On Thursday afternoon my husband’s grandma, who we call Gigi, passed away. She was such a neat lady, one of my favorite people ever. When my cat died, she was one of the people that was on my list to call and cry to. I loved visiting her, she was such a warm and inviting person, and she always had cookies in her cookie jar. And if there is one thing that I love, it’s cookies.

I found Gigi simply fascinating. She was completely blind, but she could do just about anything. One day, when my husband and I were first married she invited us over for the afternoon. She was serving potato chips and shrimp pasta. I don’t eat shrimp pasta, however I can eat potato chips until I puke.

To be honest, I was thankful that she couldn’t see me eat potato chip after potato chip. What would she think of my diet?

All of a sudden she says to me: “Why are you only eating potato chips?”

I turned to my husband and mouthed: How does she know??

And he mouthed back to me: She knows everything.

Me: “I don’t really like shrimp pasta.” And then I cringed and waiting for her to scold me for (God-forbid) not liking something, because everyone else seems to have an opinion on what I don’t eat.

But she surprised me by saying: “Then let’s get out the chocolate cake!”

So with a big smile on my face, I had potato chips and chocolate cake.

In honor of Gigi, here’s a couple reruns.

Birthday Check

Today is my husband’s grandma’s 82nd birthday. She’s never wanted a birthday party before, but this year she announced that she wanted a party. So we threw her a party.

She wanted presents too, and quite honestly, who doesn’t??? So we got her what she asked for, which were some earrings. But then I walked past the Crocs at the store and turned to my husband and said, Do you think she’d like some Crocs?

And he said that was a great idea, so we bought her some lovely powder blue Crocs.

Now I should tell you that his grandma is completely blind and she’s been that way since she was a child. She doesn’t move around too well anymore because she has poor circulation, and she’s blind, and as a result of that and most likely more, her feet and ankles are incredibly swollen. I hardly ever see her in shoes, and its probably because they are too uncomfortable to wear.

She thought that the Crocs were loaves of bread when she opened the gift bag, and we practically had to force her to take them out of the bag so she could see that they weren’t loaves of bread. And then I put them on her feet. I thought they were kinda tight, but she loved them and was so excited to have shoes that didn’t hurt her feet. We were out on the deck and I suggested that she stand up in them to see how they felt, and then she took off down the deck towards the house and told me to come with her.

We got into the dining room, and it was a sight to see my husband’s 82 year old grandma all made up in her birthday outfit and blue Crocs (with the price tag still attached). She told me she had something for me, and then started to pat around on the counter top. I couldn’t see anything, but then she reached into this pitcher that is always there, mostly for decoration I think, and pulled out a birthday check for me.

She’s never given me a birthday check before. I’ve been married to her grandson for 10-1/2 years and today was my very first birthday check from her.

I looked down at my check, it was typed by her on her ancient typewriter. The amount of the check says: Twenty-five dollars for nonsencse.

For nonsense. Isn’t that a riot?

Uh Oh

This afternoon Hubby, Zoe and I, went over to Hubby’s grandma’s house to pick up his brother and take him to the airport.

Grandma lives on a lake. The living room faces the lake, and there are a pair of binoculars on the look-through shelf between the kitchen and the living room, which we use to spy on all the people who are out on the lake. Today it was the ice fishers. They were all over the lake.

When I was done watching them, I put the binoculars back on the top shelf, where I’d gotten them from. I was in the living room, facing the shelves. Grandma was in the kitchen, at the table, eating dinner, right on the other side of the shelves. I accidentally hit a 10″ tall Wise Man figurine which was on the shelf. It toppled off the shelf, on grandma’s side, just missed her gray permed head, and fell onto the floor.

Uh oh!

(Remember, grandma is completely blind.)

Grandma: “What was that?”

Hubby: “Nothing, she knocked a figurine down.”

Grandma: “How did she knock it down?”

Hubby: “She was putting away the binoculars.”

Me: “Did it hit you? Are you okay?”

Grandma: “Did it break? I hope it didn’t break.”

At this point, my brother-in-law comes up from under the table with the figurine, it’s missing the top of it’s hat and a foot.

Hubby: “No. It didn’t break.”

My brother-in-law handed the figurine to my Hubby, who immediately went over to the drawer where the glue is and pulled out the glue. BIL dropped to his hands and knees, searching for the top of the hat.

Grandma: “Are you sure?”

Brother-in-law finds the top of the hat, and assures grandma that it’s not broken.

I handed the piece to Hubby, who immediately glued it on. I whispered to him that he should move the glue away from grandma because she may not be able to see, but she’ll be able to smell the glue right away. He moved away to the other side of the room, instructing me ‘to go find the foot’, and then started to hush our daughter who piped in and said ‘you broke it’. Ugh. Shhhhhhhh!

We found the foot, and carried on our conversations with grandma as if nothing had ever happened. I almost burst out in fits of giggles a few times, and I couldn’t believe how quickly my Hubby and his brother went to work at putting the figurine back together. It was almost as if they’d done it before ……

Especially when Hubby put it back on the shelf in a completely different place from where it was when I knocked it off.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a really nice article on her in Monday’s newspaper, here’s the link.