June 11, 2002
I found out I could use some of my retirement in the case of a death in the family. I did so and I fly to see my grandmother in a month.
I'm very on pins and needles about this. I haven't been home to New England in a very very long time. I was last there when my son was about 18 months old. I went home for Christmas. It was a terrible mistake and my mother and I fought terribly about stupid imbecile things. I said things I regretted and I'm sure she did, too.
The worst thing, by far, however, was their damned dog. My son, with all his ear infections, has never been a really well-balanced kid. He can easily trip and break an arm on a crack in the sidewalk because that's just the kind of kid he is. This dog was fiercely jealous of any attention that Grandma wanted to pay to Russell. The dog would hipcheck Russell and knock him on the floor. My mother thought it was cute. I was completely horrified. When the dog finally bit my son's hand, I'd about had it with the damned thing. I'll grant you that he didn't break the skin, but this dog bit my baby.
I realize that the dog was my mother's baby, but he was also an evil little springer spaniel shit of a canine and my mother was laughing off his behavior and doing little to restrain the dog.
This weekend, I called to firm up my plans for visiting in New England. She reminded me about "Murph" who I will now refer to as LS, for "Little Shit." LS is getting senile and apparently had a go at my father. My mother said something about that they might kennel him our visit and when I reaffirmed that that might be a good idea, she got defensive. Then she coughed up that they're considering putting LS down. Being that I think of LS as a fecal beasty, I have little issue with this, but I know my mom loves the LS.
Anyway, rather than being blamed as the reason they put the dog down, we found a cute little motel that has a 6 hole golf course, tennis courts and swimming within a half hour of my grandmother and an hour of my parents for $80/night. Now, I just have to figure out a way to tell my mother without enduring a bitchfest about it.
I figure when I've had enough of my mom, I can beg off and go back to the hotel and play some golf with my husband. Mike and I are already discussing how we can travel with our clubs and our kids. I'm just glad that our luggage has wheels and we can stick Genevieve in a stroller. As long as we can roll, we're good. :)
Ultimately, the itinerary is that we fly into Boston, drive up an hour to see my brother and his wife and kids. I've never met the kids, and they've never met Genny, so it's pretty exciting for all of us. We're going to stay at a hotel somewhere near them and visit for a little bit longer in the morning and then drive to my folks. We'll stay the night at my parents, depending on the dog issue, and then drive down to the family reunion the next day in Connecticut. Then we'll drive back to our hotel in Western Mass and make day trips to see Grandma and other family.
I've always admired families that were so cool as to have family reunions and then I found out they've been having this one for well nigh on 30 years. Geesh, I felt like a doofus. Then it got worse when I found out there's been one on the west coast for several years now. Doofus, doofus, doofus.
The reason for not staying with Grandma is that she's 91 and we didn't want to stress her out. We figure day trips ought to be fun and I may just go hiking on the farm with the kids and visit my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Well, that and my grandmother is kind of Queen of the Cats and I'm now the Queen of the Allergic.
And I'm going to make a wreath to put on my grandfather's grave. I miss him very much and if I can make him something like that, it'll help me feel like I've contributed. Tears are understandable, but they only water a grave. Wreathes let people know how much that person is loved, even in death.
And finally, the death of this grandfather has brought up a lot of the pain associated with my maternal grandfather, who I also miss. I know that some day I'll actually be able to write the poem I did for this one, but right now things are so fresh and painful, I can't write something decent. Prairie Moon is the only thing I ever wrote in that vein.
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