05.26.02 - 9:18 p.m.

heh. my poor grandmother. she's 88 years old, and she was always in pretty good health up until last summer. i mean, she had some problems that you get when you get old - she needs hearing aids, and she has diabetes - but she was doing pretty well. i mean, last year at easter when went out walking for like a mile w/grandma every day.

so then, last summer she had the thing w/her blood. remember? first too much iron and like, too many platelets so many they put her on chemo and said she was at really really high risk for a stroke, then after the chemo it went hte opposite way, but then she was okay for a while and we had thanksgiving at her house, and she came to my folks' house for christmas, and we went there for easter, and so on.

then, three weeks ago, she had a car accident. did i tell you about that? there's a really busy road by her house and she was making a left turn across traffic and just... didn't see a car, and got broadsided or something. and the passenger's window shattered and sprayed her w/glass. she didn't break any bones though, which was really good. cos like, she's so old.

anyway, so my aunt barbara took my grandma to their house in pittsburgh after she got outta the hospital (they kept her overnight), and then took grandma back home. but now grandma doesn't have a car and really... probably shouldn't drive? i dunno. maybe she's thinking about getting a car. but right now she isn't. i mean, she was wondering how long she could stay in her house. apparently, she hasn't felt well since the accident.

first her blood sugar went kinda haywire, and then maybe her platelet counts went up again so they put her on the chemo? and then her rbcs dropped really really low and she said she hasn't been feeling well at all. like, she didn't have the energy to put her hair up, and even fixing a meal is a chore.

so, anyway, dad and i took her out to dinner at olive garden, which she likes, on friday. and then saturday, we took her to the bank, and the grocery store, and we went out to a greenhouse and got some plants for her pots on the porch, and to the pharmacy, and then we went to the pretzel outlet place.

then i planted the plants, and dad and i went to the beer store and bought a case of beer. and we took her to church. man, she hasn't been to church at home by herself since the accident because she's afraid she'll pass out in church. so, we took her to church and came back home and fixed dinner. we made salad and an asparagus and scallop stir-fry that grandma was heading out to get the ingredients for when she had her accident. and then we played scrabble and talked and watched a baseball game.

she said she was feeling better by the time we left. i guess she had had the bad news about her rbcs early last week, and then thursday found out that it was even worse, but they didn't wanna give her a transfusion yet. so, poor grandma. heh. and kinda poor us, too, you know? if grandma leaves her house, it's like our family has lost its nerve center. i mean, my dad and his brothers and sister and their families and us all gather there at thanksgiving, and sometimes easter, and the golf weekend and so on. it's actually pretty central to everyone, there are enough beds for everyone except the grandkids, who are getting older but are all still young enough that sleeping on the floor isn't a problem.

when i was a little kid, my grandma was really vigorous esp for a grandma. we went hiking and walking and swimming in the next-door neighbor's pool. and every summer i got to spend a week alone w/grandma and grandpa. at grandma's for the week, you got to choose -any- cereal you wanted, no matter how junky. and if you were there w/another cousin, you didn't hafta agree on the cereal. grandma got you both the cereal you wanted. and we'd go to the amusement park, or out to storybook forest and a petting zoo, or to a place called old bedford village, which is in bedford, pa and is kinda a rebuilt early 1800s town, with a blacksmith and two one-room schoolhouses (round, because the devil hides in the corners) and that sorta place.

and of course, there was mrs. weller's pool. now the chain-link fence around the weller's pool is rusting, and it looks kinda sad. but when i was a kid, the weller's pool was almost as close to paradise as a human being could possibly come. you didn't need to leave grandma's to go to the pool. it was just a square pool with a diving board and a sun-worshipping 40 or 50-something owner whose skin was brown like leather. they always had floats and whatnot, and you would swim and swim and swim, and then as easily as ever you please run back from the pool to grandma's, hungry as anything because swimming makes you so deliciously tired and absolutely hungry that you can't quite think straight, and maybe you'd hafta take a shower, but after that it was a bowl of chex mix or a lunch of ring bologna and ketchup with grandma's magic, precision ketchup dispenser. dispenser in hand (there was nothing like it at home), you could decorate your ring bologna (a pennslyvania delicacy unavailable in w.va.) with your name, in print or cursive, or any number of elaborate smiley faces.