A Tribute to Grandma

I was writing a tribute to Grandpa, and wanted to link to the tribute I wrote for Grandma in May 2007, but realized that I hadn't posted it on either of my blogs. It's on the Unitus website, but I wanted to have it somewhere handy, so that it'll end up with my other journalling. So without further ado, here it is:

I grew up thousands of miles away from my Grandma Helen, so I didn't know her very well. That changed in 2002. My husband left me, and as I was trying to put my life back together and start over, my grandparents generously opened ther home to me (as they had for several aunts, uncles and cousins in need over the years). I lived with them for almost a year while I looked for a good job and found some good roommates.

I discovered that my grandmother was an adventurous person -- she hauled her family all over Europe when Grandpa was there in the Airforce, often camping and driving in overcrowded un-airconditioned cars. Doing this she helped instill in my dad a love of great culture, operas, literature, and history -- which he then passed on to me. I know that she planned several other trips that she never got to take because of health problems, and because the people around her weren't quite so adventurous. I know she'd love to ride around Los Angeles in a limo -- standing up and looking out the skylight.

Grandma may pretend tobe overawed by her intelligent grandchildren, but she knows at least two languages, and got a masters degree with several small children at home -- that's not easy to do.

She's an excellent storyteller -- I remember that when I was little she would tell us the most wonderful stories that she made up on the spot. She also loved to read aloud to us, and kept our attention easily with her choice of stories and skill at reading.

She's kind -- she often noticed when I would come home feeling sad, lonely or depressed, and would simply put an arm around me and say that she loved me. She always has compliments ready -- she calls me her beautiful Karen. Even whe I was little I noticed it because she couldn't bear to beat any of her grandchildren at a board game, and would actively cheat to make sure that everybody was happy at the end of the game. (some of the cousins got together one day, and rigged a game of Fantasy Forest so she would beat everybody by a mile, and then MADE her play and win :) )

And now when Grandma's sick, her biggest concern is how not to be a bother to anybody and how to keep people from worrying about her.

I love my Grandma, and the more I get to know her, the more I can see that I can trace many of the things I like about who I am to her influence on my Dad, and myself.

XKCD Dreams

http://xkcd.com/430/


I often feel like this. I dream intense, fascinating, confusing dreams almost every night. Most days, I've forgotten what they were about before my eyes are open.

Smart Baby

I just wanted to share what a smart baby I have! Today, we had to go shopping, but I didn't want to wake her up from her nap to do it. So when she woke up on her own, I fed her and put her in the carseat. She patiently sat as I drove to the post office and three stores -- looking bored, but docile. When I get home from any outing, I have to stop halfway into the driveway, take the baby out and take her insde, then take the groceries in, then fold in the rear view mirrors and pull the car forward into our very tight driveway. Elizabeth waited patiently in her carseat through most of this, but when I came into the house after pulling the car forward, she started complaining in her, "I'm tired of being strapped into this stupid carseat" voice. I quickly threw the perishable groceries in the fridge and freezer and knealt down in front of the carseat. She stopped complaining and grinned at me, wiggling happliy out of the seat as I unstrapped her.

I thought it was really cool to see how sh was familiar enough with the various situations to know that complaining at the store wouldn't get her much, but complaining on the floor at home would likely get her quick attention. I sure hope she coontinues to be willing to be patient with shopping trips in the future, and I hope that she really does understand that I'll do what I can to meet her needs when it's possible to do so.

More dreams

I've been paying a lot of attention to housekeeping lately, and I even frequent the flylady forums, so it shouldn't surprise me that I had a house cleaning dream. We were trying to get the house cleaned before the babysitter came, and I needed Peter to help me. For some reason there were dirty dishes in the bedroom, a lot of them, and they were all full of that nasty cold greasy dirty dish water. So we had to pick them up very carefully and dump out the water in the bathroom sink before climbing through the two Christmas trees that were blocking the doorway between the bedroom and living room (Don't ask me why there were two Christmas trees there. There just were.) When I sent Peter to the store to get milk and groceries he returned home with a sixpack of IBC rootbeer (actually there were just five bottles since he had drunk one -- even though Peter DOESN'T drink rootbeer) and almost nothing else. Then the baby started crying. I went into the bedroom to pick her up and found that Peter had laid her in the wire cube shelves, and she had wiggled into a position where her head was on the shelf, but her bum was over the edge, and the middle of her back was pressing so hard on the wire at the edge of the shelf, it was making a deep red line. Her legs were sticking straight up, and her feet were stuck in the little wire squares of the shelf above her. No wonder she was upset!

Compare that to the dream I had the other night. I was at somebody's house in the subdivision Grant Thompson built at one of the Metroparks (this subdivision is a regular feature of my dreams. I've seen the entire construction and landscaping. My brain is sure it exists). The back porch of the house looks out on a beautiful large pond. I went out to watch the sunrise over it, and there were flocks of pretty yellow birds. Then a herd of horses came down to drink and swim in the lake. They were happy and playful and there were several baby horses with their mothers. It was such a peaceful, happy scene. Somebody came and brought me hot chocolate, and I just sat and sipped, and drank it all in.

Dreams

Peter thinks I should write down my dreams -- not because they make sense in any plot sort of way, but because they don't seem to make any sense at all. Last night we were living homeless -- in a cheerful Bohemian sort of way. We slept in a couple of different places: a community center with a couple of hundred other people bedding down on the floor (they all seemed to be there by choice having given up the materialism of ownership); a big bed on somebody's veranda with a couple of other people, where we could wake up to watch the sun rise over the ocean; a dingy hotel where Dad was staying for some reason; and a very posh hotel where Mom was staying for some reason. I have the feeling that Mom was on the lam, and had some sort of contraband hidden in her backpack under the knitting. At the posh hotel, we went to a concert of experimental music where a lady played a drum accompaniment to the sound of various types of bread and fruits being fed into a wood chipper. At the intermission, everybody went up and ate beautiful hors d'oeuvres made of the chopped food.

Seven Random Things

1. I don't like food. I don't like cooking, and in general, I don't like eating. Occasionally I'll enjoy really good food at a restaurant, or some really flavorful fresh produce, but if I could survive without eating I would.
   
   
2. I'm a packrat. I love to collect and organize things, and I love to have a complete set of something. I do give myself space limits, though, and frequently purge in order to keep my house from overflowing.
   
   
3. I memorize things easily -- often without trying. Other things, I just remember exactly where to find the information which is almost as good.
   
   
4. I'm very shy socially. Many people don't believe this because I try so hard to do things to make up for it, but meeting new people is incredibly hard for me.
   
   
5. I like to make origami. Many people, when they see my origami collection (or my crocheting, or cross stitching or any number of other things I do) say they'd never have the patience to do that. I respond that it's not patience that accomplished them, but nervous energy -- I can't sit still.
   
   
6. I think hedgehogs are some of the cutest animals in the world, and I know how to say hedgehog in over 40 languages.
   
   
7. For my job, I get to do English adaptations for several manga series. When they're first translated, depending on the skill of the translator, the books are more or less written in Engrish. It's my job to smooth out the grammar, throw in some slang, and generally make it sound like native English. The hardest things to do are puns--sometimes the translator doesn't even try and just says, "Insert pun here." It's also tough to know what to do with phrases that just sound dumb in English like, "I will show you the power of my Justice!" (BTW: I work on +Anima, Silver Diamond, Dazzle, GetBackers, and Kyo Kara Maoh)
   

As for tagging somebody else to do this, everybody who reads my blog and has a blog of their own has already done it, so I guess it's a moot point.

Peter looks like 'Lizbeth

Here's a comment I made on Peter's Mom's blog that I thought I'd post here too:

I do see a lot of Peter in Elizabeth -- and occasionally a bit of Elizabeth in Peter. A couple weeks ago when he was sick, I went into the bedroom to ask him if he'd like some soup. He had been drowsing, and when he jolted awake, he flung his arms out, and stared around wide-eyed just like she does.