When in the Bay Area I have to see my grandma. As I've written in previous posts, my grandma is my favorite family member and honest to god my favorite person in my life. She's witty, she's inspiring, she's artistic and hopeful and loving, and occasionally she forgets that Asians aren't called "Orientals" anymore.
I'm eternally grateful that my bf's younger bro let me borrow his car. I absolutely love bugs and jeeps; I own a bug and this was my change to drive a jeep. The steering was looser than in my car, but the window space was awesome and it was an excellent ride. It takes about 40 minutes to get to San Jose where she lives, 40 minutes back, so I knew I'd only have 45 minutes to spend with her before I had to be back by 3pm for ham dinner.
Lots of speeding later...
And there's my grandma all smiles and chic. She was wearing black slacks, with a black blouse with a bright white poka dot trim at the open collar and loose wrists, with a black newsboy cap. She was styling.
We hugged and I took my boots off so we were both 4'9-4'11 size together. She sat in her chair and told me that she was thinking of her sister R---- and that time my grandma convinced her to sit on the handlebars while my gma rode the bike up the hill. Well grandma kept making bad riding moves, making a very angry R--- fall off, only to get back on again before yet another spill. Unfortunately my grandma and her sister have had a grudge for the past twenty years so they send each other Christmas cards but hold an unusual hate/love animosity towards each other.
I told grandma about my work and the stupidity of my guests, like the guy who asked me how to turn on the heather (you press 'on'). She was laughing and laughing and was hopefully about my possible publishing opportunity.
Here's another reason my grandma and my mom are so different: at my mom's house the presents were #1, and at my grandma's house we could have talked for hours and the presents could have been left unopened forever. I finally convinced her to open her gifts from me and she had an annoyed amusement that we bought each other the same gift: the Regis Philbin autobiography. I know she wanted to give it to me first. Beat her to it!
Well we got a good laugh out of that.
We didn't have too much time left but enough time for her to tell me a little story about Grandpa. While my Grandpa was in the hospital he saw something on tv where the couple asked each other if they were "solid". Grandpa liked the word and called up Grandma who was doing errands or was at home for a time before returning to him. He asked, "Ann, are we solid?". She replied, "Forever."
Forever. Before my grandma and I got close I didn't think I had it in me to love anyone forever. I know now that I can love forever because of the love I have for her.
That crazy lady. She followed her grandpa story with a story of how she once went to a neo-nazi by accident. An acquaintance of hers asked my grandma if she wanted to go to a meeting. My grandma didn't bother to ask what the meeting was about and said, 'sure, I'll go'. Well it turned out to be a pro-Hitler, neo-nazi meeting and my grandma didn't know what the hell to do. Grandpa had served in the WWII and a mutual friend had liberated one of the concentration camps. That friend had found a nazi hiding in one of the ovens, and when he saw him hiding there the friend got his gun and riddled the nazi with rounds and rounds and rounds of bullets out of the horror of the camp. For the most part my grandma is a pacifist and doesn't believe in killing, but she loves how that nazi was slaughtered for his crimes. Anyway, my grandma politely stayed during the neo-nazi meeting and I don't believe she ever hung out with that friend again.
I shook my head and hugged her goodbye. As I left I told her about the ocean and how a few hours before my flight to Arizona I had been drinking hot chocolate on the pier looking below to the surfers and the bluest ocean she's ever seen. My grandma loves the sea, and looked through me as if to the see the ocean I was describing to her.
Goodbye, I love you, I'll see you soon. 45+ minutes in San Jose and I arrived back for ham dinner at 2:59pm.
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