Dancing and dessert

My grandmother, the one I didn't like, the one who didn't like me and told me at four years old,"you know, I really don't like children." That comment set the tone for our relationship and we never recovered from it. Even when she had had a stroke and the only word she could say was "rocker" she still could express her antipathy towards me with the one word she had at her disposal. As a child I never liked going to visit Grandma Bitchdikson (her last name was a Norwegian name that just begged to be modified into a name that more suited her poisonous personality). Sure we got to go into San Francisco and there was usually a fancy lunch someplace where I got to drink Shirley Temples and order lamb chops and chocolate mousse---but Grandma Bitchdickson would be there.

On rare occasions I would be left home alone at Bitchdikson's house and there were two places I would go when such a time came. First I would go into the strange telephone room/pantry. This room, was dark and totally unlit, held canned goods, an old phone with a noxious ring, piles upon piles of notepads from Milbrae Realtors who tried to talk the old battle-ax into selling her home, and a jar filled with fun sized Milky Way bars. I would fill my pockets with the bars and open one immediately and then I would go into my grandmother's dressing room. Bitchdickson had a full on vanity, there were bottles of perfumes that looked and smelled as if she had bought them in the early 1800's. She had silver brushes, combs and mirrors. None of that interested me. What she did have that brought me into her lavender scented boudoir was a jewelry chest that had a ballerina. You know the kind---you turn over the box and wind and then there is music and dancing. I would eat a Milky Way bar and watch the caged ballerina do her plastic pirouettes. Once the ballerina tired and the music would fade I would then do an inventory of her jewels. I would examine her broaches, crusted with jewels and ornate excess. I would try on her assortment of clip on earrings that would pinch my ears and leave them red long after I took them off. I would pile on the bracelets and necklaces that she would have never let me touch if she were at home. She would have told me how much they cost and how fragile they were and how I couldn't be trusted with them.

Once I had all her necklaces on and the bracelets I might find one of Bitchdikson's hats that she would wear to church and where she would sing loudly and off key and my father would laugh with me at my grandmother's vocal zeal. I usually would wear her black turban with large black plumes to my already overdone accessory ensemble. I would gaze at myself in the mirror admiringly and imagine someday this would all be mine. That knowledge inspired the unwrapping of yet another Milky Way Bar.

October 31,1991 Bitchdikson died and she left me her organ. I don't know who got the jewelry box or the jewelry, but I know it wasn't me. And, I don't play the organ. I think Bitchdikson knew that.