Long Live Grandpa!
Bear with me and I’ll tell you why the time has come. See, Tuesday Grandpa and I were planning to have breakfast. My mom was flying in from LA for a visit later that afternoon (about which more in a subsequent post). G. called in the morning to greet me with her typically cheerful, “What’s up, Ass Monkey?” We confirmed we were on for breakfast (and she agreed to buy this time), but once we were in her car she informed me that we first had to make a trip to Home Depot for her to pick up some supplies for her latest home improvement projects. Great. With her buying breakfast, I doth not protest.
I don’t know how many times I’ve been to Homo Depot with Grandpa. It usually involves slapping around in flip flops, her cursing and trying to find stuff while I play the continually distracted, annoying toddler–and none more than this time, when I spied a floor sample of an easy-assembly picnic table that I suddenly realized was the answer to all my backyard prayers. The table costs $99, dirt cheap for the miracle that it is and the problems it solves for my backyard, but not money I should be spending when I’m trying to save up for the next Atlantis Cruise we’re leaving for in a few days. Does this stop me from convincing Grandpa it’d be a good idea for her to front me the table and let me pay it off with a future bartending shift? No. And G. kindly agrees, even though that means loading the heavy m.f. into her car, hoisting it into my yard, and getting it out of the box.
After breakfast, G. goes home to focus on her project, and I set to work trying to assemble the table that the instructions tell me will come together in “less than five minutes.” Riiight. But I do okay until it comes time to fasten the benches to the frame of the table and something’s just not working. I call G, who drives back over to grunt and pry metal with me in the blazing sun until we finally slide the benches into the ill-conceived brackets, announcing our victory to the world.
She returns home and I spend a couple hours painting the happily assembled table–which, as you will see when I take a picture of it, is indeed perfect for my yard. Did I mention I had had caffeine? Yeah, I believe it was an iced latte with our breakfast burritos at Geez Louise on Colfax. In my case, that’s the equivalent of a psychic nuke. I’m so into my manic painting that I’m boldly shooing away the wasps that seem unusually interested in my activities. So focused that I pay no heed to the virtual halo of stinger-bearing insects encircling my sweaty head.
That is, until while disassembling my former, sunburned, piece of crap table for to throw it away, I flip it onto its back, and see the little wasps’ nest that is making the critters so agitated. The proverbial clouds part and I scream so loud I’m sure I scared the neighbors. I do the rational thing: throw whatever is in my hands on the ground, run in the house and lock the door. Now a semi-hysterical call to Grandpa. Much squealing, angling, whining, and outright begging ensues. Could she please help me, could she kill the wasp larvae or whatever and get that disgusting thing out of MY YARD???
And so because she loves me, Grandpa agrees to come over for the third time in a day that she does not have to work, but not before pouring herself a Vodka cranberry. And because I am a freak, while I wait for her I peer out the window and observe that the wasps are ingeniously performing incredible triage on their endangered nest/nursery; thus, I decide, it is unfair to kill them. Which means, now, that Grandpa must not use the Raid she brings with her when she arrives, and we are morally compelled search for an alternate, murder-free solution. That turns out to be Grandpa throwing an old sheet over the nest, the wasps, and the table, and the two of us hauling ass to the alley, around the corner, and to the dumpster, where we heave the entire table and its deadly contents in and race full-speed home, me blathering the whole time about what if the wasps regroup in the form of an arrow and have their revenge?
In short: Grandpa is my hero. In a single day, she has saved not only my backyard and my checkbook, but also my sanity-in-assembling, my reputation as an innocent wasp-killer, and my life itself. And, frankly, such feats are routine occurrences in our 17-year history together.
Now, she may be stubborn as a mule and ornerier than a warthog. Her veins may circulate more alcohol than blood (though that does make her spit the most effective glasses cleaner I have ever seen). She may have a history of throwing incoherent, teary meltdowns in the middle of my theme parties and passing out in her locked car in the carport. And the things that pass for friendly greetings in her vocabulary would make most children cry. But what are a few idiosyncracies among blood sisters? Sure, she makes me go to Fright Night haunted houses and face down guys with chainsaws on Halloween; she snores like a gargoyle; she smokes Marlboro lights even through Welbutrin; and every other time I turn my kitchen faucet on I’m met with the sprayer in my face thanks to her. Thanks to her, I find myself invested in who’s going to win American Idol every year. But she loves me like a rock, she has a heart of gold, she makes me laugh, and I’m going to love her and bug her and bicker with her until the day I die.
Grandpa, with whom I have sung all the words to Evergreen while waiting for a guy to buy her motorcycle in 100 degree weather. With whom I have ridden many a motorcycle, been bucked off two horses, and eaten many bowls of green chili that were way too hot for me. With whom I have watched Fried Green Tomatoes, Steel Magnolias, Best in Show, Terms of Endearment, and Monster too many times to mention. Who loves animals with every cell in her body, talks to herself constantly, and never turns the t.v. off. Whose company I have enjoyed at a dozen Melissa Etheridge concerts, in half a dozen cities, and under the stars on a mattress pulled on the back porch.
To Grandpa: Mooj of the mundo, heart of my heart. Thank you, G. Thank you for being one of a kind.
