Driving Mrs. Grandmother

I am going to give you my driving saga. Well, I don't know if it could be defined as a saga, maybe a boring tale of epic proportions. It began by Kyle and I driving up to Lubbock to bring Grandmother back to San Antonio. On the way up to Lubbock we listened to a book on tape, "The Nanny Diaries" which was terrific and hilarious. It was kind of like the "The Devil Wears Prada" expect toned down and with a Nanny story rather than a fashion magazine's executive assistant. We finished it right before we arrived in Lubbock. The next day we spent working on grandmother's to-do list, including bathing the dirtiest Athena ever, fixing e-mail, screwing in light bulbs etc. Later Kyle and I took little Aurora on a walk to see the Geese at the duck pond. (We call it the duck pond because most of the year ducks are the masters of the water, until the geese migrate in for the winter re-taking command.) Her knees were working better so we figured she might want to use her legs some. (we had been carrying her everywhere.) She really enjoyed the walk and was wary of the Geese. While we were at the pond, feeding the multitude of water birds, at least 8 flocks of Geese in V formations flew overhead. Well, when I say V formation, I really mean they attempted a V formation but really would make a lopsided W. We tried coaching them in the correct letters of the alphabet, but alas our advise was rudely ignored. Kyle wisely warned that we should keep our mouths shut should an unwarranted excrement fall from the sky. When the Geese would fly over, all of the birds in the water would squawk, or whatever official sound they are said to make, as if to say hello to their fellows. It was quite funny. After a while, we found this novel event lacking in lengthy entertainment value so we decided to walk home. I really felt like exercising but we didn't want to walk Aurora too long, and after we got home, I was bitten by the lazy bug and didn't venture out again. At least until we went to see our movie"Accepted". We enjoyed it for the most part partially because we went in with such low expectations, it wasn't difficult to meet and even exceed our expectations. The movie was about a bunch of kids who didn't get into college so they made one up and then people started showing up for classes. It was pretty amusing, absurd and silly, but entertaining. I was just glad it wasn't one of those movies that hurts to watch like most of Julia Stiles movies!
Driving back to Lubbock was an adventure as well. Kyle had bought several books on tapes to supply our lengthy drive. After Nanny Diaries we had "'Tis" a memoir from the "Author of Angela's Ashes" and old comedy shows including Bob Hope etc. From our last experience driving with Grandmother and having to endure awful language from the terrific book ( not being sarcastic, it really was a wonderful story) "A long way down" we wanted to try extra hard to pick literature that wouldn't be offensive to Grandmother. "A long way down" used profane language, including the F word, a lot. It was an uncomfortable situation. The selections were limited however. Kyle tried two different libraries and then Half Price Books. I suggested a classic book, but of course they were all out except for the books I had already read. Our first choice was the old clean cut comedy shows however, the sound quality of the old comedy shows was bad and my ears were tired of straining so hard to understand the words. After listening to two of these thirty minute selections we switched to the memoir. I thought it would be a safe bet, but I was wrong. The author himself didn't use profane language much, but the people around him did. Especially when he entered the army. After that progression in his life, everything went down hill, screwing was a hot topic of the other solider boys and clean language didn't seem acceptable in the army according to his recollections. I could feel my face getting red as I sat and listened to this story that I would at any other time found humorous. Why do people have to talk about screwing in front of my grandmother, can't they see it makes me feel uncomfortable! The irony of this story is, that Kyle and I continued to listen to it on the way to the coast after dropping Grandmother off and on the way back. That entire six hours was very clean, without talk of screwing or profane language, however as soon as we started to drive Grandmother back to Austin with us, it rared up again, but worse. Maybe not worse, but with more details such as "the nipples are the keys to opening up a girls legs!" It is a curse that I cannot escape. I am just going to accept that my grandmother will always be exposed to ungrandmotherly language and description while in the car with me!
Oh, and also, like in Angela's Ashes he brought up his eye problem. I don't know what it is about eyes or why distortions of the eyes make me feel queasy, when decapitation in movies doesn't even have that effect, but eyes do have that effect and I don't know how to control the overwhelming sensitivity to eye conditions. He had some type of eye disease that caused blood shot redness of the eyes and puss to seep out. He was very embarrassed by his eyes and therefore was too shy to talk to girls. He talked about it for a while, and I could not stop squirming in my seat. I shut my eyes and tried to visualize a happy place, but my stomach was not fooled and reacted quickly to the mention of his eyes. YUCK!
Driving to Lubbock is not my favorite activity, but having my Grandmother down for Thanksgiving is worth it!