Wednesday, Mar. 19, 2003
Grandma's 'Love" and Grandpa's Gas
For the love of cheeeeeeseee!!!
Before I go into all this, here's a side note that I should probably add, my faternal grandparents are two of my most favoritest peoples in the whole wide world and I love spending time with them....I'm also being a "woman" this week so I'm more of a raging bitch than usual I'm sure and also I think I've become so accustomed to my life of solitude in my basemnt that interaction with people for more than a few hours at a time, no matter who the people may be, dives me crazier than Courtney Love without medication....
I think I just visited the place right above purgatory...
My grandparents are very sweet and loving people...in their own ways...and I know I've got like a special place with them because I'm the first grandchild...
My grandma seriously seems to think food is love, the only thing is what she'll try to feed you with love isn't always necessarily food you love or even tolerate.
Ever since my stomach problems started plagueing me last July, I can't eat red meat....it just don happen. To be obscenely blunt, it makes me vomit and gives me trots that would drop an elephant.
My stomach just can't handle digesting it...
I've been telling everyopne this since it started causing me problems... you want steak thats great, but don't give me crap when I don't eat or make something else for myself later. I'm to the point that generally the sight and or smell red meat makes me naseous.
I've always been picky about steak anyways, but now I'll probably willing eat like two more in my life time tops....
Every fucking dish my grandma made from Saturday's lunch to last night's dinner was red meat of some kind. Then to top it off, I can't eat fried foods anymore. This is hard enough for me since I used to fry my already fried food and then salt my salt to eat it ( I'm a southern Baptist, I'm 'ppost ta eat like this...) but noe grease and oil make me sick too and most of the time the sight of really greasy stuiff makes me toss my cookies...
One of her many hamburger tatertot caslerolls, meat loaf (no one over 30 likes meat loaf anyway) smeared with katsup (I HATE HATE HATE katsup on anything but a hamburger or Bionic Burger Fries), fried steak fingers and deep fat fried french fries, with grease based gravy, last night when had minute steak that had a hint of the cinannamon apples she made Saturday afternoon, meaning she probably just wipped the pan out to save water...
(-_-) My stomach's churning from the memories here....
Then everyday for lunch we had left overs, which means I was being forced to eat red meat them too, even when I wasn't hungery...
No they weren't holding my mouth open and shoveling it in, but they kept lookin over at me and my plate, taking note that I ate my vegatables first so when I got full, I had meat left...
I eat one thing at a time, I always have...I usually eat the one thing I really want and work down to the nastiest thing, which for me is usually the meat entree', I've done this since I can remember...
My grandparents also eat on a completely different schedual than I do...I eat like one big meal a day, at dinner, before that I snack a little bit here and there...
My grandparents expect me to eat breakfast when we go see grandma on her work break at 9, lunch at straight noon, and dinner at 5, so by the time I'm starting to feel normal again, they make me eat...I'm gonna have to run like 20 miles just to work off the last four days!
Finally yesterday I couldn;t take it anymore, I'd spent more of my visitation there inthe bathroom or in bed (which is older than me, has the same bottom sheet I slept on while sick at Christmas time and the flattest pillows ever resulting in my haveing stiff shoulders and a tension headache for the last three days) being miserable than anywhere else...I couldn't take it anymore, so I didn't eat much at lunch.
I had stayed in bed all morning because I woke up with a slamming headache that make my eye sockets throb, well grandma looks at my plate and then at me and goes,
"Aren't you going to eat anything else?"
I softly explained that my stomach hurt and I didn't feel good, so no I wasn't going to eat anything else. I really wanted to tell her that I actually didn't want what I had in the first place...
She gives me this dejected, you don't love me anymore look and looked back at the TV.
She gives ME guilt because I'm sick??? Like I frickin asked for this crap??? I've been trying to get through to her for almost a year now that I can't eat half the crap she cooks anymore and I get the same reply I got yesterday...
"I think most of thats just in your head. Trying food is what makes your body used to it..."
(O_o)
I throw up cause I'm crazy now.
She thinks PMS is all in your head too.
She's always pulled that "just try it" shit on me and it drives me nuts, my mom has never ever ever ever ever made me eat something...
She's asked nicely a few times, but then left me alone when I said it was nasty.
I don't try food I don't want to.
I don't eat ugly food.
I don't eat smelly food.
I rarely eat left over food.
I'm boarderline compulsive/germaphob/almost completely neurotic.
My grandma probably helped make me this way with her nasty concocions she calls caslerolls.
She used to make amazing food, best food you had ever had in your life...but then somewhere in the early 90's she woke up on day and discovered she was over weight and (though she'll never say it out loud) just as lazy as every other person in our family, so she started cutting corners to "lose weight"...I'm talkin nasty shite here folks....laguasana with cottage cheese instead of ricotta, ham at family gatherings instead of the favored fried chicken, jello salads, just nasty nasty nasty nasty NASTY shite!!
She once tried to feed me homemade pizza that had katsup as the tomato sauce.
I don't think so Tim.
I managed to get out of lunch today because she caught me throwing up early this morning ( I made myself because last nights minute steaks were resting in my throat with the stomach acid) and I ate a fairly large helping of pancakes for breakfast.
I love my grandma and her heart's in the right place, I know. But she just doesn't seem to listen if you're not saying exactly what she wants to hear.
Grandpa's a different story.
Grandpa's kinda new to the whole showing affection thing.
He actually didn't really start saying the actual words "I love you too" to me until I was like 14 ( at least that I can remember).
He's always been a hugger, but now he even seems to that a lot more and makes more of an effort to let you know he's glad to see you.
Maybe its finally having enough grandkids to know what to do..I dunno.
But the one thing I would change about my grandpa is and has probably always has been...his gas.
Dude could shoot flames from here and make a ring around the world, somes times twice depending on what Grandma gives him for dinner.
He farts in the front room and ten minuets later the cat in the basement across the house passed out from the rancid smell.
He don't care who's around either.
When grandpa needs to fart, grandpa farts.
In his chair, in the mall, talkin with friends... it doesn't matter to Grandpa.
So between Grandma's 'love' and Grandpa's gas....I didn't think I was ever gonna make it.
But I did, and actually I'm glad I went up there.
I love spending time with my grandparents, I really do. I just get kinda flurstered with 'em sometimes.
But I guess that's part of family.
harlemrain at 3:54 pm