Musings of a Wench

Crazy old bag

I am completely loosing my shit this week. On Sunday I went to Old Navy with my sister and forgot to take keys and thus was locked out of the house when John went out biking. On Wednesday after buying this http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10101&storeId=3&productId=10960&langId=-15&parentCats=10114*10158 bed
for $75, I left my purse in the van we'd borrowed to move it. (My company has a great feature on the intraweb called the Classifieds, and I have done very well off of them. A couch, love seat and chair for our basement: $20. A full set of nice dishes: $40. Two stand up lights: $10. Lots of movies: from $2-5 each. We've done quite well furnishing the house and the apartment with second hand things.) Last night, I went to my parents' house after work, then to yoga, and then they drive me home but I forgot my backpack. I'm a real winner this week. It's quite sad, really.

Thank God it's Friday. Tomorrow we're having an open house, and then a week later we leave for Mexico. It has been 11 months and 2 weeks since I have had a vacation that was longer than a 4 day weekend, and I really need a break. This is hard! After university, where you get a 2 week break every 4 month, it's even more painful. So I'm very glad to have a vacation, even if it is with Evil Grandma.

Let me tell you a story about Polish Grandma, who is so named because John's other grandma, the British one, is so nice. Polish Grandma is one of the most racist people I have ever met. Plus she's Polish, which seems to come, at least in the assortment of Polish people I've met, with a huge nationalistic chip on their collective shoulders. Her world view is both dated (understandable) and horrible (less so). The world is divided into Pakies (Middle East through like, China), Niggers (anyone with any "black blood"), Indians (Native Americans), some derogatory word for the Japanese and the Europe. Central and South America don't even exist - John and I tried one day to guess if she would classify them as Pakies or as Indians. No verdict was reached, but that's probably okay because it's very likely she's never given that part of the world any thought at all. Now, her geopolitical knowledge of Europe isn't bad, although she is convinced that Poland is actually in Western Europe. Um, no, not really, at all. However, she only knows Europe in terms of who and why she hates various peoples. Top among them: the Evil Germans who invaded her country, the Evil British who didn't preemtivly stop them. Everyone else is horrible too, but those two are by far the worst. (Guess what? By her standards, I'm half German and half British - a dastardly combination. By my standards, my dad is a Canadian born in Germany and my mother's family immigrated in 1851, so we're Canadian.) Of course, because by now she really does sound like a walking stereotype, the people she hates most, rather illogically for someone who LIVED IN POLAND DURING THE WAR AND SAW WHAT HAPPENED, are the Jews. Don't know why, but she certainly has quite the hate-on for them. She loves the Poles. To her, they are the best people to ever walk the Earth, and the rest of us are all beneath a nation that was once great, back in the 1600s, before they failed to modernize and have been continuously beaten down for the last 400 years.

Now, you can't say, 'oh, she's old, from the Old Country.' Because she's in her early 70s and has been in Canada for 41 years. My grandparents, the German immigrants, were in a similar situation, but they were in no way racist like this. The only real beef they had has against the Russians, and that was because my Grandfather spent several years in a Siberian prison of war camp after being captured in WWI, where he was finally released after dropping down to less than 90 pounds. He and a buddy were sent back to Germany, but the other man died on the way home. All things considered, that's a relatively legitimate reason not to like a country (notice I don't say Russian immigrants). Hating the whole world because you think it's inferior to you? Not a legitimate reason.

There are three main reasons that I can find that she doesn't like me. 1) I am not Polish, and thus will further dilute the blood of her already halfling grandson. 2) I am part German (therefore evil) and part British (therefore despicable). 3) I am fat. I was a fairly average size 12 with extra muscles, but compared to Christine the dancer, Monisha the model and pageant girl and Larisa the model (look for her in an Axe commercial!), I am fat. By my standards? I am chubby, but by hers I am a disgusting horrible person, as she's told John on a number of occasions.

One of her most amusing way of showing her displeasure is her refusal to learn my name. Yes, I have been dating her grandson for +3.5 years, have come to 2 Christmas dinners, 3 Easter dinners and countless family occasions. We bought a house together. And yet, to her I shall never be Morgan. I am Ramona! (Say it was a bit of venom and a heavy Polish accent for best effect.) Now, you explain how Morgan becomes Ramona, as I can't figure it out. I was also called Rebecca for a while there, and I didn't really mind that name. Harder to say it with bile. I've been told by other parts of the family that it's because there is no Morgan equivalent in Polish and she just can't remember. Now, if she called me a name even starting with an M, I might believe it. But Ramona? No. She's been in Canada for more than 40 years, she's a passable English speaker, and she's handled the fact the other people have names that don't come directly from Poland. Now, the insult her refusal to learn my name is bad enough, but recently she told John, loudly so I would overhear, what the story of Ramona is. Ramona, according to Polish folklore, a cursed Jewess who was so fat that every time she stepped she left deep furrows in the earth. Yup. Quite the bitch.

But I have to be honest. It doesn't really bother me that much. Sure, she's a vicious old cow, but so what? It's not like I give a flying fuck what she thinks of me. I have lost weight and toned up recently, but that was entirely for me, not based on anything she said. Besides, I'm still fat by her standards. I consider myself Canadian, first, foremost and practically only. I either ignore her, or remember what she does in order to use it to make people laugh. I really don't care what she thinks.

But I wish I wasn't trapped in a resort on a vacation for a week with her.

posted by Morgan @ 10:46 a.m.