remembering love.

day 12 of the challenge:  who i miss?

i am going to divide this into two parts. cool?

i was thinking about this last night and immediately thought of my grandparents.  my dads mom passed away before i was born, and his dad, my granddaddy, died when i was sixteen.

my, mam mam, my mom's mom died when i was five and my mom's dad had passed away before i was born.

i remember my mom always telling me growing up when she would buy me one to many toys for christmas or i would get that thing that i really didn't need and was perhaps a brat....to finally break her down and get my way, that she felt like she had to make up for me not having grandmother.  which she totally didn't and she knew that, as well as i - i think she was sad that growing up i never got to experience days at my grandmothers house or getting spoiled by grandparents.  i never knew what that was like.

i missed that.  i miss it.

but i remember:

combing my mam mam's long long hair when i was little.  it was so long and so pretty and then my mom would plat it and she would put it on top of her head.  i remember thinking she was beautiful.  i never knew her not at a nursing home and then she made her home with us until she passed away at when i was five years old.

i have vivid memories of walking with her, holding her hand, running ahead to get her a wildflower, and then grabbing her hand again and we would walk.  up and down the long driveway in front of my parents house.

i don't remember her voice.
i don't remember her smile.
but, i remember her.

i hardly ever think about her.  she is such a distant memory, but writing this, i have a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes thinking about her.

her hand in mine as we would walk the hill over and over again.

my granddaddy, my dads dad.  he lived just across the road from us my whole life until he passed away when i was sixteen.
i remember his voice.
i remember how his hands felt in mine.  course, rough and hard, he was a farmer and worked so hard.
i remember his smell.
i remember the khaki pants that he wore every day.
i remember taking him to his girlfriends house on sundays and then picking him up sunday night.
i remember his girlfriend, minnie, giving me a plastic candy cane full of christmas candy every christmas and every christmas she spelt my name wrong.
i remember granddaddy telling us every thursday night when we had him over for his favorite dinner, fried chicken, green beans and mashed potatoes, that we made the best fried chicken.
i remember picking that fried chicken up from KFC every thursday.
i remember we never told him any different.
i remember him.
i remember watching him on the tractor.

my prayer is that our children will be blessed enough to know their grandparents.  to really know them, that when they are my age that their memories are a little more clear because they had more time with them.
because they made more memories with them.
i want them to know their smell.
i want them to know their touch.
i want them to know their voice.

i want them to know their history.

madonna, ralphie and biscuits.

the weekend in four words. {then i'm going to expound because i never wanna be blamed for getting right to the point of a story.  you are welcome.}
-ohio
-KFC
-madonna
-a christmas story

OHIO:
we've never been to ohio together. yes, madonna was playing closer and what would seem cooler places but ohio was needing to be visited by the dukes and we would be able to meet my friend, lisa.  so we packed up the car, kissed the dog and set out on our merry way. cleveland, ohio was our destination.

madonna does cleveland. 

apparently, brad and jessica do too.
holla. 

the only problem with ohio is kentucky. you have to go THROUGH kentucky to get to cleveland (no offense, nicole and brian). what's worse, is when you feel like you should be loyal and local to the given state you are in and heck, eat their chicken.  sure, it's a chain. but if your there might as well belly up to the KFC bar.  mostly gag, sure.  but we were just trying to be kentucky. 

KFC:
they were out of biscuits.
if you are KFC one thing you better not run out of is biscuits. we originally went in to stretch our legs, you know exercise on our way into the fried chicken.  well, after waiting ten minutes in no line, we decide the drive thru would be quicker.

when i'm wrong i say i'm wrong.
wrong!
since we were in the drive through they said we could just pull around and wait 15 short minutes until the were ready.
we declined.
didn't need the carbs or the biscuits.
brad ordered some sweet dessert thing though.
they were still frozen and unavailable BUT since they were out of biscuits, they gave us extra chicken (protein, good. biscuits, bad...) and offered two other sweet things IF we could just pull up for two minutes because they had to cook those.
well...
after laughing and waiting for forever. we went inside...

to get refills. 

and then napkins. 

and then asked about our promised sweet snack.
they didn't have those. they forgot.
BUT they did have biscuits.
they gave us four. 
be still our carb eatin' heart.
but didn't know how to refund our money from the sweet snacks that were promised but still forzen and forgotten.
and after an hour of pure is this really happening a refund was the least of our worries.
keep the money. hire a manager. 
while I was waiting to ask about our sweet snack there were four other people in line complaining that their food was wrong. one lady had a bowl of gravy. no potatoes. girlfriend was not happy. she musta needed those carbs.
it was so horrible, it was awesome. and we swore on the way home that we would gas up in ohio and skip kentucky. except we made a wrong turn on the way home in kentucky. 

MADONNA:
girlfriend does not disappoint. right?
wrong.
her CD on repeat on the way there (especially through kentucky!) and back was much better than the show.  but it was madonna, she is fifty four and way in shape, and can dance real good and is real flexible thanks to all that yoga she does with gweneth.
note to madonna:  if you are madonna just sing your old stuff.  no need to be new and current.  embrace those old songs and stick to those.  we don't need new music.  nope, sure don't.  promise.

THE CHRISTMAS STORY HOUSE:

to be continued...