I’ve been thinking about grandmas today. I’m noticing a proliferation of cool-young-hip grandmas. I think this may have something to do with 40 being the new 30 and 60 being the new 25 or however those numbers go. I read an article not so long ago about all the different names people are using instead of grandma, as if grandma were a dirty word.

My grandma is not cool or young or hip, and she never asked me to call her Mimi or GeeGee or any other non-grandma incantation meant to obscure her elder mother status. (There was a “Gamms” period, but that was due exclusively to my inability to pronounce “grandma” at that age. This roughly coincided with my “Bumpa” instead of “grandpa” phase.)

She used to watch me on a semi-regular basis while my parents worked, and I remember following her from room to room. I can’t believe that didn’t make her bonkers. I mean from room to room wherever she went whenever she went; I was six inches behind her. I stood there while she folded the laundry and ironed my grandfather’s handkerchiefs (really) and made bread and went to the grocery store. I was the super glue kid. Not even turpentine could’ve gotten me off.

This is probably the reason I’m highly suspicious of the term “quality time” as an adult. Grandma was all about quantity time. They weren’t the splashy moments. They weren’t hours that were all about me. In fact, the activities were never about me, which is probably why I found them so fascinating. She was doing exactly what she would’ve been doing whether I was there or not. But because I was, she included me exactly as if I were somehow important to the proceedings.

Oh, I’m sure she came to birthday parties and clapped when I blew out the candles and brought presents. But I don’t remember it. I remember climbing onto the hot, black plastic seat of her little blue truck in the middle of summer and going from grocery store to grocery store looking for the best deal on chuck roast. I remember kneading my little ball of bread dough next to her on the kitchen table while she kneaded the big one. I remember the whole table would sway and rock with each knead, and she would damn the blasted thing for being less than sturdy. I remember her enormous garden and the time she grew cotton just so I would know where my t-shirt came from and all the times I would raid the berry patch without permission and come in with red stained fingers – a sure giveaway of my transgression. (Not exactly the master criminal.) I remember riding my bike around her neighborhood, a bit of freedom I was only allowed if I wore a whistle and blew it loud and clear each time I passed the house – my signal to her that I was alright.

That’s the stuff I remember.

So here’s to grandmas. All the uncool, unhip, cookie-baking, quantity time-giving grandmas. And I have the best one. So here’s to you, Gamms.

(And no, I certainly did not eat all the raspberries out of the garden. I don’t know what you’re talking about, and by the way, do you have something to get this mysterious red dye off my fingers?)