Recipe Swipe

I made a batch of turkey tacos on Monday. This is a bit too spicy (ethnic) for Grandma's palate, so I've had the leftovers all for myself. This means that every time I've heated them up we've had some variation of this conversation:

"What are you making?"
"Turkey tacos."
"What's a taco? Never heard of it!"

My favorite might have been tonight's, "I wouldn't know anything about tacos."

Then she spotted the apple pie my mom sent down. "Oh, what a nice pie. My mother used to make wonderful pies."
"What kind of pies?"
"Apple or lemon meringue, I'd help peel the apples or stir the lemon pudding on the stove. Or she'd make strudels or cakes. I used to have a lot of good recipes from her."
"What happened to them, Grandma?"
"Yeah, I wonder what happened to them....They must have just walked out of here."

What happened next was kind of funny. Naturally, Grandma's first instinct is to blame Aunt Dee for the missing recipes. With her track record of thievery, who wouldn't? But, Grandma seems to remember that Aunt Dee doesn't cook. So now she tries to reconcile these two facts in her brain. She works through it by mumbling to herself, "She don't cook, why would she take them? Oooooh, I think she said her husband cooks. I bet she took them for him! I'm gonna ask him how he likes my recipes. Ha!"

Case closed!

Cabinet of Wonders

After seven months, Grandma still seems pretty confused about the fact that I live with her. If I've been in my room for awhile she'll say, "Oh, I forgot you were here." When I was away over the summer she asked my dad where I was living. And when she finds my possessions in the kitchen, she always asks, "Is this yours?" and either leaves them out or hides them in random locations (a la the frying pan that went missing). She doesn't know where the items came from or if they're hers and doesn't want to put them away until that's been clarified. But remember, Grandma has no short term memory, so even when I tell her the stuff is mine, she doesn't process that.

So, I've been on a mission to clear out some shelf/cabinet space for my things. Grandma is a pack rat, so this has been quite an undertaking. When I first moved in, my dad and I set to work on the pantry. We threw out all the old items. Things started around 2007, farther back on the shelves we started seeing 2005 and 2004, 2002, 2001. Noodle and sauce mixes from 1999, 1994. Unopened salad dressings, and what we thought was the champion, baking soda from 1989. But, tucked in a corner of the pantry we found the gem pictured here. Kitchen Bouquet! Circa 1974! This prompted immediate texts to my brothers. Middle Bro asked, "What did it taste like?"
My reply, "Food poisoning? A hallucination? I ain't tasting that!" I did smell it, however. It was kind of stewy and had totally congealed. Interestingly, the ingredients had no chemicals and seemed pretty wholesome.

Today's project was the cabinets by the kitchen sink. These held vitamins and medicine. With her condition, Grandma is very much an "outta sight, outta mind" kind of girl. So, these were almost as old as the stuff in the pantry. All told, I had 25 bottles to recycle, plus a pretty substantial assortment of sample pills. The record for this cabinet was 1990, although I had one antique-y looking bottle with no dates. Check it out, and also note the 1970s style contact paper.

This was a pretty tedious job, but now I have two extra shelves to myself and a safe home for my travel mugs.

**Today's Stolen Items**
Dish towels

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

One of the first jokes we learn is some variation of "Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?" According to Wikipedia, this was printed in The Knickerbocker magazine as early as 1847 and was most likely in common use by the 1890s. Rubber chickens are a typical gag prop and "The Chicken Dance" often serves as background music for silliness. For whatever reason, chickens seem to have a special place in comedy. I don't get the humor, but Grandma totally does!

A couple of weeks ago, Grandma was watching the news and cracking up. "Look at this! Oh, I never!"

The story was about the growing trend of people keeping their own chickens and using the eggs. Grandma is finding this totally hilarious.

"Chickens! As pets! In the backyard! Ha!"

Every squawk and cluck makes her laugh even more. I'm not sure why this is funny, but I try to keep the hilarity going. I tell her that one of her nieces and her family keep four chickens in their garage.

"In the garage? Ha! You don't say!"

"Yeah, they have a little coop that connects to the garage. I helped them collect the eggs when I went to visit."

"Get out of town!"

She's still laughing as if this is the funniest thing ever! As if these chickens have suddenly started performing like Gonzo's beloved show-chicken, Camila. I don't get it. At all.

And then she becomes nostalgic, "Oh, sure. It's good to have your own eggs. My mother used to keep chickens."

"When you were little or when she was little?"

"When I was a kid, we had one backyard, and then you went up a set of stairs to another yard and she kept the chickens there. Oh yeah, that was funny. Chickens, ha!"



Today's Thefts
*Sheets
*Dustpan
*The newspaper containing the obituary of Grandma's friend

All of these are recurring thefts and any tips are appreciated.

Drink Up

I'm sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a Fuze Peach Mango, when Grandma walks in.

"Fuze? Never heard of it! Is that a drink?"

"It's juice, but would probably taste good with rum in it."

"Ooooh! Too bad I don't have any rum. We used to have a lot of stuff. Scotch, rum, whiskey, wine. Yeah, Grandpa liked to have a drink every now and then."

"What about you, Grandma? What was your drink?"

She starts giggling. "Oh, I was a cheap date! I'd have one drink and sip it all night. There used to be a tavern across the street. Grandpa would help out there after he retired. They had a trio play on Saturday nights and they would have lots of nice parties, especially New Years Eve. Yeah, that was nice."

Soon Grandma is giving me a rundown of all the bars that used to be in the neighborhood and the families that owned them. One of the traits of Grandma's dementia is that she starts repeating herself and her stories circle around themselves. Within three minutes she is back to the part about Grandpa working at the tavern and one of the owner's sons being a police officer. She'll repeat both facts again before dinner is ready. Still, it is worth it to hear her giggles.

The Name Game

As we have seen, Grandma is not shy about sharing her opinions. One of the things she is most passionate about is names.

The tenants upstairs (Polish immigrants) have a two year old daughter. They named her Anna and Grandma has been railing about it since the poor girl was born. "What a horrible name! How can they call her that? I'm going to say something to them." My aunt and I try to remind her that it's not her baby so she really has no say in the matter. Besides that, what's wrong with the name Anna anyway? "I used to walk the kids to school and there was a girl named Anna. The boys used to tease her. Anna Banana they'd call her and she would cry and cry!"

This story is a little time capsule in a lot of ways. One, it dates from the 1950s when my dad and Aunt Dee would have been in grade school, yet Grandma remembers it distinctly and tells it at least once a week. Two, I have a cousin named Anna. (This is on the other side of the family. There's no way Grandma would have let one of her kin be named Anna without a fight). We've always called her "Anna Banana" as a term of endearment. It's a cute name and a cute nickname. Three, if "Anna Banana" were such a horrible taunt, I wonder how Grandma would respond to the things I hear at school these days. I imagine a lot of kids would be getting smacks from Grandma!

It doesn't stop with Anna though. Reading about the top 10 names of 2009, Grandma had this to say about Jacob, the number one name for boys 11 years running, "I don't think that's such a hot name." Isabella tops the girls' list, "I don't care for that. Isabelle, maybe, but not Isabella." At number two is Emma. "That's a stupid name. My sister was Emma, but she changed it to Emily." She's equally baffled and disgusted by other names in the top ten like Jayden ("Never heard of it!"), Madison ("For a girl?"), Sophia ("I never liked that"), and Mia ("What kind of a name is that?").

If she has trouble with such common fare as Emma, Jacob, Anna, and Isabella, maybe you can already imagine Grandma's reaction to a photo of Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale with their boys, Kingston and Zuma. "Kingston and Zuma? Z-U-M-A. Where do they come up with these names? What a bunch of jerks!"

The Fur Trade

A new twist in Aunt Dee's thieving ways...Naturally, Grandma accused her of stealing a lot of things today and threatened to hit her over the head next time she sees her. (She'll do it, too!)

Today's Stolen Items:
*shorts
*beach chairs
*pill box
*everything in the basement

However, today Grandma must be feeling generous because she claims some things she found must have been brought over by Aunt Dee. I don't think I've ever seen this before! She never acknowledges all that my aunt does for her. Maybe we are turning a page in this crime-ridden saga.

So while Aunt Dee did make off with a pretty good haul today, she "left" three fur coats that Grandma claims never to have seen before! One of them appears to be bobcat or cheetah, which could be kind of fun this winter. Is fur still wrong to wear even if it is vintage?

**Some disclaimers**
I stole the pill box. Unfortunately, Grandma has been very confused about the date lately and her pills were all out of order. She takes nearly a dozen per day and it's a lot to keep track of. Days were half-finished or not touched at all or she would have the wrong day open. So, I've been putting her pills together every morning and just putting that out for her. But, I'll let Aunt Dee take the fall for the missing pill box.

Grandma insists that the basement is empty, when in fact it is full of stuff. I tried to tell her, "The basement is full of stuff" but she wasn't having it. "I was just in there! It's empty! Aunt Dee must have taken everything."

One of the fur coats (raccoon, I believe) is definitely Grandma's and she's probably had it since the 1950s.

Dirty Laundry

As you might expect, after 90 years of life, Grandma is pretty set in her ways. Nowhere is this more apparent than in her feelings towards laundry. She is very specific about everything laundry-related and is fiercely protective of her clothesline. (Of course, who can really blame her? Aunt Dee has been known to steal the clothespins and the runner that pulls the top and bottom line together).

Some examples:

I set the washer to cold water to save energy and because, you know, most of my clothes recommend washing them at that temperature. According to Grandma, "You need to use hot water or you won't kill the germs!"

I also fill the washer. Uh uh. Grandma is not having it. "You can't do that! You'll break my machine!" I'm not sure why she distrusts the machine and its manufacturers so much. Wouldn't it be designed to work at capacity? She never fills it more than 2/3, which makes it very difficult to actually get all of your laundry done. Also, you can't just put your clothes in the machine. They have to be artfully arranged to create the perfect balance. Again, we don't want to break the machine.

While Grandma is napping, I am hanging my clothes on the line. She wakes up and charges into the yard, "You can't do laundry on a Sunday! The neighbors will talk!" I try to persuade her that really no one cares about our laundry or the day we do it, but she is adamant. She won't have me shaming us with my illicit laundry habit. Sometimes I am tempted to use the dementia to my advantage, "What do you mean, Grandma? Today's only Saturday...."

Which brings us to the task of hanging clothes. Apparently this is a delicate skill that has been lost in our careless time of dryers. Just as you can't drop your clothes into the machine, you can't just pull them out. They have to be sorted by weight and type. When the clothes are ready to be put on the line, again they have to go in some kind of category. I'm not sure what that is though, because Grandma constantly changes her mind about whether light or heavy items go on first. A good rule of thumb, whatever way I'm hanging them? It's wrong!

This also applies to the clothespins themselves. They seem simple, right? Open the pin, put the edge of the clothing up to the line, close the pin, the end. Right? Ha! Fools! "Who taught you how to hang clothes? That's not how you do it!" Grandma snatches the pins and the garment from me and proceeds to re-hang it. I'm still trying to figure out how her technique is different from mine, but she always looks upon her pinning with a self-satisfied nod.