Breakfast was the only pleasant conversation I had with Grandpa today. At around 11 I must have turned from Granddaughter to... I'm still not sure, potential money thief? intruder? Carol wanted to go to the Post Office, and I had a letter to send so I agreed to drive her. While I was waiting for her to get everything she needed together, I decided to fill in the check list for August on their calendar. When Grandpa comes in he wants to know what I'm doing. 'She's helping me do our calendar," says Carol. "Why? It's none of your business," Grandpa snaps at me and puts it back next to the microwave. "Oooook." It becomes clear that Grandpa wants to go to the bank with Carol. It also becomes clear that I'm no longer a part of the picture when he says, "you'll stay here, Punky." "No," I begin calmly, "I need to go to the post office." "Fine," he says, and then a few beats later, "something doesn't smell right". Carol and I exchange confused glances. He says we are going to take "the Ford" I say that's fine and usher Carol towards my Ford Focus before he can get to his car. I ask Grandpa if everything is OK because he seems a little stressed. Is there anything I can do to make him feel better? "You can let me alone."
At the bank I'm not allowed in the actual bank, so I play Blockus in the entry way for about twenty minutes. The rest of our errands are spent with Grandpa wondering what that sound is (the beeping that goes off when the passenger seated person isn't wearing their seat belt) and wondering how long I'm staying here. "Did you ask if you could stay here?" "Yes, and you said I could stay as long as I wanted." "OK, well, whatever." When we get home I go to my room to spend ten minutes in silence. When I come out Grandpa and his car are gone. When he comes back he doesn't leave his room when I'm home.
After I help Carol with figuring out dinner I headed over to Cynthia's house where I was graciously invited. She has two beautiful girls (3 and 1) who are VERY outgoing. After a delicious dinner we went outside to do sidewalk chalk, which was more like her 3 year old daughter handing me and Cynthia chalk and asking us to draw things--"Draw a dolphin. Draw Spongebob. Draw Patrick the size of me!". I was very happy to oblige when the demands were things like coming over to dinner and drawing cartoons. Much better then someone demanding me to go home, stay home or let alone.
To sum up--
Daily sanity level of house: 5 (out of 10)
Erika's daily activity away from house: Dinner at Cynthia's
Daily lesson: Bring a book on errands in case you have down time in a lobby
No comments:
Post a Comment