48 hours: Granny Edition

The last 48 hours I have spent with my 94 year old granny and today my family went to celebrate my great-aunts 100th birthday. Seeing such old people has been sort of surreal! A 75 year old is starting to be elderly and need sturdy shoes (if they are healthy). An 80 year old will remember life during some war. A 90 year old? Oh boy, a 90 year old with a healthy brain is someone to reckon with! My 94 year old grandma is as mentally sharp as a 20 year old and can remember just about everything which is good and dangerous. Today for example, she was awake at six AM and ready to party like a 94 year old rock star. She couldn't wait to get dressed and get out to see her family and best friend. 

Spending time with my grandma has been a mixed bag of nuts. It would be ideal to say its been totally sweet but it has been eye opening for generational views, anthropologic, endearing and in some things a little bit amusing. Some of my favorite moments have been:

1. Giving nanna a manicure. I have never felt such soft wrinkled beautiful skin in my life! It was like touching velvet. Granny was ready to party last night and asked to have her nails done so I filled a shallow cake pan so her hands would rest easy on the edge and gently rolled her sleeves up revealing her beautiful tree-like hands with curves and knots where time grew bone and arthritis stole her movement. I slowly put her hands in the cake pan with a Dove bar floating around and watched grandma splash the water over her curved thumb and in between her fingers. Her soft wrinkled skin moved back and forth with the movement of the water. I was incredulous to see that skin can do that! She was happy like a baby and clapped her tiny gnarled hands after I dried them. If you ever want to do something with your grandma, give her a manicure and look at her hands. It is a great experience.

Here we are debating a yard of Calico. 

2. We crafted together. I once read a book called ¨Can we please talk about something pleasant?¨ and it talked about how an old person ages much faster from 90 each going year.

This ironic book has helped me figure out what to expect with a quickly aging Abuelita!

 That has been the case with my 94 year old granny. For some reason I feel like there should be more blogs and websites dedicated to caregivers of the elderly just as there are for babies and toddlers! Essentially they need the same things: interaction and love, soft food (no salt, thank you!), good organic diapers for possible accidents,  sippie cups (they are so practical for arthritic weak hands!) and bibs. I think I would throw Mozart, one of those swingy things people put in cribs for babies to stare at and tips on how to put shoes on a 94 year old! Putting shoes on granny is  SO HARD! Why doesn´t society talk about aging or adult care in a fun and sharing way? I feel like we should. Sippie cups for nannas are the best. They have a hard time coordinating as their muscle mass is weakened and drop things so get nanna a sippie cup, cut the nipple open and voila! Tea (or tequila) is served! Anyway, we crafted pretty ¨Dinner Aprons (bibs)¨together. 

I went through her old sewing drawer to find odds and ends.

Granny picked the cream and pink calico and we spent an afternoon embroidering her dinner aprons and saying how we wish we had thought of this sooner! 

She loved the applique hearts we sewed on her dinner bibs.

3. Party with grandma like it's 1999. This grandma of mine knows how to party. She loves crowds and people and telling stories and getting groups around her hearing scandalous tales of those who have died (as she has outlived most of the scandalous). We went to my great aunts 100th birthday party and we were looking for my grandma and there she was! Surrounded by a crowd shocking them with an intense account of something I am sure I don't want to know. .

Telling the young ones of the good old days 80 years ago!

4. Moment my 100 year old Great Aunt saw my 94 year old Granny. Oh my goodness...their little old hands slipped out from their lap blankets and they held hands and cried tears of joy. I want a best friend like that if I reach 90! They raised their children together, lost babies, lost husbands, gained love and are still friends after 90 years. They sat quietly letting others help them eat cake and each had a nap not long after. Cute as buttons. 

Holding hands and deciding to wait for each other at the pearly gates "Don't go in before me! Wait!"

Mixed bag-of-nuts moments:

Grandma's old time opinions were also cute as buttons...Side note, nanna was born in 1924 in ranch country. Times and relationships were very different I am sure!

1.   Favorite quote of horror, ¨Honey, I see you getting a little fat there. If you want to get fat thats fine, as you like, but start to secretly save your change because if you get fat your husband wont like it and he will look elsewhere. Anything can happen.¨ Huh. I guess I should start looking for a solid coffee can to put my quarters in. 

2. Other quotes ¨You left your husband alone? Whats wrong with you? He is young and handsome and if you leave your nest another bird will fill it! Who is feeding him right now?¨ A bald eagle. I hope a bald eagle is feeding him Dominoes pizza in his empty nest like a baby bird. Can we all take a deep breath together? Ahhhhhhh.......Oh the look of horror when she knows he cooks and cleans. You would think I said I have plans on moving to Mars. Shaking her head with shame, ¨Get ready honey, if you make him clean and cook he will say he has no need for a wife!¨ Noted, granny. Thank you. And thank goodness she doesn't know I like being a handy woman and want a monkey wrench for Christmas. 

3. I think most of my quotes are marriage related. One more, at the dinner table with my newly married cousin ¨My grandaughters married good boys. They aren't drunks, run with women of the street, or beat them like the old days. The boys they married are all a little dumb but in the end thats ok.¨ My cousin and I staring at each other with horror and my cousins newly wedded husband paused with his dinner fork raised mid-air slowly lowered it, took a long swig of beer kept slowly kept munching. Í am glad the standard has been set high for us all!

Time for bed for us all. Nanna tucked in smiling sweetly after a great day with her best friend and 2 parties (We had an after-party after the 100 year old birthday party. My people are party people, they know how to roll), my mama tired, and me puckered out. If my grandma was 20 years younger the music would still be playing and the house would be full listening to her stories mixed with advice till 3 AM.