This crazy week

This is gona be one MAJOR post, so hang tight everybody.

I'm going to do things chronologically-backwards. Meaning Sat, fri, thurs...
But first events in chronological order.

Mon: went to granny's
tues: babysitting S's.
Wed: calling hours
Thurs: funeral
Fri: babysitting M's.
Sat: digging through old stuff

Saturday

We got to Granny's at about lunchtime, so we ate lunch and began taking things out. She has a cabinet that has glass doors and four shelves. It was full of dishes and salt shakers --Granny collected saltshakers-- and glasses and all sorts of other things. All the stuff filled up the whole table. And some of the counters. Lots and lots of stuff. Then we started getting more dishes out of the cupboards. And then you get into her dresser and find all this old jewelry and stuff stuff stuff stuff. And in the garage--wow. We found these amazing crocheted things--stitches we'd never seen before, patterns we'd never seen before, some unfinished things, boxes of doilys (plenty for everyone). It was a very unique day. And it was really neat that when you said, "I took a pin I found in her drawer," the reaction wasn't anything like, "hey, I wanted that" or "why did you take that!" It was, "Oh good, I'm glad."

"Does anyone like these dishes?"
"You can have them, go ahead."

"Aren't these glasses pretty?"
"Oh yes!"
"Do you want them?"
"No, you can have them. If you like them, take them."

Mom says that Granny probably turned over in her grave. She was a pack rat! She never liked to throw things away. And she liked to have everything in its place. That house was a wreck. When you go through everything and take everything out, it gets messy!

Oh, an example of just how much a pack rat she was:
Aunt Lynne was looking through some stuff and found a little box with "hairpins" on it. She opened it and said, "Oh my gosh." Everyone looked up but didn't say anything, thinking she would tell us. "Oh my gosh." "what?" "Oh my gosh." "What!" "Oh, my, gosh. Ewww!" "WHAT!" She went around to each of us, showed us the box with "Hairpins" written on the top. "What do you think this is?" "Hairpins." She opened it. "Ewww! Oh my word!" The rest of us, who hadn't seen, once again shouted, "What!!"

It was teeth. Large, roots and all, teeth. Ew. When Meme saw them, she said, "Those must be Dad's. He had all his teeth pulled." Ew. Aunt Lynne said, "You could make a necklace, a grandpa tooth necklace!" We all shouted and laughed in disgust. That was pretty funny.

There were also boxes of stuff from an old man who lived with them. Actually, they lived with him. He said that if they let him live with them till he died they could have the house. "Them" is Meme, Uncle Paul, Granny, and Grandpa John, who I never met. He didn't have any relatives, so there were boxes of his old stuff, like postcards and...stuff. Shrug.

I got some doilies--she made amazing doilies--magnets from the fridge (which were actually the first thing I thought of, when I noticed that the four butterfly magnets were still arranged around a flower, how I had put them months and months ago. They are now still arranged like that on the filing cabinet in my room) and a salt shaker set and glasses for when I grow up and will actually use them. The glasses have a matching pitcher. Oh, and a silver flower pin, and a butterfly pin that matches one of the magnets. And an ornament I gave Granny years ago.

It was really weird to go through Granny's house and, like, ransack it. Weirder was that you kind of had to have the attitude of, "What do I want?" which seems totally wrong, but it was right in that situation. It was a very unique day. Sad and funny at the same time, funny because we were all together and cracking jokes. Like--oh my word I can't believe I forgot this:

Aunt Leesy was looking through the cabinets saying, "Does anyone know what happened to those orange juice glasses with the little oranges on them?" No answer but some shrugs. "Did somebody take them? Who took the orange juice glasses?" Meme said, "If someone took them, they're welcome to them." So Aunt Leesy said, "Who welcomed themselves to the orange juice glasses!" We all cracked up, and the rest of the day we said, "I think I'll welcome myself to these ____" fill in the blank(s), and cracked up every time. The orange juice glasses appeared to have disappeared years ago.

We also discovered on the way home that our dog is afraid of the dark. She always shivers and shakes and pants all at the same time on the way home from Granny's in the dark. I always thought that it was because it was dark and she couldn't see what was going on, and this seems to have been confirmed. Mom and Dad took her for a walk when it was getting dusky, and she started walking really fast with her tail between her legs when it got really dark. Mom said she'd never seen Greta's legs move so fast! I think there might have been some people shooting off firecrackers too, which really freaks her out. She was pretty scared last night. We went to see the portage lakes fireworks, at the last minute. Anyway, back to the ride home. We sang a bit to see if that would calm her down. It did a little bit. It was fun to watch the sun set (it was gorgeous, streaky pink and purple clouds with a rainbow background. It was seriously rainbow, there was even a bit of light green between the yellow and blue) and watch the fireflies and stars come out.

Friday

I babysat the M's. I don't think it was too eventful. Mandy, the dog, is getting big. I swear she's grown every time I babysit. She's getting a bit better about chewing on furniture too, but she hasn't caught on about not biting hands. She'll get it. I can tell she's becoming better trained, but she's still a crazy puppy. The kids are no problem, the dog is crazy.

Thursday

We sang at the funeral. It was a very good funeral, therapeutic. I think that's how you spell that. Hey, I can mis-spell some word sometimes too! I haven't nearly filled up my misspelled words quota. Mom and Aunt Leesy spoke, and Uncle Paul. Uncle Paul and Meme always pick on each other a good bit, but he just applauded her care of Granny, which was extremely, well, sweet isn't quite the right word, but that's about as close as I can get. Pastor Glen, Granny's pastor, did a good job. He used the analogy of a quilt about her life, The backing, batting, blocks, and binding. The backing was her community, batting was her friends, blocks were her family, and binding (thread, but it had to be a b) was God and her faith in God. It was really neat, and he had some of each of the things for a visual. After the funeral there was a meal and then we went back to Granny's house to hang out. She was a very cool person. She always loved and welcomed everyone.

Wednesday

I babysat the M's and then went straight down to the F's, then went straight to the calling hours. All last week I was thinking, "This nail polish is really not appropriate for a funeral and calling hours," but I had no time to remove it. I finally did yesterday. It was yellow with multicolored dots. We practiced our songs, then had a meal (this church was good about having lots of food to eat), then went to the calling hours and shook hands of distant relatives, friends, church people, etc etc etc. We counted Thurs after the funeral, went through the guestbook and counted everyone. 323 people. Not counting some family, we didn't sign. Meme was amazed at all these people, so was everyone else for that matter. For being 85 years old, she still had a lot of living friends. Young people, too. I guess that's part of living in a small town, people are really good about going to things like that. Not all small towns, I guess, but this one. And then you got the worst of the small town, people who say stuff and it doesn't come out quite right. Like Mom introduced herself and us girls, and then turned to Dad. The woman said, "And is this your son?" "No, husband." "Oh, of course, husband." Dad's like, "Yes!" Mom's like, I'm taking that wrinkle cream away from you and using it on ME. Then another woman told Dad he favored John Travolta. And you can read about some more on his blog. Let's just say here that by then end of the week, he was mom's Mexican-John Travolta-Son. OH my.

Pops took us out for milkshakes in the middle of the calling hours to give us a break, which was nice. He left for Hungary the next day and is there now, I think. He's going on a mission's trip.

So many people came up to us and said, "and are you grandchildren?" and every time we would say, "Great grandchildren," until the most said words of the evening were, "hello" and "great grandchildren."

I think that's all the important stuff. If not, I can put it on later. Whew!