grendpeppy
last sunday, my grandfather gave me my birthday present and i can hear what you're all on the verge of commenting...
"happy birthday! hooray! you're older! you're 25! you're a quarter of a century!"
no. no i'm not.
my birthday's in august, however my grandfather has a life(as in my life)long tradition of eccentricity. i'm sure the day i was born he went out and bought me a beautiful, top of the line crib... either that or a magazine about penguins.
i personally can't remember that far back.
but i know those are valid predictions, because... well, basically because those are two gifts i would want to give and guess who i inherited my randomness from.
that's right. grandpa.
as a young child, i was shy and inhibited and not quite sure how to deal with an old man who didn't treat me like all the other grown ups in my life did. "grandpa planned" excursions into the unknown made me wary because i never knew whether i'd end up at the zoo watching my safari hatted grandfather communicate with "chico" the monkey and saluting "toka" the elephant (who would in turn salute grandpa with his trunk. it was very weird), or at the local airforce base sitting in an old bomber plane, or on a mountain clinging desperately to the side of a horse i'd been placed atop of five minutes before it slipped in the mud.
side note: clinging to the side of a disagreeable horse in the pouring rain while the rest of your horse riding posse continues on in ignorance is awkward at best. and it really works your quads.
and on grandpa sponsored vacations i never knew if i was going to end up watching "old faithful"- that geyser of fun- go off at regular intervals for 5 hours while eating hershey's bars dipped in peanut butter and learning how to play jacks, or being told to climb over the "do not pass this point" fence and pretending to hang off a cliff for a photo op.
ya, it probably wasn't until my 22nd birthday that i was able to fully appreciate my grandfather's randomness.
the birthday before he had given me a car. a beautiful, white, shiney car with a new car smell and a sunroof. a car which my ex quasi boyfriend hated me for. a car which, during a fancy dinner at log haven, my friends used as proof that i was spoiled (which was a weird conversation in and of itself because it involved 4 twenty-somethings going around the table and saying, "no way, man! you're more spoiled because you didn't have to pay for college!" and "whatever! you always got a huge allowance!" and "nice outfit... did mommy pay for it??" as we ate our duck and lobster and complained about the hardships of our suburban, middle class upbringing... sigh... i miss those days).
but for my 22nd birthday, i was given a pile of old reader's digests and a half used bottle of shampoo and that's when i realized the true potential for randomness i had inside me. planning trips to the taco bell in parawan, giving my dad a monogramming branding iron for father's day, painting a picture of a monkey for my grandmother... those only make me the diet coke of eccentrics.
ah, how far i have to go.
"happy birthday! hooray! you're older! you're 25! you're a quarter of a century!"
no. no i'm not.
my birthday's in august, however my grandfather has a life(as in my life)long tradition of eccentricity. i'm sure the day i was born he went out and bought me a beautiful, top of the line crib... either that or a magazine about penguins.
i personally can't remember that far back.
but i know those are valid predictions, because... well, basically because those are two gifts i would want to give and guess who i inherited my randomness from.
that's right. grandpa.
as a young child, i was shy and inhibited and not quite sure how to deal with an old man who didn't treat me like all the other grown ups in my life did. "grandpa planned" excursions into the unknown made me wary because i never knew whether i'd end up at the zoo watching my safari hatted grandfather communicate with "chico" the monkey and saluting "toka" the elephant (who would in turn salute grandpa with his trunk. it was very weird), or at the local airforce base sitting in an old bomber plane, or on a mountain clinging desperately to the side of a horse i'd been placed atop of five minutes before it slipped in the mud.
side note: clinging to the side of a disagreeable horse in the pouring rain while the rest of your horse riding posse continues on in ignorance is awkward at best. and it really works your quads.
and on grandpa sponsored vacations i never knew if i was going to end up watching "old faithful"- that geyser of fun- go off at regular intervals for 5 hours while eating hershey's bars dipped in peanut butter and learning how to play jacks, or being told to climb over the "do not pass this point" fence and pretending to hang off a cliff for a photo op.
ya, it probably wasn't until my 22nd birthday that i was able to fully appreciate my grandfather's randomness.
the birthday before he had given me a car. a beautiful, white, shiney car with a new car smell and a sunroof. a car which my ex quasi boyfriend hated me for. a car which, during a fancy dinner at log haven, my friends used as proof that i was spoiled (which was a weird conversation in and of itself because it involved 4 twenty-somethings going around the table and saying, "no way, man! you're more spoiled because you didn't have to pay for college!" and "whatever! you always got a huge allowance!" and "nice outfit... did mommy pay for it??" as we ate our duck and lobster and complained about the hardships of our suburban, middle class upbringing... sigh... i miss those days).
but for my 22nd birthday, i was given a pile of old reader's digests and a half used bottle of shampoo and that's when i realized the true potential for randomness i had inside me. planning trips to the taco bell in parawan, giving my dad a monogramming branding iron for father's day, painting a picture of a monkey for my grandmother... those only make me the diet coke of eccentrics.
ah, how far i have to go.
Comments
Don't climb over fences in Yellowstone. Some woman did last week and fell 500 feet to her death.
Old Reader's Digests? Freakin' awesome!
I miss the Log Haven days too. Was I there for that? I remember being at some fancy restaurant in the mountains.
Finally, you drove to Parowan...just for Taco Bell?
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