Preparing For The Move

Grandma has lived with Mom and I for the whole of the 23 years of life I am to "celebrate" the 25th of December. In that time, we have moved ten times; the kids switching school districts enough times to learn to avoid expectations of long friendships. Mom has never owned a house of her own, we've always rented. She and Grandma raised five of us; Grandma at home and Mom at work. A single income in a family our size can only go so far- and we are about to embark on finding its limits.

Moving has never been exhilarating or promising for us. The law of averages have already condemned one or more accidents upon Grandma's gaming systems and collection; we would take bets on what is to be damaged had we any money. We have become conditioned to fear the words "address change form" as though they were the proclamation of our banishment to a penal colony. Moving has always been hard for us.

Until now.

Mom's first claim to property is a large century home in the heart of a small village east of Cleveland known as Mantua. While named after an Italian city, the locals still pronounce it "man-too-way," which is met by confusion to any of its few European visitors. It's quaint but it's safe, it's secure, and it's perfect.

Most importantly to Grandma, she will have for the first time in her life- a Game Room.

The room is not large, but it's ever so fitting. Rows of shelves on the North wall for books, magazines and games. A corner fit for her gaming systems, television, and that classic comfy armchair; a recliner whose image has been duplicated on hundreds of thousands of screens thanks to you folks. She will no longer need to squeeze the chair next to her bed to play at an angle. The walls are thick plaster which resonate the game audio to acoustically pleasing levels to those who drive by, eliminating the barking-dog epidemic after shots fired in Resident Evil 4.

There is also enough space in the room for Grandma's computer, so we will continue to bring you live Grandma blogging from ground zero.

The major packing jobs have already begun a few days ago; an interesting dose of unexpected nostalgia enters the brain going through old CD's, games, videos, clothes, and so on. I found a VHS tape we bought as a joke back in 1999 entitled "Y2K Home Survival Guide," and who knows- the thing might be worth money in some campy way in thirty years.

Curiously, loading up the old Sony Walkman with Godspeed You Black Emperor's "F# A# Infiniti" is awkwardly appropriate for packing things you haven't seen in years. For if everything is going well for us, if Mom's dream of owning a home has finally come true- if the job for which I was just hired, a stringer photographer for a local paper, is to establish enough income for me to go back to school or better yet- achieve all that I've wanted with writing and photography, if Grandma's success is heading toward a comfortable plateau with television appearances, articles in The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, BusinessWeek, and MTV...

If all this is real, the apocolypse is surely upon us.


A special addition of Ask Grandma Hardcore is scheduled for tonight at 9:00pm EST for all those who missed the Washington Post Q&A today, or for all our West Coast and international readers who haven't had one in a while. We'll continue on into the night for everyone until the Tacos and Tequilla run dry, which is probably sometime around sunrise. We have a lot of big news coming, even now- so stay with us for daily updates!

Before you ask about the box- Grandma is a diabetic. She wrote that in big sharpie letters, not me; so don't send the DEA after us. Well, you can I guess, but insulin doesn't have a high street value from what I hear.

Game on!!