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My Profile
Retro-retrospection - 2008-10-06
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12:40 a.m. - 2005-04-25
My nails have grown out nicely. Most of them are just shy of fingertip length. I rounded the corners of them today and was struck how much my hands look like my grandmother’s. No, I’m not bitching about crepey skin or anything. I mean the way my nails grow. The shapes of my fingers. I can see her hands in mine. This isn’t the witch grandmother, this is the Chanel suit grandmother. I don’t remember much about the looks of my Oma’s hands. She was always doing something with them. Cooking. Braiding a granddaughter’s hair. Needlework. Rocking a baby. My parents divorced right about the time I was getting too big for Oma’s lap. It was a long time before I saw her again. When I did, I knew right away I’d sat in her lap for the last time already. This woman who loomed so large in my life had shrunk; she was hardly taller than I was. Chanel suit grandma could be harsh, no doubt. But she was probably the only person on my mother’s side I didn’t loathe and/or fear. I always sensed there was a free-spirit in there. For one thing she didn’t marry young (and pregnant) to get out of her mother’s house, she up and left Ireland entirely. Immigrated with another sister. Originally bound for the New England mills, Grandma got off the boat at Ellis Island, did her time in the scary inspection lines, was ferried to Manhattan and there she stayed. New York suited her just fine. She had the gall to be Catholic and only have two kids. (Though frankly if I’d given birth to a wart like my mother, I’d have stopped too.) Another thing I admired about her was that she didn’t take any crap. From anybody. Not even my grandfather. Especially not my grandfather. This was very cool. My mother was scared spitless of her father and infected me with it. Though it wasn’t completely irrational, my grandfather never did much in the way of calming us down. A corporate big-wig, he enjoyed terrifying the underlings. Yeah, he was sooooo popular they offered him an early retirement with more money. Just to be rid of him. And my grandmother had him whipped. She refused to learn how to drive. My grandfather drove her everywhere. He fetched and carried. He was her serf and her word was Law. Yet she never raised her voice. Never swore. Never lit into anyone. She was definite. Charming, pleasant, and 5’2” of steel. Thanks to her I can go to swank stores and not get attitude from the salespeople. This Grasshopper learned well from the Master. Hell, I was 7 years old before I knew some people actually had to walk around and search the racks themselves. I thought shopping was sitting in a nice chair while the salespeople brought you things. Nope, this grandma didn’t peel me apples or teach me to read chicken bone omens. I don’t think I ever once sat in her lap. She told pretty good stories though. Not goblins and fairies. She told real stories about the goofy stuff they did. The story about the time she convinced my grandfather she’d won a horse on the radio game show Dialing for Horses was a classic. She had my grandfather so upset about the horse he never gave a thought to whether the show was real. C’mon! Dialing for Horses???? Oh man, she was good. So maybe it’s not just her hands I inherited. I can be pretty good with Dialing for Horses myself. Damn good, actually. Sometimes I think it’s a crying shame I’m a dope smoking Liberal college drop-out living in one of two NY GOP strongholds. If given a chance I’d have a heck of a political career. And unlike Hillary, when I got to the bigs I’d know where to shop. Snark, snark, snark, ~LA
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