humid

while it was muggy all day, tonight it's actually humid. that nasty minnesota humid, where 10000 lakes give up 1/4 of themselves and the air tries to give it back to the rest of us.

last weekend was my first weekend off in a long time. it was nice to have my weekend back, rescued so to speak as it was from the 1600s aka the renaissance festival. i had a great deal of fun, made a lot of friends, and got to experience firsthand the loveliness of wearing a skirt and bodice for 12+ hours a day. and maneuver in a biffy.

dirt, laughter, wet wipes and fun--for only 24 hours a weekend! (;

so this saturday the plan was to ignore the phone, glue my gluteus maximus to the couch, and commune with media of some type. what ended up happening was that my mom called and i drove up to meet her to visit my grandma w, who, as it turns out, was in fine form.

my whole day was kind of slow and hurdle filled--the weekend prior, on my way home, i hit the mother of all potholes at festival, and my tires were a bit low. so i stopped at the gas station down the street to fill my tires--only to find that it was broken. next gas station had quarters jammed in the coin slot. the one after that (yes, station number 3) seemed to work fine...with the notable exception of filling the tire with air. my goal psi was 35; the front left tire was at a 17 when i started my journey. after station 3, left tire was at 9 psi. limped across the highway and finally was able to fill both front tires. needless to say, i was about half an hour late due to this fiasco.

got to grandma's home--mom's outside. apparently she visited, offered to take her to lunch, and was summarily dismissed. that's the scottish for you.

we had some greek for lunch, then went back to try to visit again. this time was better; grandma'd had lunch, and was waking from a nap on her couch.

her couch, because there was a nice gentleman asleep on her bed.

yes, racy grandma. i agree. (: she made a big point about how he only came over to nap in the afternoon, and how at night she slept by herself...but my grandma is one of those people who does best, or thinks she is at her best, when she is with someone else, even if he's just napping on her bed. who knows.

at any rate, gene woke up and exited stage right with a pca. grandma then regaled us with confusion about her sons (which was which) and how often they came to see her (according to her, never.) mom tried to argue but it's useless when they have dementia. even if my dad and uncles were there every day, she wouldn't remember. there was a whole section of conversation about how they'd trapped here in this home when she was helping another woman (whose name she couldn't remember) move into the building, and another part where she was convinced she had more than one husband, and that none of her numerous spouses were named jack, who is the only husband she had and my grandpa.

then there was the snickering portion of the afternoon, wherein she explained that the glasses she was wearing were not her own, but some nice man who had accidentally exchanged glasses. both mom and i doubted that this was the case, mainly because grandma's glasses are gold with little mauve roses engraved on it. grandma hasn't been able to see out of one eye for years now (stroke in just that eye) and the other eye's a bit muzzy as well, so she was running her thumb over the engraving and saying that it was that man's name, the one whose glasses she now wore. she also said that the glasses amazingly were stronger and she could see better out of them.

mom was trying not to giggle.

i feel a bit guilty about giggling over grandma's foggy perception, but at the same time, i cannot imagine that she would want us to find our visits boring and dull. which they can be, i don't deny that. but at least she's not as depressed as perhaps she was last year, or the year before, when she first came back to mn from arizona.

i cannot imagine losing your faculties, slowly, the way that she has to dementia, or the way my mom's mother has, to alzheimer's. it's like they're being stolen away by some brain tissue gone moldy.

i can see echoes of the grandma i knew when she smiles, or when she gets stubborn about things. i know her by her smell--red door perfume by someone, but it takes on a different depth when coupled with grandma's skin. for someone who is driven by smells, that lingers in my mind, linked to their old house in coleraine, subtly influenced by the sharp tang of the black label whiskey she used to drink. i remember combing her hair for a nickel.

i remember being angry with her when i was a teenager, angry for forgetting me and my mother and siblings in the haze of liquor. angry for only remembering her sons, her beloved sons.

i find it ironic in the most painful of ways that when we sat there visiting with this woman who used to ignore us in the simplest ways, she remembered us--my mother and me--but she turned her back on her boys.

i think back on the memories i have of her house and my other grandma's house, and how different they were. grandma w's house was dry and airy, and smelled of grandma's nice perfume and grandpa's chew. grandma a's house was too small, too warm, crowded, humid.

maybe that is why she drank, to rehydrate, or to keep restored. it's a bad notion, and one i don't relish.

all i know is that reflected in my grandmother's skinny, warped fingers, i see a mirror of who i could be, and the women and men who came before me. i see who i could become--this bitter woman, so lonely and betrayed by her own brain cells into thinking that she has been abandoned.

perhaps i will become her, someday, the world around me colored by grief and longing, forgetting who i was, but becoming nothing more.

i think about this picture of my grandparents when they first met, leaning backs together. i miss my grandpa a lot. i remember him being wise and soft when i needed him to be. i see my father becoming that man every day, white haired and balding.

anyway i think of that picture and in it i see the meeting and forming of a family that is a legend in my home. i think of my own relationships and how they move my life around, how i move them around and how they make me into something else. i become according to the world around me, and i shape this niche around me into something else, too.

just watched serenity last weekend too, twice. there will be more viewings before it is pulled from theaters. highly recommend this movie as it's supporting one of my all time favorite tv shows, filled with wit, comedy, drama, shotguns and space. i'm already jazzed about it coming out on dvd because that means that perhaps there will be that lauded wonder of dvds: extras.

so go see serenity. get out of fluke minnesota 80 degree humidity, ponder your existence, and visit your grandparents. that's enough to put anything into perspective.

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