Must I? Well, if "excited" is in any way related to "trepidatious and indifferent."
I know I shouldn't air the ol' family bidness on the Intranets, but mainly this is to amuse my mother, who desperately needs it. Well, the photo anyway. The rest isn't that amusing.
Here is why I'm not looking forward to seeing my grandma.
1. She never shuts up. (Plus, she's an interrupter.)
2. She never shuts up about stuff I don't care about.
3. She doesn't care a whit about any of the stuff I care about.
Back to the numbers in a minute. I'm not just talking generation gap here or being uncharitable for no good reason. I'm talking about her priorities. Let me elaborate: If I were to tell my grandmother that I was about to win the Nobel Peace Prize, her interest level would be approximately a 3. If her neighbor's cousin's hairdresser had tendonitis, that would rate a 9. I don't know why. No one knows why. But if it's her own family, especially if it's good news, she just doesn't give a shit. If it's a stranger and it's bad news, that rocks. One of her favorite topics is other people who have gotten in financial trouble or been bad parents. She enjoys casting judgment on them, which is ironic, as you'll see.
4. She ran through a LOT of money, then accepted every credit card offer in the known universe, maxed them out, then borrowed money from everyone she knew, then got kicked out of her apartment for letting her scumbag son (NOT my uncle) live with her and bring his druggie friends around the senior center. So on the verge of homelessness, she confesses. But the whole story still did not come out. Every once in a while, another bill will show up, or another distant cousin will call, or she'll have gone through the $600 a month she uses for "groceries" and need more before the month is up.
5. You know how some people hit the parent jackpot and others don't? I did. My own mom didn't. She sometimes says that she raised me by thinking "what would my mom do?" and then doing the opposite. She also can recount dozens of times growing up when she thought to herself "I am NEVER going to do this to my own child." Long story short? Grandma sucked as a mom. My mom was a freak anomaly who survived bad parenting. Her two brothers basically didn't.
6. She is still, at 80, a liar and a manipulator, and my mom is just too nice to cut her off entirely and let her sink or swim (probably sink). So Mom, because she's a decent person, still gets jerked around.
7. She just doesn't care much about us. She babysat me for about the first 10 years of my life, which involved us watching Days of our Lives, me eating as much junk food as I could stuff in, and then playing with the neighbor kid (usually something bad, like burning things). As long as my schedule, my needs, or my homework didn't get in her way, I was tolerated. I really don't call her (Hey, I send presents!), but Mom does. I don't know for sure, but I suspect there's not a lot of "How's Mockula?" unless Mom brings me up. She'd rather talk about whatever gossip there is about people we don't know.
So I am taking her out to dinner tomorrow, and another day during the break I think I'll take her to a movie, but I'm doing it to rescue Mom from her constant company rather than because I'm really excited to see my Grandma. I will probably feel kind of bad about all this when she dies, but you know what? I have another Grandma, and that one always asks after me, knows what's going on in my life, makes an effort to spend time with me, and even though she's got her faults, she's just a lot more grandmotherly. I know she cares. I know she loves me. Hell, she asks about my FRIENDS for goodness sake. She knows my friends' names! I'm not 100% sure my Mom's mom knows my HUSBAND'S name.
Anyway, the other thing about it is that people think you're a total rotten bitch if you don't love your grandmother, especially when she tends to be much nicer to outsiders, so they see her as a cookie-baking fudge-making bastion of peace. The truth? Check the picture.
5 comments:
I think the Nobel Peace Prize would actually register about a 1.5 and then immediately after hearing about it, she would say "you know, my neighbor's cousin's son won second prize in the 3rd grade bird calling contest in 1962...and that's really an accomplishment."
Glad you saw it.
Having actually met Mestopholis (or Grandma as she is known here on earth, and I recognize I have spelled Mestopholis incorrectly but I don't care) I feel I have a small bit of authority to comment.
First, I too hit bad parent and granny luck on my maternal side. My mom is about as interested in me as your Grandma is in you. My Granny was so evil she lived 10 years longer then she was supposed to. For the strangers she had one lung, emphysema, and still smoked giving herself carbon monoxide poisioning once a month and she lived for TEN YEARS like that, so yes it was the evil. I come from a long line of liars and manipulators.
I think this is why I don't want kids. But your mom is amazing and she more then makes up for my mom sucking so amen to that. And amen to you for picking up some of the slack and keeping it from me having to defend your mom for some act of violence if not given a break. I am interested to see the interaction between Boompah and grandma us cancers are a picky crowd.
Finally don't feel bad, and despite what you think you probably won't feel bad when she dies. Everyone dies and not everyone is a nice person. So there.
Also your link to pic makes it possible for others to see the crafting goodness PRE Christmas, just an FYI.
My Mom;s mom was also a bad grandmother, and I get the same treatment when I tell people my family (mom / sister / me) didn't even go to her funeral. Until I describe her. Then they understand. She was that bad. I may write a blog about it one day.
So anyway, I feel for you. You're a good daughter for helping your mom's burden.
Mockula, you and your mom are really wonderful people for tolerating her. I completely understand your situation also. While my mom's mom is awesome, my dad's mom is one of the most selfish people I know. She revels in shitting on other people, especially my mom and her mom. She is also insanely racist. If we really want to torture terrorists, we should make them spend a day with her. It is horrid. So, like Des and monkeygirl, I totally understand.
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