Author: dlhudy@yahoo.com

Grandma’s in the House – The Doorbell

Grandma has hearing aids in both ears.  She can hear somewhat good; things like the telephone, conversations when you’re looking at her, etc.  What she has a hard time with is someone knocking on the door and the doorbell.

We’ll be sitting and watching television when I hear the doorbell ring.  I’ll get up and go let whoever in.  They walk in and she will look at me and say, “How did you know they were here?”  Same goes when they knock.  “How did you know they were here?”

One day, we had a guy coming to lay out the forms for some concrete under our back awning.  Gma was watching for him, because we were all working.  My mom brought over some corn on the cob and rang the doorbell.  Gma had been looking outside (another story, another time), and saw them, so she opened the door.  Somehow the doorbell got stuck in the “ring” position and the doorbell was going off every little bit.

Andrea, my daughter, worked afternoon shift and was sleeping.  She heard the doorbell ringing, got up and checked the front and back doors and since no one was there, went back in.  Gma was getting off of the couch and going to the door, looking out.  Then she thought she heard the stove buzzer going off and couldn’t find out how to stop it (my stove didn’t have a buzzer).  Andrea said that this was going on for 20 minutes.  So, she went outside and found that the doorbell had gotten stuck.  She unstuck it, thank goodness!  Gma would have worn herself out going back and forth.  She’s still not convinced it was the doorbell.  She never hears the dryer buzzer either…

Grandma’s in the House – Paper Towels

Grandma was with us for four days and had gone through three jumbo rolls of paper towels.  That may not seem like an unusual amount to you, but we use one jumbo roll in 3 or 4 weeks!  Needless to say, I was stunned at the volume of paper towels she uses.  When she moved in, she brought an economy pack the size of a grocery cart, with her.  I thought she was being thrifty, but now I know that’s her weekly consumption of paper towels.  She probably kills a tree a week.

Every time I look at her, she has a damp paper towel in one hand or the other.  Sometimes both.  My bag of stuff to burn fills up almost daily and it is extremely easy to light.  Why?  You guessed it, paper towels.  She would dry dishes with them, if I would let her.  She says they dry better.  I’m thinking I need to start a lot of tree seedlings.

I’d like to get it on camera and then fast forward all the paper towel use in one day.  It’s probably some kind of record.  There is even a clean paper towel on top of the placemats I have on our dining room table.  I guess they keep the placemats cleaner.

I’ve also noticed that the Kleenex and toilet tissue disappear with the speed of light.  Maybe it has something to do with that generation.  It was probably a new invention at some point in her life and she fell in love with the convenience and good drying qualities of paper products.  Much better than rags.

Grandma’s in the House – Lard

We’ve gotten to experience a new taste sensation since Gma moved in.  Yes, it’s lard.  She kept a quart sized container in my refrigerator at all times.  My daughter, Andrea, ate some potatoes that Gma had fried in this special substance.  She said it tasted good, but her mouth felt and tasted funny the rest of the night.  She had to gargle before bed to get the taste out of her mouth.  When she laid down to sleep, the lard kept talking to her in her stomach.  It hurt for quite a while.

I could tell she did something different with those potatoes, because my teeth felt furry the rest of the evening.  My tongue felt like it was coated in wax, and I felt like I had a lead ball in my belly.  When asking her the next day how she cooked it, she said “In lard, don’t you cook with lard?”  No, I said.  She tells her daughter that I cook funny.  I spray the pan before I cook and don’t put any lard in it.  Gma also says that the doctor says she has lived this long because of lard.  Maybe it coats the inside of your body and it never ages in there.

She cooked hot dogs for my husband, Tom and his friend, when they were working on our deck one Saturday, while I was working.  Yes, she fried hot dogs in lard.  It’s a wonder they could pick up the buns with the heavy dogs in them.  And that’s where the fried potatoes came in also.  So if I look a little lethargic, it may be the lard.  I wonder what cleans it out of your system.  Hmmm, maybe vinegar…..

Grandma’s in the House – Breakfast

My husbands grandma came to live with us on April 8th, 2011.  She turned 90 the next day.  We’re the only ones in the family with a single story home that she can navigate easily around in.  She didn’t use a cane and could get around pretty good.

I was working part time, at that time, so I am home or thereabouts, most of the time.  From day one, I inherited a five foot shadow.  I hear slippers shuffling about three feet behind me.  They eventually go somewhere else, because I do many things that she does not understand or agree with.  But they come back every 15 minutes to see if I am still doing that thing that she says I don’t have time to do.  When that is the time I am doing it.  Like balancing my checkbook on the computer.  She thinks if I am sitting at the computer, I am taking away from cleaning the house.

My house is basically clean, sometimes a little disorderly.  It’s called Life.  If the floors are clean, furniture is dusted, beds made and the dishes done, I am a very happy camper.  I usually go with the flow.  My husband has always had a different work schedule.  A lot of days have been different work hours for him and different days of the week so we don’t eat at regular times, or have set schedules.  We wing it.  This had worked well for our (almost) 14 years of marriage.  I’ve learned that he doesn’t want any breakfast when it is a day that he works.  But likes breakfast on the days he has off.

This being said, every morning since Grandma moved in, she asks him if he wants something to eat and some coffee.  He kept saying “no”, but after three weeks, started taking some coffee with him in a mug, to stop her asking.  The pot was ready every morning.  I never heard if she stopped asking him if he wanted breakfast or not, but I doubt that she did.

For me, on the other hand, I would get up about 7:30 depending if I slept good or not the night before.  When my foot steps outside the bedroom, I am asked (every morning) if I’m going to sleep all day.  Then I make it to the kitchen to cook breakfast and make my own coffee.  She has long ago thrown out any leftover coffee.  She thinks if it sets more then 10 minutes it goes black and bitter.  She has her breakfast over and the dishes washed.

She checks my progress every few minutes to see if there is a dish that I am done with that she can wash right away.  Every spoon that gets laid in the sink gets a good squirt of dish soap, lots of hot water, scrubbed like there’s no tomorrow and dried and put right away.  No resting for that spoon.