2000-10-27 - 986021272

On the internal soundtrack: "Top of the World", the Carpenters.

My grammom, Dad's mom, loved that song. I remember playing it on a dinky little record player in the basement of my parents' first house, behind a bar. Jeez, I'd forgotten about that bar. I'll have to see if I can find pictures of it.

I had a dream about her the other night. Every now and then she turns up in my dreams. And I always have this feeling of urgency, like "I have to spend time with her as long as I can because she'll be gone soon." (This is the grandmother who died suddenly, btw.)

It's wonderful to dream of someone you've lost and have them be alive and happy. In the dream she was looking at a catalog and I put my arm around her and put my chin on her shoulder to look at it with her. It felt so real. I love dreams like that.

She was so much fun to be with. She was excited and enthusiastic about everything, and she had the most incredible joyful laugh. When we watch tapes of family gatherings, you can hear her laughing in the background. It brings tears to my eyes when I hear it.

One thing I was sort of surprised to realize, once she was gone, was how much I genuinely LIKED her. I would think of her and be hit with a very strong, warm feeling of LIKE. I always knew this, in the sense that I loved her as my grandmother and I always loved visiting with her and talking with her. But it struck me particularly hard after she was gone that I liked her very much, not just as my grandmother, but as the unique individual that she was.

Things I remember:

How excited she always was on Christmas morning, anxious to get on with opening presents.

When she was complaining good-naturedly about my grandfather (the way wives do about their husbands), the way she would look at him with a mixture of exasperation and affection and pat his hand.

The way she said, "You can't?!" when someone said "Can't play" during Fantan. And the mischievous smile on her face when she was winning.

The way she'd smile when she'd look at my grandfather, waiting for his reaction to something she'd said, and then burst out laughing when she got it.

Once we were on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights, and she pointed out someone to me who looked a little effeminate and speculated that he was gay. I said that just because he was effeminate didn't mean he was gay, and she said, "You're right. No one was more masculine than Rock Hudson and he was the biggest fairy of them all!"

So, I drink a lot of decaffeinated tea. Well, not a lot. I drink about 16 ounces a day. Part of my attempt to drink more water. My system can't take caffeine (jitters galore) so I drink decaf. I like flavored teas. By this I mean, black decaf tea, with flavoring in it. I don't like weird herbal teas that are mostly rosehips and overly strong artificial flavoring. I will, however, drink camomile or mint teas.

Right now I've got three different types: orange spice, cinnamon, and raspberry. I can pick and choose every day. This makes me happy. Almost as much as the unfrosted cinnamon Pop-Tart I eat every morning. Some days that Pop-Tart is the only thing that gets me out of bed.

If I could find vanilla-flavored decaf black tea I would be ecstatic. My favorite tea is vanilla-maple flavored, but it only comes with caffeine so I don't get to drink it much.

Well, Saturday night we'll turn our clocks back an hour. This is my big chance to adjust to getting up earlier in the morning. Seven-thirty will feel like eight-thirty!

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