Happy Birthday Gramma!

My Grandmother turned a ripe 82 on Monday.

Happy Birthday to the woman who raised me. The one who taught me how to cook. The one who loved me no matter how bad I had screwed up. The one who thought I did no wrong.

The family got together and had her a ho-down on Sunday afternoon.

She doesn't know it or realize it, but she did. The doctors say Gramma has Alzheimer's, and that it is in the "dementia" stage.

Whatever. As long as she can eat and have a good time with us, they can call it whatever they want to. She's still as sassy as she ever was. She just gets confused now and then.

She has never failed to recognize me or remember who I am both in person and on the phone. She forgets that my Nat (oldest daughter) is mine. And she is totally blows her away that Lil T belongs to Nat, not me.

Anyhoo. We brought Gramma a really cutsie foo foo pill box back from Germany when I was over there in October. It was in a bag from the little German store, which had writing in.... you guessed it... German.

So, Sunday we all get together, as we do every Sunday, but this week we have a special dinner and birthday cake for Gramma.

I walked in the door to find her sitting there staring at the cake.


"Who's birthday is it, honey?" She asked me as she hugged me.

"It's yours Gramma. It's your birthday! Cool, huh?" I tell her.

"I'm 82?" She asked referring to the candles.

"Yep. Ain't nobody that old, Gramma." I told her as I gave her the bag with the pill box in it. "Look it. I brought you something back from Germany for your birthday."

She was clearly taken aback by the writing on the bag that wasn't in English.

"Honey, what does this say?" She asked.

"Gooberstankin." I tell her all serious.

*blink*

"Gooberstankin. Come on Gramma, say it and you'll be speakin German. Gooberstankin."

Well, she ignored me and opened the bag. But Nat didn't ignore me, she was listening the whole time.

"Mom? What's gooberstankin?" She asked all sincere.

"You're kidding, right?" I forget sometimes how naive and silly my kid is.

"No. What does it mean?" She asked again.

"Nat, baby. Mommy was making up a word that sounded German. Goober-stankin. Get it?"

"No. I don't get it." Bless her heart.

"You know. A dude has a goober. And stankin is just stankin. You put them together and you have a word that sounds German." I tell her.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!" She gets it, "You were just trying to get Gramma to say goober... I get it."

That child of mine, bless her little heart, is a dork.

Gramma never did say gooberstankin. I tried all damn day to get her to say it.


Gramma blows out the candles...


Gramma sucks the icing off of the candles (the original pirate)