THE BLOODY BLUE BLAZE

THE BLOODY BLUE BLAZES

. . . and other silly sayings? . . .

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Ah! My grandmother. How I loved her, and words can never be enough to say how I miss her still.

Nanny, as she loved to be called, was one of the kindest people I’d ever have had the privilege of knowing and it broke my heart when the angles came to take her home. She was seventy-one years young, and I was a mere seventeen.

It wasn’t until complications from her daily insulin that took her from us that I finally began to appreciate her warped sense of humor and somewhat silly phraseology. As I kid, I just thought it was her British upbringing that made her so weird and funny. Who knows? Maybe it was but after all this time, it no longer matters, especially since I seem to have inherited some of her witticisms.

More than likely, none of what I’m about to tell you is new. You’ve probably heard them throughout the years, but I thought it might be fun to remember them.

I’ll share some of them so you might know where my brain often wanders. (Yes, I’ll also explain that one.)

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My mother promised her mother that I’d stop by after school. Nanny needed help around the kitchen and while I was eager to help, I also was negligent in keeping track of the time. Hey, I was only eleven years old. Am I not allowed to lose track of time?

As I approached her apartment, I saw she was almost hanging out the window watching for me to arrive. No sooner had I walked into her apartment, did I hear her say, “Where the bloody blue blazes have you been? You had me worried to death!”

Okay, first of all, what the heck are “bloody blue blazes”? Blood is red, right? It only appears blue under the skin due to light refractions but honestly, it is red! Even so, bloody blue blazes? What the heck?

And another thing that had me wondering. If I worried her to death, how was she still standing and rebuking me?

In the next breath, she gave me a huge bear hug, turned, and put the kettle on for tea.

Maybe I should add that I was only fifteen minutes late.

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There was a girl in my class at school that drove me crazy. Lorraine and I weren’t friends. We were friendly but for several reasons, I never crossed the line into a friendship. One reason was my brother. He had no interest in her and yet, Lorraine always tried to be near me hoping she could get to my brother. She never pretended to try and be friends like other girls my age would. As I said, her interest was solely in my brother.

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

“Where does he hang out?”

“Who are his closest friends?”

“What time does he leave for school?”

All these questions and many more to which I gave no answers.

My grandmother visited us daily. Yes, a few times each week, we’d go to her apartment, but she had diabetes, and my mom would inject her with her daily dose of insulin. She couldn’t inject the serum herself. My grandmother, because Lorraine wouldn’t leave my brother alone, had gotten to know her and would often say, “Lordie, she has a face that would stop a clock!”

I knew Lorraine wasn’t as pretty as Carmela (whom my brother liked) but I never thought of her as ugly. Lorraine was just … well, Lorraine.

But to stop a clock? I tried to figure out how a person’s looks could stop a clock. All these years later, I still have no idea.

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As a teen, I can’t say I was hyper. Sitting still wasn’t a problem. I could sit and read for hours and hours, however, when I did move, the motion was quick and often without much attention to it. Walls didn’t move as fast as I did and within hours, another bruise on my arm would appear. After dinner, I’d stand and bump into the table. My mom would often tell me to slow down but my grandmother would say, “This is why you didn’t call her Grace!”

I’d give her a blank stare because she was right. No one ever attributed that name to me.

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I was one of three kids. My brother was twenty-seven months older than I was and my sister was six years younger. To say we were a handful is not saying enough of how we drove my mom to a frazzle.

My grandmother said it differently. “With the bats you kids toss at your mother, she could start her own baseball team.”

“Huh? What?” I was sure she meant that we drove my mom “batty”, but then again, who knows?

Oh well, that was Nanny.

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One afternoon, after mom had given Nanny her injection, she asked me to put the insulin back in the refrigerator and then put the kettle on to boil.

I walked in the kitchen with two goals on my mind (I think). Put the insulin back in the refrigerator and put the kettle on for tea. In our family, we always enjoyed tea in the afternoon. (Actually, I still do.)

Since the vial of insulin was still in my hand, I worked on automatic and put it in the refrigerator. Then stood still with my hands on my hips.

Nanny asked if I was okay. I was fifteen.

“For the life of me, Nanny, I can’t remember what I was about to do. I completely lost my train of thought.”

To which Nanny replied, “Oh my dear, you didn’t lose your train of thought, you never even made it to the right station!”

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Ah! Memories. As silly as they may sound, or as crazy as they may make my family seem, they really are fun to remember.

So, if anyone has any idea of what the heck “bloody blue blazes” might be, just let me know.