As you may (or may not) recall, I promised grandmother that I would return for a visit the next day (Sunday) after our lawnmower adventures (Saturday).
Sunday came.
I tried to call when I was on my way, but I got the answering machine. I figured she was out working in her garden. Her garden consists of her entire back yard. There can only be about 40 square feet of grass in a half-acre back yard. She also lives about two miles from our town's downtown area. Every year, I give away dozens of pounds of squash, green beans, okra, and peppers to friends and neighbors AFTER I've cooked, eaten, or frozen all that I can take from her garden. I also don't have the heart to tell her that they sell all these things at the grocery, and no one at the grocery calls me at 7 a.m. on a Saturday to tell me that "these beans ain't gonna pick themselves."
I hadn't had lunch, so I wheeled through McDonald's to get myself a lunch and three hot fudge sundaes--one for grandmother, one for her boyfriend, and one for me. Lunatic uncle, if awake at noon on a Sunday, was going to be out of luck. [It was on this drive-through trip that I spotted the mobile dog grooming van in the parking lot. Picture of inappropriate business name plastered on a van on the alt.] I purchased a two-cheeseburger meal and the three sundaes and was on my way.
I arrived and went through the gate to her garden/back yard, where I found her sitting on her deck steps. She was taking a break from running her gas-powered tiller in preparation for more planting. [She should just get a tractor and plow, if she's going to go through using a tiller.] She told me she would have had this done sooner, but she's been SO busy. [Translation: she's been blowing off everything and running around with boyfriend.] I let her know that I had brought hot fudge sundaes for her and boyfriend. She was delighted. I also told her that I'd purchased the two-cheeseburger meal and that I wanted her to eat one of the burgers. She cocked her head, looked at my legs, and said, "No, you'd better eat BOTH burgers." After I insisted that she eat one, she relented (but with furrowed brow).
We went in her house and had to walk past boyfriend, who was resting in the recliner and reading the Sunday paper. Grandmother said, "[Boyfriend], look who's here! And she brought us some ice cream. Isn't that nice?" When he didn't answer quickly enough, she said, more loudly, "ISN'T IT??" He said, "Well, what do you know? What did we do to deserve this? This IS nice! What's going on with you, being so nice?" [Side note: this was another time to deflect and ignore, which is just what I did.]
Grandmother and I settled in at the kitchen table for our impromptu meal, and I made sure boyfriend had his sundae. The following is a snapshot of the high (and low) points of my visit:
*boyfriend roared, "Where's your better half?" I said that he was probably out somewhere with his brother. Boyfriend did not respond, as he was no longer listening. *boyfriend told grandmother that someone had been trying to call and that from the sound of the message left on the machine, someone was dropping by for a visit. Grandmother looked at me and said, "Did you call?" I said that I had. She asked, "Did HE answer?" I said that he had not but that I had left a message. She looked at him and said, "It was HER!! SHE called! SHE'S the one who's dropping by!" She looked at me and shook her head in disbelief. *grandmother told me that she had not eaten a McDonald's cheeseburger in 7 years. Who knows something like that?? *grandmother told me again how nice my snack delivery was and made boyfriend tell me again how nice HE thought it was. *grandmother told me that boyfriend had lost his glasses in the back yard yesterday when he went to mow. [Again, there's so very little to mow. On a related note, it's unfortunate that our city now has an ordinance against goats within city limits. When I was younger, she kept a goat back there, and she never had to mow the back yard.] Evidently, boyfriend took off his glasses, PUT THEM DOWN ON THE GROUND, and then was unable to find them later. *grandmother said that no one should go without glasses, so she got out a pair of my late grandfather's glasses for boyfriend to wear. Surprisingly, he was unable to see clearly through the lenses. Then she got the idea that he could try some pairs of her old glasses. [Side note: grandmother hasn't worn glasses in 5 years because boyfriend bankrolled her laser eye surgery.] She said that one of her old pairs worked. In fact, he could see BETTER out of those than he could his old glasses. At that moment, I was filled with pain and regret at missing the chance to see him in Gloria Vanderbilt frames with lenses the size of tennis balls. *grandmother was happy to inform me that she found the glasses that morning, however. She spotted them when the sunlight glinted off the lenses. She said this was very lucky, especially since he doesn't have his cataract surgery on one eye until late June and on the other eye in July. She said that he would have gone without glasses until August. At this time, boyfriend roared from the other room, "My surgery isn't in August! One's in June! The other's in July! No one's having any surgery in August! I told you that!" *her head whipped in his direction so that she could yell, "I KNOW that! You would have gone without glasses until August!" Of course, he was still in there calling out information about surgery dates and insisting none were in August. *I pointed out that he wouldn't have gone without glasses. He just would have gone without MEN'S glasses. I also pointed out that there were better places to leave glasses than the ground (or you could just wear your glasses while you mow). She thought this was particularly funny and said in a stage whisper, "He loses his glasses ALL THE TIME. There was a pair he put down in the yard at his house that we never found." [Side note: this has happened MORE THAN ONCE.] *boyfriend called out, "I lost a pair of glasses in my yard once. I thought we'd never find them, but we did." Grandmother's head once again whipped toward his voice. She screeched, "NO, WE DID NOT! WE NEVER FOUND THEM!" He responded, "I found those glasses over by the wood pile. That's where they were!" For the next very long four minutes, they debated whether these glasses had ever been found. It ended when she looked at me, rolled her eyes, and said to him, "You don't know what you're talking about!!" *after about 30 seconds of blissful silence, boyfriend called out, "It's May. I didn't know the fat man in the red suit came in May. I don't know what we did to deserve this ice cream treat." [Side note: Santa doesn't typically bring frozen food items in my family, but maybe things were different in his family.] *grandmother asked me how my flowers were doing, and as I'm telling her, boyfriend yells, "Where's your better half?" I told him that he was probably out with friends. He did not listen to this response, either. *after some idle chitchat, I told grandmother that I'd better be getting home. I told boyfriend goodbye, and he thanked me again for the extremely generous act of bringing him a hot fudge sundae. Grandmother and I walked outside, where I received my two parting gifts: a moonflower seedling and a small pepper plant. The moonflower was in an old yogurt container, but the pepper plant was in an old sour cream container. [Side note: should I be giving her my old plastics containers instead of recycling them?] I graciously accepted both and thanked her. *before I got in the car to go, she pointed at one of the trees in her yard and said, "Them peaches will come in soon. You better be ready to pick." Sigh. Who needs 30 pounds of peaches? I don't. At least I didn't last year, not that it mattered. I had them, anyway. I ran out of room in my fridge, so I started putting them in baskets on top of my heat/AC registers and turned down the thermostat. History will likely repeat itself in a few short weeks.
