Coffeebration

So after much controversy over how to spell our great-grandmother’s name, Julie ended up being correct. I verified this by calling my grandmother again today and she admitted that after talking to Jean, her sister-in law, Julie’s grandmother, that her name is spelled DOROTHA. The process of finding the truth to the spelling of her name has been quite tiring.

After Julie told me that it was spelled DOROTHA, I called my mom to get her take on the spelling. She first told me it was spelled “DOROTHEA”, then it was just “DORTHA”, then “DOROTHA”, and then there is “DORTHEA”. So basically she just made up every spelling she could think of and rambled on about a few things until my dad stole the phone from her to give me the news that the cats had fleas. This of course is horrible news and so I got situated with my bottle of diet pepsi and just listened. My dad is just a little bit insane. He hates sick people and follows them around with a bottle of lysol. He once yelled at our neighbor for having a bird-feeder with an ounce of stagnant water in it, and claimed that it was going to attract mosquitoes and give him the West Nile virus. A few years ago he was bitten by a tick and probably still thinks he has lyme disease. The list goes on and on. He is very paranoid so you can see where I get it from. I like to think that I am nowhere near as extreme as he is and I will hopefully never be that way. At least I know what genetics has in store for me. This is the second year in a row that the cats have gotten fleas, and nobody was really prepared for it last year since our oldest cat of the three is going on 12 years old and none of them have EVER had fleas before. So last year my dad nearly had a nervous breakdown because of the fleas. The dad who never calls me up on the phone unless he has a question or needs something, called me out of the blue, nearly in tears because he had lost his mind and had nowhere to turn to. He’d borrowed a pair of my grandmother’s pantyhose and was wearing them 24/7 because he claimed fleas were jumping on him all day. He bought industrial strength flea powder and spray from the agriculture store, and he had vaccumed the house 15 times, top to bottom, leaving no corner unvaccumed! My mother was not being emotionally supportive of his flea crisis because she ignores problems and said she didn’t care because she couldn’t see or feel any fleas on her. So she was just ignoring him. My parents are complete opposites. My dad thinks every little thing is the end of the world, whereas the world could literally be ending and my mom would still be watching her soap-operas, writing with her glitter pens, and happily drinking her happy little drink. My mother is a whole other story though. Still, even though I think they are the most neurotic people in the world, I still love them. Anyways, my dad seems a little bit more optimistic this year. I guess because he knows what to do this time around and isn’t wasting time on flea products that don’t work. They flea-bombed the house this morning, went shopping, came home and let the cats back in the house, gave the cats flea-dip baths and are now just hoping for the best.

So back to great-grandma. Her birthday is on September 8th and being the wonderful great-grandaughter I am, I am going to send her a birthday card, with this photo …. ya know just in case she forgets who I am. She is going to be 103 afterall. This is a picture of my great-grandma posing with her grandaughter (my mother), my brother, and ME! This was taken on Christmas 2004 and since I promised her I’d send her a picture and never did, I figured I better get on the ball. You know, Christmas 2005 is right around the corner. Time does fly, doesn’t it?

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 at 6:45 pm and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.