I think I can . . . I think I can . . .

Of course I can!


Write about Mt. Carmel, that is. (Inhale. Outhale.)

Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.

But also a very dull place to start.


Instead let's start in the middle, with me showing up on my grandmother's doorstep in Mt. Carmel last Saturday night. Both of my dad's sisters were in the front yard frantically cleaning up their yard sale so they quickly ushered me into the room where I would be sleeping, which just so happened to be the room where my great grandmother Constance was born, and the room in which her daughter, my cutie patootie grandmother, was sitting in a gray wing backed chair.

In her purple sweats.

Don't you just want to hug her? You should see her brushing her teeth in her purple sweats! It's one of the sweetest things I've ever seen.

So I sit down across from my grandmother and she claps her hands together and says, "Oh, darling, I just hate this chair!"

It turns out she wants to sit in a comfortable glider, but her daughter won't allow it because gliders aren't classy enough to sit in.

hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee

Comfort before class. That's what I always say.

Raise your hand if you want to pitch in to buy my grandma a glider?

Seriously, she looks positively regal in this chair.


But in real life she's more kick back. Look at how she sits when we talked story on Sunday afternoons:

Did you ever see an 86 year old bending like that? That grandma o' mine could teach yoga, I bet.

This is actually the first time I've sat around talking story on a Sunday afternoon with my grandma. We've never been super close, us two. At least not for reals. We pretend to be when we see each other that one hour a year, (because an hour is all I can usually stand to stay in Mt. Carmel) but there are things we won't talk about. Dad things. She won't talk about her dad because she knows nothing about him and I won't talk about my dad because she knows everything about him.

Well not everything. Not the things I don't tell her. But she doesn't want to know the things I won't tell her.

I do, however, want to know the things she won't tell me. After all, her dad is flowing through my veins and I'm entitled, right? Not to mention curious. But it's a secret and nobody broaches the subject.


I've tried on occasion, but my grandmas's got changing the subject down to a science.


Bottom line, I had so much fun hanging out with my grandma this past weekend. I learned that we both love tacos and avocado and watermelon and Renior and Willa Cather. She has the same shower curtain as I do. And the same kitchen tins. And we wear the same shade of lipstick--Revlon 535, Rum Raisin.



Okay, that's the middle part. Next time I'll tell you the beginning and the ending.

P.S. Did I ever tell you how much I lub me some Lulu!?







Don't you just want to EAT her!?!?!?!