Today Sean and I drove up to Santa Barbara to visit his grandma. Grandma is a lovely woman, sweet and funny and very kind. She is also 90 years old and has lost all inhibitions about appearing cranky and contrary.
As we were driving to dinner with her and Sean's Aunt Lorie, we all noticed the huge fog bank hovering just offshore.
"Look at that!" said Sean. "It's beautiful!"
"It's amazing!" said Aunt Lorie.
"I hate it!" said Grandma.
At Grandma's 90th birthday party in August, I sat with her and her next door neighbor, a pleasant young fellow named Andrew, for a good long while and chatted. We talked about all sorts of things and laughed and altogether had an agreeable time. After 20 minutes or so, Andrew excused himself and got up to refill his wine glass. As he walked away, I said to Grandma, "He seems like a nice guy."
Grandma turned to me with a suddenly stony expression on her face and said, "He is NOT a nice guy."
My own grandma loosened up in old age and said whatever the hell she wanted, an admirable trait I can hardly wait to emulate. One of my favorite examples of her crankiness occurred one night when she was visiting us from Michigan; she was probably in her mid-80s at the time. We were all sitting around watching TV after dinner, and a Weight Watchers commercial came on. Suddenly, Grandma sharted shouting, "Turn it off! Turn it off!"
Somebody turned the TV off and we all gathered around her chair, wondering what was going on. "What's wrong, Grandma?" we asked.
"It's that Lynn Redgrave," said Grandma. "She bugs the shit out of me."
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1 comment:
I love this! And, if I'm as flip and free to express my true feelings now at 41, I'll be downright scary to be around by the time I reach 80!
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