My grandmother (Makenna's Great Grandmother) is 99 years old today! I wish I could be there to wish her a happy one. I was grateful for the opportunity to see her over the holidays a couple of times. During one of those visits, my brother Josh and I started to reminisce about the different things that this wonderful woman had done for us. For myself, she used to cook me steak and potatoes almost every meal I had there, even if it was different from what her and my grandfather were having (which it usually was different). She also would make me "real" garlic toast. She would take a garlic clove and rub it on buttered toast.
She also would take me to Phila Sales on Clinton St. and we would go shopping. Sometimes for herself and sometimes she would get me something. We would occasionally take a bus back if she had enough money. It really wasn't that long of a walk, looking back now, but for me being 8 or 9 I of course thought that it would take ages to get back to her house. I think that I just liked to be able to put the money in and pull the line to make the buzzing noise to let us off at our stop. I also liked the times we would go to the Binghamton Plaza because that meant we had to change buses and get a transfer ticket. Plus it meant going to Kmart in the plaza.
She would take the time to do puzzles with me or play "school." She would write arithmetic problems or scramble up words for me to figure out. She also, and this will be quite embarrassing to me, would pretend to be Erik Estrada from "Chips." I had the biggest crush on him and she would pretend to be him and call me up for a date. Or he would be the school teacher. Many, many years later, I would see that she kept many of my drawings or "school work" that we had done.
When I was much older, I asked her to tell me some stories about her and her life as I found it to be very interesting. She went through some really hard times as a young child and older. She is a very strong woman who always showed her grand kids love and gave up quite a bit of her own money (as she never had very much,) to give us what we wanted. She has many other great qualities that I could go on and on about. But we want her to know that we love her so!
As for Makenna and my day, I took her to nursery and I had to go back home and have my "cleaning work-out." We had a painter come to the house to paint the spare bedroom where a water leak stain was showing. I noticed this last October (when Chris's parents were coming to visit,) and they found that there was no current leak. So I'm not sure if it was an old stain or one that occurred while we were here and just dried out by the time I noticed it. The painter was a nice guy and we chatted a bit while he was waiting for his first coat to dry. He said he had a couple of sons go to the states and that one actually took an RV from California to the East Coast. I said that, that son probably has seen more of America than I have. He said that his father was from Scotland and then I started to tell him that we were planning a trip to Scotland. So he gave me a couple of ideas of things to see.
Makenna said a couple of new things today, but if I don't write them down (which I didn't,) I don't remember them. The last couple of times after picking her up from nursery, she seems to want to show me all the stuff she plays with. We were practically the last ones out today. She's also back to wanting to drive after we get home. So I let her drive today and when Chris got home (after 8pm!,) he said that a light was on, on the car. I said that I had checked that they were off but he found out that if you hit the blinkers it turns on some strange light. Something about if you hit the right blinker a light on the right comes on, and if you hit the left, one on the left.
Tomorrow's another busy Wednesday so I guess I'll just close by saying "Happy Birthday and all our Love Grandma Grosek"
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