my dear friends,
i realize that everyone thinks that their family is crazy. mine is a true gem, ranging from the most calm of people to the lady who will yell from the other room to know what everyone else is talking about. i love them all dearly, and this trip was a little reminder that i am extremely lucky to have such fun kin.
if you read my earlier post, you know that i have six total grandparents. my mother has a step-mom and step-dad that have been in her life much longer than i've been alive, so they have always been real grandparents to me. i will give you a quick rundown of all of them, just to give you a taste of what this trip was like:
grammy: dad's mom, she is the loudest, most talkative, and genuinely friendliest person i have ever encountered. once i went on a trip with her, papa, and my cousin
sarah bear, and she told almost every stranger we encountered about our "heritage trip" to georgia. she is hilarious and wonderful, and i love her.
papa: dad's dad, papa knows everything about EVERYTHING. he is a retired southern baptist pastor, and he is probably the wisest person i know. he also loves cats, and quilting. when i was 8, he once told me that god made cats so man could touch the tiger. i never forgot it.
grandpa chad: mom's dad, grandpa chad is a wonderfully jolly golfer. he also has terrible hearing, and on this trip, his right hearing aid was totally out of order. he spent a lot of his time smiling and nodding at people, which might be sad, but he knows how deaf he is and how funny it is if he nods at the wrong thing (which happened).
grandma gail: mom's step-mom, she is completely sweet and utterly sarcastic. the older i get, the more dry her humor seems to get, and i love it. she also used the word "boobies" once, and i totally lost it.
mimi: mom's mom, she is one of the funniest people i have ever met. she is also the most fabulous of grandmothers, who wears marc jacobs track suits, uses chanel make up, has been wearing a wig since before i was born and fake eyelashes since she was 16. she also recently got porcelain veneers and even more recently, she tattooed her eyebrows and eyeliner on. most importantly, she has a tiny, white, pampered bishon frise named muffin that never leaves her side.
grandpa roger: mom's step-dad, he is a retired insurance agent, as well as an avid golfer, and an even more avid lazy-boy user. he is the most likely of the grandparents to make ridiculous comments under his breath, which only my brother and i ever hear, and he is really unintentionally hysterical. which, in my opinion, may be the best kind of hysterical.
on saturday morning, we were supposed to have breakfast with the family at 8:30 in the morning, then leave for the graduation ceremony at 9:45ish, and come back in time for a late lunch around 2. i had planned on getting up around 9, because it wouldn't take me long to get ready for the day (and i'm a lazy bum who HATES mornings), but at 8am on the dot, i was awoken by the morning monster. it went something like this:
mom: *slams open door and flips on lights* WAKEUPNOWWEHAVETOEATBREAKFASTANDYOUHAVETOGETREADYANDWEHAVETOLEAVEEARLYSOWECANGETAGOODSEATWAKEUPWAKEUUUUUUPPPPPPPPPP!!!!
*slams door shut*
me: *grumblegrumblegrumble*
(repeat every 5 minutes for about 20 minutes)
i finally dragged myself out of bed to a
mostly full house, as mimi forgot that we were meeting for breakfast and it takes her (approximately) 3 hours to get ready for anything, even with her face tattoos.
i quickly got ready, so i could (grumpily) join the family in the kitchen/den area, to only find grandma gail and my mother debating over whether our breakfast casserole was called "elegant eggs" or "eggs elegant". both sounded rather silly to me, especially at 8:50 in the morning, but that didn't stop me from eating 2 plates of them anyway. this was, of course, after dad was complaining because mother wouldn't let us eat until the biscuits were out of the oven, because breakfast in courses seemed like the most ridiculous thing in the world to her.
grandpa roger walks in (without mimi and muffin, as they were still getting ready) with two black bras in his hand, holding them out aaaalll proud for the whole house to see. he was bringing them for me, as my mother refused to let me wear a black dress with a white bra underneath it, and i forgot a black one, so she had asked mimi if i could borrow one. mimi had apparently agreed and sent grandpa roger from the hotel to bring two of them to me toot-suit *pause for confusion about that saying*.
note: when the bra i selected (the one without the lace and polka dots) fit, mimi then told me i could have it. this is her catch-phrase.
we all eventually piled into two cars and went to graduation (the temp was about 98 degrees at this point) out at the expo center, as it is the only place big enough to fit everyone, and we slowly milled in, not unlike the cattle that enter that very same place at the rodeo every year.
graduation was fine, deddeh and i sat next to each other and mostly played on our phones and cameras and scowled at the people who kept screaming and blowing those noise-maker horn things people use at football games (if someone can tell me what that is actually called, i will do everything in my power to get them wiped off of the planet completely...they are so annoying). there was actually a baby spotted with one.
when it was over, getting out of there took longer than it did to get in. it was, at this point, 110 degrees outside in my dear sweet west texas hometown, and thousands of people trying to get out of this giant cement building. fun was had by all. grandpa roger tried to steal my purse, claiming that it matched his outfit. we took a few pictures and my dad gave me the pleasure of finding the car and starting the ac (i was
not complaining at my task). as my brother was looking for his girlfriend, but we were all about to have a heat stroke, my deddeh told my papa to take his van and get the grandparents home while we waited a little longer for my bro. he didn't listen, and instead sat in his car waiting for us to leave.
35 minutes later, we all made it back to my house, and i was exhausted. i turned the tv to food network and planned on chilling while i waited for lunch to happen, but when i took muffin outside to go to the bathroom, the grandpas had taken over the tv and switched it to golf. i admitted defeat and went to the back room to try and nap, but was unsuccessful as the lunch monster (another form of the morning monster) could be heard yelling from the front of the house:
mom: LUNCHWENDYISHEREANDSHEBROUGHTTHEHAMEVERYBODYIT'STIMETOEATCOMEHEREITISLUNCHTIMENOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!
me: *grumblegrumble*
we all ate to our hearts content. we had
ham, this INCREDIBLE recipe called "green bean bundles" (i will share this recipe soon), rolls, and for dessert, red velvet cake.
yum-o.
post-lunch, we all sat around and chatted for a while. papa started a conversation with me, "mackenzie, when i kick the bucket...". i laughed and let him continue to explain the 7 songs that i will be singing at his funeral. we then got on the topic of our heritage, and when asked about his specific heritage, he said (with a completely straight face, mind you), "oh, my family, they found us under rocks one day." like i said, papa is about as wise as they come. grammy also jumped in to talk about rolls, and how she never uses "sister sherbet". *sigh*
i had to leave shortly, as to get back home before it was too late, but not before i spotted all 3 grandpas napping on the couch (to golf, of course), mimi tried to give me (more) make up, and giving an extra long goodbye to sweet little muffin.
i miss them all already. it is a rare occasion indeed that we are all together like that, but it never fails to be interesting.
do any of you have crazy families? who is the craziest? i love crazy family stories (as you can tell). :)
yours,
m. wilson
