Let's Talk About (Grandchildren And) Sex

My first-born grandson, Zachary, will, in my heart, always be the son I didn’t raise. I was in the delivery room when he was born. I didn’t approve of his father or my daughter’s marriage to him so when Chrissi divorced him two years later it was a good thing.

Zach, his Auntie Cathy, his Uncle Kyle and myself have always been extremely close. We (mostly me) delighted in terrorizing him – monsters in the closet, trolls under the bridge, sharks in water and, of course, big slobbery kisses at every opportunity – the more public the better. We also drove Chrissi crazy by painting his fingernails and toenails every chance we got. Our terrorist tactics did not leave any permanent scars. We also didn’t have much luck trying to influence his thought processes. My daughters and I were (and still are) pretty vocal about the superiority of women – we could never get Zach to buy into that. When Zach was about four, his Mom and I took him on a camping trip. He took it upon himself to protect us – at each campsite he strung rope around the trees to keep the bears away from us, he gathered wood so that we would be warm around the campfire. .

We had endless discussions on what women (particularly Grandmas) should and shouldn’t do – Grandmas shouldn’t drive hot cars. Grandmas definitely couldn’t drive motorcycles. Grandmas shouldn’t wear short dresses, low cut clothes or brightly colored clothes cause they weren’t “grandma clothes.”

As Zach got older, he relaxed his views on what Grandmas could and couldn’t do. Zach and I have had many laughs about his early years and he, very lovingly, calls me his "crazy grandma."

Zach now has a girlfriend and I am finding that difficult – much more so than when my daughters had boyfriends. I never felt I lost my daughters when they fell in love, but I am now feeling a sense of loss. What makes it even worse is that Zach and his girlfriend are “doing the wild thing”.

He’s not old enough!

In my mind, Zach is still that little guy who strung rope around the camp to protect us, who stood up at Cathy and Kyle's engagement party, gave a toast to “flamily” and told Kyle to take care of his Auntie. Zach is the little boy who escorted me along the beach on a sunny afternoon eight years ago, stood in front of the Marriage Commissioner, friends and family and said “I give my Grandma to this man.” I have never felt so proud.

My mind is not ready for female friends and fornication.

Not ready at all.

Tweet Dreams

This past week has been an awakening. Not only did I get back into techno-world, but also got involved in super-tech-twitter world.

I have been told that there is no point or solid rationale for tweeting which, I was also told, is the whole point.

I spent the major portion of one whole day last week learning about Twitter and met some very kind and helpful people in the process. But tweeting is time consuming and even though I am retired, I don’t have time to sit for hours at my computer, or to be checking it frequently. I would feel guilty if I tweeted on twitter and then twaddled off and didn’t tweet to another tweeter’s twitter or is it another twitter’s tweeter?

So I am going to “retweet” to my backyard where only birds twitter and rethink my foray into the morass of techno-musings.

Tweet Dreams!

Happy Birthday To My Girl

Today is a big day! Today is Catherine’s birthday.

I have always thought of the birthdays of my children as a dual celebration – one for them and one for me.

Until the day I die, I will thank God for my children and the miracle I experienced on the day of their birth. Every birthday each of my daughters celebrate, I celebrate the miracle

Each birthday, I relive the day they were born and, with each passing year, I celebrate the joy of watching them embrace life. I relive unwrapping Catherine and counting her toes (they were so big I thought she had six), I relive her putting her cat in a pillowcase and dunking it in the toilet, I relive checking dresser drawers daily for that same cat, I relive her first day of school, I relive her basement production of Annie (starring herself), I relive her every childhood dream – writer, actress, ballerina. I relive every day of her life.

The joy does not diminish as the decades grow, nor do my memories fade.

Catherine will always be my precious first-born daughter who was born May 21st because I danced under the light of the full moon on May 20th.

Happy Birthday, Trinky!!!

Happy Birth Day to me for giving birth to you!!

All of my love, your eternally grateful Mother

PS. I also have a good conception story, but Cath would kill me!

Back From The Abyss

Well, after a month without my computer, I feel like I have returned from the abyss. I am not, in any way, shape or form computer literate. I have always maintained that my computer was merely a tool that made writing and editing documents easier - my frame of reference was the manual typewriter that I started out on back in the dark ages and, later, that marvelous invention, the electric typewriter!

I discovered, this past month, as I lived the dark abyss of zero technology, that if you don’t have e-mail you don’t exist. Scary! What was even scarier is I went through computer withdrawal. Yes, I had all the symptoms - it drove me crazy – I was irritable, restless, not sleeping, not eating, dark circles under the eyes and having nightmares of disappearing off the face of this technology-crazed earth.

When I got my computer back and my e-mail up and running, I binged on e-mail – I had sixty-two of them to read – it was better than a free pass to a martini bar! Then I realized the awful truth – I AM A COMPUTER JUNKIE!!!

I don’t think I’ll bother with rehab so bring it on, bring it all on – twitter, tweeter, and whatever the hell else has been invented since I have been gone!

Before There Was Bad Grandma...

... there was the original Bad Mother:


Wigging her kid and everything.

Happy Mother's Day!

(The Bad Grandma is still without technology, and limited to issuing instructions to her bad daughter by telephone. She misses you all.)