Sunday Morning With Granny

Grandma Mel and Bud arrived yesterday afternoon. Apparently there was a decent amount of snow in the mountains on the way over and they almost turned around and went back home. I am grateful they made it, and just a couple of hours after they got here, it started to snow here for the first time this season. It was beautiful! Grandparents and snowflakes and a game of Mexican Train Dominoes last night...happy, happy!

As all things grandparenty should be, we had dinner at Elmer's last night. During my yummy split-pea soup, I hear Grandma make a little, "Eep!" sound while she is eating her salad, and I look up to see her holding her right cheek like she bit it or her tongue or something. Turns out she has a bit of a toothache that has been pestering her, and it seemed to flare up more significantly right then. Hmmm. Okay.

This morning, she comes into the living room talking like someone who is trying to move their mouth as little as possible and keep their tongue as still as possible. Hmmm. "Granny, how long has this tooth been bothering you?"

Now the story comes out. It's been bugging her for a few weeks (she thinks it's from a filing that wasn't done terribly well). Bud asks her why she hasn't mentioned it at all. "I was afraid we would have to get it fixed and we wouldn't be able to come here. I didn't want to miss the trip." (Make sure you read that aloud with your jaw and tongue very still.)

How do you tell your 84-year-old grandmother that you are thrilled that she wanted to see you so much, but you want to bop her on the nose for sitting around in pain and not getting it taken care of?

Ask me someday about the...what's a nice word for stubborn?...ah, determined, independent, tenacious, adamant, resolved, single-minded, headstrong...women on the maternal side of my family and the DNA I have inherited as a result. If you need a thrill sometime, get yourself a seat with me, Mom, and Grandma Mel all together and ask us to try doing anything that looks the tiniest bit like inconveniencing someone else or disrupting a plan we have made. Eh gads.

"Grandma, I bought the most expensive turkey I have ever seen for Thanksgiving. You are going to my dentist tomorrow, because if you don't eat your share of this turkey, you are sleeping in the garage."

It takes me an hour to convince her that I would like to go to the store and buy her Orajel. I finally just go get dressed and when I come out of my room, she is in her jacket. "Granny, I can just go and you can stay..." Nope. We both get in the car. I am happy to have her with me; I just don't know how fun her tooth finds the bumps in the road.

I am actually secretly tickled pink to have a little trip with her and to care for her. We get out of the car at the drug store and it bothers me zero to wait for her slow-moving body to climb out of the seat, close the door and walk toward the entrance. I covet every moment I have with her.

Then we get in the store. All I can think is we need the Orajel and we need it fast; I am feeling magnanimous because I acquiesced to Orajel today and my dentist tomorrow, when I wanted emergency dentist today. Grandma stops at the newspapers and picks up a Sunday edition. I offer to carry it, which, of course, I am denied. Okay. I try to move us on to the aisles in the back where the medicines are. Just when I think we are truckin' along, she stops at a candy display...CANDY! She piles four different bags of Hershey's chocolates on her newspaper! "Grandma, you can't even eat, your tooth is killing you, and we need candy? What in the world?" She tells me to hush and bats my hand away, and starts to giggle like my mother. Sheesh.

This is the point where I call my mom. I was perfectly fine to just take care of all this and let my folks hear the story once we had a dentist appointment...but I can't wrap my mind around the illogic of the candy purchase. I also know it's exactly the type of thing Mom would do. When I tell my mom, she just giggles and says, "Apparently you didn't read the fine print on the agreement for having them stay with you! Have fun!"

I happened to mention a doughnut place across the street the day before. We finally have medicine in hand (and newspaper and candy) and are in the car, and as I pull out to head home, Granny says, "Donuts! Let's go!"

Oh my. She picks out seven doughnuts (one an enormous fritter). As Grandma is paying (because, of course, I lost that argument, too), the doughnut gal asks her if this will be everything. "Yes!", I blurt out. "There are only three of us!"

At home, after a slathering of Orajel, we all settle in to watch A League of Their Own with our coffee and donuts. Granny drinks her coffee on the left side of her face and it takes her the whole movie to eat one jelly doughnut. I mention at least every 20 minutes that we are going to the dentist tomorrow.

Good thing Tom Hanks makes her laugh :)