this whole kitchen thing (still going well, by the way--they have roughed in the plumbing, put up the beam that's supporting the house, and started putting down the floor) has gotten in the way of the story of the trip to grandma's!

i took karl down to georgia this weekend to meet grandma and the other georgia relatives. actually not all of them, because i do have an aunt and uncle and cousins from my dad's side who live in savannah and own a seafood restaurant (uncle bobby's post-delta pilot career). but all the georgia relatives from my mom's side. which includes my grandma, uncle bill (mom's youngest brother), uncle pat (really mom's cousin, but raised as a brother to her from about age 8 after his mother died), pat's wife brenda, and their kids jenny and josh. jenny is a year younger than me, and josh is 9 years younger than me.

uncle bill (quoted in this article) owns and runs the bike shop he inherited from my granddad, who founded it. it's him and his ex-girlfriend, and 2 cats (down from a high of 17). mostly, it seems to be more of a social hangout than a bike shop, though you do see the occasional person buying toe clips or something. at one point there was a "social club" run out of the shop, but some insurance guy told him he'd best shut it down, since he didn't carry insurance for sponsored rides and such. some say it still goes on, underground. the legend of the lone wolf.

anyway, uncle bill has a standard uniform of a hawaiian print shirt, shorts (jeans in winter), and birks (clogs in winter). his hair is always in a ratty ponytail, which he pins up while at work. he's colorblind, which is his reason for the hawaiian shirts: they go with everything. he's recently bought a property down in florida that he calls the Y2K ranch and spa. i've never seen it, but from what i hear it's a bit of jungle with a bit of shoreline on the river. he doesn't have a house built yet, so when he's down there he stays in his van, which he parks next to a "porch" he's built. he also has a picnic table and a hammock chair. as a kid he grew pot in the backyard until my granddad caught him. before taking over at the bike shop, he taught math to kids with learning difficulties. in the summer, he paints his toenails, though he doesn't know what color. he's never been married, though always seems to have a girlfriend. the ex who works with him at the shop lasted the longest: 7 years. they finally broke up when she realized that he was never actually going to marry her. she since married a jewish guy, converted, and had two kids, who spend lots of time in the shop. uncle bill is an individual, and my favorite uncle. even though he voted for bush.

uncle pat is a funnyman. he is also a staunch republican, in that conservative, southern baptist kind of way. his kids are well brought up, call their elders ma'am or sir, go to church, behave themselves, and also vote republican. josh even plays golf. if they didn't also take in stray cats, mow grandma's grass, and make everyone laugh, i might have to spend less time with them. josh's favorite food is "orange potato casserole" (sweet potatoes), made by our grandma. jenny is about to have her divorce finalized. she married him, her college sweetheart, 5 years ago. a couple months ago, he met her at the airport when she was returning from a business trip and gave her a card with a lawyer's phone number on it, instructing her to call him. she didn't know what was up til the next day when he said something about divvying up the stuff. she went to her parents' house, and he changed the locks on her. grandma says he was never right.

grandma. she's 81, but looks younger than the 71 year-old mother of a friend of mine. she walks for 30 minutes 5x/week with a friend of hers, in the park in the summer and at the mall in the winter. her car, a decidedly old lady car, is 6 years old and has less than 30K miles on it. mostly, she just drives it to church and the grocery store. church is a 10 minute walk. she is active there: she works in the library, serves on a "bereavement team" that makes meals for members who've recently lost a family member, and goes on trips (to new england to see the fall foliage, to the outlet malls, to wherever) with the other church widows. while we were down there, a friend of hers overdosed on medication (purposefully) and was unconscious in the hospital. she was always on the phone getting or giving news updates on miz martin's condition. grandma always cooks too much food. but it is good, because she makes as much as she can with bacon fat. for dinner with the family, we had pork, string beans, butter beans, cornbread, rolls, corn, squash casserole, sweet potato casserole, and carrot casserole. for dessert this trip, which was typical, she had homemade chocolate chip peanut cookies, homemade apple and pecan pies, two kinds of ice cream, and cake. grandma's layer cakes are famous (infamous, really) for having surprise toothpicks in them. she puts them in to keep the layers together, which is dangerous for the eaters, unless they've been appropriately warned.

grandma drives slowly, and too cautiously. she slows down whenever traffic passes her on multi-lane roads (often) and even when traffic pulls out from a junction on the other side of the road, into the other lane. then again, i bet she's never gotten a ticket. she drove us to warm springs, ga, to see the little white house, where FDR had a second home, and where he came often during his presidency to swim in the spring-filled pools to relieve his polio-stricken legs. the house is basically the way he left it when he died, and the museum is newly redone and very interesting. i'd been there before, but was particularly struck on this visit of the differences between FDR, a very good president, and a good man, and george bush, a man who claims he's a good president and a good man, but who's really just looking out for number 1.

so karl met the family, for the first time. their strong southern accents made his strong northern english accent stand out even more. but they all understood each other, except when grandma referred to a "pulley bone" and karl had no idea what she was talking about. to be fair, it was a first for me, too. (it's a chicken breast, cut in half horizontally rather than vertically, leaving the wishbone, if you get me).

i had had visions of uncle pat making fun of karl's accent (he does go to far, sometimes), but ne'er fear, he behaved himself, and even gave us all a lovely driving tour of columbus, complete with interesting historical and up-to-date commentary on buildings, neighborhoods, and people. we saw bibb city, old mills, antebellum houses, projects, the river, and TSYS, where all your credit cards come from, go to, are processed, etc. both pat and jenny work there. (jenny describes her job as "the action behind the transaction: what happens between the time you swipe your card and you get your statement").

so karl has finally met the family. i think this was adequate preparation for meeting the WHOLE family in 2006 at the next reunion.