CafeChatNoir

Really, I think she’d be an excellent asset in the interrogation department.  I’d give away state secrets in exchange for a decent night’s sleep.  Or, why the first words out of my brother’s mouth this morning were, “Next year, we need to stay at a hotel.”

My grandmother has always been an “up at the crack of dawn” person.  I don’t know if it’s the elderly thing, a Phoenix thing, or what.  (I recall a young cousin from the other side of the family once asking my mother, “Does your grandma ever sleep?”  At the time, the answer was “Not really.”)

For as long as I can remember, my grandmother has had a real problem with my getting sleep.  When she visited when I was a kid, she took great delight in “making sure I was up” – usually a couple hours *before* I had to get up.  Sleeping in on the weekends?  Oh HELL no.  Sleeping is for…hell, I don’t know, but certainly not for us.  (It might not have been quite so bad had her visits not lasted a month each time.  That’s a lot of being awakened every morning by a woman who thinks you should be running on her schedule.)

Now, to begin with, I can’t even attempt to go to bed until I’ve had at least an hour of being by myself after she goes to bed.  My grandmother “goes to bed” around 7PM.  What this really means is she gets ready for bed, and might even go to her room and stretch out on the bed for a while.  And then she bounces back to the den a dozen or so times after that.  Which is fine, I know lots of people that can’t get to sleep right away when they try to go to bed.  But, it’s pretty damn late by the time I get to bed, as I usually don’t even try to go to bed unless I am fairly confident I will actually be able to get to sleep in short order.  So, I’m already behind the curve before I even go to sleep.

Then there is the issue of “turning down the thermostat”…  I don’t disagree with the practice at all.  Back when I had a programmable thermostat, it automatically went down at night.  (Don’t do it as much at the current house, as little bro would freeze in the basement.)  However, there seems to be a disconnect on exactly what “turning it down” entails.  As it turns out, her definition of “turning it down” is TURNING THE HEAT OFF.  I thought we had come to a detente for a while where it was turned down (not off) to 70 at night.  (I still think the actual temp was lower than 70 because I have a hard time trusting a 30 year old spring-loaded-thermostat, but it is tolerable and far preferable to no heat at all.)

Until last night.  After I went to bed, I noticed she got up and was mucking with the thermostat.  (She has a magnifier w/a flashlight so she can see the numbers, and I saw the flashlight down the hall and knew what she was up to.)  I thought she was just double checking the temp (she doesn’t trust us to turn it down ourselves) and made a mental note to wait a few minutes and make sure she hadn’t turned it off, but I fell asleep.  (As I said, I don’t go to bed unless I’m ready to actually go to sleep.)

Well, she decided “off” was preferable to 70, which explains why I didn’t sleep for shit again last night because I was freezing, and why the heat had to run full blast for a good 20 minutes straight when she “turned it back up” this morning.  While she was also making as much noise as possible in the kitchen while we were still trying to sleep.  (The kitchen is right next to the room we’re sleeping in and there is no door/noise barrier.)

And to add insult to injury, I got up and came into the den just as she started her usual morning nap.  I certainly don’t begrudge her the nap, but after the furnace and the noisemaking in the kitchen – really??  REALLY???  Fortunately I was the first in the den, preventing Donald from grabbing two saucepans from the kitchen and banging them directly over her head.  (He’s a little sleep deprived, too.)

Sleep.  It’s good for family harmony.  Really.

My grandmother has this little nifty voice-clock thing.  It’s about the size of a car remote, and she has it pinned to the armchair cover where she usually sits.  Hit the button and there is a chime and it gives you the time.  Very, VERY handy when you’re legally blind and even large-font digital clocks are difficult to read.

However, since the last time I was here, a change has been made to the settings.

Now not only will it tell you the time when you hit the button, it now chimes and tells you the time every hour on the hour.

It’s an awesome tool for my grandmother.  As resistant as she has always been to anything that “highlighted” her eyesight issues (or involved technology), I’m glad she actually uses this.

However, after hearing it chime approximately 81 times since we have arrived, (even from the other room it wakes me from a dead sleep every time) – I would very much like to smash it into many, many small pieces.

And I have yet to see the sun.

Probably a good thing that I did not have any plans to go golfing this week.

Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.

Lights, please.

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’”

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

My grandmother’s house is Dark.  Very Dark.  She keeps the blinds closed pretty much all the time because the glare bothers her eyes.  That I do understand, but it makes for an exceptionally dark, DARK condo.

She also has a thing for keeping every single light turned off.  Which is fine except for the fact that I NEED TO BE ABLE TO SEE.

There is nothing like taking a shower in the master bath and coming out to discover that the bedroom light has been turned off while you were in the bathroom and the room is now pitch black.  So, it’s OK if I break an ankle tripping over the cat while trying to get to the light switch on the other side of the room, because 7 cents hasn’t been spent.

The darkness in this place is also incredibly depressing.  The furniture is dark, there is no natural light, and at the moment there are all of three lights on in the entire place, and the room we’re in still feels like a complete dungeon.

Me, I’m a bright light, curtains open, it shouldn’t feel like midnight at 2PM kind of person.  The last two times my grandmother visited me, we came to blows over it.  To the point where she woke me up at 2 in the morning to inform me that I’d left a light on downstairs.  Because I have this thing about not wanting to break an ankle in the middle of the night.

I swear my grandmother has taken self-deprivation to an art form.  Sure, no one can see, but she can brag about how much money she doesn’t spend.  And ohhh, does she love to talk about the money she doesn’t spend, and make Donald & I feel as horrid as possible for our horrible, wasteful habits in our own home like leaving on lights, and the hot water heater and having the thermostat turned to a reasonable level.  If she ever saw our electric bill, it would kill her.

No, I don’t handle the multiple gaps in generation very well, why do you ask?

*Based on $75/year to run a 75 watt light bulb continuously for a year,  3 bulbs left on for 8 days.  http://www.factsfacts.com/MyHomeRepair/electricbill.htm

In general, I don’t consider Sun City to be a particularly spectacular place, but it does have a couple things going for it.

– Slanted parking spots in most shopping centers.  Much easier to park.

– Toasted Corn Doritos.  (Can’t find these within 50 miles of the DC metro area.  And I’m not sharing.)

– You can buy liquor in the CVS store.  (It still seems weird to me, but I’ll take it.)

Test post – seeing if this does in fact carry over to Facebook, and if so, what it looks like when it gets there.

Well, it imported the last 25 posts, but this one isn’t there – guess it just updates when the feed updates?  We’ll see.

1.  Stay awake very late so that your prisoners are up as well.  Get them sufficiently wound up that they cannot possibly sleep for at least another 2 hours after you go to bed.

2.  Have the thermostat turned way down and provide blankets that aren’t warm enough.  Sleeping while cold is exceptionally difficult if it’s not cold enough to induce death by freezing.

3.  Lull the prisoners into a false sense of quiet by having the radio in the other room at a reasonable level.  Even turn it off after a while.  Then turn it up to the threshold of pain in the middle of the night for fun.

4.  When you do get up, be sure to make as much noise as possible!

5.  Have blackout shades in the prisoner’s room so that they have no sense of time and will not wake when the sun comes up.  That way you can call the neighbors and gossip about how they’re “still not up yet” and act like you’ve been up for several hours when in  fact you’ve only been up for an hour.

Just some handy tips for the next time you want visitors in your house to be running on 3 hours of sleep a night.  Trust me, it works!

Up at the crack of dawn for 8 days of sleep deprivation, malnutrition and emotional waterboarding. Also knows as Christmas in Phoenix with my grandmother.

Oh the joy of travel.

I was convinced that we wouldn’t even survive the cab ride to the airport. Despite SatNav, our driver couldn’t find his way out of the neighborhood to get to the metro. Once we got him on the right route, he developed a lead food and penchant for random lane changing. If that didn’t kill us, I was quite certain we’d die of asphyxiation via cologne.

By some miracle we made ti the airport intact. Got checked in and nicked for $30 to check bags. Got frisked by security for not wearing a skin-tight shirt and then yelled at for attempting to fetch my carry on from the wrong side of the conveyor belt.

On to the gate we were are greeted with the announcement that the flight is oversold. Wonderful job of counting, US Airways!! They needed 4 people to volunteer for another flight. Oh how I wanted to jump up and scream, “Me! Me!!! OH PICK ME!!!!” However, knowing this would not go over well with my grandmother, I stayed silent.

Got on the plane with one infant, two crying toddlers and a barking dog.  (The infant, toddlers & dog are not mine.)  I comment to my seatmate that perhaps this is karma for not volunteering to take another flight.  We take off 30 minutes late because we are a “weight restricted” flight and they had to double check the weight of the plane.  Not even sure what makes a flight “weight restricted”, but it’s nice to know they want to make sure we have enough fuel.

I manage to somehow miss the first call for drinks – the cart was there one second and then 5 rows back – I only blinked.  Oh well – $7 for a Bloody Mary is highway robbery anyway.  I’ve already stolen a pillow that they’ll likely try and charge me $10 for anyway.

I doze back off and wake up again about 2/3 of the way through the flight to discover that my knee has seized up and it hurts like hell.  Two of the three kids are crying and the dog is barking again.  The flight attendants are taking drink orders again and suddenly $7 for a Bloody Mary doesn’t seem so bad.  I dull the knee pain a bit with some Mr & Mrs T’s and Finlandia.  The dog stops barking and the kids settle down and I doze off for the rest of the flight.

Off the plane, get the bags and gimp my way to tthe car rental counter.  Everyone is so cheery and I am decidedly not.  My knee hurts and it’s raining and I’m staring down the barrel of 8 days in God’s Waiting Room Sun City.  I try to be nice, but I don’t think I succeeded.

Finally get to the condo and discover that the compact car isn’t quite as compact as I thought and it barely fits in the garage.  My grandmother is still essentially living in a cold water flat as she refuses to leave the hot water heater on, because who needs hot water on demand anyway?  She also still insists that it only takes 20 minutes to get hot water, which is far short of how long it actually takes.

I pre-emptively vetoed going out for dinner.  My knee still hurts and I have no desire to go head to head with blue haired ladies in Lincoln Town Cars in the rain.  We order in pizza and wings.  I veto potential trips to the bank, as they do not need to occur.  I veto washing the dishes with cold water.  (The hot water heater is still in the ON position as I type.)  I suggest on 3 separate occasions that she should see a doctor and am soundly ignored.  Despite the desert supposedly having a great climate, I cannot breathe because I am allergic to something in this condo.  (I wonder if I should make an appointment now for the sinus infection I’ll have when I get home.)

Oh well.  At least we won’t have to go to the bank multiple times for no reason.

It would seem that the Blair House is booked for the inauguration – except the Obamas aren’t on the reservation list.

Seriously??  How is there not a permanent hold on rooms for the President Elect and the entourage for every election year?  If it’s a year where the incumbent wins, release the rooms the day after the election.  Not that hard!

While the President Elect isn’t the most important person on the planet, for inauguration weekend I really can’t think of a more important guest at the Blair House.  Honestly, I can only think of one other person in the US that could trump the President Elect, and frankly, if that family is involved – it’s kind of a jerk move.

Or, WOW, what a screwup on the part of the Blair House.

Well, there’s always Craigslist for the incoming First Family.  I’d offer up our guest rooms, but the little one’s allergies wouldn’t go well with the Moxley dog.