25 baby, senior review, calculator, grandma,

10-05-04 mayatime: 12.19.11.12.1 8 Imix 4 Yax 2999 days until 12-21-2012

My best friend had her baby yesterday. I wanted to go see her as soon as I got out of work at 12:00 but her husband didn’t call me until 2:00 and I had a distant attunement at 4:00. He went on and on about how many people were coming after 4 and then said “But I don’t want to discourage you from coming”–thanks, you just did.I actually have father-related things to report as well.

Last Thursday, I went to this Senior Review (yes, it was misspelled that way, instead of “revue”–sigh) with my parents & grandma. My mom said that I simply had to see these old men dancing in tutus. I thought it would be a quick 45 minute or 1 hour thing at the senior center. Ha. It was at the high school, it cost money to get in, and it lasted for hours. I kept thinking, “I’m missing the presidential debates for THIS?” I mean, some of it was okay, but I’m not into Broadway show tunes so those parts were boring. The excruciatingly long skit about Snow White, done entirely by children (hello?! I thought this was about the SENIOR CITIZENS) was painfully awful. I left to go stretch my leg in the lobby. While I was out there, a lady comes up to where I was (silently) watching the show from the lobby with a gentleman who had been in the show, and says “I have my orders” and closes the doors literally in our faces. I tried to get back in–and the doors were locked. I was locked out for about ten minutes, until someone else came out and held the door. Isn’t there fire hazards involved in something like that? If the lobby had caught fire, I would not have been able to get inside to warn anyone or save my family. Luckily grandma got bored and wanted to leave early.

When I got to my parents’ house, my father had the calculator and my mom’s paycheck. She had gotten some extra pay for unused sick time and he was trying to figure out how much it was after the taxes. (If I had to do it, I’d just look at what her check usually is and subtract. I guess that’s too easy.) I was watching my dad use the calculator like it was an adding machine, constantly hitting the plus sign. He couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t come out right. I tried to tell him what he was doing but he was already mad and in shouting mode. Then my mom starts yelling at him. I tried to get her to stop. Yelling at him solves nothing; it just makes it worse. Finally we left and went to the “review.”

When we exited the review I saw that my grandmother was very shaky. She had her cane but I thought she was going to fall. She says she gets “lightheaded” from her ears but it seemed like it was her legs not holding her up. I got the car keys from my mom and ran ahead to get the car and come back for my grandmother. My dad came with me. He was amazed that I was able to trigger his Hyundai with my keys. I tried to explain that I had Mommy’s keys, but he didn’t get it. Grandma, of course, didn’t wait, so I was only able to save her from about 6 feet of walking.I told my dad right out that he was not to yell at me or correct my driving, even if I was going to hit a moose. All the way there, he fiddled with the windshield wipers and the lights and corrected my mom’s driving. She started yelling at him, he yelled back. This is old news, of course, they’ve been doing that for years. Except that until this year my dad drove EVERYWHERE, my mom NEVER drove my dad anywhere.

My dad didn’t enjoy the show much. He kept saying he couldn’t hear. My grandmother, who is getting deaf as a post but won’t admit it, said she could hear fine. I explained some of the jokes to him but it’s hard to tell if he gets them or laughs because I tell him it’s funny. I was amazed at the number of dirty old folks jokes the announcers had.

Here’s a sample: Two old ladies are at a bus stop smoking cigarettes. It starts raining. One old lady pulls a condom out of her bag, cuts off the tip, and puts it over her cigarette. The other old lady says, “Wow, what’s that?” “It’s a condom. You get them in drug stores.” So the second old lady goes to the drugstore the next day and asks for some condoms. The pharmacist is puzzled why such an old lady needs condoms but he humors her by asking “What size” to which she replies: “To fit a Camel.” That one was pretty funny.

Two old men walk by a naked old woman sitting on a bench. One man says “nice outfit” the other one says “she should iron it.” Not so funny.

A pair of statues, of a naked man and a naked woman, stand facing each other in a park for many years. A fairy godmother lands between them and says “since you have been such good statues, I am going to turn you into flesh for 30 minutes. You can do whatever you want.” The two statues run into the woods. The fairy hears them laughing and the bushes are shaking. After 15 minutes, they come back out looking very pleased. The fairy godmother says, “You have fifteen minutes still.” The female statue looks at the male and says “you want to do it again?” and he says “Yes, this time I’ll hold down the pigeon and you poop on it.”

I tried really hard to explain that to my dad, but he didn’t get it.