But enough about ME! Let's talk about Gigi!

Gigi hasn't always been Gigi.  She used to be Gigi and Papa.  But that was before Papa passed away six years ago on my birthday, (which goes to show he liked me best). 

He was buried on my sister, Melanie's birthday, (which goes to show he liked her next best). 

Papa was a bad boy from Malad, Ideeho.  

Well, he wasn't really a bad boy, per say, more a farm boy with a lot of angst.  He wasn't a lover as much as he was a fighter.

In fact, he was a champion featherweight fighter.  Until he decided to enlist during World War II.

But that's a whole nother story, which includes a lot of blood and guts, and a little bit of guts and glory.

The first thing I remember about Gigi and Papa was that they lived in a little pink house with round front steps on Maine Street in Long Beach, California.  How Papa and Gigi got from getting busted up in the ring in Ideeho to getting busted up in the war in Europe to a little pink house on Maine Street in another whole nother post.

Alls I knew was that as I child I got to spend the summers sitting in Gigi's recliner watching The Beverly Hillbillies, H.R. Pufnstuf and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. 

If I had time left over I'd also watch Underdog, I dream of Jeanie, Get Smart and Green Acres. During commercials I did cartwheels down the hallway and snuck Oreos from Gigi and Papa's ceramic apple cookie jar.  

Gigi's real name was Venna Emma.  She worked the night shift as a nurse and the day shift as a zombie.  In the afternoons she would wake up and open a can of bean with bacon soup for my lunch.  I once made the mistake of telling her that I loved Bean with Bacon soup so much I could marry it.  And eat it for every meal.   She believed everything I said and performed the wedding ceremony herself. 

In the evenings, when Papa came home from his OK Tire shop we would all sit together, eat salt water taffy and watch Pyramid and Press Your Luck before my gigi had to go to work. 

Sometimes my gigi would turn off the T.V. and drag me, kicking and screaming, to the beach.  "You WILL enjoy this if it's KILLS you!" she would say as she was dragging me, kicking and screaming, down Shoreline Drive. 

Other times she would turn off the T.V. and drag me, kicking and screaming, to the brown house with the square front stairs on Cedar Avenue where my other grandma and grandpa lived.  But there were no Oreos or recliner chairs on Cedar Avenue.  There were only scriptures and revelations.  

When I got older my Papa sold his OK Tire shop and moved Gigi into a double wide trailer in California City, smack dab in the middle of the Mojave desert.  It wasn't far from Edwards air force base and K-Mart.  

Sometimes Gigi would turn off the T.V. and drag me, kicking and screaming, to the blue light specials, but usually we just sat around watching Twilight Zone marathons and eating Casadias. 

It was a little piece of heaven pie, and I looked forward every summer to getting out of weeding the garden and scrubbing the toilets at my house and chillaxing at Gigi and Papa's house, where the toilets magically cleaned themselves and the cookie jar was always magically filled to the rim.   

I also looked forward to getting out of Provo.  I'm a runner, that's what I am.  And not the kind that burns calories.  I'm also an escape artist.  I used to disappear all the time.  When I reappeared I was usually seated at the Provo public library reading Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys or sitting in the movie theater on Center street.  Sometimes I would just be wandering around downtown meandering through Woolworth's or Lerners or J.C. Penney, but that was later on, after my dad died, when I had to ditch math class before I turned into a pumpkin.  

While my dad was alive I spent a lot of time watching soap operas or listening to the Carpenters or rearranging my bedroom.  One day I my dad sat me down and told me he was worried about me because I was so withdrawn all the time.  I told him I was worried about him too because he was so strung out all the time.   He said, "You read too much!" and I said, "You shoot up too much!"  Then we had a knock-down, drag-out fist fight.

That's how we rolled.  

No, that's not how we rolled.  We avoided eye contact and touchy subjects. That's how we rolled.

We never had any Calgon, but I always had my gigi and papa to take me away.  They would often make the twelve hour trip from Cal City in their brand new Subaru to spend a week doing our dishes and sharing their Instant Breakfast and screaming about our boa constrictor crawling out of the heating vents.  

Then one night they'd load up their car and say, "Who wants to come back with us this year?" 

"I do! I do!" I would squeal.  Usually I was the only one waving my hands in the air like I just didn't care so they'd throw my suitcase in the back of the Subaru and tell me to get a good night's rest.  I never slept a wink.  It was more exciting than Christmas morning.  The only difference was I knew exactly what I would get.  I would get to lean forward from the back seat and perch in between Gigi and Papa.  I would get to listen to them talk and laugh and I would get to sip their Shasta Cola and I would get to sing CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME at the top of my lungs.  

I pretty much had a charmed life.  

 

Stay tuned, peeps, for more story, and for photographic evidence.  I'm trying to get my hands on some cute photos of Gigi after she became electromagnetized.