Snowbirds Volume I--Grampa G

I realize that there are actually a few of my readers out there who enjoy a good football posting now and again. Today would be the appropriate time to reflect on the Bucs season that came to an abrupt ending yesterday, but I feel that I should remove myself emotionally from the situation in order to give the game its proper perspective, so hopefully after I come down off these anti-depressants that I found lying around the house, I should be able to find the appropriate words. By the way, does anybody out there know which of the side effects are most likely to hit me when I combine Zoloft, Ambien, Prozac, Welbutrin XL, and Lithium? I took two of each so far, and I am comfortable with the potential dry mouth, itchiness, diarrhea, numbness, headaches, bleeding ulcer, high-fever, painful urination, reduced sexual response and possible birth defects, but if there is even the most minute chance that I end up with some of that oily anal discharge, I need to know up front. I save that for only special occasions. Let's pick a topic, shall we.
I have a month to relax here before the onslaught of visitors returns to greet us here in the desert. The holidays are generally the time that we get our peak visitation from relatives, friends and loved ones. Thanksgiving brought my crazy family and Christmas/New Year's brought Kim's. But there is something about living out in the mild Arizona sunshine in the middle of winter that draws people out here like flies. Let's face it, without our 73 degree average winter days, and drought like weather conditions, who the hell would come out to the desert to plunk down $300 a round to play golf? No freaking body, that's who.
January is generally our reprieve--the time between the holiday chaos and the desperate attempts of our remaining visitors to decide that shoveling snow is no stinking fun and it is time to drop in our friends in AZ. It only took me two winters in Rhode Island to figure out that I had no desire to make anything north of South Carolina my permanent home. Scraping ice off your windows for 25 minutes while your car is warming up enough to actually drive in sub-arctic temperatures just plain sucks. Doing this every day for three months sucks even more, so I don't blame anybody for wanting to get away and find a sliver of sunshine to placate their winter suffering. So as February rears its ugly head to the rest of the world, we find ourselves basking in the daily warmth that is our sole reason for moving to this state in the first place. Not to rub it in, but we haven't had a drop of rain since October 30th, there hasn't been a day in five weeks where the temperature hasn't hit at least 70 degrees and it has been a sultry 80 the past three or four days, but I digress.
I have been known to sometimes make these posings a bit (I don' t know what you might call it, but for lack of a better term) wordy. To that end, I will break down our winter visitors preview into several smaller postings. So today, we will focus on the first of these, who happens to be Grampa G. He is coming out Super bowl weekend (aka FBR/Phoenix Open weekend--which no longer affects my life like it has for the last four years--see previous posting The Last Fiesta Bowl in Tempe for clarification). He is coming by himself for about four days to see the grandkids and nap in some different rooms in both my house and Shari's house. My parents like to travel solo at this point in their lives. Don't get me wrong, they also travel as a tandem quite a bit as well, and it is still a rare phone call when I can speak to only one of them at a time, but we generally get one trip a year where it is just one or the other to visit us. Now, I might be in the minority on this issue, but I am sure that my brother and sisters will chime in on the comments at the end of this posting at some point. I would much rather host just one of the two as a visitor. It doesn't matter which one we are referring to, because they are both equally insane when they are together. Taken in small doses by themselves, Mom and Dad are manageable and the stress level for the rest of us in minimized a great deal. There are probably a dozen factors that contribute to their dual lunacy, but I will only list three:

1. Each of them tries to prove to us that the other is really the crazy one, and they are merely a victim of being trapped in the same house as the other for forty years. "Well, you know that you father still believes that he is going to make his fortune on the World Bridge Tour. He keeps pointing to that Poker thing on TV and says that Bridge is the next big thing. I can't talk him out of it and now he is making me scout his oponent in his upcoming tournament. I just can't take it anymore--Do you know how many times the organizers have asked me to leave and to stop videotaping? The Carl Henderson/Rick Janks team has put a restraining order on me. I then spend six hours a night in the editing room, so that he can look at the tapes uninterrupted. I can't get any sleep and I am working with only one good arm. Damn your father."
2. Dad retiring. There is no way that any observant individual could watch these two for the past several years and believe that things weren't going south for many years leading up to retirement, but having Dad home all day, every day has to take its toll on anybody's sanity. Does anybody think that Mom enjoys working still--oh sure, she'll tell you that she loves the people that she works with and that they need the health insurance that her job provides, but she will never stop working and there is only one reason--she would be trapped in the house with Dad all day, every day. Work is her escape and she will not give it up for anything. Her greatest fear is coming home one day to find that Winnebago that Dad has been longing for over the last decade parked in the street with the old man decked out in a Chauffer's cap and his Mickey Mouse gloves, buffing out the rims and perusing that 1983 Rand McNally Atlas that he has been holding on to for just so special an occasion. You don't think she wakes up in a cold sweat thinking about that one. Somebody will have to pry her dead, scraggly fingers from the keyboard at her reference desk, because she will never lock herself in that 120' touring bus with no escape.
3. The big floppy hat. Any of you out there who have photos of my parents taken in the last 15 years, look closely at the picture. Most likely, it will be squarely on her head, but somewhere in that picture, there will be a ridiculous looking, gigantic floppy hat of some kind that she is using to shield her delicate face from the fluorescent lightbulbs in the room and the radiation caused by the camera that took her picture. She will not go anywhere without this silly contraption. Now I know that hats can be a wonderful accessory and as ladies move up in their years, the hats have been known to get sillier and larger. Gramma G, doesn't use her hat as an accessory--hell, it doesn't match anything that she wears. In fact, it generally clashes so powerfully with whatever she is wearing that it may be the only thing you notice. I remember years ago, when she started wearing one of those silly belts as a purse (you know the ones that look like a boa constrictor trying to digest the pot bellied pig that it just ate) and I realized that she couldn't care less how she looked in public. But the floppy hat thing--you can say what you want, but everybody knew that damn Minnie Pearl was as crazy as a loon too.

Now when they are apart, something strange happens. You can actually speak to them as individuals and they generally respond as if they were reasonable adults. Dad might even be described as lucid and pleasant on these occasions. He doesn't feel the need to fight for our attention and he doesn't fear that a conversation is going on that doesn't involve him in some way. He can relax and just enjoy his grandkids, and believe it or not, he does a pretty good job at this. He still needs constant stimulation and has to have an agenda each day (not to mention all meals must be planned out at least 48 hours in advance), but these are things that one can deal with if necessary. He still will log at least 20 hours of sleep for every 24 hour period, but he needs that to get his brain ready for the future bridge tournaments on the horizon.

In fairness to him, the kids are very excited that he is coming. Lauren and Dad finally bonded the last night of their trip out here in November and she has been in love with Grampa G ever since. Hunter thinks that Grampa G is pretty funny (for a pleasantly plump old guy anyway) and always has a good time when he is here. Just before he comes, I will end up giving him a call to remind him to be on his best behavior and to not be overly critical of the kids or our parenting skills, and he does his best to comply. This has a profound impact on Kim's enjoyment of the weekend, and he finds himself actually enjoying his grandchildren this way.

The other thing that adds to the weekend fun is the comfort level that Dad has become accustomed in his own home sometimes does not translate as well when visiting others. There is something downright creepy about a 240 pound man sitting on the couch in his hanes briefs and wifebeater every day. Kim has become somewhat accustomed to it, but there is severe shock value when he arrives each year. He also has the need to share any and all medical conditions that are impacting his life, whether or not they add to the visual imagery that is the Grampa G experience. As a rule, for all of you out there who find this sort of thing fascinating to share with the rest of us, most people have very little interest in your bowel movements (and the condition and/or experience that goes along with each of them). I realize that it is great to share that everytime you come out to Arizona, you get diarrhea, but this might be an experience that you want to selfishly keep to yourself. Just my Public Service Announcement for the day--hope it helps all of you.

For a preview of upcoming topics, we will discuss the rest of the visitors that we will have the opportunity to see over the next month or two. In tomorrow's segment, it will be Chrissy and the boys. On Tuesday, we've got the California Neice/Nephew combo, and then on Wednesday, we'll talk about Uncle Paul and Aunt Anita. Lots to look forward to. This list of course is subject to change due to any circumstances, up to and including--drunk and passed out, something better to write about, coming out of my drug induced coma, legal action from any or all of the above mentioned, loss of life or limb.