Ellemental

40th birthday highlights:

• getting the most beautiful bouquet of roses ever
• getting 40 e-cards from Kacey
• riding many rollercoasters many times
• coming in 2nd in a “How Many Peeps Can You Stuff In Your Mouth” contest.  (The answer – not as many as one might think.)  Yes, there are pictures.  No, you don’t want to see them.
• spending a beautiful hot day on a boat with a little lunch, a few margaritas, and some friends

On a totally unrelated note – my grandmother is beginning to worry me.  When I talked to her yesterday she told me that she had fallen (again) in the backyard.  She was weeding and got her foot caught in some roots and fell, hitting her face on the ground.  Then she couldn’t get up because her knees are bad, so she had to crawl on her belly halfway up the yard to get to the swing so she could pull herself up.  This all in, oh, 90 degree heat.  She said her nose was bloody, her forehead cut, scrapes on both knees and elbows, plus near heat exhaustion, as she was in the yard, unable to get up for quite some time.   This is the third time she’s fallen outside.  The last time was a few months ago when she fell and hit her head against the woodpile.  As she herself would say – “Gott in Himmel!”

Argh!  The woman is 82 years old and absolutely 100% stubborn.  She KNOWS and SAYS SHE KNOWS she shouldn’t be doing the things she’s doing BUT SHE DOES THEM ANYHOW.  AND THERE IS NO REASONING WITH HER.  AND NOW LOOK – I’M TYPING IN ALL CAPS!!!  WITH LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!

Anyhow.  It’s all beginning to worry me.  I can’t quit my job and stay with her to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid (say, mow the lawn at high noon on the hottest day of the year).  She’s not ready (nor anywhere near willing) to consider a move to a more, uh, supervised environment.

Quick side story – although we go to the “big store” once a week, my grandmother will often walk several blocks to the local little grocery store for little things.  A few weeks ago, during our evening phone call, she told me that she had been thoroughly disgusted during her trip to the store that day because while she was there, the shuttle bus from the senior living center dropped off 20 or so residents to do their shopping: “I was in a hurry (probably to get home and mow before the temp dropped below 100 degrees), and all those old people were milling around like they didn’t have a care in the world. “  I had to remind her that most of those old people were younger than her.  “I know,” she said, with a touch of pride.  “I know, too,” I said.

My grandmother’s heartiness has always been a point of pride for her (and for me…).  I know it’s hard for me to  balance that pride and desire for her to keep on keeping on as long as she possibly can with the fear that she is seriously going to hurt herself.  I think for the first time, during our phone call last night, I heard that same conflict in her voice.