grandmotherisms

Yesterday morning at breakfast, my grandmother is reading the paper, apparently looking at the celebrity birthday list. She says, "Today Whoopi Goldberg is 52." (pause) "I wish she wouldn't wear her hair like that."

I say with a sigh "Oh, Mimi. If I were black, I'd wear my hair like that." I sigh because I don't understand why it matters to my grandmother how Whoopi wears her hair.

She sighs, groans, and says she's sure glad I'm not black. She goes on to say that cornrows are okay, but those "drablocks, or whatever they're called" are just messy and ugly.

Last week, she put down the paper at breakfast and asked me to explain "in one syllable words" what google is and what it does. I said the main thing people use it for is to search for what they want to find on the internet. She was happy with that. She then proceeded to ask me what pilates is. (She pronounces it pilots, like the person who flies a plane. This is the second time she's asked about this and she's still not sure I'm giving her the right answer.)

I tell her that pilates is a form of exercise that is a little like yoga. She asks me if I'm sure and says she thought it was something they sell at Radio Shack.