So Long, Gran.

6 Dec

26 November 2011

When I was little, she was Grandma Margaret–my Mama’s Mama who lived way up north in Philadelphia. My Granny was my Daddy’s Momma, whom I saw every week.

But now she’s my one and only Gran, and although I don’t often say it, I’m very grateful and lucky to have her as a part of my life, at this time in my life.

I all so often play to the funnier side of things. It comes so naturally to me–harping on the odd, the juxtaposed, the annoying and all the things that come after “Oh lort …” Storytelling seems too easy sometimes. I love trying to capture little moments with words; it’s probably why taking pictures rarely occurs to me–I’m always so busy trying to cull all my words together to tell you what I’ve just seen, heard and felt.

In my Gran’s case, a woman who’s had her share of strife and almost unspeakable heartbreaks, it is perhaps best (and easiest) to talk about her in ways that inspire laughter. Nobody wants to cry all the time or anymore, not when there’s still so much living left for us all to do. Still, she is one of the most blatantly ornery people I’ve ever met and it just makes me laugh out loud sometimes.

“Darn, Danita. You gotta open ALL the blinds?”

“Gran. It’s dark in here; I don’t do darkness in the daytime. You need a little sunshine in your life–you are my sunshine, my only sunshine–”

“Oh c’mon. You can go somewhere else with that. I don’t want to hear that. And don’t be leaving my door open either.”

Just so many things about her–a whole lifetime of tics, scowls and razor-sharpened eyebrow raises. The crackle in her voice; the slow way her head rises right before she looks at you in dismay to say, “Are you kidding?!”; her no-holds-barred way of bashing someone’s (anyone’s) ineptitude in the kitchen. Her ah-HA-ha-sigh laugh tickles me. It is not a laugh that comes easily. It’s one of the most economical laughs I’ve ever heard. It has this world-weary sigh at the end of it, as if something not-so-funny is always on the cusp of breaking through.

Still. She is O-R-N-E-R-Y. Ern’ry if you want to get it right.Yesterday she looked my 11-month old cousin dead in her wide-eyed, expectant but hesitant face and exclaimed in her full rasp, “Whatcha lookin’ at me for little girl?! I don’t wantcha!”

Now babies are already predisposed to be yay or nay about old folks. They smell worse than the greenest, most suspect Gerber-ish goop; their bodies are held in ways the belie any warmth or cuddling; their ears and eyes, the corners of their mouths–they all offer that droopy disdain. Little Ava ain’t even talkin’ yet, but she knew well enough to totter right on along.

Gran’s voice isn’t shrill, but it will cut through you. It has an icy, hardened crispness to it, no doubt enhanced by years of cigarette smoking. But it is also seasoned with age, guile and a very sharp tongue. It warbles with the weight of weary lungs seized by cancerous cells, but it says what it needs to say in perfect time.

6 December 2011

2:08 a.m.

I wake up gasping for air, coughing, and she’s gone.

I sit up in the bed not knowing what’s already happened, but the coughing won’t cease and I can’t catch my breath. It’s never happened before. I’m scared. I pacify myself with a Ricola and rest my head on my pillow.

The phone rings and my Mama’s warm voice bubbles over with tears. Gran just passed away.

So few words of comfort there are at a moment like that …

She woke me as if to say goodbye, but I know she’s left me with more than this cough.

7:42 a.m.

Gran is gone. So long, Gran.

When I was a kid I always wondered why she said goodbye like that. One time I remember we dern near waged a goodbye-last-word war on the phone:

“Bye, Grandma Margaret.”

“So long.”

“So long what?”

“So long. That’s how I say goodbye.”

“But what’s so long about it?”

“Keep asking questions.”

So long you held on. So long enough to love us.

So long you bore your burdens, your heartaches with a ferocity that kept us at bay, kept us in check, kept us protected.

So long will my memories of you remain. So long until we eat your spaghetti together again.

So long as I live I’ll be grateful your path blazed for mine.

Gran's Own

Mags, Uncle Reed, Aunt Sandra, Aunt Mary & Gran

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Reflections: Courtesy of SEPTA

14 Nov

What goes through my mind any given Monday – Friday whilst bumbling along on SEPTA:

Who the eff are you talkin’ to at 7:30 in the morning? It bet not be the person you just left; nor need it be the person you’re fidna see in less than 30 minutes.

I swear. Every rail car in the a.m. should be the quiet car–at the very least the first 2 should be. Dern.

And while I’m on the subject of public cell phone use, is there some kind of new stank-ass social experiment going on where select folk are encouraged to talk about their personal Gran’mama Clump relations ALOUD?!

On the geedee train?!

In the Tyler Perry mornting?!

A few weeks ago a bespectacled, rather snooty looking man and I were subjected to some chick armed with a wide-screen cellphone attached to a Bluetooth. She wielded that thing with the reckless abandon of a Taxi Cab Confessor; waved it like she just didn’t care.

It’s a whole other pointless rant why folk think it’s respectable to photo private parts and send them into the universe for unsuspecting, uninterested eyes like mine to see. The way I feel ‘bout it, Adam & Eve sinned enough already. We is clothed for very practical reasons and dernit, the word private still has meaning. At least it should.

But that was just the show part. I also got the tell which consisted of the following words (you associate as you see fit):

  • Guuuuurrrllll (*Post-hot wing lip smack, lip smack*)
  • So juicy
  • Skrong (which in this context I took to mean a cross between skank and wrong)
  • Did you get the text yet? Did you see it? Pass it on, gurl … rise and shine

Over the course of a good twenty minutes Mr. Bespectacled and I exchanged a series of very stern above-the-rim side-eyes. He snapped his NYT paper so hard so many times that it began to sound like a whip–which would’ve been a terrific accompanying sound effect were I not so grossed out.

* * * * * * *

What do you think about when someone sits next to you and immediately opens a giant pack of Halls?

Me?

  • I wonder about consumption
  • Or about how stupid it feels to hold one’s breath when not underwater
  • Mentally count the packets of Emergen-C I have left in my possession
  • Calculate whether I can afford bail money if they cough or sneeze or exhale a li’l too heartily in my general direction
  • Throw side-eyes at 6-second intervals
  • Flash the hand sanitizer before applying it elbow-deep
  • Wear extremely stern expression; fold arms
  • Pray for one of us to soon arrive at destination

* * * * * * *

To the people who are apparently paying homage to Bach by snorting and sniffling a snot fugue–as a grown-ass person you ought to know about the following:

  • Kleenex
  • Sudafed
  • Handkerchief

I spent two weeks straight wondering if someone on the train was on a truffle hunt. Every two-to-three seconds someone on my morning and evening train wouldn’t just sniff, they’d unleash this guttural, uvula-shaking, pre-loogie-hocking snort. It sounded like they had wide awake sleep apnea.

All I could think was:

Why are people so nasty? It’s extremely, increasingly disturbing when 1st world folk exhibit behavior that is beyond 3rd world nasty–I’m callin’ it 4th world stank.

Also, why sitchoass in the Quiet Car if’n you ain’t actually quiet?!

You should have seen the side-eyes people were throwing at the snorter. I don’t even know if these people knew they were side-eyeing, but eyes were practically vogueing: the quick up-down side-eye; the side-eye slit; the Bernie Mac bug-eyed side-eye …

In addition to the side-eyes I also witnessed quite a few sharp and quick turn ‘n stares. This motion has the same staccato punch as the Bend ‘n Snap. I don’t do this move because its swift, jerky nature probably leads me one step closer to the chiropractor, but its effects are menacing. It’s a move I’ve only seen used in the Quiet Car. Someone’s phone dings or they take too long unwrapping a piece of peppermint and you see someone’s posture go vertical with the quickness, the head whips around and an eye of Mordor sears a whole in the offender’s very existence.

It’s at its very best when it’s followed by the school marm “Shhhhhhh!”

* * * * * * *

Folk Who Eat on the Train:

NOTE: The Quiet Car should also be the “No Hot Food Car.” Smelling Popeye’s chicken during rush hour, to me, is just as offensive as the pack of punk-ass kids talking to their friends one stop away on speakerphone with their outside voices.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to restrain oneself from going Cookie Monster crazy on the louse with the 2-piece and a biscuit?

Also, I don’t need to hear every morsel making its way to your esophagus. Nor do I need to hear every gulp and satiated “ah.” You ain’t hardly auditioning for no Sprite commercial.

I don’t miss having road rage at all, and I definitely don’t miss pumping gas. However, there are times when I’d give anything for the cocoon of my car. Some days I feel so conflicted–how big would my carbon footprint be if I broke it off in some offending commuter’s behind?

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An Addendum to Trick Treat + Word Association

27 Oct

This is a follow-up to the previous corporate cray-cray post about some certain candy cawns and the mysteries surrounding their arrival and, to my great surprise, their same-day departure. Below, in somewhat particular order, are my thoughts about the snarfing of the cawn.

Candy Cawn Gone?!

  1.  WTF?
  2. Gremlins.
  3. People crazy.
  4. I must work with a bunch of Life Cereal Eatin’ Mikeys; some folks’ll eat anything.
  5. Why does someone always do this, leave one less-than-satisfying trace of something? It happens all the time with soda, other catered foods and pizza. They’ll seriously leave the whole box sitting there. I’ve watched folk lift the lid to discover some dried up cheese that “chalk outlines” where the last piece was.
  6. Animals.
  7. So, you’ll eat an entire trough of candy cawn, save one, and leave Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage?
  8. Bygones.

Okay, so that was Tuesday. Wednesday mornin’ the cawn was replenished, artfully piled above the brim. The irony of this replenishment coinciding with the start of our health benefits open enrollment period was not lost on moi. All that tri-colored temptation screamed cavities, deductibles and dental drills.

No thank you.

Presently the cawn is offering passersby a chance to take a break from month-end reconciliations, Excel mayhem and quarterly filings to delve into the existential: is the cawn mug half-empty or half-full? Does the mug know its limits? Do the mug-handlin’ handlers know theirs?

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Trick Treat

25 Oct

As seen today in the realm of corporate cray-cray:

“… Where they hung the jerk who invented work in the big rock candy mountain …”

We found candy corn in a hopeless place ...

 

Yo.

Let’s play “The number of directions in which I can go with the image above.”

1. Unpackaged Halloween Candy in an Open Container
I don’t know about y’all, but candy cawn in an obviously used, nondescript mug of questionable cleanliness is exactly what yo mama warned you about when she told you not to go trick or treatin’ at the one house in yo’ neighborhood that was undeniably sketch.

2. How’m I S’posed to Eat This?
I don’t know how y’all were raised, but IF (and that’d probably be the last “if” on Earth) I was, say, Cookie Monster crazy ‘bout candy cawn and just had to have me some sugar-spiked morsels, I would pick up the cup, tip it over I’mma-Little-Teapot-style and pour myself some.

But that’s me.

And maybe, hopefully you.

HOWS-IN-EVUH … you know you know that one co-worker who ain’t like us. There is almost always that one person who operates by “the world is my oyster” creed. This person walks, coughs, uses a cell phone, commandeers 3/4s of train seats and snarfs community catered food with the wildest abandon. This is the person who’ll go elbow-deep into that mug, as boundless as a NASA all-star on a moonwalk.

Note: Re-read those last two sentences; note the word “cough.” Note that said cough is rarely, as in never ever properly covered. Whoa no. This person coughs in one of two ways:

1. Dixie Chick style. As in wide open spaces. As in the personification of Al Gore’s inconvenient truth.

2. Hands on style. Despite myriad advisories, HR postings, PSAs and shout-outs (CGA, Holla!) this person coughs John-Coffee-like-the-drank-in-The-Green-Mile-in-that-part-where-he-hacks-all-the-ugly-cancerous-flies-up-in-the-air style dead into the center of their hand. Unwashed, unencumbered and unaware, this is the hand that will eagerly shake yours, grab your pen, swab every door handle in a 60-foot radius, go to the potty, scratch, pick and touch 57 more candy cawns than the ones they will actually ingest.

It’s flu season folks. You’ve been warned.

3. Since When Does Candy Cawn Need to be Randomly Rationed?
Like, for real. Why pour an indiscriminate amount of candy cawn into a MUG? Bring a jar. Something clear and see through and clean looking. I can’t guess how many there are in a damn travel mug.

Where is the lid?

Will the ration be refilled?

Where is the bag?

Are these trans-fat free candy cawns? Gluten free-ish? What about almost everybody’s kids’ peanut allergies?

These are the days when you can’t just up and brang folk food ’cause everybody’s literally got their somethin’ that’ll cause them to asphyxiate within a 10-inch radius, feel nauseous, get aromatically offended or all irritably bowled, etc.

I mean, couldn’t you have provided a spoon or sumpin’ to facilitate the sharing?

Also, I need a label or sumpin’. Some kind of “Heyo! Happy Halloween. Get crunk on candy corn!” sign.  I’d like to think a group e-mail would’ve alerted us to the treat, but then the person probably didn’t want anyone to know it was from them, which takes me right back to #1 and the word “sketch.”

Honestly, I didn’t even know the mug had anything in it until I was heatin’ up my breakfast sammich at the microwave. Mind you, the mug was sitting on top of the microwave, but I relocated it because between the microwaves and the BPA levels and the fumes from whatever ethnic fish dish said microwave could be cooking at any given time … well, those candy cawns, in my humble opinion, just wouldn’t be right for consumption. Not that they’re right anyway being exposed to folks’ funky elements and all, but you know.

And mmmhmm. I know, I know. “Danita, they were probably just trying to be nice. It’s the thought that counts.”

Well, you ain’t countin’ all the associated costs, friend(s). What about my Emergen-C intake? Or that portion of my paycheck that pays for my medical and dental costs (what is in candy cawn anyway?!)? Or the time it takes for me to figure out who this benevolent culprit is?

I work in an accounting department and I’m confronted with a mug full of unaccountability.

Increasingly the world is all trick and no treat.

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Lend Me Your Ear … and Just One Text!

30 Jun

You’ve gotten by with a li’l help from your friends, right?
Probably got high with a li’l help from your friends?

(Emotionally, spiritually … and medicinally if that’s how you do.)

Me? Well I’m willing to try anything with a li’l help from my friends which is why, if you’re reading this and it’s still before Noon EST on Thursday June 30th (Still got an HOUR!), I’mma ask you to send a text message to help some of my dearest friends get by:

Could it be anybody who’s eligible to vote? Yes it can.


We’ve all got dreams to remember; thanks for helping make one for my friends come true.

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