Oma

I startd this yesterday..

I decided that today I should do my grandaughterly duty and visit my Oma. Crazy, dutch, and obsessively religious. I'm constantly feeling guilty about the fact that I don't visit her regularly enough, so try to kind of comensate by only visiting her infrequently, but coming bearing gifts when I do. Which I think makes us both happier. Don't get me wrong, I do love my grandmother, but it's difficult to find time, and she can be painful.

I don't think I ever had an actual conversation with her when I was younger. We would go to visit. And it would be the standard "hello darling. kisshug. go say hello to your opa" (because I wouldnt have done that anyway?) and that was kind of it. Then about 4 years ago my Opa got really sick with cancer and was in and out of hospital and all of a sudden I was seeing my grandparents every day practically, and Oma and I were sitting in a hospital room on our own one of those crazy days and I was like "..............................................i like your ring?" and we had a conversation for the first time ever. After Opa died Anna and I used to go out and stay at her place in the holidays, it worked two-fold in that we could help around the house and cook dinner and then we also had something to do for the holidays because my cousins lived next door. Those weeks are just a blur of memories of musty smells, benny hinn, making documentaries, mashing potato's with sauerkraut and boiled sausages. and praying the rosary three times a day. shudder to the last bit. at the end of one of those stays we counted that we had said 1,113 'hail mary's', 126 our fathers, 147 glory be's and done the sign of the cross 252 times. in one single week. Yeah I'm not some freak who remembers numbers, I had to work it out again, but they sound the same.

Anyway, she lives in an elderly hostel now so I visit infrequently, visit's which are usually full of "your daddy.." "your daddy.." "your daddy.." "bridget is due in december, rebecca will probably be pregnant again soon, erica is due in november, janni phoned yesterday" "your daddy" "do you go to church on sunday?"

Yesterday's visit was prompted by a trip to sydney last week, to see the Rocky Horror Picture show, cos it was on in production and Anna and I both love it. Anyone living in Australia and not living in a vacuum in Australia, would probably know that last week was 'World Youth Day' where pretty much a serious fuckload of catholics all gathered together to jointly cream at the pope (and his evil star wars eyes) giving a huge mass, and lecturing them probably. I dont know. I'm sure it was lots of fun and very enlightening, Guy Sebastian attended so it must've been a blast. Which meant sydney was covered in 'pilgrims', many wearing 'i heart jesus' shirts, which was kind of hilarious. But also a buttload of souvenir shops and stuff. Eventually I determined that World Youth Day would be more appropriately named 'convention for selling hugely overpriced useless items with pictures of the pope on them' Nonetheless I decided I should get Oma something as she is the pope's #1 groupie, so I bought a coin with a picture of the pope on it and a World Youth Day newspaper so she would have something to read and then some double salted licorice from one of the lolly shops in the city, cos you can't get it here.
Yeah, the dutch put salt on their licorice, what the hell?
I got some for my dad as well cos Anna was all aw liv dad likes this stuff too! you should get him some too! and after tossing up the optional answers (fuck that, he's a cunt. and *fake smile* good idea, choose some out for him) I opted for not being a fucker to my sister, and when I gave it to him it was all:
"yeah I got you some licorice in sydney"
*examines* "is it salted?"
"yup"
"thanks"
Nobody in my family seems to see the bizaarity (if thats a word) of questioning the saltyness of licorice, but it always makes me internally giggle.

So I gave Oma her stuff, she was all happy which made her more pleasant toward's my "err, nah I can't make it to church cos I have to work on Sunday's" probably because I kind of let her believe that we went down to Sydney to see the Pope. I didn't directly lie to her, I just kept yapping on about WYD and let her assume. Then she made me write my name in this little diary, that she uses to record who comes and visits her. And I was all ...THEFUCK?!? (in my mind, not to my borderline 90 grandmother) because that's just weird. I flipped through it and it goes right back to the start of the year and there is no actual diary entries just "jacinta visit" "annemiek phoned" "katie visit" I guess it's kind of a santa list, maybe those who don't visit enough don't receive their christmas scratchies. Or maybe she uses it to brag to the other residents about how we all visit her. Weird.

When I got home I was all, "err Anna..we totally went to Sydney to see that old religious guy if Oma asks.." "..benny hinn?" "no" "jesus?" "shut up! the pope!" "mm it's ok I see her like, less regularly then you" "Anna that's terrible you actually live down at Dad's some of the time! The way she talks you'd think he was living there with her" "yeah she always goes on about how good he is though, he takes her to church and visits her sometimes" "what so you just stay at home" "well all she does it tell me to put clothes on and pray!"
Which is kind of funny because 1. I know it's probably true and 2. Anna is one of the least promiscuous people I know, she's like too tomboy and she evidently hasn't hit the skank era yet

After I'd finished my visiting Oma I was sent off with a healthy serving of guilt and realised I had time to kill (ok so I totally planned on having time to kill) and walked over to Joey's to suprise him. It was totally cool cos we'd been texting and I was all "yeah Im just at home doing my society and culture" and then when I was right at his house I was all "..if you could have one wish right now what would it be" and he was predictably sweet (yes! my plan works!) and was all "to be with you" and so I was all *knocks on door* "wish granted!" which is probably incredibly lame, but whatever, it was fun!

Anyway, I best be off. fare thee well x