn't going to calm down around
> Grandma -- another reason I insisted on a hotel. Look, I need my sleep. I
> have fibro, I have pain, I'm grumpy when I'm sleep deprived.
>
> Eventually we made plans to meet back at Grandma's at 9:30 in the morning,
> so we could take her to her church service, which just this once was being
> held outside in the park.
>
> (Because it was supposed to be 100 degrees outside, and so that's a good
> idea.)
>
> Whatever.
>
> We checked into our hotel, and while Andrew was bringing up our bags
> (because he's awesome) I looked up a local boarding kennel, and found the
> perfect doggy day care/kennel. I then hoped they'd be open first thing in
> the morning -- open 7 days a week the website said.
>
> I was correct about Ash -- while I was still trying to unwind he fell
> asleep on the bed, the day's excitement having overwhelmed him.
>
> In the morning Andrew called the deluxe dog kennel, and got Ash admitted.
> He took Ash in, who was giddy at the prospect of playing with other dogs
> all day.
>
> I put on my also-funeral-appropriate dress and my fabulous new expensive
> shoes, specifically designed for people like me who have a lot of pain.
>
> We got to Grandma's on time, after having a rather lackluster breakfast at
> the hotel -- it was still better than being poisoned by Grandma. I love
> Grandma, but she has a reputation for poisoning people. She'd baked a pie
> for the church picnic, and I felt like I was back in the 60's, where I
> think Grandma likes to live. It was a lovely day, if unbearably hot, and
> the congregation was a nice group of people, and as I sat on the wooden
> bench and tried to find a comfortable position Grandma took the opportunity
> to talk to other people, giving us a break.
>
> Not that we needed a break.
>
> The rest of the day passed in a blur. After we ate our fill, and they ran
> out of food (I'm not saying the two events were related, I'm just relating
> how it happened), we took Grandma for a drive, and she pointed out the
> local sights. Upon seeing a statue, "That's some Portuguese guy," and
> driving down wine alley (or whatever the main street is, where there are
> approximately 1,756 wine tasting rooms, though I may be exaggerating),
> "(And there are the wine places," and going past another statue, "I'm not
> sure who that's supposed to be . . . "
>
> Grandma is sort of crazy, but she's 85, and I think she's allowed to be as
> crazy as she wants. She does what she wants, and she talks NONSTOP, and
> sometimes she giggles, a very cute little giggle, and though I dislike
> infantilizing old people just because they're old, but she was like a
> little girl when she giggles.
>
> We drove past the area Grandma lived in once, out in the country, before
> Grandpa built the log cabin in town. They weren't from Walla Walla though
> -- it was just the last place her father moved to, with his new wife and
> daughters, after the first wife died. We drove around and around, and when
> the road was taking us to Pendletown Grandma said, "You don't want to go
> there," I said, "Yeah, you can cut there, that's where the gangs are," and
> Grandma laughed and said, "No, it's even hotter there," as if such a thing
> were possible.
>
> We stopped at a McDonald's, where Grandma asked for a senior coffee, and
> reminisced about how a senior coffee used to be eighty-five cents, and she
> could get an ice cream cone too, all for a dollar, and now it was a whole
> dollar for a cup of coffee . . .
>
> We decided to go to the Fort Walla Walla Museum, where there is a block
> house that her father helped build, and a fireplace in one of the old
> recreated buildings that he built that looks just like the one at the log
> cabin she owns. Grandma loves her father, and talks about him nonstop, but
> she talks about everyone nonstop. Half the time we had no idea who she was
> talking about, but it didn't really matter. There was a detour for
> construction, and we got lost, and we went in circles, but eventually we
> found it, and when we went inside Grandma quickly went to the information
> desk to tell the information person that her father had helped build the
> block house, and that she'd asked for his name to be on there, but the
> museum director had been rude. We looked around at some of the exhibits,
> and Grandma and I talked about how little women were once, and she told me
> about the Nez Perce as if she'd been there.
>
> Maybe she had. One never really knows with Grandma.
>
> We went out in the blistering heat to go down to the display buildings,
> down a path of stones with names on them, like misplaced headstones. The
> other path down wasn't as steep, but it was on gravel, and it was in the
> sun, and this one had a handrail, which is convenient for old ladies like
> me and Grandma. We wandered around the little display village, and
> eventually found the blockhouse, which was locked, but on the door was a
> sign with great-grandpa's name on it, and we took pictures there, so
> Grandma would have proof of what he had built.
>
> Eventually, when we were all about to perspire from the heat, we started
> back up the trail, Andrew sprinting ahead, until I caught him and said,
> "You need to go back and walk up with Grandma, just in case."
>
> "Oh, right," he said, and he followed Grandma up the trail. NOT THAT SHE
> NEEDED ANY HELP. She's only 85 after all.
>
> We were going to take Grandma out to dinner, but she insisted she buy us
> dinner at The Iceburg, which is a drive through hamburger place, because
> she never gets to go there anymore because she doesn't have a car in Walla
> Walla anymore. She used to, but now it's in Alaska. By that time I'd given
> up any hope of eating properly for the weekend and had a milkshake with my
> hamburger and fries. We took our bounty back to Grandma's house, and she
> got out plates for us, and we sat at the handmade table and ate our burgers
> and fries while Grandma talked about her dad, her neighbors, her relatives,
> her friends, and we listened. A rainstorm started up, wind and rain lashing
> the winds, the trees shaking violently. It stopped before we left, but once
> we were in our hotel room it started up again, a downpour that promised to
> clear the hot humid air. By morning the sky was blue, and the air was
> fresh.
>
> Sunday morning we took her out to breakfast, and while she had mentioned a
> fancy place she'd heard about, it wasn't open on Monday. Andrew found
> another place by asking around, a place the locals go to, and as we got
> closer Grandma said, "I bet this is where I've been before! Oh, this is so
> exciting!" And it was. The place had been there since 1934, and Grandma had
> been there many years before, and she was so delighted to get to go there
> again she giggled like a young girl.
>
> And it was really good too, a small place in a building made out of
> concrete blocks, a place where they stopped serving pancakes and french
> toast after 11 am because, as the waitress said to another customer, "After
> 11, the pancakes start to taste like hamburgers."
>
> We talked to Grandma's neighbor who now lives in the house she used to own,
> a young military vet who had children and a wife, and he offered to clear
> up the tree that had shattered branches up high, if he could, but as we
> looked at the tree damage it looked more and more like she'd need to get a
> professional in there. Later, when we were driving home, she called to tell
> us she'd arranged for someone to clean up that tree, and the nearby locust,
> for only $250. He, the neighbor, is going to school for a nursing in a few
> days, on the GI bill, and seemed handy to have close by.
>
> Grandma insisted on giving us some homemade grape juice to take home, but
> considering her reputation for poisoning . . . the first bottle, which she
> had in the freezer, had burst, so she took out another. She has as grape
> arbor in the back yard, which smells divine when walking past it. The other
> grape juice was also frozen, but the lid was too big, so the bottle hadn't
> burst. The lid wouldn't stay on, and despite Grandma's best efforst to pull
> out a spare lid from her collection of ancient lids, none fit. "It's okay,"
> we said, but she persisted. She had a plan. She came back into the kitchen
> with a black garbage bag she'd dug out of a closet, and a stack of
> newspaper, and she proceeded to wrap the bottle in the bag with newspapers.
> "If only we had a box," she said, "I bet there's one in the shed."
>
> Then came the search for the shed key, and the one she brought out didn't
> work, but when Andrew went back into the house he noticed, on the key rack,
> a key labelled "Shed Key." "Maybe this one will work," he said, and it did.
> The shed was the back part of the garage, where great-grandpa's workshop
> was, and it had more handmade chairs. Maybe a body or two. It was that kind
> of place. There had been someone living in the shed illegally, an elderly
> man who just needed a place to live, and who helped out around the place in
> exchange. He's not there anymore. \
>
> Maybe Grandma did away with him and has been collecting his social security
> checks. I don't know.
>
> We found a box that we decided would be suitable, though it really wasn't
> -- we just wanted to get going. We're bad people, because we weren't going
> to keep the grape juice.
>
> Eventually we got it all packed and were on our way, first to try some wine
> tasting, then to pick up Ash and go home.
>
> The grape juice didn't even make it out of town. It's a sad fate for the
> grape juice, but it had far too many factors working against it.
>
> I climbed in the back to lay down, and Ash and I slept, and when I woke up
> we were driving along the river again on a beautiful Washington day. We
> stopped to watch wind surfers, and then kept driving.
>
> Grandma will be in Walla Walla another week or so, then she's off to a
> garden club convention somewhere . . . maybe St Louis. No Kruse's left in
> Walla Walla, but apparently bunches of them in St Louis.
>
> When I'm 85 I don't want to be living in a decrepit log cabin, but I do
> want to be able to go wherever I want, because I find that wherever I go, I
> find friends. So does Grandma. She thinks we got our proclivity for hotels,
> clean sheets, air conditioning, from Andrew's parents. When we left she was
> pondering the bed question, "Well, I don't know if I should sleep on it or
> not, it's got those fresh sheets on it . . ."
>
> What else does one do with a bed? I'm of the opinion that she doesn't
> sleep, she putters around thinking about the past, and planning the next
> leg of her journey.
>
> We all had fun, and my head threatened to explode only a couple of times.
>
> Sorry for the extra long missive -- I'm taking up writing again, and once I
> start I keep going. Sort of like hearing Grandma talk -- it just goes on
> and on.
>
>
>
> *Monique*
>