The way my grandparents prepared for the storm

Life is strange.

I hadn’t stepped a foot outside of my house in over twenty four hours and I was begging to feel like I was in a time warp.

One too many scary movies and vampire novels later, I attempted to face my irrational fear of getting blown away by the wind.

First I looked out the window.

Branches were waving back and forth, the wind was whistling, and the block was desolate.

I went outside anyway.

After 2 minutes I ran back in, shut the door behind me, and never looked back. “I’ll just watch more television,” I thought to myself.

The previous day, I came home to an interesting set of grandparents, as well as an unusual amount of tomato sauce in jars.

I am talking boxes and boxes filled with jars of tomato sauce surrounding the living room.

At first I thought my grandparents had stocked up on food. When I realized it was only the condiment, I was confused.

“We are so tired. We made a lot of sauce today,” said my grandmother.

My grandfather was sprawled out on the sofa, reading the paper as usual.

I could not care less about their day, what they did, or how much sauce they made. I was worried about the hurricane and how we were going to survive.

Earlier my mother actually suggested I buy a life jacket for my grandmother because she cannot swim.

I ran through the cabinets and fridge to see if any food was stored. Besides tomato sauce, there was milk, orange juice, veggies and pasta.

“We cannot survive the weekend, stuck in the house, on this!” I said. “There is going to be a hurricane, remember?”

Honestly, we are Italian. We eat a lot. There was not a sufficient amount of food to keep us happy for 2 days. I mean, I know I would get cranky.  

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Nothing is going to happen,” said my grandmother.

“Oh, we made so much sauce today,” she continued. “We aren’t used to working this hard. My friends woke up at 5am to start making sauce. I don’t know how they do it.”

I was glad we had a 4 month supply of jarred tomato sauce, I really was, but at that point in time I wasn’t concerned about how great my pasta was going to be that Sunday.

“We have to go food shopping!” I screamed. “Get in the car. We need water, canned food, hummus, guacamole, chips.”

“No no no no no,” said my grandfather. “Tomorrow we go to store. Tomorrow we put chair in shed. Tomorrow we lock window.”

His broken English pissed me off even more. So I decided to eat my dinner.

Funny enough, I brought sushi home that night.

They looked at the sushi as if it had three heads.

“What is this? Hooshi?”

“No, shooshie,” said my grandmother.

“Eat it, I am full.” I said.

She responds with, “Good. Don’t eat anymore, and don’t get fat.”

My grandmother then did something very, very dangerous. She took a huge chunk of wasabi and wrapped it in ginger. As she began putting this concoction to her mouth I screamed, “No, you cannot eat that!”

Phew, she actually listened and put it down.

Then I went through the process of explaining to her the rules of sushi.

Grandfather was next. He attempted the same exact thing. At that point, I was hysterical laughing.

What does marriage to do people? Slowly but steadily turn them into clones?

“Sal!” Grandmother goes. “Look at this. Taste this.”

They were both fascinated and confused all at the same time.

“Where do I put this? How do I eat this? What is this?”

Then my grandfather continued to put his two senses in.

“Does Shooshie mean dirty in English? I ask because Sugido means dirty in Italian.”

I am used to this nonsense talk. I don’t even respond to his question.

So many questions about something our generation was raised with.

When they finished eating the sushi I was relieved. Never again would I bring home something other than pasta or pizza for them to eat. It was actually a health hazard.

One minute later my grandmother is cutting up cheese with a knife and putting the knife to her mouth as if it were a fork. This is typical. I worry about her sometimes.

My grandfather continues reading the paper. He is now talking about Libya. Still no concern about the hurricane.

I can’t help but continue laughing. My grandmother then approaches me, with curious eyes.

“What is wrong with you? Why are you laughing so much?”

She probably thought I was drunk.  Their behavior was completely typical. I was just looking at it from a different lens.

In all honesty, my grandparents’ lack of concern really calmed my nerves.

About the hurricane, we were fine and had some banging pasta that day.