Post 4.5.1.0 A Harmonic Convergence in Which Grandma Dies

In post 4.5.0.0 I mentioned that my mother found great significance in the fact that Grandma L died at about the same time that Dad had a heart attack.  For years she would confide to my sisters and me that "She was trying to take him with her.  She just couldn't let go."

And for years we didn't really know what to say about it beyond, "I don't think it works that way"  if we were feeling particularly pushy.  Usually we'd do the nod and smile and change the subject thing.

Considering that Grandma seldom talked about Dad, but Dad talked constantly about her, I'd say that it was a kindness not to suggest that perhaps she had it backwards.  About who wasn't letting go, not about who was trying to take whom into the beyond.

It would have been rude.  I mean, Dad had survived the heart attack and was following his diet and exercise program religiously, and, by the way, still complaining about Grandma L from time to time.
 
I finally figured out what to say to cut down on how often she would say it.  I may have convinced her that her version was less likely, but there's no way to tell.  What I told her was that, no, that didn't really sound like her.  What was more likely was that she had refused to be one-upped.  If there was a mystical bond between them and she had somehow sensed that he was having a heart attack, her reaction would have been 'Oh, hell no. I'M the sick one!"

Mom couldn't argue about that.  For the last few years Grandma L had been rocking her feeble and failing old lady who needs to be fussed over act.  She had, as they say in geriatric medical circles, lost homeostasis.  It happens to people as they get old.  Some stop feeling thirsty when they need to drink water and have to keep to a schedule to keep hydrated.

Grandma had lost the feeling of hunger.  She used it to play for sympathy over "not being able to eat."  It wasn't that she couldn't eat, it was that she didn't feel particularly hungry.  So she would go to the regular restaurant that she and T usually went to, where the waitresses all knew them as regulars, and she'd make a big deal over only ordering toast and not being able to eat more than half of the order.  And then she'd brag about the way that the waitresses twittered over her and how sweet they were and how much she appreciated it.

Which brag was a hint that she'd appreciate you fussing over her and telling her how worried you were about her.  My sisters and I had learned young not to rise such obvious bait.  When she tried it on my younger sister, she told her about the homeostasis thing, and how it wasn't at all dangerous, and how if she didn't want to track what she was eating she could buy this stuff called Ensure.

So when I told Mom that she just didn't want to lose her place as the sick one, it too obviously played to something that Mom had seen and occasionally huffed about for years.  And she didn't have to let go of the mystic connection idea, which was too big a part of her worldview.  I don't think I heard Mom say that Grandma was trying to kill Dad again after I'd proposed it as an alternative three or four times.

Post 4.5.0.0 Grandma's Wills - In Which I am Cynical

When my Grandma L died, my Uncle L (not the same L name) was the only family member in the same town, so he was expected to handle things.  My father might have traveled the 800 plus miles to do his bit, but he had had a heart attack and been rushed to the hospital several hours before Uncle L called with the news. It was one of those freaky coincidence things that only my mother thought had meaning.

One of the things that Uncle Lonny got to do was determine what she meant to go to whom.  That was complicated by the fact that she had, over the years, written many holographic wills, but none of them witnessed and, of course, no lawyer written or registered versions.

Uncle L included about three of them with the letter he sent with his proposed distribution list.  I found more later when I inherited several boxes of her correspondence when my Aunt D died. They all focused on how much she LOVED her children with ALL MY HEART and how she wanted them to HAVE EVERYTHING.  They all included instructions on how they were supposed to take care of each other, and other homilies, because they were now the only way for her love to reach them.  

I don't think she actually said that it would STAB HER HEART if they didn't froth with love in her name, but after reading a few of them I started to assume that it was implied.  I also started thinking a few other cynical things.  

I'm sure it says something about my outlook, but I'm reading these things, and it looks like she would write them at the drop of an excuse (such as taking a car trip out of town, which might be the last car trip she ever took and if so she would never see her darlings again) and then she'd leave them sitting around for her young, then teenaged, then grown children to find.  Call me crazy, but damn if they didn't start sounding like a way to brag about how loving and generous she was, what with giving her darlings EVERYTHING and ACHING over thoughts of them going on without her generous self to look after them and leave them wills and things.

And just as I was getting to be embarrassed at how dismissive I was being of what may have been genuine emotion, it dawns on be that this is the world's cheapest way to be generous.  She's giving EVERYTHING and mountains of love and exclamation marks and CAPITALS and underlines and squiggly underlines and she's doing it for the price of a couple of pieces of paper and a little ink.  OK, to be fair, some of them ran four pages.

So, yes, I still sometimes feel a little guilty about it, but mostly I've decided that it was a racket.  She did it to feel good.  She may have hoped that her kids would feel good, too, but she was not all that good at gauging how someone was really going to react to something she decided to do or say.  Maybe that was why she was always watching closely whenever she decided to go on about caring for you so much or how WONDERFUL it would be to do something she was wanting to do with you.  She was always watching expectantly for your reaction and you knew that there was always one reaction that she wanted from you and it was never the reaction that you were actually having.

Which reminds me that I need to get a will written.  That's an actual will, with a lawyer involved and actual property listed and stuff.  Not having one, or not having one that's up to date, is not a kindness to those left behind.  Oh, and different locations have different rules for what makes a holographic will legal.  You need to check that before you decide to write your own.  

Grandma did care about her kids and grandkids and other relatives.  And I have to remember that I probably wouldn't be half so likely to be cynical about something she had done if I hadn't been raised with a constant litany of complaints about her from my Dad.  

Dad felt that it was important for children to know their relatives, and she lived nearly across the street, so we saw her a lot.  But he also felt that we should be warned about her lack of judgment and . . . . well, I'll leave it at that for now.  When I had kids I also warned them about her lack of judgment.  I told them that if they were alone with her, they were probably the most responsible person in the room.  So if she suggested doing something, they should think hard about whether I would want them to do it or not and to tell her no, Mother doesn't let us do that.

I don't think it ever came up.  They're good kids.  They deserve to have a proper will when the time comes.  And I'm not going to ask the lawyer to add how much I love them.  I'll mention that from time to time while I'm actually here.

Post 3.8.0.0 Grandma's Pan Lids

Grandma D didn't have many toys for grandchildren to play with when we visited.  But she let us play with her pans and her pan lids.  That made the lower cupboard where they were kept a treasure trove.

You couldn't do that at home.  You couldn't make noise like that at home.  No two lids were the same size, so you never got an even pair of cymbals, but there were a lot of different sizes, so you could experiment with the sound.

Which pair was loudest?  Two big ones?  Two small ones?  Or was the wooden spoon on the pan bottom superior?

Adults who would have voted to stop the noise in their own homes, relaxed and exclaimed over the delight taken in the noise at Grandma's.  I never asked Mom if Grandma ever allowed it as a Mother.  There are still people alive who might know.  I should make a note to ask.  It would be good to know.  It would fill out the story.

Post 3.8.0.0 Babies in Grandma's Sink

Grandma D loved her grandbabies and she loved to bathe them in her sink.  She made kind of a celebration out of it, and everyone felt like they were participating in a ritual of joy while it was happening.  

Not that anyone else helped with the washing.  Grandma was well up to that.  Another grandchild might be asked to hand her the towel at the end, but that was about it.

No, what you were supposed to be doing was noticing and commenting on the fun that the baby was having and reminiscing about the other babies that had been bathed in that sink.
"You don't remember, but I remember when YOU were the one in that sink.  I bet you wouldn't fit now, would you?"

I don't remember where other people bathed babies.  I'm guessing in the bath tub.  But it was understood that Grandma was the only person who bathed babies in the kitchen sink.  
Mom died last May, and I inherited her photos.  From the looks of the boxes, she had inherited Grandma's photos and Grandma had inherited her Mother-in-law's photos.  There may have been some from a great aunt or uncle, too.

I haven't been through the whole set.  That's going to be weeks and months (and maybe years) from now. But I have unearthed a few pictures of babies in Grandma's sink.

Post 4.4.0.0 Mom's Dieting Ideas

Mom was on a diet for almost as long as I can remember.  She had a few things that she did religiously.  Other things she wasn't as consistent with.  Perhaps because of the inconsistency, the things she was able to keep doing, she elevated to cult status.

Ideas about dieting shift.  People pick up these ideas and don't always let them go when they're debunked.  Like a lot of dieters, Mom had her collection of ideas.

Which brings us to salt.  One of the ideas that Mom collected was the idea that she was retaining water.  Salt makes women retain water.* Therefor, Mom never used salt.  She used granulated garlic instead.  

If she had been born later, there would have been more salt substitutes available.  But if they were more expensive than 'garlic powder',* she wouldn't have used them.  If she had been born much later, she wouldn't have been put on thyroid pills.

Under-active thyroid was what women in the late fifties and early sixties were diagnosed with if they had trouble losing weight after they had a couple of kids.  The trouble is that if you give someone thyroid hormones, and they're not making less hormone because if an insufficiency, the thyroid feedback circuit tells the thyroid gland to produce less, so that you have to keep raising the dose to maintain the same low level in the blood.  Unless you're taking enough to shut your thyroid gland to shut down completely, the level will not rise.

Decades later, a new doctor slowly weened Mom off of the thyroid pills.  There was no change in her weight from it.

Another thing that she did for while, but gave up on, was making her own salad dressing.  Oils and fats were evil.  So she'd shake up her own salad dressing with vinegar and garlic.  No salt.  That only lasted a few years.

I don't know if diet or oil-free dressings were available for purchase back then.  It wouldn't have mattered.  We didn't buy salad dressing on principle.  It was cheaper to make your own, if you really needed it.  And mayonnaise was perfectly good for most of the time.

Once in awhile we'd make our own thousand island dressing.  We'd add catsup and pickle relish to mayonnaise.  By the time I was in junior high, there were mix your own packets available, which we tried.  They never became a regular dinner feature.

Mom used pickle relish on other things, to add flavor.  No one ever mentioned that it had salt in it.  

Because oil and fat were evil, Mom used a Teflon pan to cook beef liver.  It wasn't until I was in college that I learned that liver didn't need to be a grey, dry hunk of shoe leather.  Oh, and to be sure it didn't stick, she'd sneak a little bit of water into the frying pan after it was partly cooked, and then put a lid on it.  Steamed beef liver will never be the new hip thing.

Other people bread liver and fry it in actual grease, done properly, it can be tasty.  Actually frying it makes a world of difference.

I'm pretty sure that she was overcooking it, too.  It wasn't a dieting idea, just a regular how to eat food idea.  Both of my parents were squicked out at the idea of blood in meat.  Well, maybe it wasn't because of the blood.  But all meat had to be well done.

So, salt, thyroid, and oil.  That's the big three.  I don't know that she ever left avoiding salt and oil behind.  She did pick up other ideas along the way.  But by then, I wasn't having to eat along with her, so I paid less attention.

Post 3.7.0.0 Generational Pudding

My kids were raised on instant pudding.  It was a source of guilt for me, although I'm pretty sure they never knew that.  To me, instant pudding was an inferior pudding and using it was a sign that you hadn't thought of making pudding soon enough to do it right or, in my case, not being able to keep track of the kids and the pudding, so that the pudding would scorch on the bottom of the pan.

I was surprised to find that when the kids were old enough to be trusted while I cooked, and I could take the time to make proper pudding, that hey preferred the instant.  I guess they were just used to it.  They were creeped out by the skin on the cooked pudding.
Go figure.  

I didn't try to accustom them to proper pudding.  Instant was easier and faster.  And it wasn't long before they could make the instant pudding themselves.  It would have been longer before they could make the cooked kind.  

There hadn't been much guilt over the pudding, but all of it had been wasted.  Lesson learned.

Post 3.6.0.0 Taco Night

One of our regular family treats was taco night.  Taco night was always at Grandma and Grandpa's.  We'd come in through the real door, which was on the side of the house and entered into the kitchen.  There was a front door, with a covered porch and an entry vestibule, but family never used it.  If someone rang the doorbell at the front door, you knew they were going to try to sell something to you.

The side door had a doorbell, too, but not a fancy one with chimes, like the front door.  It made a buzzing kind of ring.  We didn't use it much, either.  Being family, we just walked in.  Sometimes we'd knock on the door in passing and sometimes we'd just call out, if there was no one in the kitchen to just greet.

When I was young, the older female relatives would call out "knick, knick, knock!"  I don't know if any of us kids picked up the habit.  But I can hear the call in my Aunt's voice plainly.

Once we were there for taco night, we'd help make the tacos.  Who did what depended on who was there and how many of us there were.  Grandpa always diced the tomatoes and onions.  Grandpa kept his knives sharp, not like at our place.  Grandpa sharpened his own and some of the ones that were used most often had been worn away so that they almost looked like filleting knives.  Not that any of us knew what a filleting knife was, back then.

It was a time of culinary simplicity in America.  We opened cans of Ortega (tm) green chili peppers, chopped, and were being exotic.  Kids avoided the peppers and the onions. 
Grandma or Grandpa (or another designated adult) would fry up ground beef and set it aside, then fry the corn tortillas (the only kind available then) in the beef fat.  Oil would be added if the beef fat started running out.  

The fried tortillas were folded up in paper towels and stacked into a rectangular corning-ware casserole, which was just the right size to hold a line of them.  If there were a lot of us, a second casserole would be filled.  

Let's see, tortilla, ground beef, onion, green pepper, tomato - ah.  The Grandpa usually shredded the lettuce, but it wasn't critical.  Any adult could do that.  And anyone, kids included, could grate the cheese.  Sometimes we'd take turns at it.  One kid would get tired and pass it off to another kid.

Sometimes a can of black olives would be decanted and put in a bowl or relish dish.  Usually, there was root beer or cola.  Soda was something else that we usually didn't have at our house.  It was bad for our teeth, as was sugar on your breakfast cereal or oatmeal.

Often, Grandma would cook up Jello chocolate pudding before we started making the tacos.  I loved the feel and taste of still-warm pudding.  The cooked kind was better than that instant muck that came out later.  The cooked kind made a skin, so that there was two kinds of chocolaty goodness and you could decide which to eat first.

You could scoop off the skin and eat it first.  Sometimes, if the pudding was still warm enough and if you ate slowly enough, the exposed remainder would form a thinner secondary skin.

Or you could flip the skin over, to expose the creamy underside and scoop the smoothness out, tunneling under the collapsing skin.  Then you had the skin to eat last.  This was a more involved procedure.

But back to the tacos.  Tacos are finger food.  They are buffet food.  You don't make the tacos and serve them up, you prepare the fixin's pass the bowls around so that everyone can make their own.  Everyone has their own favorite way to make a taco, although there is usually some experimentation going on.

If there are a lot of people around the table, it can be tricky to find a place for all of the bowls needed.  If something had to be put to the side, it was usually the taco shells, which would be left on the stove so that the pilot light would keep them warm.  If there was a second casserole of shells, the table was guaranteed to be to full for shell space.

Somewhere along the years, taco sauce was added to the ingredients.  If there were more people than planned on, beans could be added to the meat to extend it.  The times being what they were, it was usually pork and beans that was added.

If you have kids building tacos, you have tacos leaking ingredients down onto their plates, so everyone had forks to clean up the taco droppings.  Every child had to decide whether to start with one taco shell or two.  Not that there was any question that we would eat two or more, just that building them was fun and if you did each one in series, you might decide to do each one differently, adjusting the taste to home in on the perfect result.
If you did two to start with, you'd probably just make them both the same.  And you'd be making them both on the first round, when everything was being passed around the table.  Tacos made after the first round would call for things to be passed to you, as in you specifically.  There was a certain satisfaction to that.
You had to be careful with tacos, especially if you had added any sauce.  Even just with the tomatoes and the grease from the shell you could get taco juice running down your arm and dripping off your elbow.  Extra paper towels were available, or, sometimes, napkins. 
Grandma and Grandpa were more likely to have napkins than we were.  The philosophy at our house was that if you were eating properly, there was no need for the expense of a paper napkin.  Not for a regular dinner.
Kids were warned not to let their eyes get bigger than their stomachs.  You don't want to get too full for dessert.  And if there wasn't pudding, there was probably ice cream.  Especially if it was movie night.  Taco night didn't necessarily mean movie night, but sometimes movie night had taco night added to the front of it.
Mmmm.  Taco night.