The Periphery of the Mind

Short version: Helped grandma move, and it was hell. Watched Survivorman on Science Channel, and it was awesome.

Long version.
There's something about helping a person move that lets you learn little things about them. When I helped my friend Ken move, I learned that he and his wife have their act together to a degree that I envied. When I helped my sister-in-law Jennifer move, I learned that she keeps her things to a respectable minimum, without being spartan in lifestyle. Those who helped me move realized that I'm both a terrible bibliophile and an obsessive geek.

And then there's my grandmother. Helping her move made me realize that she's losing her mind.

She had spent the past week doing nothing to prepare, she had a shed full things often unrecognized or unwanted, and she seemed insistent on on going through each box and relating why it was important. I asked her when the yard sale was going to be held, and she acted like I hit her, almost hissing "these are my treasures". Of course, when we unloaded the termite damaged coffee table and the mud-wasp filled buckets at her new place, she seemed to become more cognizant and realized a trip to the dump was in order.

My mother said something about how my great-grandmother would be spinning in her grave if she saw all this, and it reminded me of a story my grandma once told of her when her father, my great-grandfather, died, her mother, my great-grandmother, quickly sold off the majority of his possessions.

I suspect that my great-grandmother was the source of this, my grandmother was never allowed to have many things while growing up. When she became an adult, she found comfort in buying and accumulating... junk. Yes, $5 for a working microwave at a yard sale is a good deal, but who needs a -third- microwave? When my grandpa was alive, I think he reigned her in some, and I think age has made her worse.

But that's all speculation.

On a lighter note, I watched Survivorman this weekend and was blown away. The premise is simple enough: a guy is dropped off in the middle of some inhospitable place and given minimal supplies and a ton of cameras and told to survive for a week. In this case he was given a snow-sled, a rifle (-not- for hunting), some raw seal meat, and some seal blubber for a fire. His location? Seven hundred miles north of the Artic Circle. The guy bitches, he suffers, but he makes it through. His biggest complaint? Having to lug around and set-up all his camera equipment himself. See, he's really out there on his own, without a support staff or safety net.

I never got into Fear Factor or Survivor. Something about watching pretty middle-class Americans freaking out over eating bugs or getting dirty just annoyed me. And Survivor was more about social dynamics than any ongoing hardships. But this show reminds me that people once actually made do without grocery stores, instant communication, or even other human contact. I'm sure parts of Survivorman are over-hyped and dramatized for better television, and the guy has an emergency satellite phone and knows he's going home in 7 days, but it really is engaging television.