Sun 24 Feb 2008
While I was traveling around the world I really didn’t have much to worry about except Dr. Seussical things like: ‘where will I find a bed? Where can I lay my head? Where can I go to be fed?’ But one thing I worried about back home was my grandmother still being there when I returned. She’s a fiercely
strong, independent woman and the older I get the more I realize I am a lot like her. We made a pact before I left that she would wait for me to come home… And she’s a woman of her word. Just this past weekend she turned a young 94-years-old. I am staying with her in her apartment in Manhattan. She’s phenomenal. She was an actress in the Yiddish theater in New York and traveling shows for about sixty years of her life. She started on stage when she was six-years-old and didn’t stop singing and dancing until she hit eighty.
And today she lives alone and is still taking care of business. Her mind is amazingly sharp, but thanks to emphysema (she used to smoke, oh, roughly fifty years ago when it was très chic and
oh so healthy) she’s slowed down a bit. She gets around fine though by zipping around Manhattan in what she calls her Lexus, a snappy red electric scooter. I can’t even keep up with her when she’s cruising down the sidewalk plowing down the fine citizens of New York left and right. Watch out, or she’ll take you down.
And believe it or not, just the other day, she motivated me to get on her treadmill. That’s right, not only does she own a treadmill, she uses it three to four times a week. She walks on it for about fifteen minutes and seeing her on it made me think to myself, ‘Okay, if my grandma is on there, I better step it up and start running again.’ Nothing like your 94-year-old granny to kick your ass into gear. I can only hope to be like her when I’m old and wrinkly.
Related posts:
- A Beautiful Life
- The “Steamy” Underbelly of New York City
- These Vagabond Shoes…
- There’s Something about a City.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Oh My God – I am in love with your grandma! She is the cutest little lady ever! Yay for good ol granny on her scooter plowing through NYC! Man, most people in their 20s and 30s can’t hack it out in Manhattan – that’s pretty amazing…!
March 5th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
OK. So you’ve got a hot grandmother. So. The kind of “Titanic” movie star grandma. So.
The kind who blew perfect french rings from her Chesterfields in a sterling ciggy holder. So. The kind who can zip through uptown, midtown, downtown and even Brooklyn on a fire engine red, hemi-powered, parkway munching, Michelin clad, chrome tricked-out scooter. So.
The kind who gets on a treadmill, kicks it into turbo, challenges her grand daughter to a race, subsequently kicks her assssssss, and tells her it’s ok. So.
The kind who turns 94 and still signs up for 3 year subscriptions to Cosmo and watches Brittany, Lindsay et al. blow opportunities
that a 1930s showgirl would be all over like
“hair on a gorilla” So.
So…..Happy Birthday Grandma!
March 6th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Now that’s my kind of grandma! The world needs more ladies like her!
March 7th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Awesome that she waited for you! I recently said goodby to my grandmother who was 98, but she too waited for me to get back to CA before she passed. She also swore by the walking every day. So yea… perhaps we should take the advice of the long-lived among us and actually exercise. but it’s just so much work!
-Suz
http://www.startgo.com
Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Just start to travel. The world is waiting.
March 11th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Lisa!
What a lovely story! And a true once too!
I hop eyou get a good life, long living, with a lot of nice happenings and so on…
Keep up the good life and get out and be curios about all the stuff in our surroundings.i think that help us all to be old in a good way.
With love Paula.
Miss you!
But it´s nice that I can look and read about your life here!Hug, hug, hug!!!
May 12th, 2008 at 3:45 am
Hi Lisa, what a wonderful story of your Grandma. She must be so very proud to have a wonderful granddaughter like you. Wow! 94 and living on her own and on the treadmill. That’s it. In the morning I am going on the treadmill. Take care Darlene from PI303
July 19th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
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