North Carolina Odyssey

My Grandmother is one of my favorite people in the whole world. I've always admired her willingness to say exactly what she thinks, consequences be damned. When she aims her criticisms at me, I usually laugh and tell her she's crazy. Usually it's over the phone because I'm in Colorado and she's in North Carolina. I discovered it's different in person though.

The Old Man and The Kid and I went to North Carolina last weekend to see my Grandmother, who I hadn't seen in four years. She's 81 and just broke her shoulder, and since I'm with child and will be unable to travel for a while, I figured now would be a good time to introduce her to The Kid.

When you visit North Carolina, you do two things: eat, and watch TV. In alternating, never-ending order.

So our first meal was ham and Velveeta sandwiches with tomatoes and chips. (Note: Vegetable #1 = tomato, although technically it's a fruit.)

The first thing my Grandmother noticed was that The Kid behaves better with his daddy than he does with me. She made sure to relay this fact to me, our relatives, her neighbors, and my mom on the phone. And that was just the first day.

The next thing my Grandmother noticed was that The Kid ate next to nothing. She told me I was letting him drink too much juice and milk. Apparently our kid had trouble wading through the meals of bacon, biscuits, and eggs, and then barbecued pork and cole slaw (Note: Vegetable #2 - Cole slaw, drenched in mayo), and then spaghetti, french fries, cole slaw, and ketchup (Note: Cole slaw is still Vegetable #2, and my mom says President Reagan called ketchup a vegetable, though I still think it's in the fruit/condiment family).

The third thing my Grandmother noticed was that I failed to pack enough footwear for The Kid. After a good drenching rain The Old Man and I took The Kid for a walk to splash in the puddles, and The Kid came home drenched and thoroughly happy after getting some exercise and burning some animal fat calories. His shoes were soaked and she berated me for not being able to whip out a dry pair of shoes for the kid. It's 70 degrees on a cold day in North Carolina, so I wasn't too worried that I had to send him out to play barefoot for a couple of times while his shoes dried.

The fourth thing my Grandmother noticed was that our three year old child had an annoying propensity of wanting to touch everything. Grandmother's knick-knacks are off-limits, so this left The Kid with approximately 10 square feet of space where he was allowed to exist the entire weekend. Apparently in Grandmother's day children were taught never to touch anything, and I had failed to convey this properly to my offspring.

This was after the biscuits, eggs, ham steaks, apple jelly, and hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans (Note: Vegetable #3 = baked beans with brown sugar) and cole slaw (Still Vegetable #2) and then leftovers of hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, and cole slaw (Still Veg #2).

Around this time, when we were sitting at the table eating up the leftovers with Grandmother and my Aunt D and Uncle K, we started talking about my dad. Grandmother said he was a fine young boy until he "went hippie" and The Old Man, my husband, laughed just about until he cried. Grandmother kept on about the moral disintegration of my father, and wondered just how it happened, and got to the conclusion that it must have been my mom who turned him that way, and then Uncle K said, "Yeah, and he was just living in a tipi eating soybeans before he met her." Which was true. My father was living in a tipi and eating very little protein before he ever had the good fortune to meet my mom.

Here's the scene at the dinner table:
Me to Uncle K: "Grandmother doesn't like my mom."
Uncle K: "I know! When your mom visited here, I asked her, 'What did you do?'"
Me to Grandmother: "You know, mom's mother didn't like your son when they first married."
Grandmother: "K married well. D has class."
Aunt D: Rolls her eyes.
The Old Man: Snort. Giggle.
Grandmother to me: "Your father used to dress so nice before he went hippie."
The Old Man: Full out gales of laughter.

After biscuits, eggs, Cocoa Krispies, sausage, and then roast beef, potato/cream cheese/sour cream/butter casserole, dinner rolls, cream corn (Note: Vegetable #4 = corn, swimming in sugared corn starch), chocolate cake and apple pie, Uncle K and Aunt D - really, two of the nicest people in the world - left, and The Kid took his nap.

Grandmother and The Old Man and I stepped out on the porch to watch K and D drive away.
Grandmother: "D is such a good girl. She cleaned up the whole house for me."
Actually, both D and I cleaned the house, is what I was thinking.
Grandmother: "You're a good girl too. Sometimes." And then, totally ignoring the fact that I'm 32, "Sometimes you need a good spanking."
Me: "And sometimes I'd like to smack you upside the head."
The Old Man: Nervous giggle.
Me: "Let me get this straight, and tell me if I'm missing anything. My son minds his daddy better than me..."
Grandmother: "Yes, honey."
Me: "I should have packed more shoes..."
Grandmother: "Yes."
Me: "I let my son drink too much liquid and he's wasting away from eating nothing because of that..."
Grandmother: "Sure you're right about that."
Me: "My son puts his hands all over things he shouldn't touch, and back in your day, children were taught to mind the adults."
Grandmother: "Well, I'm glad you are understanding what I'm trying to say."
Me to The Old Man: "Should we leave The Kid here so that Grandmother can raise him right?"
The Old Man: Giggle.
Grandmother: "Honey, you couldn't pay me to do that."

I did have a good time. Grandmother says all the hyper-critical things about people that I, for the most part, keep in my head. And we had it out on the porch, and said our piece, and we're cool.

Her biggest fear is getting too sick to live alone. She does not want to depend on anyone else for help. I can completely identify with the need to be independent. With the crankiness. With the don't mess with me attitude. With making snap judgments about people, and holding grudges for way too long. I am my Grandmother's grand daughter for sure.