So, I'm obviously thrilled that she is ok and I trot across the bridge and on into the house...as soon as I go through the door I say "How are you doing Granny?" She promptly replies "Oh, I'm not going to make it much longer honey. How are you?" Thus my visit begins.
Now, the rest of the visit gets a little blurry....I'm not sure of the exact order of things but I'm going to try to recreate them....
I ask (of course) Granny whats wrong? Is she sick at her stomach? Are her legs aching? Is she having trouble breathing? I try to pinpoint why she may not make it much longer...she gives me the same vague answer that she always does..."Oh honey, I don't know, I'm hurtin' all over.." Well, there isn't much I can do about all over hurt, so I stick to the trick that always works...I offer to wash her feet.
This is a ritual that I go through every time I'm over there....I say "Granny do you want me to wash your feet"
she replies "Oh Amy, I mean Quack, Oh I mean SHELLEY! (chuckles and says I'm just a crazy old lady) I don't want you to have to do that."
I say "I don't care to do it, or I wouldn't bring it up"
She says, "Well, you'll have to get some lotion because my legs are itching real bad again..I don't know what is causing that"
(I say nothing here, because she doesn't want me to come up with an answer, she has her own ready to deliver.)
She says, "I tell you what I think it is..I think they liked to killed me with that medicine they put me on when I came home from the hospital..It liked to burn me up! I've been itching every since!"
(I mumble a sound that is taken as agreement)
She says, "Oh, (sigh) I don't know Shelley, it's bad when you get to be an old woman...."
(I wisely don't reply)
By this point I have her socks off and her feet is in the bowl of water. Then she jerks her head up and says "Whose out there?" I'm telling you she has the hearing of a bat...maybe it's where she is almost blind, but she can hear a cat purring outside...so I get up to look, and lo and behold, there is someone out there. The oxygen man. I tell Granny this. I swear, she sighs/groans and lays her head back against her recliner...how dare he intrude on her valuable time by checking her oxygen machine?!
I say "Do you want to let your feet soak until he's done?"
She says, (rather grouchy) "Yeah, might as well wait until he leaves".
I go to open the door for him....but he is still in his truck doing his paperwork, Granny wants to know what is taking him so long to come in, and I explain...finally he comes in. Granny suddenly turns into Miss Congeniality. She even smiles. Who is this woman?! I go into the kitchen for something (I can't remember what) but when I open the fridge door, there is something spilled all over the inside! I mean ALL OVER!! I say, "Granny! What is all over your fridge?"
She says, "Huh?" (meanwhile Mr. Oxygen is checking the tank) I say "Something has leaked all over your fridge!" (then I see what it is) "Oh, ewww, it's Worchestshire sauce!" Now, I type that like it wasn't hard to say...but if you are a Brown, with our speach problems, you would be surprised how many times I had to try to say it)
During this Mr. Oxygen delcares her tank full....Granny remembers that she needs new ends put on her oxygen nose thingy...so she tells him...in great detail ,that she needs this. He smiles and says I will go get some for you out of the truck...Granny grunts...(she is losing her Miss Congeniality) meanwhile I am wiping down the inside of the fridge...he comes back in with the ends...Granny decides he doesn't know how to slide them on properly, so she wobbles/shuffles into the bedroom with him. I holler "Granny go sit down, he knows what he is doing"...she sits back and and I hear her feet going back into the water...Jeesh, I forgot she was still soaking her feet!! Mr. Oxygen goes to her and says something and I hear her say "Shelley can do it" I'm thinking "what?" I have Worchestshire sauce all over my hands and a wet, soapy dishrag that is now stained brown...Mr. Oxygen comes into the kitchen with a clipboard...apparently someone needs to sign it...well, that's easy! (First easy thing since I pulled into the driveway)..I sign and he happily leaves.
I finally get the fridge cleaned up, so I go to wash her feet...the water is now on the cooler side....so I hurry. I can't really remember what we discuss during this...but I do it and get her a fresh pair of socks, roll the dirty socks together (so they won't get parted from each other) and empty/wash the bowl..
I decide to make some small talk...so I say, "Oh, I see Diane made you some cornbread yesterday" Granny (who is nothing if not sly) says, "Yes, I told her to get me some buttermilk and sweet milk and she used most of it cooking!" I know where this is going, so I say, "Oh, Granny, I should have called you before I went to the library to see if you needed anything! I knew Diane had went to the grocery store for you, so I didn't think you would need anything"..
She puts on a brave front and says that maybe if Danny wasn't too busy he could pick up some for her...I leave it at that.
I ask her if she has plenty of water pills cut up for her bedside pill bottle...she doesn't have a clue...so I check. It's fine. The pills reminds her that her kitchen floor feels crumbly...because she dropped a pill and as she bent down to pick it up she felt cornmeal and such around the base of the cabinets. I take this hint and go to sweep..I can't find the broom.
I say "Granny, where's your broom?"
She says, "Diane had it on the back porch and I bet she left it out there! It's been raining...(insert sigh here ), I'm probably going to have to buy a new broom now!" (Really? Because it rained on it?)
I say nothing and retrieve the broom. As I'm sweeping my cell phone chirps. I have a text message! Granny hollers "What is that?" I tell her my friend Amy is texting me. She grunts. I answer and go back to sweeping..It chirps again..Granny hollers, "Well, there goes your phone again!" I say "yeah" and go answer...go back to sweeping....It chirps again...Granny hollers, "Doesn't she have anything to do? She is spending alot of time on that phone!!" I mumble some kind of explanation and turn the sound to silent...I will explain to Amy later. Meanwhile, some stupid clock starts cock-a-doodle-dooing like a rooster....20 times!!! And she is mad that my cell phone chirps?
I'm done sweeping. I decide to sit on the couch and spend some time talking with Granny before I have to leave. We discuss various family members, the cat's habit of making her get up all night long and how big her stomach is getting....
She asks if the fridge is clean now..I say yes...she says "Did you see any cucumbers in there?" She knows there are cucumbers in that fridge because I bought them for her..I say "Yeah, there are 3".. she says, "I'm going to have to get someone to cut them up before they go bad"...she is nothing if not subtle...I go to cut up the cucumbers..I'm getting tired and start planning my exit.... I fix her a bowl of cucumbers and her dip, have to run to her bed to get her bottom dentures and bring it all to her....she smiles. This makes me so happy that I decide to describe some of the blogs that Becky/Heather and Brenda have written...she chuckles...then says "For some reason Brenda's number is not in my new phone" Now, I know she wants me to look up Brenda's number and program it into her phone...I hate this phone. We all hate this stupid phone. If I touch it, and it for some reason stops working, I will be blamed and talked about for years to come....so I say something to the fact of "I'm sure mom can put it in when she comes over"...(Brenda Call Granny!!!)
I decide I need to leave...I lean down to give her a kiss and she says, "Will you put these cucumbers back in the fridge with some foil over top of them?" I say "Yep" She then gives me a kiss and tells me to drive careful because she doesn't know what she would do if something happened to me....I tell her I love her, put the cucumbers in the fridge, grab my cell phone and ask the all important question, "Do you want me to lock the door as I go?" She says, "Yeah, go ahead and lock it"....so I lock the door, so the next person who comes up can stand on the back porch and knock...and knock...and worry....
4 comments:
Oh Shelley...I laughed 'til I cried on this one. But -- did you tell her about my kidney stone blog?? Now she'll be calling and yelling I need to go to the doctor!! Take care of her down there...
Shelley, a very familiar story. It never changes with granny and I have called her to which she said,"you didn't need to call me, I was going to call when someone took time to find your number and program it in the phone." What will we do without her!
Ha! Good ole' Gran! I can even hear the conversation in my head! Ya kill me, Shells!
RIP Granny...I love you and miss you so much...so glad Becky left a post on here, we didn't expect to lose her too. I told mom you probably yelled at her when she got to Heaven only 4 weeks after you, wanting to know what in the world she was doing there. Give her a hug and a kiss, see you soon.
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