The Brandy, the Budgie and Scrabble
Getting old is amazingly funny (or not).
What a week. I’m uncertain there was a moment where I didn’t feel old.
Life expectancy is presently 76? That’s pretty young in my opinion, yet it’s old to all the young. When I say young I mean 40 and under. In light of the world right now I find that very comforting. At one point this week I found it incredibly discouraging and I wrote about it.
After a few days of old-brain I am really encouraged to know that most of these annoying young people consuming the news space, rather than the real news of the suffering, will indeed age. Age does something to you. For the most part I have been trying to age gracefully, as the knee doc told me “you need to age gracefully into a replacement maybe at 80.” Forget it.
Chronic pain has a way of making you feel old. Going gray makes you… not sure yet. Needing to pee all day has a way of making you feel old. Babysitting grandchildren has a way of making you feel old and simultaneously young for the time you are trampoline jumping, like a child, while praying you will not need a child to call an ambulance. I believe stubbing your big toe and ripping the entire nail off in front of your grandchild might not be an age thing. It was a rug thing. Why do rugs retract, forming unnecessary steps? I don’t know. Alexa didn’t know either. I did ask why a squirrel, “Sandy Squirrel,” named by my three year old granddaughter, would want to get close to a child. As we sat on my daughter’s Bohemian-style leg rest, staring face to face with a curious squirrel, through a slider door, Alexa said a whole bunch of stuff about how squirrels are independent and don’t care about people. I told Violet that it was because of her heart for animals that he/she wanted to visit her. I asked her if she knew where her heart was. She put her little hand across her chest. I pointed at her heart and said “you have a beautiful heart and Sandy knows it.”
This week brought back memories of my fierce little nana. She was 4’ 11,” proudly tall with glistening rich blue eyes. I wrote a bit about her following us to America in my longest piece. I am 63.5 years old. Almost. I calculated when I was 16, she was 70. She seemed so old to me. She was very vital. Nana lived in a small apartment in the San Fernando Valley next-door to her best friend, Louise. They were hilarious together. Sadly, it would be Louise who would find my nana on the ground, her makeup compact beside her, getting ready to walk with her best friend in one of the toughest neighborhoods of Van Nuys. She almost made 81. Nana felt no misery of wars gone by, hurting, languishing like my dad did. Nana was gone, just like that, from a massive heart attack. What a way to go.
I was 26 and six months later, I was pregnant with our first child. All she wanted was to become a great-grandnana. God takes and gives.
The way I literally stumbled through this week I laughed out loud at some of my nana’s moments, especially with Louise. Louise loved to paint and my nana loved to pound the keys of an old piano and sing in private, although the apartment walls were quite thin. Nana hosed the squirrels away from her bitter orange tree she used for making marmalade and hosed “the questionable young teens” in the neighborhood.
They didn’t mess with her.
When Louise’s grandson bought her a little car, after the enormous boat she drove was giving her bumper trouble everything became more scary and amazingly funny. Louise had been bumping into a few things. One time her granddaughter and I, both 16, fell off the back seat into a pile on the floor, giggling our butts off, while Louise, with nana as her ride or die, backed into a well-placed bright yellow caution pole. They wanted to treat us to Mexican food on Ventura Blvd., at this cool place they found. How they survived, I’ll never know, but they were only 70! To us, they were 90.
So along comes this little Datsun Cherry E10 car. It was manual. Louise didn’t drive manual. Never had. So nana said she would be fine because nana only ever drove a bicycle and next thing we knew they had driven all the way to Solvang. When my mum asked how? Nana said, “oh we took the slow lane.” My mum said, “all the way?” Nana, “yes, in second gear. “There was no stopping Thelma nana and Louise. Two hours turned into four.
One time they wanted to take me out to a local French restaurant. I was 18. I met them there inside. After a lovely meal, we walked out to the parking lot. One car was putting on quite a show, while they were looking for Louise’s car. The little car sputtering and spitting out exhaust, engine on, “must be waiting for someone” they thought. Nope. It was waiting for them.
They seemed so old.
72 at this point.
I’m not far behind.
As they aged into their late 70’s one of my favorite stories besides all the churches my nana visited, by bicycle, her favorite being a church with a “high priestess” that made them all lock arms, at the end, and sing “Oklamhoma” from the Broadway show, was from their daily scrabble games.
They would gather at Louise’s place in the late afternoon around tea time. The spirits would come out of the cabinet, as well as Louise’s budgie bird. The little budgie would wander around the scrabble board as they played, taking sips of spirits. During one particular game the little bird fell over and they couldn’t get him/her up. Quickly wrapping the little creature in a tea towel, off they went, driving in first, maybe second gear to the local vet. But wait! They took off without the bird! Once retrieved, and a bit tipsy, they raced back to the clinic, panicked. Escorted stat to a room, the vet asked them what had happened? The conclusion? “Houston… we have a drunk bird!”
Oh the relief. The little bird had many more days at the scrabble table and the drink was placed elsewhere.
I forgot my head this week.
As I was driving home from my grandson’s soccer game this morning (properly in my 6-speed), heading west on Route 66, passing the old Styles Music, Village Car Wash and La Paloma Mexican Restaurant, original neon, over 50 years in business, I thought to myself, old is cool.
I like old. The young will be old someday, I smiled, John Lennon singing Across the Universe.
“Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me..”
The week ended with a little mermaid reminding me, very early Friday morning, that I didn’t put her noise machine on. (On Wednesday). “Nana, you didn’t put my noise cheen on.” Of course I was not stunned and apologized. She repeated it with some good theater. I replied, “but you slept soooo good… and that is AMAZING!!”
She replied, “Nana, it was not amazing.”
I disagree. <insert laughing/crying emoji>
I love the stories about Nana and Louise! The drunk bird!! Oh my, what a gem ❤️. Your family stories are always so rich with love and laughter. I turned 40 last year and it seems to be the point where things start that downward spiral, and I remember my parents turning 40 and thinking how ancient they were. Aging and perception are funny things. Your vibrancy and joy for life are contagious, thank you for these lovely stories.
When Nana came to America at 56 years old she took a job in the notions department of a big fancy store. Nana rode there on her bicycle and parked it underground among the Cadillacs. She knew everything about knitting and sewing. Customers always asked for the little British lady and some were even movie stars, that's why she always had her little autograph book with her ❤