my weekend...

thursday. fly fly fly. find all the right wheelchair people. try over and over and over again to explain to grandma that the one guy in the airport in denver can't accept her tips because he works for the airlines and the other two wheelchair people in portland and indy worked for the airport and therefore could take tips, that none of these people were in fact doing anything wrong. and also explained many many many times that we were flying into denver on the way to indy. yes, grandma, we're flying into denver. yes, you told me about the dentist you know that lives there. denver grandma, you just asked that. we're flying into denver. get to indy, have them bring us a rental car so grandma doesn't fall trying to get in or out of the shuttle bus, get home, go to frisch's big boy (yeah, exactly like austin powers, yeah, we actually went there twice in twelve hours)

friday morning. woke up at 6:30 so i could wake up grandma and get her to her hair appointment by 8:30. i set the alarm on my new phone. it went off, i got up to turn it off, went into grandma's room to wake her up, said 'grandma' and promptly blacked out...grandma gets out of bed, rushes over and says my name, i open my eyes and try to figure out why my hip hurts and why i'm staring at the door jam. realize what happened, go back to bed like grandma says. she asks if i want water (which of course i do) and promptly brings me a dixie cup of water. helpful. yes. grandma says, 'did your period just start? is that what's wrong?' no grandma, that's not it. i'm not sure what's wrong. i slept weird and i got up too fast... i think that's what happened. later: grandma says she doesn't think we should tell anyone. later still: grandma makes 'a joke' about thinking i was pregnant. later still: grandma tells bunches of people for the rest of the weekend that i passed out and that the very first thing she said was to ask if i was pregnant (a lie. yes.) funny in her head. me? i cried three different times on friday just because of her. took grandma to her hair appointment, which turned into a very strange steel magnolias kind of experience where what had been a pretty empty salon filled up with some fifteen old ladies chatting away and waiting to get their hair done. afterwards, we go with thelma to frisch's big boy again to get breakfast. grandma feels the need to announce to me that thelma's daughter refuses to speak to her, as if thelma needs to explain to me the most hurtful parts of her life.

friday afternoon grandma gets a call from one of those illegal 'trying to scam old ladies' organizations. the guy lies to me, then yells at me, insisting my grandma owes them $600. then hangs up on me after i asked too many questions. later that evening grandma huffs 'see, they didn't even bring that $600 they said they were going to bring' and i had to explain to her that they were demanding that she pay them not that they pay her.

saturday. woke up at 10. grandma had fallen some time during the night. either in the morning when she got up or sometime in the night. i think she hit her head on her nightstand. left at 11 to go see grandma smith... had really good time with grandma and grandpa smith. had real conversation, or as real as can be had. she actually asked me about what i was up to and we ate lots of her christmas cookies. called my mom once i finally got cell phone reception from a meijers parking lot...came home... grandma is laid out on the couch...three times tries to use the phone to change the tv channel. she tells me she can't go to bed because she wants to watch the news. i change the channel to the news and she tries to change the channel to the same channel i've already changed it to another two times before i finally get through to her that i already put it on that station and that we are, in fact, already watching the news. i finally get grandma to bed. aron calls me back...i try to stand outside and talk, but it's like 25 degrees and my call, of course, gets dropped. desperately needing to talk to the outside world, i leave and drive an entire exit (10 miles!) down the freeway to call him back with reception. hang out in my car outside a red lobster in anderson for an hour. go to bed.

sunday. wake up at 8:30 so i can get grandma to church by 10:30. we're late to church. 'just have to get my dress and shoes on' is in fact a twenty minute ordeal. missionaries from israel are speaking at church singing hymns about 'walking the streets of the new jerusalem' while showing pictures of al-aqsa and the wailing wall as if they are holy (and i guess to the unobservant, christian) sites but then proceeding to preach about the evil muslims and jews that are living in darkness.

we leave church to head to bob evans to meet up with all grandma's church lady friends. grandma says we should take a 'shortcut' to the restaurant. we get lost for twenty minutes. in retrospect, bob evans is about five minutes from the church. in retrospect, i should have gotten directions from grandma's friend maxine. in retrospect, i realize grandma kept getting confused about whether we were taking a shortcut back to her house (which is in fact about twenty minutes from the church and which, at one point, we were actually driving very near) and whether we were taking a shortcut to bob evans. circles would have been more effecient than the n's and zigzags we took to get to the restaurant. we get there and grandma has to explain to her friends that she got us lost. they all vehemently suggest she move to anderson and out of a split level house that has several stairs you have to go up just to get to the main level. she doesn't like this. they want her to move so they can go pick her up and take her places and keep her from risking becoming a shut in. grandma has lived in her house for 45 years. i think she got ticked at them for this even though i wholeheartedly agree.

my aunt got married in december and bought a house in anderson while grandma was spending the month out here with my parents. my aunt told my grandma vaguely where the house was, but as of sunday hadn't shown grandma the house itself or even told her the address. thankfully, my mom is both sneaky and smart. she got the thank you note from the wedding (which involved neither my parents' names nor the gift the gave them) on saturday and proceeded to call me and have me memorize the address so grandma and i could sneak out there after church. i did this, and took pictures of the house for mom, and essentially scared the shit out of my aunt by showing grandma where the house was (no, i have no idea why this is a secret)

drop grandma off at her house and rush off to indianapolis to go see kathy and kelly and tony and christopher and cameron. i'm almost to their house, in a part of indiana (like almost all of indiana) that i'm unfamiliar with and therefore am not doing well tracking speedlimits. i get pulled over. going 23 miles over the speed limit. i think i'm in a 55 and don't realize til i speed past the cop that it must still be a 40. i almost cry again. i finally get to kathy's. this is a lifesaver. kathy and the boys and i hang out after kelly and tony went to a party they didn't want to go to and then i drove out to see kelly and tony's new place. somewhere in here i have to inspect a pregnancy test. i'm not sure what half a line means. i hang out with a wonder dog for awhile. i get home really late and go to bed.

wake up really early monday morning and say goodbye to grandma and no grandma i'm up right now so i can go to my cousins for breakfast so i'm not going to eat anything here. are you sure you don't want breakfast before you go? no grandma, i just said that, i'm going to my cousin's in order to eat breakfast. you're sure you don't want me to fix you anything? yes! grandma! i'm sure. i get to kelly's and have the best time of the whole weekend just sitting and talking in a quiet non stressful house. this continues at kathy's. i finish reading dad's book and christopher's girlfriend comes over and i spend an enjoyable afternoon hanging out with a 17 year old girl. i leave for the airport and the safety of a plane bound far out of state.

i land in denver. we have pumpkin bread and wine and talk about my wreck of a weekend. i wake up at 6:30 again to get to DU by 8:30. the visit goes splendidly, the admissions director remembers and loves my essay. my file is complete. the class i visited was great. everyone has nothing but good things to say about the school. kristi and i go meet her husband dave for lunch downtown, walk down to the capital, walk back and do some great shopping downtown. leave and go meet a friend of hers that goes to DU for coffee. he and his wife are fantastic people i wish i had known and will know forever. sadly, this probably will not happen. he also has nothing but good things to say about the program. even though he wanted something completely different out of the program than i did, the freedom to make the degree what you want is what has drawn us both to denver. kristi drags me from there to casa bonita.

if you've seen this south park, casa bonita really does have cliff divers and bad black bart and a guy in a gorilla suit and a mariachi band and a cave and an arcade and all you can eat enchiladas of nastiness and all you can eat sopapillas. it's the strangest place i think i've ever been. it's like a mexican pirates of the caribbean but weirder.

i get to the airport. my flight is late. i fly home. i have a small panic attack on the plane. i'm a mess by the time i get home. so exhausted. i call in sick for half a day of work on wednesday and when i get there i can only make it about three hours before going home and going back to bed and then taking about an hour and a half after an hour long nap to convince myself to get out of bed and eat something. i go to my parents' house. mom makes me a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. i tell these stories to my family and we laugh and try not to cry.