To Venna From Santa

Speaking of very. last. things . . .

My gigi has changed since her stroke. She's recovered splendidly, but she's not the same.

She made us throw away all of her puzzles. She says she never wants to do another puzzle as long as she lives.

Things change. People change. Life goes on. Without puzzles.

We've had to move Gigi from her retirement community into an assistant living facility.

I really wanted to help sort through and move her things--linger over them without being rushed and having to make decisions. (Actually I wanted to spend the night in her apartment by myself before it was dismantled, but my hub thought that was a little creepy.)

It wasn't creepy, it was just me not wanting to forget. The old Gigi. The one who could do 1,000 piece mosaic puzzles without batting an eye.

See I never got to look through my dad's apartment after he died. Not that I couldn't have, I just didn't. Sometimes I still walk through his apartment in my mind, but I can't place anything specific. I don't know where anything belongs? What books were left open on the nightstand? What kind of toothpaste did he use? Was his bed made? Was his bathroom clean?

(Please, please, please don't let me die until my bathrooms are clean.)

Two things I remember about the autopsy report. He died of an overdose, and he had peaches in his stomach.

His last meal was a bowl of peaches.

Peaches is one thing I know will be there when I open his fridge in my mind. Everything else is a fill-in-the-blank.

I didn't want all those empty spaces with my Gigi. When I go through her apartment in my mind, I want to know what's in her fridge. That's why last Saturday morning I went over to her place early, by my very own self, so I could linger over her life--her tidy compartmentalized drawers, stacked with little empty things. Little empty notebooks and address books, little empty purses and boxes. Even Papa's Purple Heart box was empty.

(If you ever need somewhere to store your thoughts or your addresses or your lipsticks or your Purple Heart, I can hook you up.)

I took my time, making mental notes about her neatly folded, brilliantly white underwear, and the enthusiastic collection of fake jewelry. The jumbo sized crossword puzzle books and the cowboy poetry. The walkman and the cassette tapes of Tennessee Ernie Ford, Glen Campbell and my Papa's funeral. And the 50-plus pair of her colored stretchy pants, (because, when you are a grandma, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room.) (hee hee) (Couldn't help myself.)

I wanted to touch everything and commit it to memory--shelve it right beside to all the other memories I have of Gigi before she lost interest in puzzles.

Most of these memories are linked to food--bean with bacon soup, pancakes, Oreos, quesadillas, Carnation Instant Breakfast, watermelon, Shasta Cola, Whoppers and taffy.

As a child I ranked my relatives according to how much they fed me.

Food was my primary lub language back then. Well, food and soap operas. My Gigi liked both so she spoke my language.

It stands to reason then that I should document my Gigi by the very. last. things found in her kitchen. Before the change:

• 2 jars of pickles
  
• Lemon Nestea
• Green Tea (Gasp!)
• 2 jars of bread and butter chips
• 2 boxes of mac and cheese
• Starbucks napkins
• Cucumber Melon hand soap
• Gourmet BBQ sauce
• A bag of cheetos
• 2 sugar ice cream cones
• A bag of black eyed peas
• 2 jars of Nutella
• 4 boxes of granola bars
• A can of sliced beets
• A jar of spicy brown mustard
• 8 oz jar of picante sauce
• Horseradish
• Nips
• 6 jumbo sized boxes of Instant Breakfast

In her fridge there were a dozen water bottles, four mini diet Pepsi's, a drawer full of candy bars and a little red box with a tag reading To Venna from Santa.

Yes, I opened it, and yes it was chocolate.

My Gigi was a very good girl.

And a very good grandma.

Happy Valentines Day, Gigi.

The. Very. Last. Things.

Today I had to pick my twins up from Space Camp, only I couldn't remember what time, so I pulled out their backpacks to see if I could find out.

I never go through their back packs. That's how neglectful I am. I don't check their texts either.

Someone should seriously call social services on me.

So twin #2's backpack was neat and tidy, but twins #1--the subversive one--oh boy, oh boy! That kid needs a mom. PRONTO!

I have a theory that the most valuable and insightful recorded family history is simply a list of what you find in your relatives garbage cans. So I took it upon myself to make a list of everything I found in my son's backpack.

For the sake of posterity:

• 1 crumpled dixie cup
• 6 balls of yarn
• a sock
• a plastic frog
• a sprig of white, silk wildflowers
• a ticket to The Magic Flute
• a notice for the Goodie Sale on Dec 2nd
• a construction paper spider
• abstract melted crayon art
• a Thank You note to me from his teacher--dated Oct.
• plastic Easter egg full of spiderman tattoos
• toilet paper roll shaker
• the other sock
• progress report with all the C's crossed out
• a good behavior credit and debit booklet, with a tally of 5560 debits
• a roll of scotch tape
• a purple straw
• 3 more toilet paper roll shakers
• a science fair participant ribbon
• The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
• a red and white striped origami swan
• a note written in a secret code
• the secret code key

I decoded the secret note, btw, and it's from a girl. It reads:

Thx 4 the card. Yeah, that would be fun.

WHAT would be fun?? WHAT WOULD BE FUN!????? Inquiring minds need to know.

Tomorrow I'm going to muster up the courage to empty his backpack from his last day of 5th grade--the day before we moved away from Hawaii.

Is it weird that I haven't opened it yet? After 18 months?

Is it weird that when he tried to empty it himself I yelled STOP! NOOOO! DON'T OPEN THAT!

"Why not?" he said.

I couldn't think of a valid reason, so I just said, "uh . . . . because . . . because . . . because . . . there's a BOMB in there."

The way I see it is like this . . . if my kid suddenly died and then I stumbled upon his backpack . . . would I be able to open it?

Not for a while.

Because it contains his very. last. things.

Our life in Hawaii . . . it suddenly died in August 2009. And those things in that back pack are the very. last. things.

You get me?

Johnny Crash

So one of my twins says to me this morning, "I think there's a new policy that you can't wear shorts to school during the winter."


"So why are you wearing shorts then?"

That was my question to him. Why are you wearing shorts? In the winter? Why, why, why? Especially now that the school has enacted a policy specifically for YOU, and of YOU, and by YOU, and very likely because of YOU, to protect yourself from YOU?


He looked at me like DUH!, shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't care about that policy."


Oh me. Oh my. Is this what I've created? Subversion? Father forgive me!

Maybe it's not my fault. Maybe there's a subversive gene in my family line. Maybe me and mine are all simply victims of our DNA. We like to kiss before marriage, wear shorts in the winter, and drink Mountain Dew during Sunday School. And there ain't a thing we can do about it.

I blame it on my great grandfather, Voldemort--the one who must-not-be-named because he had no legal right to be my great grandfather because my great grandmother had no legal right to get impregnated by him because he was already legally and lawfully married to someone else, which in 1923 was neither legal nor lawful, which is why he got busted and did two years hard time in the Utah state prison.

Classic subversive behavior.

Speaking of my great grandfather, I can feel an obsession coming over me. The best way to nurture an obsession is to shush someone from doing or saying or talking about something. Push it way, way, way down, down, down to the dark, dank nether regions of their soul where curiosity is a breeding ground. And then pretend like it doesn't exist.

Why must Voldemort not be named? Huh? Huh? Huh?

VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMORT!

It doesn't matter how much my family line doesn't acknowledge Voldemort, his subversive DNA is still illegally running through my gene pool!

Great granddaughters may not have legal rights, but they do have genetic rights, and as Gad as my witness, I will exercise my genetic rights!

The way I exercise my genetic rights to my great grandfather is by Googling his name every so often to see what pops up. Once I found his signature on a parole document. He has an exquisite signature, btw. I can totally see why my great grandmother slept with him.

I've done other things besides Google him, like call his children and demand to be invited to family reunions.

Mwuaaahahaha!

Okay, I haven't gone that far, but I have done a little digging over the years, which I keep on the down low out of respect for his daughter--my grandmother--who now lives in the hundred year old house on Tait Lane in Mt. Carmel where she was born in the pink bedroom off the parlor 87 years ago.

My obsessive curiosity about my great grandfather waxes and wanes, but a few days ago it waxed and guess what popped up on Google. A photo. Of my great grandfather. That was uploaded last week. He was old and he was wearing a cowboy hat. And I think he had a pack of Lucky Strikes in his front pocket.

(Do you think he was a bad boy?)

It was so weird to sit and stare at him and think, "Dude! What were you thinking?" I mean fer reals? You can run, but you can't hide. For long. Maybe your daughter won't Google you, and maybe your granddaughter won't Google you, but surely your great granddaughter will. And then she might blog about you, or write a best-selling novel about you, or maybe even an Academy Award winning screenplay about you, starring John Mayer or Ewen McGregor. If that doesn't make you turn over in your grave at the Provo cemetery, I don't know what will.

So guess who my great grandfather didn't look like?

Voldemort.

And guess who he did look like?

Johnny Cash.

That's right. Almost a spitting image. He even had that same angsty look on his face. Like he'd been hardened. By prison. And unattainable love.

Or by smoking too many Lucky Strikes.

I did the math and figured out that if he looked like Johnny Cash as an old man, then when he was starting my secret family line at the tender age of 23, he might have looked a little something like this:

I think from now on, instead of calling him Voldemort, I will simply call him Johnny Crash.

Strange Addictions. And Stranger Rehab.

Okay, I've had enough of that Strange Addictions show. I predict it's going down PDQ, because ewwww!

Is it just me or does watching people eat couch cushions and laundry detergent make you want to stick a toothbrush down your throat and scrub your esophagus with Coop Whip.

Maybe I have no patience for that show because I have my own strange addictions to worry about. Like my addiction to losing important things.

I was thinking about seeking counseling for my problem, but I'm afraid the psychologist would try to tell me that I'm actually addicted to searching for things.

What if he tells me that I'm getting something out of the process of looking? That the possibility of finding releases endorphins in my brain which make me high?

Or what if he tells me that I have a deep-seeded fear of loss, therefore I subconsciously recreate and then act out those fears on a regular basis?

Or that I am trying to drive my hub insane in order to push him away emotionally because I have issues with intimacy?

What if he wants me to go to group therapy to explore my hidden agendas and get in touch with my wounded inner child?

(Do you think I've been watching too much Celebrity Rehab?)

Have you guys ever watched Celebrity Rehab?

Me neither. Except this one time. Last week. There was a marathon while I was trying to sort through some of my unpacked boxes from the move.


I've never seen a show with louder, more redundant dialogue!

"Bleep, bleep, bleepity, bleep, BLEEP, bLeEp, swear word, bleep, cuss word, bleeeeeeeeeeep, curse word, BLEEEEEEEEP!"

Dr. Drew (not to be confused with Dr. Oz) says that you stop progressing emotionally at whatever age you begin taking drugs. So if you're 50 and you started taking drugs at age 20, then you're going to have the emotional maturity of a 20 year old.

I'm guessing Janice Dickinson started taking drugs when she was around seven years old.

Somebody needs to put that chick in time-out, ASAP!

Not criticizing. Just saying. In fact I wonder if my own emotional growth was stunted somewhere along the line. I never did actual drugs, but my mom fed me A LOT of cracked wheat during my pre-teen years. (She'll deny it though.)

Okay, so can I just share a nugget of wisdom I learned in between bleep words on Celebrity Rehab? You know how there is a lot of negative energy surrounding drug addiction? Well there is even MORE negative energy surrounding rehab.

You know I've always been the first to say DON'T DO DRUGS! But if you're already doing drugs . . . might as well just stay hooked. Fer reals. You may not live as long, but trust me, your quality of life will be much greater.

Luckily I have no room for a drugs in my life. I probably wouldn't be able to stay addicted anyway given my compulsion to misplace important things. Knowing me I'd put my stash in a safe place where I'd never be able to find it again.

But guess what . . . I think I'm ready. To face the move. And to start unpacking. And to stop losing important things.

I think.