...and I'm not above fighting with a 90 year old woman.
On Sunday Todd and I decided we had enough of the indoors after 20+ inches of snow on Saturday. We made a trip to Walmart for the niece and nephew in our lives and made a call to Madge to make sure she was taking care of herself and her 30 yard driveway. Although she was fine, she asked if we could take a trip to Upper Darby to make sure that Grandmom was doing well also.
Grandmom lives in the 69th street region of Upper Darby- it might as well be Philadelphia. Walnut and Chestnut Streets continue to travel into the neighborhood and the only thing that separates this portion of Upper Darby from West Philadelphia is a small park surrounding Cobbs Creek. In a major snow storm, just like in Philadelphia, many of the side streets in Upper Darby go unplowed or are plowed after the storm is long over blocking in all of the cars on the street. When residents go to start the big dig where do they put all of the snow that surrounds their cars? Back in the street of course!
As I watched to the news all weekend Mayor Michael Nutter basically pleaded with the citizens of Philadelphia NOT to put the snow that walled in their cars back into the street, however, he didn't offer an alternative or make any suggestions...so as suspected, they put it right back into the street. Long digression...
Todd and I got to Grandmom's neighborhood around noon. I BOLTED out of the car when I saw her on the porch, shovel in hand pushing snow onto her front lawn. When I got there to tell her that Todd and I were there to help her, she looked around and when she didn't see Todd she looked confused. I asked her nicely to go inside and let us help her- Todd was parking at the nearby Sears parking lot and he'd be right there. "Oh, SEARS?! That's too far, he's going to get sick!" "Grandmom, it's only three blocks, he'll be right here." "Well I'll keep doing this until he get here. I'm not picking the snow up, I'm just breaking it up and sliding it off the porch. See? I'm not really even doing anything!"
Knowing I would make her mad long enough to distract her from doing more work, I picked up the broom nearby and started to help. At this point, she looked at me the way a mother bear eyes up cave intruders when her cubs are fresh out of the womb and yelled, "OH, NO! You WILL NOT help me. I don't want to lose this baby!!" I picked up a shovel, stared her in the eyes and told her, "I'LL GO INSIDE IF YOU'LL GO INSIDE." I knew I was being childish...but so what. So was she.
Grandmom has a really old fashion way about pregnant ladies- she's convinced that her first miscarriage was due to some heavy lifting- she was getting a box down off of a shelf and lost the baby a few days later. Is that possible? Of course. Did it actually happen? Probably not. Should I do what my Grandmother asks to placate her? Sure I should. Did I want to get into a conversation about which one of us was more healthy- the 29 year-old yoga teacher who is five months pregnant but who also works out 4-5 times a week... or the 90 year old with terrible arthritis? Whatever. It's all rhetoric.
Thank goodness Todd walks fast because that porch was about to turn into a WWE wrestling ring if she kept that nonsense up for much longer.
He got there to finish the porch so we went inside to get the bread crumbs ready to feed the birds, tuppence a bag.
On Sunday Todd and I decided we had enough of the indoors after 20+ inches of snow on Saturday. We made a trip to Walmart for the niece and nephew in our lives and made a call to Madge to make sure she was taking care of herself and her 30 yard driveway. Although she was fine, she asked if we could take a trip to Upper Darby to make sure that Grandmom was doing well also.
Grandmom lives in the 69th street region of Upper Darby- it might as well be Philadelphia. Walnut and Chestnut Streets continue to travel into the neighborhood and the only thing that separates this portion of Upper Darby from West Philadelphia is a small park surrounding Cobbs Creek. In a major snow storm, just like in Philadelphia, many of the side streets in Upper Darby go unplowed or are plowed after the storm is long over blocking in all of the cars on the street. When residents go to start the big dig where do they put all of the snow that surrounds their cars? Back in the street of course!
As I watched to the news all weekend Mayor Michael Nutter basically pleaded with the citizens of Philadelphia NOT to put the snow that walled in their cars back into the street, however, he didn't offer an alternative or make any suggestions...so as suspected, they put it right back into the street. Long digression...
Todd and I got to Grandmom's neighborhood around noon. I BOLTED out of the car when I saw her on the porch, shovel in hand pushing snow onto her front lawn. When I got there to tell her that Todd and I were there to help her, she looked around and when she didn't see Todd she looked confused. I asked her nicely to go inside and let us help her- Todd was parking at the nearby Sears parking lot and he'd be right there. "Oh, SEARS?! That's too far, he's going to get sick!" "Grandmom, it's only three blocks, he'll be right here." "Well I'll keep doing this until he get here. I'm not picking the snow up, I'm just breaking it up and sliding it off the porch. See? I'm not really even doing anything!"
Knowing I would make her mad long enough to distract her from doing more work, I picked up the broom nearby and started to help. At this point, she looked at me the way a mother bear eyes up cave intruders when her cubs are fresh out of the womb and yelled, "OH, NO! You WILL NOT help me. I don't want to lose this baby!!" I picked up a shovel, stared her in the eyes and told her, "I'LL GO INSIDE IF YOU'LL GO INSIDE." I knew I was being childish...but so what. So was she.
Grandmom has a really old fashion way about pregnant ladies- she's convinced that her first miscarriage was due to some heavy lifting- she was getting a box down off of a shelf and lost the baby a few days later. Is that possible? Of course. Did it actually happen? Probably not. Should I do what my Grandmother asks to placate her? Sure I should. Did I want to get into a conversation about which one of us was more healthy- the 29 year-old yoga teacher who is five months pregnant but who also works out 4-5 times a week... or the 90 year old with terrible arthritis? Whatever. It's all rhetoric.
Thank goodness Todd walks fast because that porch was about to turn into a WWE wrestling ring if she kept that nonsense up for much longer.
He got there to finish the porch so we went inside to get the bread crumbs ready to feed the birds, tuppence a bag.
This is a picture I paint-brushed after Thanksgiving, 2006ish. That year, grandmom lit her old fashion oven (you have to light it with a match) after the gas was running in it for about three minutes. It produced a fireball that burnt her eyebrows off. She's not as cute and innocent as she looks ;-)
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