“When you have a daughter will you name her after me?” My Grammu asked me quite a lot. I don’t know if she bugged anyone else about naming a daughter after her or just me, her eldest granddaughter. Whenever she asked I’d smile uncomfortably, make some noncommittal noises, and change the subject.

For the record, the daughter I never had would have been named Elizabeth, Jessica, Veronica, or Frances depending on the year. Muriel was not a contender.

However, I have a plant named Muriel. She was a condolence plant my employer sent when Grammu died in 2003. For years Muriel thrived. She thrived so well she started to take over the half wall separating my kitchen from the dining room. There are still marks on the wall where I had to pull her vines down.

In 2017, Muriel took a turn. No matter what I did she kept dying. When she was down to two healthy looking leaves I plucked her from the the usual pot and put it in a small jar of water hoping she’d rally.

She’s rallying. There was a setback when I replanted her, but today she’s up to seven leaves. Be impressed by my green thumb!

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Back in the mid-90s during the in between time post-college and pre-real job, I lived with my parents in Shakopee so did my Grammu and Sisters #3 & #4, along with #3’s boyfriend. Sister #2 & Ben, freshly married, lived up the street, literally on the other side of the train tracks. The train tracks ran through the backyard of the house my parents rented.

One thing you should know about my Grammu is that she loved Pall Malls, white wine, and card games. We spent endless hours from childhood on into adulthood playing Rummy 500, Thirteen, and Uno, especially before she died. We got this Uno Attack game and she delighted in calling it an asshole whenever it spit out a bunch of cards at her. We all delighted in it.

Along with these card games, we played a lot of Yahtzee. It was a big ritual. We’d gather around my parents’ dining room table, grabbing extra chairs and TV trays to hold our beverages and ashtrays. We all smoked cigarettes back then, except for Sister #3 and her boyfriend. By the end of the night a thick blue fog would hang above the table.

These endless games of Yahtzee were a bunch of fun, even with Sister #3’s shitty boyfriend cheating all the time. He was a real dirtbag, that one.

We’ve played Yahtzee a few times since the 90s, but those days seemed to be well behind us until August.

One night at family dinner, Sister #3 mentioned how she had become addicted to Yahtzee with Buddies. We all laughed at her new addiction and the conversation moved on. The following Tuesday, Sister #4 was here at Supergenius HQ and we were crawling the walls. It was the day my dad was getting results of his PET scan. They had found a spot on his lung when he was in the hospital in June with pneumonia.

When Dad went back in a month or so later for a checkup, his primary care doctor didn’t think much of it since the spot didn’t grow. The scheduled a biopsy just to be sure. When they didn’t give him the biopsy results over the phone and instead scheduled him for a PET scan, Sister #2, the former hospital social worker, became Dr. Doom, PhD. Her anxiety was infectious. As soon as I heard the words “PET scan” all I could think of was that scene in The Fault in Our Stars when Gus tells Hazel that his cancer has returned “I lit up like a Christmas tree, Hazel Grace. The lining of my chest, my left hip, my liver, everywhere.”

That line echoed inside of me every time Sister #2 talked about lung cancer and how that spot had probably metastasized from some other place in his body. She was hoping for the kidneys, though she said it is often the brain. All those years working as a hospital social worker plus her anxiety-driven googling were not helping things.

She was so worried about the results she made Sister #4 come home from Fargo, and that’s why we were crawling the walls of my house waiting on a Tuesday afternoon with nothing to do but wait to hear about the results after Dad’s 4 p.m. appointment.

Enter the random line from Sister #3, “I’m addicted to Yahtzee with Buddies.”

Sister #4 and I installed it on our phones and played for the next two hours until it was time to go to Mom & Dad’s for the news. As soon as we walked into the house I told Sister #3 that we were playing.

“And you bitches haven’t added me yet?” She asked.
“Are we going to have to get this?” Sister #2 asked.
“YES!” Sister #3 said. “And add me first.”

For about a month, my sisters, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew have been playing nonstop. Last week, in the Sister Club group text message where Sister #2 live-texted Dad’s meeting with the oncologist (she was on the phone with them from Portland), she implored all of us to take our turns in Yahtzee.

Saturday at Rock & Roll Bookclub I confessed my Yahtzee addiction to my friends. Now BFK & Atom are playing on the reg. This all delights me the way Uno Attack delighted my Grammu. It reminds me of my family and helps with the anxiety over Dad’s uncertain future.

For the record: The cancer had not metastasized from his brain or his kidneys. It seems to be just in that one area on his lung. Though there were two other bright spots on the PET scan (hardly a Christmas tree) — one around his jaw by his ear and one in the lymph nodes in his chest — so far those biopsies have come back negative, but of course they’re doing more testing to be sure.

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As I type it is 1:49 p.m. on Sunday and I am writing the traditional Sunday+Boring post because I am the very picture of modern productivity thus far today. This is made all the more stunning by the fact that I did not get out of bed until 8:50 due to a very late bedtime. So far today I have:

• Watched “Meet the Press” and fallen under the hypnotizing spell of Bobby Jindal’s goofy part.
• Made a giant brunch involving hashbrowns and bacon and eggs.
• Ate that giant brunch while watching episode 5 of “Firefly.”
• Made a batch of cookies so beautiful I am shocked they came out of my oven.
• Written a piece for Book Riot.

Soon I will take a bath.

Speaking of those beautiful cookies pictured here, I am a little bit amazed by their beauty. I hate baking. Baking, I like to say, is for chumps. Baking is precision and not over mixing and hoping the chemistry all works out and woe be to thee who forget to add the baking soda. Cooking is where it’s at. Cooking is experimentation and a dash of this and a pinch of that and I can totally leave out the dishsoap-tasting cilantro and it will still be okay.

I like these cookies for more than their beauty. I like them because they remind me of my Grammu and how I have become a woman, just like she was, who has the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies just hanging out in the cupboard should the need to make cookies arise. This astounded me as I added eggs into my beautiful Persimmon-colored mixer. I grew up in the kind of house where stocked cupboards filled with ingredients was rare. Our meals were bagged or boxed or bologna and usually decided on a case-by-case basis. Going to Grammu’s and seeing a cupboard filled solely with ingredients used to make cookies or cakes was the kind of decadence my brain could barely understand. She had bags of chocolate chips just sitting there. It always boggled my mind. Now, I am that kind of person. Obviously, the richest queen in all the land.

Also, I would like to point out that the Angry Hermit Season is coming to an end. I can tell because in the last seven days I’v left Supergenius HQ on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Saturday and I will leave again today to attend the Family Dinner.

Also, I would like to point out that I’m spending a lot of time writing fiction lately and it makes me feel really good about myself.

Also, I would like to point out that I am kind of hungry which is shocking considering the massive amount of brunch I ate this morning.

Also, I would like to point out that even though I drank very much wine last night I did not wake up hungover at all not even the eensiest bit which shocks me muchly because the last time I drank very much I spent the next 36 hours in a chair praying for French fries and death.

Also, I would like to point out that I am out of things to point out.

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She immediately tried it on, while thanking me profusely. She had been longing for the Kleenex sweater thing for quite some time.

“What do you think?” she asked.
“It seems thin,” I said. I come from the 90s where sweaters had bulk and fuzz and often looked like they’d spent a past life as furniture upholstery. Plus, my clothes that cost $34 have enough material to cover municipal buildings in a sort of Christo-like display.
“It’s for spring,” she said, shaking her head at me. For spring. I have a niece with seasonal clothing. I usually observe the changing of the seasons by adding/subtracting the hoodie and socks.

I have absolutely no idea if spending $34 on a sweater for a teenager is ridiculous or not. Why? Because I have turned into my Grammu. Most women turn into their mothers. But my mom is spoken for. Sister #2 has been turning into her for years. She often proclaims after doing something particularly Momish like mispronouncing something, “I can’t help it. I’m mom.”

So that leaves Grammu.

I first acknowledged it over Christmas. I was lamenting the price of something, probably the Super Mario chess set I got Cade.

“Everything’s just so expensive,” I told Sister #2. “I just keep thinking everything should be like $10.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I was hit by the realization. My Grammu, who lived with my parents for most of the 90s up until she moved into a nursing home the year before she died, used to think everything was 50 cents. Always. Year after year, 50 cents. Can of pop? 50 cents. Candy bar? 50 cents. Filet O’Fish? 50 cents. Grammu loved that McDonald’s fish sandwich with extra tartar sauce. On Sundays when I’d go over to my parents’ to wash clothes, she’d send me off to McDonald’s waving a dollar at me to pay for lunch.

But it’s more than having no idea how much stuff costs and loving McDonald’s Filet O’Fish. While I haven’t gotten to the point where I save half-full, opened cans of Coke in the fridge for later, I do always make sure there’s orange juice in the fridge and chocolate chips in the cupboard.

When we were kids we were always amazed that Grammu had bags of chocolate chips in the cupboard. It seemed so decadent.

But the thing that reminds me the most about turning into Grammu is the allegiance to a late night talk show host. My Grammu was a devoted fan of Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show. She would watch it every single night when she got home from work. She watched it until Johnny retired, and though she’d pay attention once Jay Leno took over she never enjoyed it as much.

Now, every night when I tune into Conan and laugh like a goon I think of her, and think how smart she was to end the day with laughter.

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When I was a little girl, before the first grade my parents, Sister #2, and I lived in a mobile home in Blaine. It didn’t have a basement, obviously. My mom picked up Grammu’s fear of thunder storms and her habit of packing us up and heading over my Aunt Eileen’s, who had a basement.

For me thunder storms were anxiety-filled affairs which usually ended in a harried trip away from home. By the time we moved into a house with a basement my phobia was so ingrained that any sound of the Severe Weather System would send me straight to the basement, flashlight and transistor radio in hand, and my three little sisters not far behind me.

Today has been a weathery day here in the Twin Cities. The clouds were so thick and so dark that I had to turn the lights on at like 9:30 this morning, much to the delight and dismay of the Tibbles. One clap of thunder sent Cade, who is six now, scurrying to my lap asking me about where would go in a tornado, what we would do if it flooded. The second clap had him asking me to turn the TV on so we could watch the weather.

I’ve always been a little in awe about how this phobia has traveled from generation to generation, and today I felt a little guilty. I thought about telling Cade the counting trick that I learned from watching the movie Poltergeist, and that helped me cope through most of my adolescence. But there wasn’t enough lightning to explain it properly.

Right now, however, as I type? I am totally counting the time between thunderclap and lightning strike.

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