My grandmother, my dad’s mother, was one of four girls.
Two of them ended up settling close to each other in California and the other two, my grandmother and my Aunt J, stayed here in Connecticut.
They lived within a mile of each other for their entire lives.
My grandma died in December.
That left Aunt J kind of on her own.
Her husband, my uncle, died a few years ago, and her only son is, well, not much help.
So my father was given power of attorney as my aunt’s physical and mental health started to decline after she had a stroke about 2 years ago.
She had a full-time caretaker living with her, but her needs were really more than the caretaker could handle.
My parents live about a half mile from Aunt J, so once my grandmother died, my dad’s role shifted from taking care of my grandmother to taking care of my aunt.
A couple months ago my aunt fell, had to go to the emergency room, and since she spent four days there, she needed to move into a nursing home for physical therapy.
Once she was there, it was determined that the best thing for her was to stay permanently.
In order to afford to stay there, she would need to sell her house.
Aunt J had a really awesome log cabin house that was designed by her husband, my uncle, who was an architect.
It sold very quickly after it was put on the market.
But it was jam packed with 85 years of old lady crap.
The closing was last Friday, and my parents spent the entire week cleaning her stuff out of there.
In fact, they pulled an all-nighter on Thursday.
And most of Aunt J’s stuff is just shoved into their house right now since they didn’t really have time to go through it all.
You can accumulate a lot of shit in 85 years.
I stopped by my parents’ house with the kids on Sunday. We had a good time looking through old pictures and other stuff.
Number 7 found this book, published in 1928:
For some reason, she was drawn to it.
Probably because it was so small.
Of course the title caught my attention, so I started reading.
…they make life worth while for the men and keep them busy trying to keep up with them, they fill the men’s lives with love and babies and drive them out of the barber shops; yet, in spite of all, they remain…
just women.
Oh my God.
I had to keep reading.
I haven’t read a book without pictures or flaps in it in about 9 years, but this one I just could not put down.
I found it to be both disturbing and hilarious all at the same time.
There is an entire chapter devoted to prostitution.
The section on masturbation, or, as Dr. Keller puts it, the act of becoming sexually excited without the help of another person, was entertaining.
But my favorite part was the section discussing menstruation and what a girl should do upon getting her first period.
That must have been nice.
The first time I got my period I was in seventh grade, I was in school, and I had my first softball game that day right after school was done.
I went to the nurse who gave me a pad the size of the Titanic.
I crammed that thing into my super-tight softball pants and prayed that no one asked me why I looked like a two-year-old wearing a near-exploding diaper full of poo.
When my game was done, I went home and my mother showed me how to ram a tam up in my unit so that I could rush off to swim practice.
So much for spending the entire time of the first period, warm, lazy and quiet in bed.
But I did escape the soap suds enema, so there’s that.
That wasn’t all Dr. Keller had to say, though.
It got even better.
Back in the early 1900’s, you didn’t just get a free pass on the first day of your first period.
You got the whole month off!
A month of slackened mental and bodily activities?
You don’t even get that shit after your first month of motherhood.
Yeah.
I think it’s time to rewrite that book.
I think maybe I should do it.
And I think I might start with that first page, and this line in particular:
…they make life worth while possible for the men and keep them busy trying completely unaware of the fact that they could never keep up with a woman’s daily responsibilities, they fill the men’s lives with love and babies and drive them out of the barber shops their kids all over fucking creation; yet, in spite of all, they remain…
sane women.
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Jessica @ Absurd, She Wrote says
Love this! I’m currently pregnant with my first, a little girl, and my husband and I already talked about how we are going to try and make some improvements on our own respective sex ed experiences. Namely, I want her to call body parts by their names, not be embarrassed to ask questions, and tell me when she wants to talk about something!