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Guess who met her great-grandmother a few days ago! Yup, Connor Claire met my glam granny — her great-grandmother — last weekend at my parents’ house in Union City.
What a trip! It brought back so many memories of my childhood with my glam granny and made me realize how lucky Connor is to have both sets of her grandparents (hi, Nana and Grandpa El Hub!) AND a great-grandparent in her life. I can’t wait for her to make her own memories.
When I was a kid, my glam grandma was the only grandparent in my life. She came to the United States from the Philippines in the early ’80s a few years after my parents did and lived not far from us in the same town.
Up until she retired, she worked doing laundry at the local Holiday Inn. Every morning on her way to work she drove me to school in her red Ford Tempo — which she loved because it matched her glamorous hair, which she dyed red — and every day she said, “I love you!” when I got out of the car.
I remember one summer she took me and my younger brother on a day trip to Lake Elizabeth, where people have picnics and parties, in the nearby town of Fremont, but first we stopped at a pizza place and grabbed a pepperoni pizza.
We brought it out to the lake and dined al fresco, and while we were eating, granny noticed that some people were tooling around the lake on paddle boats (the kind you power with your feet). She asked me and my brother if we’d ever done it before, and when we said no, she took us over to the dock and rented one for us.
We spent the rest of the afternoon paddling back and forth across that lake and having a grand old time.
Come to think about it, Grandma was always pretty outdoorsy. She loved going for long walks and also loved riding her huge blue three-wheeled bike, which was essentially a tricycle for grownups, all over town.
Granny’s bike had a big silver basket in the back for carrying groceries and whatnot, and when I was very young, she let me climb into the basket. Then she’d ride around the neighborhood for exercise.
It must’ve been a hoot to see a glamorous older Filipino lady on an oversized tricycle with her tiny little grandchild in the back, LOL!
Yeah, my granny was always glamorous, even when she exercised. She always had her nails painted, her hair dyed her favorite color (red) and always carried a tube of Revlon lipstick.
It was a green tube — I remember — and the color was Orange Flip. I always wanted to try it but was too shy to ask.
As far as I know, she’s always been into makeup and beauty. Back when she was a young woman in the Philippines just before World War II, she competed in beauty pageants, which is where I’m guessing she learned how to pose, because she’s always been so photogenic (I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen her take a bad picture), and she still is today, even at 88 years young.
She even went to cosmetology school here in the U.S. to learn how to do hair and makeup.
In fact, after she learned how to do perms one day she came home and practiced on me and my mom…but that’s another story for another time, LOL!
I still have a business card she gave me years ago, and right below her name and number it says “Cosmetologist” in a scripty font.
I have a lot of great memories of growing up with my grandma, and now it’s time for Connor Claire to make some of her own with her grandparents.
This September 11 will be her first Grandparents Day, and her first time giving Grandparents Day cards, so I went to Walgreens this week to (help her) pick out her cards.
And for my grandma I looked for a card with a sweet message that also had her favorite color in it — red. This one with flowers was perfect.
