Dinner and a show at grandma’s house
The Canadians are in town! My grandma is hilarious but when she gets together with her sisters they are a complete riot. They tease each other incessantly with one story after the next. Two of the three of them flew in from Canada for a wedding today.
Left to right: Aunt Therese, Aunt Mary, Grandma Rose, and Aunt Grace.
A few tales from dinner last night for your enjoyment…
1. Auntie Grace heard her cell phone ringing. While frantically searching through her purse she could not find the phone and wondered out loud if she had left it at home.
A story from the town of Bocchigliero, where they were born, portraying the stubbornness of the proud Italian woman:
2. A woman let the grass in her yard grow tall while her husband was away. When he returned he asked how she had been cutting the grass. ‘With scissors,’ she said.
‘You can’t cut the grass with scissors,’ he said. ‘You have to use a scythe. So now tell me how you will cut the grass?’ She answered, ‘With scissors.’
Frustrated, he took her down to the river and threatened to put her in the icy water. Again he asked, ‘How do you cut the grass?’ She again replied, ‘With scissors.’
Getting a bit angry, he moved her part way into the river and asked a third time, ‘Now, how do you cut the grass?’ ‘With scissors,’ she replied defiantly.
To teach her a lesson he put her all the way in the river and held her head under the water. ‘I ask you again woman! How do you cut the grass?!’ She reached her two fingers out of the water and showed him. Snip snip!
Just the other day…
3. Our family decided to make tiny cookies that look like peaches for today’s wedding. Each time the subject came up my grandma complained, ‘Those peach cookies are far too small. The ones I had before were much larger.’
In the car on the way to Grand Junction the subject came up again and once again my grandma said from the front seat, ‘I tell you, I have had those cookies before and they were bigger, the size of real peaches.’ From the back seat Aunt Therese reached her two fingers above her head. Snip snip!
The stories themselves are not the fun part. The real fun is watching them tell the stories. Each has their own part in the silliness. They call each other old bags while always complaining that the other one is telling it wrong. And of course most stories include some sort of criticism of each other’s cooking. (They are all amazing cooks). Next time I really need to bring a video camera to do it any justice at all.
Deb Said,
February 12, 2012 @ 4:47 pm
Karen, I love this blog post on your grandmother’s clan — I can hear the conversation!
P.S. We’re cousins. 🙂
Anonymous Said,
February 12, 2012 @ 4:58 pm
They are such cuties aren’t they?!!
What’s your last name? You can find me on Facebook as Karen Stutesman Ramirez! 🙂