Tube talk

Jim and I recently started watching the new television series Parenthood, the one by Ron Howard et al., based on the old(er) movie of the same name.

We like it so far. Which doesn't bode well for the show. It'll likely be canceled now that I've given it my stamp of approval.

For whatever reason, Jim and I have never been big TV watchers and -- despite a few attempts -- we never seem to home in on the shows that seem to be most popular with all the other TV watchers in the country. We don't watch the CSI or Law and Order shows. We definitely don't watch reality shows. And, much to the surprise of a few friends, we've never seen an entire episode of The Simpsons.

During our early years of marriage, our favorite shows were Soap, Quantum Leap, St. Elsewhere and MASH reruns. We grew to love Beauty and the Beast and Fame, as well as -- when we could afford cable -- The Hitchhiker and It's the Garry Shandling Show (just typing that one made me smile).

Then the 90s came and we were too busy to watch TV ... or the girls commandeered the only television set we had and Jim and I joined them for precious few shows. (We were willing to sit through Buffy the Vampire Slayer; not so much Saved by the Bell or, later, Dawson's Creek.) When we did watch on our own, it was usually 20/20, 48 Hours, Dateline or some other news show that kept us constantly worried about the safety of our children.

As the girls got older and ownership of the TV returned to us, Jim and I started watching more and more on the tube. Here are a few we watched regularly in the last, say, five years:

• Six Feet Under (HBO)

• Rome (HBO) -- Jim

• 24 -- Jim

• Felicity -- me

• Gilmore Girls

• Medium (although her waking-up-in-a-gasp schtick has grown tiresome and we no longer watch)

• Brothers & Sisters (the silly drama has grown tiresome and we're about done)

• Grey's Anatomy (ditto)

• Men of a Certain Age

• True Blood (we'll be watching this upcoming season at Brianna's, as we've canceled HBO)

• Glee (!)

• Ghost Hunters (thanks, Tammy!)

But here's the kicker. Here are our favorites of the past few years, favorites that apparently very few others favored because they were lured away by Biggest Loser, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance or any other reality show we simply couldn't stomach. These gems were canceled far too soon for our unpopular taste, which made us question the intelligence of the average TV watcher very sad: Joan of Arcadia, The Riches, Related, Six Degrees, Life on Mars, Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies (thanks for the reminder, Pam!), Flight of the Conchords and Saving Grace (the upcoming season is the final season).

What's up, people?

A friend recently gave us the first season of Lost -- and we love it so far! It'll take us quite some time to get through the seven seasons, but at least we know this series can't be canceled on us.

I wish I could say the same for Parenthood.

Today's question:

What's one of your all-time favorite TV shows?

My answer: I really loved St. Elsewhere ... and Quantum Leap. But that may just be nostalgia talking.

Mars and scars

Bubby had an accident a couple days ago: Running out to the car with Mommy, he bit it ... on asphalt ... HOT, desert asphalt.

It was his first big owie to leave a mark. Megan wrote on her blog,* "To my horror there was blood covering his poor, no longer perfect, 21 month old knee."

Bubby was okay but he's now marred, no longer perfect.

Those of you who have been a mom a while know that although this was pretty traumatic for Megan -- and Bubby -- this owie will fade, not only on Bubby's knee, but in memory, too.

But, sorry to say, Megan, there are bigger owies to come, ones that will make Bubby's skinned knee pale (probably even disappear) in comparison. Years from now you won't recall this bloody "mess," as Bubby kept calling it. What you'll recall are the bigger owies, the ones that leave lifelong scars.

I vividly recall the first scarring incident with Brianna. She was 15 months old and running around the living room of our small apartment. (Crazy kid started walking at 9 months!) It was all fun and games, of course, until she got hurt -- falling into the corner of the coffee table, gashing open her face near her eyebrow ... and narrowly missing her eye! Blood, blood, blood! Everywhere! It was my first experience with facial cuts -- which bleed like mad -- and my first experience with a seriously wounded baby. It was pretty horrible. And it's the reason why we did without a coffee table for years and years and years. Even now, as a grandma, my coffee table is ROUND with no corners waiting to gash open little faces.

Megan's first scar came on a little less fast and furious but involved surgery. Like I've said before, Megan was always destined to be a mom. She loved kids younger than her from Day One, especially her younger cousins. She played with them, mothered them and carried them around -- and got a hernia to underscore my rants that she shouldn't be lifting the little ones when she was just a little one herself. I can't remember how old she was ... maybe 6 or so ... but my little Meggie actually had to have surgery to repair a hernia at that young age and still has the scar to prove her early mothering inclinations.

The scars with Brianna and Megan were fairly traumatic for me as a mommy, for them as kiddos. But my poor Andie had, without a doubt, the absolute worst initiation into scarring.

It started off painless enough: Andie had warts. She had warts on her hands, she had warts in a spot just below her bottom lip. They weren't huge warts, but they were getting bigger and the doctor decided my 5-year-old Andie needed them removed -- by burning them off. She'd only feel the pin prick of the shot to numb her, he promised, so we went ahead with it.

The warts on her hands were no big deal; the ones on her face required me and a nurse to hold her down for the shot right into her chin ... which obviously hurt my baby like hell. After a moment or two to let the numbing kick in, the doctor had me stand at the head of the table and firmly hold Andie's head down while he approached her face with the burning hot rod (this was before the harmless lasers). When he touched her face with it she SCREAMED! The numbing stuff hadn't numbed her as promised and my baby could feel the burning. Quickly the doctor announced we were already there and needed to go forward as Andie would never in a million years allow us to attempt such a thing again. So as I held down my little girl, with tears streaming down her face and mine and the nurse doing all she could to hold Andie's mouth closed and stifle the screams so the doctor could do his job, the warts were burned off. And that horrible scene was burned into both my memory and my baby girl's, leaving not only physical scars, but emotional ones, too.

So yeah, Megan, poor Bubby is marred. But at least this time it took only an Elmo Band-Aid to make it all better. Appreciate those little mars; with scars, it's not so easy.

*Megan's blog is called "Oh Schmidt!" and, naturally, features pictures of precious Bubby -- and uses his real name ... which is a little odd since I promised to never use his real name on Grandma's Briefs. Anyway, you're welcome to visit there, if you'd like.

Today's question:

How did you get your first scar and where is it?

My answer: My first scar was on my lip. When I was about 4 years old, I fell on the blade of one of those old-time ice cream makers that had real metal blades to scrape the insides of the can. If I use my tongue to press out my bottom lip, you can still see it. (I don't use my tongue to press out my bottom lip very often as it not only shows my scar, it makes me look like a monkey!)

The next Grilled Grandma

This week we have our first Grilled Grandma from across the pond. Linds hails from middle England yet she exemplifies that grandmas are grandmas, no matter where they call home. (Although I do love her very unAmerican use of the word "Mum" instead of "Mom"!)

Linds offers up the most interesting grandma name I've heard yet. When asked what her grandchildren call her, she has this sweetness to impart:

"I will be Moregranny. My daughter-in-law’s Mum is Granny, you see, and I had a Moregranny when I was a child, and love the name. When I was 2, my paternal grandmother moved to the city where we lived, and my mother explained that I had another Granny, and as a toddler, I apparently looked at her and said “More Granny?” And the name stuck. Everyone called her Moregranny till the day she died, and she had a special place in my heart, so being Moregranny will be delightful."

So heartwarming and so special! I love that!

Find out more about Moregranny, er, Linds by reading her grilling right here.

Then consider the grandmas in your life, and send me the first names and e-mail addresses of one and all you think might be up for a grilling themselves -- even if that grandma is you!

Today's question:

What accent or language do you find most interesting? Can you speak a foreign language?

My answer: I love British accents. I can't speak any other language -- unless pig latin counts. (Although I can count to ten in Spanish, to five in German, and know a couple of colors in Spanish.)

Greeting card quandary

Today is my dad's birthday. He's 71 years old.

I always, always, always have a horrible time buying him a birthday card. Everything on the greeting card shelf is either sickeningly, cloyingly sweet while waxing moronic about "My dear father" being the rock and dispenser of lifesaving advice, or they're goofy greetings mentioning dear ol' Dad's obsession with his recliner and remote and/or his flatulance problem.

Neither type fit the kind of relationship I had (and continue to have) with my dad. So I stand in front of the racks of "For him" offerings for about 15 minutes, then move on to the musical ones but don't want to spend $5 on some silly chicken dance or "We Will Rock You" goofiness, then on to the "Funny: General" options because it's slightly easier to find a fitting one-liner than anything remotely sentimental.

I even consider the blank cards ... but that just seems so wrong.

I'd be oh-so happy if Hallmark would come up with something like:

Cover:

On your birthday, Dad, I want you to know ...

Inside:

... my childhood sucked.

But from the looks of things, it seems yours did, too.

I understand that now.

It no longer matters.

I'm so over it.

And I still love you.

Happy birthday!

I've yet to find such a card.

So I just settled on one from the "Funny" section. "General." For anyone.

And gosh, only three months 'til it's time to look for a Father's Day card. Maybe I'll start my own line of greeting cards before then -- cards for real people and real relationships!

Today's question:

Do you usually give sentimental greeting cards or humorous ones?

My answer: I used to give sentimental cards to everyone but in the past few years I've gotten to where I give humorous ones more often because the sentimental offerings are usually too mushy, gushy and unrealistic.

"Balk, balk," says the chicken grandma

I admit it: I'm a big ol' chicken. I'm not afraid of bugs or scary movies -- most of the time -- but I quake in my briefs at the prospect of being confronted with new situations, new places, new faces. I'm especially afraid of new situations and new places that include new faces to which I'm supposed to speak and seem intelligent ... or at least not come off like the timid, blithering numbskull I worry about being at such times.

To put it more succinctly, I'm afraid of social situations. I'm afraid of them (and often avoid them) because I don't see myself as someone good at small talk and definitely not as a confident and courageous speaker.

Surprisingly, I've recently learned that some folks -- folks I've known for years -- consider me anything but timid, and more like a capable and confident conversationalist.

Jim and I were invited to a friend's house for dinner Saturday night, a friend who used to be my boss, a friend who has seen me at my worst as I struggled through the teen years with my daughters, and at my best as I wrote some pretty darn good articles for the publications for which he served as editor. I thought the guy knew me fairly well.

But as we slurped our French Onion Soup (a culinary delight made by his wife), the conversation somehow turned to my fear of speaking to strangers -- a certain obstacle for a writer expected to conduct interviews on a regular basis. My friend/former editor stopped mid-slurp, surprised by my admission, and said, "I've never considered you timid. I'm surprised to hear you say that."

Wow! I was more than surprised that he thought I was anything but timid.

He's not alone, apparently. One of my four sisters, the one with whom I've spent the least amount of time throughout our childhood and adulthood but recently partnered with in a writing venture, has expressed again and again in the last six months that she thinks -- despite her previous perception of me as the "quiet one" --  that I'm actually the "mean one" of the sisters, the tough one that takes no bull, the "beeyotch" as she lovingly called me while expressing her confidence that I'd succeed in small claims court because of my beeyotchiness and way with words.

Wow again! Wow! Wow!

Really, guys, I truly am a chicken.

But I'm apparently a chicken who has mastered the cover up, the faking it til making it, the ability to feel the fear and do it anyway with the guarantee that -- as I often told my daughters who were scared of upcoming social situations or confrontations -- no one can see the fear rattling around inside your heart and head and thus have no idea how darn scared and lacking in confidence you may be.

The revelation elicited by the admissions from my friend and my sister has me wondering how Bubby will see me, how he'll view his grandma. As part of my inner circle, will he, like Jim and the girls, see the real grandma, the chicken grandma who's scared of strangers, of her inability to speak eloquently, of her paralyzing paranoia that something bad is bound to happen the moment she steps outside the confines of her home if she's required to open her mouth and speak while out in the real world?

Or will Bubby see me as a kooky and courageous grandma who's willing to scramble around the bouncy house regardless of who may see? Or bang on the piano with him regardless of who may hear? Or read him stories loud and proud with nary a concern about anyone else hearing her rumbling and grumbling and roaring like a monster if that's what the story demands?

I hope that's the grandma Bubby sees. I hope that's the grandma he loves, the grandma who makes him grin ear to ear by saying "screw it" to speaking eloquently (out of his earshot, of course) and simply settles comfortably into just being herself.

Not only do I hope that's the grandma Bubby sees, I hope that's the grandma I truly will be.

I just need to let go of the timid little wrinkled-and-too-old-to-be-so-darn-self-conscious me I see in the mirror, embrace that beeyotchiness others see, and be the grandma I'm meant to be.

So here goes.

Watch out, world!

Today's question:

What are you afraid of?

My answer: In addition to the above, I'm also afraid of revealing too much about myself ... which I think I just did!