Thursday, May 21, 2009

Quantum Leaping

My May schedule is kicking my butt straight into June.

I know this time of year is busy for everyone, but I'm starting to feel like Scott Bakula, just zip-zip-zipping through time and then - FLASH! - I wake up and I'm not entirely sure of what day it is.

I've actually had some good thoughts for posts, but by the time I make it to the computer in the evening I only have enough steam to type out a few paragraphs in my draft before I'm spent. This blog is a marathon, people, not a sprint. This caliber of mediocrity cannot be created off the cuff.

Well, it can, but not this week.

In an ideal world, I would be able to find a way to pull all the funny, random bits of my life together into one cohesive post, but let's face it: we won't be living in an ideal world until Jesus returns. And when that happens, I'm thinking that I won't have a ton of time to live blog the Second Coming.

You'll just have to take the random as it comes, my friends. Par for the course.

Today, I got to take a road trip with the younger kids when we had lunch with my grandmother, mother, and sister.

If you have ever thought, at one time or another, that this blog or its author, is funny or even slightly amusing, then you should meet my Granny. Granny is what one might call "a trip."

In fact, I never called her Granny until Francie was born. She decided that since she had never been called "Granny," and she had always wanted to be a "Granny," then by gum, her great-grandkids would call her Granny.

Now we all call her Granny because she's always reinventing herself. She's like the Puff Daddy/P.Diddy/Puffy of the family. (And if those names mean nothing to you, just be consoled by the fact that I only know them because I am rotting my brain with "People" magazine. You don't really need to know them at all.)

I can always count on Granny for a good story about her youthful hi-jinks, and today was no different. I told her that I was going to start blogging her stories because that's just a gold mine of material for me.

Today, she told us all about her neighbor who got herself the Ugliest Baby in the World.

My Granny used to babysit for her neighbor, who was a nurse. Granny's neighbor knew a woman in the military who gave birth, and, since in those days you weren't allowed to have babies when you were in the military, the neighbor took the baby home.

Just like that. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. As Granny says, "in those days you didn't bother with a lot of things."

Like paperwork, apparently.

So the nurse neighbor brought the baby home and asked Granny to babysit, but when Granny saw the baby, she said she nearly fainted because it was "the ugliest baby in the world."

Granny has seen a lot of babies in her day, but she still remembers this one as being the ugliest she'd ever seen. She said it was very strange looking, completely covered with hair, and it was not very strong, either (which, as an aside, makes me wonder if the baby was a preemie, since those can be markers of prematurity. hmmm.).

Meanwhile, Granny's mother, my great-grandmother, a woman who gave birth to thirteen children, promptly declared that the baby was dying. She'd seen her fair share of sick babies, so she probably had a good idea of what she was looking at.

But the neighbor, undeterred by both the baby's ugliness and weakness, refused to give up on the baby and successfully nursed it back to health.

With what did she nurse it, you might ask? Milk? Formula? Nope, something a little stronger.

Whiskey. Straight up whiskey, my friends. The neighbor gave this baby whiskey to strengthen its heart. AND IT WORKED.

Granny said that by seven or eight months old, the baby was beautiful and healthy, and the neighbor's little boy called his dad to tell him that they had a new baby at the house.

Of course, the neighbor's husband was away with the Merchant Marine, so she had a little explaining to do, I guess.

"Oh, hi, Honey! Don't worry, I got a baby from a military gal, and it was really weak, and the neighbors thought it was ugly and that it would die, but I nursed it back to health with your finest aged single malt and everything's great now! See you when you get back!"

In the end, the baby's biological mother came and took the baby back, and that was the end of the story as far as my Granny was concerned, but can you even imagine something like that happening today? No way, we have too much government for that to happen these days (which can be both good and bad, I guess).

So now, even though I've been left hanging, wondering whatever happened to the ugly duckling baby who lived on whiskey, I'm thinking that I should just get my blog material from Granny.

I think you would love her "I'm An Octogenarian" song.


My grandparents, out on a date




















11 comments:

  1. Too bad Granny doesn't have her own blog! I bet she'd develop a quick following. I hope you continue to share some of her antics...sounds like she's a hoot!
    What ever happened to the Aimee and Rob stories??? The meeting, early dating, falling in love, etc? I did I miss the happy ending while at work?

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  2. I love it! Granny stories are the best. I could steal your idea and use some from my grandmother only she chases so many rabbits in her stories, I am not sure I have ever actually heard the ending to one. I wonder if people would mind just hearing the beginning of 10 stories. Hey, it might be fun, we could do like elementary school and people could make up their own ending! Hmmmmmm.

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  3. I think I would love your Granny. And they call those "the good old days" for a reason. I think they were better. Who needs paperwork?

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  4. OK, that is the best thing I read today (or ever). An ugly, hairy, whisky drinkin' baby. Are ya'll from West Virginia or Kentucky maybe? Just kidding... sort of. My family is from around W.V. so it just sounds familiar.
    Your Granny sounds great. I love old stories like that.

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  5. The Juje8:50 AM

    "It was the ugliest baby - in the WORLD!" ... and I'm pretty that the name was Reba! The single malt helped the voice!

    "I'm an octogenarian! And I'm on my way to heaven!" ...I hope she gets to sing this song, when she actually IS an octogenarian, and not just plain old 79!

    It was a great lunch. Thanks for making it down with the kids. Love to all! Juju (the sister part of the lunch, lol)

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  6. Anonymous11:47 AM

    Great story and I love the pic- Francie seems to look a lot like her.
    Mirabella MOM

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  7. Ummm... how much whisky are we talking about here? Cause Kade has the sniffles...

    Hoo. It's hard to comment because I'm still LAUGHING MAO. Hoo.

    Did you know that if it's spelled WHISKY - it's true-from-Scotland stuff? But -ey is America or anywhere else BUT Scotland.

    Course, your family probably knew that ;)

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  8. How funny! I do love elderly people and their stories. And most of them do seem unreal in our day and time. It's great that you're writing them down.

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  9. OK, that was too funny. I have lots of Grandma stories, but they are nowhere near that funny. And I have an ugly baby story, too, but it's not that funny, either. Thanks for the morning laugh!

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  10. GeeGee4:08 PM

    Mirabella MOM's comment was interesting. I've always thought that Francie is "all Langan" in her looks, but perhaps some of Aimee's grandmother's Celtic genes (Irish/Welsh) are showing as well!

    In any case, Mom is one-of-a-kind. As a product of a Great Depression family of 8 strapping, handsome boys and 5 beautiful,feisty girls, a hard-drinking,hard-working, coal miner turned welder Welsh Methodist Dad and an energetic, hard-working Irish Catholic Mom who moved from upstate PA coal country to city-life in Philadelphia....well...there are many, many stories of "back in the day" Aimee, the next time you talk to Granny, ask her to tell you the story of her one and only baby doll which her brothers decapitated so they could use the head for a baseball.....!!!!(for real)

    As I have said many times, my girl, "you should write a book".
    You could fill it with Granny stories...

    I am sorry for people who don't know their history. No matter how crazy it may be, it is a treasure...

    Blogging friends: Tell your stories to your children. Ask your grandparents to tell their stories to you and your children. Your families will be richer...

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  11. I loved that story.

    My mother-in-law was given red wine to drink at dinner as a young child for anemia. I'm sure it made bedtime a pretty smooth affair, too!

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