If your child falls and hits his head hard enough to pass out and lose control of his bladder, once he’s recovered and the mess is cleaned up, it’s okay to go to another store, right?
“Teddy Bear” Grandma
My grandma died on Thursday. It wasn’t totally unexpected (death never is when you’re 88), but it was less than a month since she was found to have colon cancer, and she sounded good when I talked to her Tuesday morning, as she was about to eat for the first time since surgery the week before. Shane asked me to write a little something for the blog, since I might have more to say than him. I, however, am typically a writer of few words. Anyway, I will try to tell a few things.
She loved bears. I’m not sure why, but she always claimed I had something to do with it. (I think I had to change three words from the present to past tense as I was writing those two sentences.) She bought bears all the time, and people gave them to her as well. I know other people with collections like these, but seriously, none of them top hers. She would give talks about her bears at mother-daughter banquets every spring. She always wore some kind of bear shirt or earrings. She gave gifts of bears. (Both of my kids sleep with bears as large as they were that were given to them by grandma as babies—Evie’s is even missing one of the eyes!) I think she has some sort of written document with each family member getting at least one of the bears, and I think she had found a charity that was willing to take the rest.
She loved caffeine-free diet pepsi. Ewwwww. Her burps always smelled like caffeine-free diet pepsi. Double ewwwwww. I’m not trying to be irreverent, but I think scent is one of the longest-lasting memories and that is totally what I think of when I think of her. Seriously. Other junk foods she loved include: cheese/crackers/bologna/summer sausage, bugles, dry roasted peanuts, and those donuts rolled in crushed peanuts. She always made a cheeseball or baked beans for any potluck.
I loved playing cards with her. One of my only memories of my grandpa, her husband, involved staying at their house and playing kings in the corner then realizing we only had half a deck. I usually stayed at her house from Christmas to New Years every year (the first year returning home early due to the arrival of a little brother). We pretty much played cards the entire time. She went camping with us every summer, and each year she and dad would teach me a new game. After kings in the corner, there were spades, hearts, hands and feet, spite and malice (best card game name ever), pinochle (usually played 2-handed), cribbage, and euchre (roughly in that order). I am a card shark (I’m guessing I take after grandpa on this), and I think she was really proud that her little granddaughter could beat her at cards.
P.S. I played hands and feet Saturday night. I tried to shuffle the spots off them, as usual. And I won.
Lois, age 88, of Alma, MI, passed away at MidMichigan Medical Center-Gratiot on Thursday, August 30, 2012, surrounded by her loving family.
Lois was born in Breckenridge, MI on July 20, 1924 to Bruce. and Beatrice. She was a member of the St. Louis First United Methodist Church and the Oddfellow/Rebekah Lodge. For many years she worked as a cashier in Giant Supermarket, Alma. She was known as the “Teddy Bear Grandma”, often sharing her collection of well over 1000 teddy bears for all to enjoy.
Surviving Lois are her 3 sons, Randy (Pat) of Perrinton, Gary (Linda) of Wichita, KS, and Thomas (Barbara) of Marne, MI; 7 grandchildren; 10 great grandchildren; two brothers, Owen (Helen) of Greenville, and Larry (Helen) of Alma; one sister, Valda of Bradenton, FL; and numerous nieces and nephews.
Preceding Lois in death were her husband, Alfred, and two brothers, Donald and Robert. Lois was a wonderful person and will be missed by all who knew her. Memorial contributions may be made to the St. Louis United Methodist Church.
My almost-career as a CSI investigator
At the very end of my short career as a surveyor, I almost found myself in another career entirely; that of a crime scene investigator.
We were on our way back from posting the no trespassing signs, when I saw Rachael’s dog Luna doing something in the bushes. I assumed it was “that” something, but it turns out it wasn’t.
Suddenly, Luna burst from the bushes with a straight up skeleton in her mouth.
It appear to be some sort of full size leg bone, one segment clamped in her teeth, and a second bone (a femur if you will) was dangling by a knee joint. The bone itself was a beautiful specimen, picked clean and bleached perfectly white, with knobby ends and everything, as if she had stolen it off the pages of a medical text book. The whole thing was at least 2 1/2 feet long. As she bounded towards us, grinning gleefully, the skeletal leg dangled and danced beside her, like some kind of spooky Halloween lawn ornament. Except this one was not made of plastic.
I literally expected a skeleton to come hopping out of the woods on one foot after her, cursing his luck.
As the dog pranced around my sister with her prize, I said, “Rachael, grab it!” to which she replied, “You get it, I’m a vegetarian!” When I finally managed to pry it out of Luna’s mouth with the claw of a hammer, I hurled it back into the woods. We then spent the next few minutes trying to keep Luna from chasing after it.
“Rachael, we have to see what this is. That looked like a human bone!”
“No way, I’m not going back there. Lets just pretend we didn’t find it.”
I let myself be convinced to leave well enough alone, when I realized we were no more than 100 feet from our camp.
“Rachael, we have to go look. I’m not going to camp here if there’s a body on the other side of the hill!”
I forged a path to where I had seen Luna digging, with Rachael trailing reluctantly behind. Luckily, it did turn out to be some kind of animal (deer I expect, although the skull was pretty damaged) (not damaged enough to know for certain it wasn’t a human though). Luna managed to snag one tasty mouthful before we were able to pull her away, which she crunched with great relish once we got back to camp.
Alls well that ends well, I suppose, although I suppose it would have made a much better blog post if it had been a body.
Quote Monday actually feels yucky
Sara: “Do you feel yucky?”
Ollie: “No.”
Sara: “Do you feel good?”
Ollie: “Yes…actually, I feel yucky.”
Oliver has been saying “actually” a lot lately, and it cracks me up every time!
Me: “And how would you know if the man was a daddy?”
Evie: “If he was bald.”
Oliver: “BUUUUUUUUUUUUURP!”
Me: “What was that??”
Oliver: “A hiccup.”
“My Heart is a Quadratic Equation” now live at Redstone Science Fiction
The September issue of Redstone Science Fiction is now live, including my debut story, My Heart is a Quadratic Equation.
I am honored (if that’s even the right word…maybe unworthy?) to be featured alongside the amazingly talented, prolific, and well-nominated Lavie Tidhar.
While you are there, be sure to check out Mr. Tidhar’s story “Earthrise“, and perhaps leave a comment or two about how much you liked “My Heart is Quadratic Equation”. 🙂
Shane Halbach 