Being Grandma
February 28, 2001 I was in California, in Solvang, at a pizza place with my stepson and his 10-year-old son Kyle. The California mystique had put me in diet mode, and I ordered, fatefully, a salad. “Could I get that with some chicken?” “We just have the barbecued chicken we put on top of the pizzas.” “That’s okay, just give me some of that.” Gradually I began to decline. That is to say, at 11 o’clock when I left their house, I was ready to explode. I drove from motel to motel—there was no place in anybody’s inn. “Please just let me come in and throw up!” Finally, I found a place big enough to still have rooms, I called my kids in LA the next day. “I can’t come, I’m too sick.” It was Sunday and my stepson brought me two Cokes and two 7-Ups. I had given all my change to my grandson for video games. The next day found me still too sick, too weak to make it to the lobby to get change. I nursed my last Coke. I called my LA gang—I needed one more night. My stepson was at work, no one to take