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    GRANDPARENTS (Volume 2) : It Don't Come Easy
    GRANDPARENTS (Volume 2) : It Don't Come Easy
    GRANDPARENTS (Volume 2) : It Don't Come Easy
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    GRANDPARENTS (Volume 2) : It Don't Come Easy

    By j.i.m. lord

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Edition #2 of the GRANDPARENTS saga... More tales of those stranded in Lordland...four generations worth. Get
    acquainted, or reacquainted, with the Lords: Jim, Fran, Kate, Bub, Bob, Sis, Marilyn, Smokie, Phat Man, E.T., and
    Tim & Tam (the two-headed turtle.)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateJun 16, 2014
    ISBN9781483531175
    GRANDPARENTS (Volume 2) : It Don't Come Easy
    Author

    j.i.m. lord

    J.I.M. Lord is the father of three and grandfather of three, of which the three grandkids have been adopted by Jim and his wife Emily after the death of their daughter. Jim & family live in Oklahoma and are on a first-name-basis with the ins and outs of food stamps, WIC, government housing, and the struggles to make ends meet by frequenting garage sales and re-selling those "gems" on Ebay...thus the lead character's name in "Finding My Way Back Home:"  JOBE!  Look for Jim's novels "Grandparents: Purpose" & "Grandparents: It Don't Come Easy" , memoirs of life in the "starting over" lane of parenting grandkids!

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      GRANDPARENTS (Volume 2) - j.i.m. lord

      CARLIE

      1

      January 2014

      Well, we know how we got here, now what?

      To refresh your memory, we adopted the three grandkids a few years ago, and by the time you read this, if anybody happens to take such an initiative, the kids will be 12, 9, and 6. Kate, our youngest, and only living child, will be 19. Then there is Marilyn, my 80 year old mother. My wife of all these years is Fran. My name is J.I.M. You can call me Jim. Is this house getting smaller or is it just me?

      I could hear them in there, Sis and Marilyn, back there in the boys’ old bedroom. I walked back that way and sneaked a peek. Marilyn continued to yell, Stop, stop!

      And there they were, with Marilyn in her wheelchair and Sis behind her spinning the chair for all she was worth. I had to compose myself before deciding to go in there or not. Funny thing about it, Sis had this look on her face. Couldn’t explain it, then it became all-too clear. You gonna stop being so mean to my Papa?

      "I’m not mean to your Papa, now stop spinning me!" Sis stopped. She let go of Marilyn’s chair and left the room.

      Sis saw me in the hallway, and I could swear that five year old kid winked at me as she passed by. I was right behind her. I wasn’t in the mood to hear Marilyn go off, again, in reference to how out of control the grandkids are.

      Marilyn isn’t really mean to us, but when she does get into one of her moods, we all kind of just blow it off to her age and the frustration she’s feeling. Frustration, as in how she’s not allowed to go to the casinos anymore. This, and for another simple fact that we’ve got her down to five cigarettes a day. And believe me, she is real careful about how she picks and chooses her spots. Sometimes she’ll choose to smoke all five at once. I suppose there’s some kind of vindictiveness in her actions when she smokes all five at once. Other times, she’ll ask for one, then a minute later ask for a second one. Fine, but I am keeping count.

      The other day, an old high school friend of Marilyn’s stopped by for a visit. Funny thing, her friend, I’ll call her Gloria, insisted on not getting out of her car, but instead asked if Marilyn could sit in the car with her. She said something about having the gout. Okay, but I didn’t just fall off the stupid wagon, so I watched them from the garage door window. Please don’t let anybody ever tell you two old ladies can’t be sneaky when the itch strikes them. Very sneaky, but not as sneaky as me.

      I saw everything. Marilyn smoked four cigarettes in about twenty minutes. Then, between smokes, I saw her take a bottle of pills from Gloria and stash them in her pajama pocket. Okay, I had to stand on a five gallon bucket to actually see through the window... but I did see it... with my own two (very feeble) eyes. Then it struck me, this is how she was getting pills when she was at the hospital, then later at the nursing home. It’s all pretty clear to me now. And guess who her main visitor was at both rehab facilities? Good guess. Yep, ol’ Gloria, the friend since childhood.

      I heard Gloria honk the horn. I went out and helped my mother back inside, and then into her room.

      I bided my time, even asked her how the visit went, etc., then waited for her to fall asleep. While she was asleep, I checked her shirt (pajamas) pocket. Nothing. Hmm. I knew she couldn’t have gotten very far, her stash has to be in here somewhere. I found it, among other things, in about a minute. Between the mattress and boxspring.

      Insert wake up call here. Yes, what I found beneath that mattress would have made swoon any black marketeer going. Let me see, where to start? Well, to begin with, there were four packs of cigarettes, seven bottles of various sundries (read uppers, downers, and in- betweeners.) I had to force myself not to flip out. And, yes, she can sleep through a tornado, so I wasn’t worried about waking her. Even more startling was the fact that she had actually ripped a hole through the box spring and was apparently storing up for a nuclear winter. I dunno, but that assumption seems reasonable.

      It took me a few days to fully comprehend what I had discovered beneath that woman’s mattress. And I thought I was sneaky as a kid with what I used to hide beneath my mattress. And no, I won’t get into that little confession right at this time, except to say, no, it wasn’t dirty magazines. I think.

      I told Fran and she laughed. Fran gave her credit. My wife just wanted to know one thing: Did I find matches or a lighter? I did not. Thankfully, or Fran would have flipped. She’s very, very careful about matches and lighters.

      So, continuing, I was pretty upset thinking how Gloria had been playing me for the fool these past few years. Among other items, I found four tubes of the infamous Preparation H (my god, she’s hoarding Prep H); three candy bars left over from last Halloween, and I bet two full boxes of Kleenex (sans the boxes)...oh, there’s more. I had to reach way into that box spring combo: supermarket slash pharmacy, and I just kept finding stuff. Lemmee see: in no particular order: silverware, not the plastic kind; Tylenol, two tubes of baby-type Vaseline (she must have swiped these when Sis was still in diapers); three tubes of Orajel (I’ll give her this one, she did have bad teeth for the longest time, til I hooked her up with our dentist); four little packages of Chapstick (unopened); assorted cheese crackers, one can of mixed nuts...well, you get the idea. Oh, and another item: a pint of Apricot Brandy, half-empty. Okay, my mom is a closet drinker, but I can live with it, as long as she isn’t asking me if she can drive the pickup. (Update: Just now, 5/16/14, she asked to drive the pickup... My head is spinning. She wants to drive up home for Memorial Day!! This, after 3 strokes, breast cancer, lung cancer, etc. I said no.)

      There had to be, approximately, fifteen to twenty more items in that boxspring, so I imagine you’re thinking right now: So, what’d you do with all that stuff? Simple. I put it all back, even the pills. The med bottles were all full, right to the top, so I assumed, probably correctly I might add, that she can’t get the childproof/adult proof caps off them...and she knows better’n to ask one of the kids to pop a top, so the pills stayed. It just makes me mad... hell, those pills she was mixing back at the nursing home could have killed her.....and I don’t dare say anything to Gloria. Nope, if I did, those two might come up with some new scheme that really could harm Marilyn. But, I just can’t forget those times she was hauled off to the hospital after she’d mixed herself those little medication cocktails over at the Home. You tell me, am I wrong for not jumping Marilyn and Gloria for their scheming ways?

      2

      Reeling in the years.

      If you read the first installment of Grandparents: Purpose, you are probably well-acquainted with the Lord family circumstances. One living daughter; three grandkids; one mother; and Fran and me, with one of us having just reached the ripe old age of 60, and all of us living beneath one roof. (Haven’t we covered these particulars?) If anyone cares out there, we’re doing o.k., but it don’t come easy...least the financial portion of the equation. But, I am getting PPD, and Fran still loves her job over at the Salvation Army... and, great news, Kate found her very first nursing job! You see what an education can do for you, and this is just the beginning!Heck, you’re only eighteen and you’re already making fourteen bucks an hour. I mean, when I was your age, (Brother, here it comes) I was making a buck twenty five cleaning out the meat market in a Mom and Pop grocery store, up home!

      Kate got a job sitting with a few older folks, at their houses. It’s great for doing

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