Now that I know my beloved readers are a bunch of sex-obsessed, lewd-minded perverts who only read my biary out of a prurient interest, I thought I’d go for something really naughty.
My grandmother.
Now, before you click away from reading more, let me explain my logic. At some point in her life, my grandmother had sex with my grandfather and begot my father. How lascivious!!! Then, much later, my father then had sex with my mother. They had to try at least four times before getting it right and begetting me.
Uch… it’s so unsavory. Isn’t there a better way of being born?
Anyway, I want to talk about my paternal grandmother, Mary, whom we always called Mem.
Mem, standing next to Grandpa Harry. The three boys are my brothers. The curly-headed blonde is my cousin Stephanie. I’m the cutie with the goofy smile.
She was a wonderful grandmother. Stylish in a way that women who came of age in the 30s and 40s were. She doted on all of her grandchildren and held fast to the belief that her son (my father) could do no wrong – which is true. She was an amazing baker AND she could cook up a storm. She loved practical jokes and scatological humor. Later in life, I learned of her endearing ability to express her disdain for people she didn’t like in a way that didn’t seem insulting or cruel.
She was my after-school caretaker when I was in kindergarten and my mom was going to graduate school. Mem and I would play cards and watch game shows and giggle up a storm. She taught me how to play solitaire and also taught me how to cheat at it.
Mem knitted dozens of sweaters, dresses and afghans for her children and grandchildren. She never taught me how to knit. But after I learned on my own when I lived in Denmark, Mem was eager to see that the Danes taught me how to knit the right way.
My cousin Stephanie and I… just before her wedding. Next to Grandma is Steph’s sister, Rachel. Ah, the 1990s.
After my grandfather died, I was living in St. Louis and would visit her at least once a week. She was depressed by then and really didn’t do much of anything aside from watch game shows on the game show channel. But she would always perk up when I showed up. I would hold her hands (they were so soft) and change the channel to the cooking network and we would talk about nothing in particular. It was a great way to spend a quiet hour or two with a lovely lady.
She died 11 years ago – before 9-11, thank goodness. Mem was born and raised in New York. As a girl, she would travel from the Lower East Side up to the Bronx to visit her uncles and return with a suitcase full of moonshine. So, I suppose my grandmother was the Prohibition’s equivalent of a modern-day drug-runner. Even though she never lived in New York when the World Trade Towers existed, she would have considered any attack on New York an attack on her personally.
I’ve been thinking about Mem lately because of I’m still thinking about stuff and the meaning that we attach to stuff.
I am not a tchochke person. Aside from art that hangs on the walls, I prefer that my décor to be functional as well as fun to look at. Yet I have these two little, blue statuettes of what I think are supposed to be Chinese men sitting on my bookshelves.
Little Blue Men
They belonged to Mem. I don’t know why I decided to keep them after she died – perhaps because I couldn’t find her knitting needles and I wanted something to remember her by.
Unfortunately, I know nothing about these little guys. I don’t know why Mem owned them in the first place. I have no idea where they came from – she never went to China or even expressed an interest in Asian art. I don’t know what significance they held for her that prompted her to keep them. I’m sure they have no monetary value. Perhaps Grandma bought them one day at the department store on a lark… a strange urge to add culture to the array of knick-knacks she had around the house.
I wish I knew what these little fellas meant to Mem. I think it would help me appreciate them more. It would explain to me why I keep moving them across the country and setting them up on my bookshelves. That way, the blue guys would be more than a reminder of my grandmother. They would be a little porthole into her sentiment and her own memory behind acquiring them.
Of course, the real question you all have about Mem is: How would she have liked Spike? The answer, alas, is that she wouldn’t have. For all of the ways that Mem was a wonderful person, she had one shortcoming. She just didn’t care for pets. She particularly hated cats. She tolerated dogs, but didn’t seem to have any particular affection for them.
Spike wouldn’t have cared how Mem felt – although if she ever fed him anything, he would have adored her.
Who knew? Shuneu! 