over the river and through the woods: part deux

as requested by my friend fleck - cheese grill, keep (or go put) yer panties on...you're asking for two posts within a 12 hour period.

hmmm...let's see where did i leave off? oh, ok - 7 peeps (at least 5 of them them rather smelly) crammed into my suburban headed into snow country (read: closed windows - again with the smelly) over one of the most remote highways in the country; meaning very curvy roads, no cell service, no bathrooms and !gasp! no fresh coffee (generally i take a thermos of coffee when i travel, as my name is shawna and i am a caffeine addict, and i had left my house the previous evening with one [strangely, it happened to fall over and drain all over my carpet about 20 mins into our drive] and we stopped at a convenience store to refill it. somehow...amazingly, it got broked. no one knows how, all i can tell you is that i went to fill it with my free lukewarm "continental" coffee the next morning and it made this disturbing rattling noise. to top it off this was a mr. coffee carafe/thermos TREASURE i had gotten at the thrift store for...yes, 89 cents. dammit, this is why we can't have anything nice.)

so anyway - really nothing too exciting about this leg unless you consider nauseated children totally unprepared to play in the snow sinking into 5 foot drifts and almost falling off the side of a mountain while taking in the beauty of life that only a boy can know (yes, i mean peeing in the wilderness - standing tall, hands on hips, masters of all that they survey), a dead cammie battery (again, so me.) and then the re-situating of steaming wet children into a car already packed to the gills. we passed exactly three "shoe trees" - have you ever seen these? the ones where peeps throw their tied-together shoes up into a tree? can someone tell me why? - and five deer (OMG we are SO suburban...with the way most of us reacted to the deer, you would have thought that bigfoot, WITH the loch ness monster growing out of his ass, had stopped us on the side of the road to politely ask us directions to the nearest public toilet - bennett does get his props here, he looked up only once from his gameboy to ask disgustedly, "am i really related to you people?").

we got to humboldt county (oh yea..."wake & bake" country [not that i would know mom...whatever my older bro mark told you is a lie :-/ ] around 2ish and i realize that i don't have directions to my gram's place (she lives in a senior center, but i have no idea which one) so i set dale up with a pen and paper and instructions to write anything and everything i said that sounded even remotely necessary for finding my sweet gram. see, she tends to get rattled under pressure, she's new to the area and she rambles incessantly...add those together and you have a 25 minute phone conversation where all you really figure out is that you want to turn left at the red lion [which turns out shoulda been a right but you give her a break cause she's old.], the name of her street and that she does not live in the salvation army thrift store. really glad she cleared that up, because that would have just been weird. yes we found her, (despite her best efforts to get me hopelessly lost). hey, wait a minute...

she was waiting outside for us, freezing her brittle little bones off and immediately began to squeak - when she gets excited she makes this little noise like a puppy that is just beside itself with joy. so cute. she then proceeded to parade all 7 of us into the center's great room (by the way, i loved this room...huge blazing fireplace, lots of comfy couches and chairs, books, coffee, CRIBBAGE! - oh yea, when i'm old, and if i can remember, this is where i'm heading when the people i love can no longer can stand me.), introducing us to anyone who happened to be breathing (some were a tad questionable) and continued her squeaking. we stopped to check her mail and were practically run over by esther and her walker-posse as they headed down the corridor, three abreast, jockeying for position as the hallway narrowed. dale and my kids tromped up the stairs making sounds that vaguely resembled mating buffalo, as gram and i took the oh-so-achingly-slow elevator.

although she still has boxes everywhere, her apartment is small and cozy. we took over any and all available places to sit while she started to give us her things. this is what she does. she will direct you to something and tell you to just take it that she has no need for it. for example, she told me to take her coffee table (which i must admit is very cool and hell yea, i took it)...this would be the same coffee table that, at that particular moment, housed her computer and numerous plants, not to mention books and a bowl of cereal. yep, she has no need for that particular piece of furniture. at one point she told me to look at some tins she had been collecting and to take some with me. while i'm rummaging, i notice the variety of baggies sitting next the the group of tins. a kid was looking for one earlier and so, as i began digging through trying to find one the right size, she pushes her way in there and says: "no, not those shawna, i'm using those - i said the tins next to them". like i'm loading up my purse with her ziplocks. dammit, she had caught the tater.

we took her to an early dinner at hometown buffet (oh yea, only the best for my gram.) and everyone went their separate ways in search of goodness to put upon their plates. i followed her around for about 20 minutes carrying two plates as she loaded them up with a variety of things. (for the record, this chick can pack it away). after i got her settled in her seat with her mountains of food before her, she requested a "rut-beer" with no ice and she was a happy little (chatting - always with the chatting) clam. off i went in search of my own monster plate of food and i joined my little family in a savage flurry of fists and forks. after we ate so much we were all groaning, dale and i sat with my gram and bagged on people, while the kids ran across the mall for some...i dunno, crap of some sort. when we finally felt we could actually stand up and walk without barfing, we made our way back to the car and back to gram's house, being very careful not to hit any speed bumps or jostle our seatbelts in any way.

it had been a long, but very good day and we were ready for our beds...

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