we *heart* mary

I've said it before: gammer and I are huge mary fans. i was born that way and I suspect gammer has been a fan since october 3, 1957. luckily for us, she's rather keen on us as well. today gammer and I discussed luring mary to the house every day. i thought that might be a bit much so I suggested we simply move to mary and marty's house. gammer loved that idea! I think we should put a little cabin in the backyard. I found a picture of a cabin kit that I think would work nicely. ;)

gammer learns to live long and prosper

this is what happens when gammer watches the big bang theory with me. :)

the big long day of adventure

our latest effort to go on an adventure was recently carried out, but in a much different form than originally planned. gammer has been talking about wanting to go to proctor, the small, pretty town in vermont where she was born and lived for a number of years. it is also where her parents are buried, along with one set of grandparents. as proctor is a bit of a drive, the original plan was to go and spend the night somewhere in vermont, allowing for a nice, relaxing trip. however, the day we were to go i gave her the option of coming back home in the same day and she chose that option. it was a loooooooong day and I ended it with a giant headache but we had fun. the ride to proctor is super pretty and proctor itself is very charming and I saw several houses i'd gladly purchase if I were a gazillionaire and could live in a different house every day. it was neat to listen to gammer talk about who lived in what house and we even went past her old house (three times) and according to her it looks very much the same. the cemetery was nice, but hilly enough to prevent us from wandering far from the car. gammer was pleased to see the family graves and I liked it too although I was surprisingly creeped out. we then moved on to weston, home of the vermont country store, where we shopped, tried on hats and sampled cheese. gammer found a lovely handknit sweater and wore it in the store. i was rather afraid they would think she was an elderly thief like uncle leo on seinfeld, so i made her wear the tags on the outside. we ate grilled hot dogs while driving home and gammer declared that eating in the car beats eating indoors. that's my kind of girl. :)

a moment of clarity

living with someone who is elderly, your life changes in a lot of ways and the way you look at life and time is very different. i used to see time and the future in terms of work: what my schedule was, when i should wake up, what I should do on my day off, etc. when i first moved here i still worked full-time and I did for a while. eventually, it was too hard on gammer and it made her upset and sad for me to leave her every day. so now i'm home all the time and days of the week and dates, unless they are important, are pretty much meaningless. wednesday is garbage day. sunday used to be church day, until gammer stopped going. right now, tuesdays are quiz days. I went shopping at target yesterday or the day before and they had halloween and christmas stuff. for a moment, my brain said, "wow, they haven't gotten rid of the halloween costumes yet" and then I realized we haven't even had it yet. this is what happens when you live with someone who doesn't even know what month it is or where their family is. it's really pretty sad and I also realized that getting old and losing your memory is like being a vampire. i know that sounds crazy, but it actually makes a lot of sense, so hear me out. it was dracula in particular that made me think about this, as i'm taking a class on vampires in literature. vampires have lost their souls and, immortal, will never know peace. they aren't themselves anymore, they're a twisted and corrupted version of themselves. dracula was once a man, just like anyone else. gammer used to be a different gammer. the gammer who raised bruce, brad, mary and robert isn't the same now. a lot of things are still there, but old age, like a vampire, has taken away parts of who she is and to me, that is profoundly sad, because it can't ever come back. someday she will be gone and i don't know that I want to remember this gammer. i want to remember the gammer of my childhood and I think I will, or at least I hope I will. but life isn't that easy or simple. there are no rules or guides for getting old and living life. I have to remember, even on the worst days, that gammer didn't choose this, it just happened, and she deserves not crankiness but love and patience.

unexpected sweethearts

gammer LOVES the kittens and she talks about how surprising that is almost as much as she talks about how much she loves them. a few days ago mr blandings unexpectedly jumped up onto the sofa and snuggled up to gammer. she was soooo incredibly delighted and it was so sweet to watch her pet him and she fell asleep with a smile on her face. the kittens sleep with me every night but i don't think either of them had ever done so with gammer. she was massively happy and it absolutely made my day. :)

the mother of invention

it's been a wild, wacky food day, in a wonderfully bizarre sort of way. for lunch, gammer made herself a sandwich: peanut butter and applesauce. yeah, you heard me, i said applesauce. i was a little surprised by that one, so much so that I had to peek at it when she told me what she'd made. she seemed not at all concerned that this might be an odd combo and what the heck, it's not like it was bad for her, so I didn't say anything. living with an older person, you learn to pick your battles. i'm not always good at this, but I'm getting better I think. anyway, she ate the whole thing so I guess it was good!

we went out for dinner after a nice ride to chazy lake. i had buffalo chicken nachos ("are those blueberries?") and gammer had a burger. she confiscated my salsa and sour cream, putting the salsa on her french fries and focaccia and she put the sour cream on her hamburger. she ate anything within reach, to be honest, and we had a lively discussion on how to make tortilla chips. I made up half of it, but it sounded logical so we were satisfied. I like making things up. :)

holy new post, batman!

for a while, I was posting regularly, filling the world of the internet with happy gammer tales. and now it seems I haven't posted in over a week! oops, sorry. it's not that things aren't interesting here, or that we aren't having fun, but I seem to be distracted. one possible explanation: I'm taking classes. jeremy says that when I take classes i'm not nearly as much of a pest as I usually am, so that logic may extend to blogging. sorry!

we have been having lots of fun around here lately. today we went out to lunch with mary and marty, where gammer, queen of the phantom fork, sampled everyone's lunch, despite claiming a lack of hunger so profound she only ordered a cup of soup. she ate mary's spaghetti, one and a half pieces of my pizza (double cheese and ham), and marty's pepperoni and meatballs. and she was ready for dinner just a few hours later! no wonder mom calls her the bottomless pit. :)

one of the really great, wonderful, blissful things about living here is that I grew up in this house. I fell down the stairs here, fell out of chairs, scraped my knees, mothered my dolls, and ran into the Booth's car with my bicycle. so in other words, I love this house and I have great, loving memories of growing up in it. even that time I threw up on the rug in gammer's room. she wasn't even mad. :) I never liked sleeping alone when I was little, so I usually slept in my mom's bed. when she worked nights, for a while I slept in gammer's bed. every now and then, I can't resist sneaking into her room when she's sleeping to give her a hug. she sleeps with the blankets pulled up over her head, so you have to sort of pat her shoulder and then this loooong skinny arm reaches out and grabs you around the neck in a sort of headlock. it's very sweet and cute one of my favorite things in the world.