Scattered Thoughts

Sadly, my grandpa passed away last week. I have to check back, but I think it was almost exactly one year after my grandma passed away. We're sad about it and this seems to be a little more of a jolt than with my grandma. We had less time to prepare ourselves and now that both are gone I feel like it's more of an ending, like a closed chapter. Like with grandma, I have some silly or strange memories that I figured I'd share. Also, I tried to add a picture with grandpa and Sawyer but our pictures have gotten all mixed up on iphoto somehow and so it will be a while until I can find one.

~ As long as I can remember, grandpa had big cars. His cars were luxury cars, town cars, the kind that glide smoothly along the road. However, grandpa's driving wasn't so smooth and he seemed to pump the brakes a lot all the way down the street so that your head bobbed forward and back a lot. This was funny to me, but in combination with windows rolled up and a lot of second-hand smoke, it was often nauseating. Once Michael and I scrounged up change from our couches and some dollar bills and asked grandpa to drive us to the Wendy's on Davie. For some reason, this was a big deal to us. Will we have enough money? We'd never asked him to take us, will he take us? We showed grandpa that we had enough money and so he drove us to Wendy's. It was a blistering day, you could see the heat rising up from the street making everything look like it was melting. I don't remember what we ordered, but I remember giggling in the backseat with Michael. We wanted to both sit in the backseat making poor grandpa our chauffeur. He blasted jazz music. It was so loud. We could do nothing but laugh at how loud the music was. Michael went in to order the food and I stayed in the car with grandpa. Mike was laughing as he came back out with the food. What the heck was so funny? What a silly day.

~ Grandpa seemed to always be playing the saxaphone. Anyone who knew him knew he was a musician and played sax, clarinet, piano, other instruments too. He was a professional and played with some of the greats. I was remembering yesterday how he would sit on the couch (or anywhere really) with his leg pumping to a beat you couldn't hear and if you watched his hands, they were covering keyholes you couldn't see. He'd make sounds with his mouth pushing out silent notes. I always cringed when grandpa talked to my band teachers. He was pretty positive that the young kids don't know how to swing and sometimes he'd share this. I worried too much about what my band teachers thought. Now as a teacher looking back, I know he was the least of any of my band teachers' worries and that they were probably amused and glad to talk to grandpa. I have the clarinet he gave me, "That's wood, not ebonite!" It has a very rich, organic sound.

~ A joke from grandpa, you haven't heard this one, have you?
What's that up there in the road? A head?

~ Grandpa sent money to us after Sawyer was born. He said he wanted us to buy a teddy bear but didn't buy it on his own because he wasn't sure about kid's toys. It was enough money to buy quite a nice bear so we went to Build-A-Bear Workshop. You choose the type of bear and stuff it yourself. Sawyer's bear is named Bill.

~ Grandpa took us camping a few times. He and grandma went a lot and it was treat to go with them. They would buy us the variety pack of cereal, in the small boxes. Did they have any idea how big of a deal that was for us? Mom and Dad never bought those! Matt and Chris Cerone from next door came both trips and we always found fun stuff to do. Once we were eating dinner with the Cerones and were all talking. I think I said something, someone asked why, and I said, "Well because grandpa's a grump." Everyone stopped talking. My face burned hot and my heart stopped. They were all looking at me shocked and this was more attention than I'd ever wanted. I think Mrs. Cerone said, "That's not a very nice thing to say!" Of course, I felt bad instantly, but was also confused. I'd always thought this was common knowledge. Aren't all grandpas grumpy? The grandpa in Cocoon, he was grumpy! I'd never meant any harm but I apologized and grandpa said it was okay. Grandpa was pretty grumpy, but sometimes I think the privelage of having some years behind you is being able to say things like you mean it. And that just comes out grumpy sometimes. I find myself griping about the same things he griped about.

~ Despite the above, grandpa amazed me with his patience for his model airplanes. He built huge, wonderful radio controlled planes. They were made of balsa wood and plastic that shrinks around the plane's frame when you heat it. These things were really something. More than once I saw grandpa fly one of his masterpieces (who knows how long in the making) and then crash one of these masterpieces. I'd watch, perfectly still, ready for the blaspheming to begin. Dad would always say, "Why did you name me Bob if you always call me Jesus?" So anyway, after a crash, grandpa would just laugh and shrug it off. That was mind-boggling to me. Sometimes he'd let Andy and I come to the park to watch him fly planes with all the other guys who would meet up and fly. It was so neat, but didn't hold our interest for too long. If I could go watch now, I'd bring a lounge chair and just chill out watching the planes, hoping for a good crash. The crashes are pretty cool.

Maybe I'll remember more later. Sawyer is waking up from a nap. Mr. Sawyer can count to 13 now. Last week he put his cow in time-out (don't ask my why) and he counted straight up to 13. I asked, "Did you just count to 13?" and he said, "Fourteen!" Well okay then! This wasn't something we actively taught him, so my dad reminds me that there are plenty of other things we aren't actively teaching him that he may pick up on...ie watch your mouth! And I still have to work on that. He's peeing on the potty all the time, but only because we say, "Wanna go pee?" or "Wanna say bye bye to the pee?" And he thinks this is fun to go take off the diaper and pee. However, if his diaper is on, he's peeing or pooping in it.

Today he told me, "Bless you," when I sneezed. That's kind of nice. His word for water drops is water crumbs. Makes perfect sense, really. Yesterday he went on a kissing rampage. He kissed 3 cabinets, a drawer, the closet, and the air conditioner.

The "toots" are becoming a politeness issue. At dinner with friends over, he pushed himself up on his booster seat by pushing down on the armrests and, well, tooted. He did a few more like that, some where he just leaned sideways. It was a little embarrassing since we haven't taught him that. It was also funny because we haven't taught him that. How are boys born so crude? That boy is really awake now, gotta run!