I did my grandmother's shopping today, which was totally fine, but I noticed, while in Stop & Shop, they were playing that song that Buffalo Bill dances to in Silence of the Lambs. This doesn't have anything to do with Granny, it was just weird. That song just doesn't fit in a grocery store.
-Kat
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
The Asshole Award
My sister and I were planning on doing our grandmother's shopping today. Of course, when we called Alice to tell her we were coming over, she said that she hadn't even thought about her grocery list yet. Joanna and I got very irritated over this fact..."What ELSE is she doing?" we both said, huffing and puffing in the car. We decided to still go over and visit with our grandmother, who used pretty much the entire visit hemming and hawing over if maybe she ACTUALLY DID want us to pick some things up for her. We all decided against it, instead choosing to watch "The Real Housewives of Atlanta." The thing was, when we were leaving, my grandmother says:
"Wait...do you need money?"
I felt like an asshole because now I am painfully aware that our grandmother probably thinks the only reason we ever go to see her is to get money. This simply is not true. I visit my grandmother a lot with my mother, and Joanna visits her a lot on her own time. It just so happens that usuall,y when Joanna and I are together visitng our grandmother, it is to take her to an appointment or do her shopping, and our grandmother will usually pay us for gas or what have you. Her offering up money today, however, for a visit? It made me feel awful, I instantly felt bad about talking shit in the car, even though it was out of aggrevation. I guess it kinda makes Joanna and I look like granny hookers. "$50 bucks for your laundry, $100 to sit and chat, and 60% goes to T-Dog."
-Kat
"Wait...do you need money?"
I felt like an asshole because now I am painfully aware that our grandmother probably thinks the only reason we ever go to see her is to get money. This simply is not true. I visit my grandmother a lot with my mother, and Joanna visits her a lot on her own time. It just so happens that usuall,y when Joanna and I are together visitng our grandmother, it is to take her to an appointment or do her shopping, and our grandmother will usually pay us for gas or what have you. Her offering up money today, however, for a visit? It made me feel awful, I instantly felt bad about talking shit in the car, even though it was out of aggrevation. I guess it kinda makes Joanna and I look like granny hookers. "$50 bucks for your laundry, $100 to sit and chat, and 60% goes to T-Dog."
-Kat
Thursday, November 10, 2011
The Grandma Equation
My sister yells at me sometimes because she says I get too impatient with our grandmother. I yell at her about the same thing. I lecture her about the importance of just saying “no” when it comes to some of our grandmother’s more ridiculous demands. Joanna handles my grandmother a little differently than I do though. Like, right now, Joanna is currently going to school for graphic design, and interning at a graphic design firm. My grandmother will call asking for a favor of some kind, and Joanna will behave the exact same way each and every time. Basically, she will huff and puff, and look extremely put out, but eventually, and very begrudgingly do whatever it was she was asked to do. I tell her this will just end up building resentment and she should just say no when she can’t do something. She tells me to go fuck myself.
The reason for our differences, I am told, is because Joanna had a much different “grandma” experience than I did. Her memories are of staying up late on Saturday nights, watching 227 and Saturday Night Live. I don’t think my grandmother ever let me stay up late to watch SNL. I vividly remember once, when both me and my sister were sleeping over, she let Joanna watch it, and not me. I was in the bedroom across the hall, listening longingly to Jennifer Aniston’s monologue.
I’m not trying to paint myself as a little Cinderella here. I realize that by the time I came around, my grandmother was a little older, and probably just didn’t feel like trying to please a bratty little kid. I guess in a really odd way, this frees me from the pull of feeling guilty if I am simply unable to do something for my grandmother. Of course, if I can do something for her, I will. Basically, it frees me from all the huffing and puffing that Joanna does.
My grandmother and I actually have an all right relationship when it comes down to it. The formulas go like this:
ME + GRANNY=GOOD
JOANNA + GRANNY=GOOD
MY MOTHER + ME + GRANNY=GOOD +/- TENSION
JOANNA + ME + GRANNY=RAGE+ANNOYANCE+HURT FEELINGS(^2)
It occurs to me that, a lot of the times, it is almost completely dependent on who you are with that will equal a good or bad time. If you are with somebody who will react to any aggravation you have with annoyance, then you are fucked. Joanna has a pretty short temper, and she will tell you that I have an anger problem, but when we aren’t together, visiting granny can be a pretty nice experience. For the record, I don’t have an anger problem. I am just one of those people out there who says things like “I’m gonna kill him” or “I’m gonna rip her head off in front of her children.” Good old facetious fun.
I don’t know why, but whenever Joanna and I go into my grandmother’s house together, I am reminded of an acting class I took. I remember the teacher; an impish, overzealous voice-over actor telling us the rules of blocking. He spent one class explaining how the way a person is positioned on stage can set the tone for the whole scene, and moreover, tells the audience which character has the power. According to him, if there are only two people in a scene, one of them always has to be more powerful than the other. I’m not sure of how this tactic would work in say, a production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but I never did take anything this man said seriously. What I do remember him saying that really stuck with me though, was that if a person in seated, and another one is standing, then the seated person is the one with the power. It didn’t make much sense to me then, but nowadays I am beginning to understand it. Whenever Joanna and I walk into our grandmother’s house, she is always seated. We are always standing there, waiting for her next command. I also notice that when you sit down with her to have an actual conversation, the tension eases, and you start to see how silly it looks when a grown woman is standing in front of a little old one, screaming. I think this means that the power of mind over frustration lies with the person who is willing to take a seat.
-Kat
The reason for our differences, I am told, is because Joanna had a much different “grandma” experience than I did. Her memories are of staying up late on Saturday nights, watching 227 and Saturday Night Live. I don’t think my grandmother ever let me stay up late to watch SNL. I vividly remember once, when both me and my sister were sleeping over, she let Joanna watch it, and not me. I was in the bedroom across the hall, listening longingly to Jennifer Aniston’s monologue.
I’m not trying to paint myself as a little Cinderella here. I realize that by the time I came around, my grandmother was a little older, and probably just didn’t feel like trying to please a bratty little kid. I guess in a really odd way, this frees me from the pull of feeling guilty if I am simply unable to do something for my grandmother. Of course, if I can do something for her, I will. Basically, it frees me from all the huffing and puffing that Joanna does.
My grandmother and I actually have an all right relationship when it comes down to it. The formulas go like this:
ME + GRANNY=GOOD
JOANNA + GRANNY=GOOD
MY MOTHER + ME + GRANNY=GOOD +/- TENSION
JOANNA + ME + GRANNY=RAGE+ANNOYANCE+HURT FEELINGS(^2)
It occurs to me that, a lot of the times, it is almost completely dependent on who you are with that will equal a good or bad time. If you are with somebody who will react to any aggravation you have with annoyance, then you are fucked. Joanna has a pretty short temper, and she will tell you that I have an anger problem, but when we aren’t together, visiting granny can be a pretty nice experience. For the record, I don’t have an anger problem. I am just one of those people out there who says things like “I’m gonna kill him” or “I’m gonna rip her head off in front of her children.” Good old facetious fun.
I don’t know why, but whenever Joanna and I go into my grandmother’s house together, I am reminded of an acting class I took. I remember the teacher; an impish, overzealous voice-over actor telling us the rules of blocking. He spent one class explaining how the way a person is positioned on stage can set the tone for the whole scene, and moreover, tells the audience which character has the power. According to him, if there are only two people in a scene, one of them always has to be more powerful than the other. I’m not sure of how this tactic would work in say, a production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but I never did take anything this man said seriously. What I do remember him saying that really stuck with me though, was that if a person in seated, and another one is standing, then the seated person is the one with the power. It didn’t make much sense to me then, but nowadays I am beginning to understand it. Whenever Joanna and I walk into our grandmother’s house, she is always seated. We are always standing there, waiting for her next command. I also notice that when you sit down with her to have an actual conversation, the tension eases, and you start to see how silly it looks when a grown woman is standing in front of a little old one, screaming. I think this means that the power of mind over frustration lies with the person who is willing to take a seat.
-Kat
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
"And How Does That Make You Feel?"
Joanna and I took Alice to the foot doctor on Monday. I never thought that this would be a standing date for me in my twenties, but-there you have it. Every two months, Joanna and I find ourselves in the waiting room of our grandmother's foot doctor's tiny office. His receptionist is a tiny little lunatic who hums, talks, and cackles to herself at an alarming volume. We are subject to her conversation with the voice in her head for a good 20 minutes each time. I suppose that on Monday, it was slightly more annoying than usual, as Joanna and I got into a fight right there in the waiting room. Basically, I said I thought one of our distant ex-relatives looked old, and she told me that I sound like I am trying out for a Tennessee Williams play. It doesn't make much sense, but I guess you could blame it all on PMS and that crazy receptionist-something just snapped in both of us.
Driving Alice home, there was still a lot of tension in the car, and it lingered there up until walking Alice to her apartment. While sitting there, the tension exploded into a shouting match, and this made my grandmother upset.
"I don't want to hear it! Just don't respond to her, Joanna!"
The shouting continued, and so did Alice.
"I don't want you here if you are just going to be shouting!"
"FINE!" Joanna said, "THEN WE ARE LEAVING!"
And off we went. Joanna and I settled things in the car, and we then had a lovely day at the craft store. What occured to me, however was this: Joanna and I were just doing what sisters DO-we fight, yell, swear, and destroy somebody completely, then go to Starbucks. All in a day. Having sisters enables you to say hurtful things without the fear that you burned a bridge. All is forgotten in the time it takes to brew a latte. The sad thing was that our grandmother, who herself had four sisters, couldn't deal with the stupid bickering that comes with the territory-forgoing a nice visit because she couldn't just be a tiny bit empathetic. I have noticed that this is just the way she is-the opposite of my mother, who NEVER passes up the opportunity for a good verbal battle, (ask my fifth grade teacher). If one of her sisters said something nasty about my mother, my grandmother wouldn't stand up for her daughter, it was as though she was always afraid to counter them. Today, while at her house, my mother asked her why she doesn't change something about her life if she wants to-for example, moving around more to get more mobile, and my grandmother changed the subject; something she always does when she just doesn't want to answer an honest question. This makes me think, do I know Alice's true personality? IS this her personality? I feel like there must be something else there, but that it is never shown. I know little things; she likes Ashton Kutcher, for example, but I wonder what pent up opinions or answers are there that she has been sitting on for 90 years? I'll probably never know, so Ashton Kutcher will do for now.
-Kat
Driving Alice home, there was still a lot of tension in the car, and it lingered there up until walking Alice to her apartment. While sitting there, the tension exploded into a shouting match, and this made my grandmother upset.
"I don't want to hear it! Just don't respond to her, Joanna!"
The shouting continued, and so did Alice.
"I don't want you here if you are just going to be shouting!"
"FINE!" Joanna said, "THEN WE ARE LEAVING!"
And off we went. Joanna and I settled things in the car, and we then had a lovely day at the craft store. What occured to me, however was this: Joanna and I were just doing what sisters DO-we fight, yell, swear, and destroy somebody completely, then go to Starbucks. All in a day. Having sisters enables you to say hurtful things without the fear that you burned a bridge. All is forgotten in the time it takes to brew a latte. The sad thing was that our grandmother, who herself had four sisters, couldn't deal with the stupid bickering that comes with the territory-forgoing a nice visit because she couldn't just be a tiny bit empathetic. I have noticed that this is just the way she is-the opposite of my mother, who NEVER passes up the opportunity for a good verbal battle, (ask my fifth grade teacher). If one of her sisters said something nasty about my mother, my grandmother wouldn't stand up for her daughter, it was as though she was always afraid to counter them. Today, while at her house, my mother asked her why she doesn't change something about her life if she wants to-for example, moving around more to get more mobile, and my grandmother changed the subject; something she always does when she just doesn't want to answer an honest question. This makes me think, do I know Alice's true personality? IS this her personality? I feel like there must be something else there, but that it is never shown. I know little things; she likes Ashton Kutcher, for example, but I wonder what pent up opinions or answers are there that she has been sitting on for 90 years? I'll probably never know, so Ashton Kutcher will do for now.
-Kat
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