Big changes on the home front

So much has happened over the past two weeks it's hard to explain it all. So I won't post about because it's really not my place to share the good news.

On a more sobering note GG's oldest living sister Alice passed away last week. She was 99. Now there are three of the Sullivan sisters left; GG, Murry and Fern. I could tell she was sad about it but at the same time it was expected. We actually thought she wasn't going to make it past Christmas but if I have learned anything about my family while doing this is that we tend to live just about to forever and just when people think we're down and out we come out of the corner swinging!

GG said "well I guess that officially makes me the matriarch now.... not that I didn't run things with a silent fist before but now it's OFFICIAL!" She did say something though that was pretty sad, well at least to me. A few hours after got the phone call about Alice she got the phone call with the good news. She said "you know Meag, I just keep sitting her and all these things just keep happening in the world outside. I fell like I just get news updates." Clearly I need to get GG out more....

Now that Alice wasn't able to make it to 100 GG is more determined than ever to do it. Especially given her crush on Obama with his tailored suits and nice teeth. ;)

She talked a little about my grandpa's brother's and sisters and how she thinks Italian families that they portray on TV must not have been written by an Italian because they have no clue what those families are really like. I have noticed that her chair has been creeping closer and closer to the TV lately....she either needs a bigger tv or she should get new glasses....

I love my Saturdays with GG. We are trying to figure out a date when I can take her up to visit her sister in Napa. Also I have started applying for grants to help me finish the project correctly so wish me luck!

GG's tips to a successfull marriage

So I tried something new this weekend. I went and got GG lunch and set up the camera on the sly so I don't think GG even knew we were filming. She was pretty free flowing this time and really just let her thoughts flow which is exactly what I wanted.

I really wanted to ask her about my grandpa this weekend and his family but when GG doesn't really feel like talking about something she is an absolute master of changing the subject. I got a few things out of her and I think on the next round I'll be able to get more. I might hand her a glass of wine for the next one. That usually does the trick. One thing she was in the mood to talk about though was marriage. Why she thinks hers lasted so long, why marriages now for the most part don't and how, in her opinion, this transfers to every other aspect of society.

GG's number 1 tip to a successful marriage: "Leave each other the hell alone!" I actually laughed out loud when she said this. "I'm serious!" She says giggling. "You live your life and do the things you enjoy and he lives his and you come together and do things when it's important but you don't get in each others way. That's why it works. But at the end of the day you are friends and you're there when they need you." I must admit the woman has a point. I guess it comes from being comfortable enough in your own self that you don't have to do every single thing together. You have your time to be you and enjoy what it is you like with out subjecting the person to something they are probably not that into.

Oh and GG's second tip.... Don't try to change them! You married the person you married because you liked who that person was. Don't try to change them into something they are not. Yeah, ok. I can see that one too. People do change over time but as long as they aren't changing in to something terrible like serial killer or Dick Cheney then it's probably not that bad. If your husband likes to sit on the couch allllll dayyyyy Sunday and watch football, or baseball, or college football, or Nascar who really cares? If it makes him happy whatever. Not my thing but it's not like I'm being forced to sit on the couch and watch it either. He actually probably likes that I don't so I'm not asking a million questions while I try to figure out what the hell is going on and if that guy who has Rice on the back of his jersey is Jerry Rice. (FYI it's not. Apparently he hasn't played since the 90s or something. Oh well. Oh and no they are not related. PS I am now free to read, or go watch a chick flick, or do anything else I want while football is on, especially the playoffs. SCORE!)

So yeah. GG's tips, Be friends, but "leave each other the hell alone," and don't try to change the other person. I guess it all comes down to just respecting who the other person is and loving them warts and all. Well.... as long as those warts don't look like Dick Cheney.

The GG files is really starting to take shape. Started loading everything in so that I can start the editing process. Lately I have also just been making a lot of notes for what I want to talk to her about, go deeper with. And I decided that I do want to interview her sisters that are still alive and include them in the film. I was always pretty sure about interviewing them but I wasn't so positive about adding them to the final cut. I think it's really important though to have more then one version of the same story.

GGs sisters who are still with us are Murray, who just had her 90th birthday and who still lives with her husband Vic in the house he built back in the 50s; Fern who is 88 and still lives with her husband; and Alice who celebrated her 99th birthday back in November. I don't know if Alice will be able to be a part of the project as she is really not doing to well and I don't know how much time is left with her.

There are things about GG that absolutely crack me up. Like how she has decided she is going to live past 100. She has settled on this because when you turn 100 you get a letter from the president wishing you a happy birthday. Now keep in mind she didn't really care about being 100 when there was a Republican in the White House but now that there is a Democrat she's all about turning 100. It doesn't hurt that President Obama has "A great tailor, those suits are perfect and excellent teeth! Have you ever seen his teeth Meagan?! They are perfect!" GG has also never missed a chance to vote. It's the only way you can "try to keep the idiots from screwing things up and tell the good ones that they are right."

This Saturday will bring another filming. There's a lot to still cover so I will make sure she has her 8 cups of black coffee before we start....

I so wish some of you could be there when I am filming these little sessions with GG or when we are just on the phone chatting. She is hands down one of the funniest people I have ever met. There's no question about it. What's great about it that she knows she funny and she knows I think she's funny (she's especially funny after about a glass and a half of her pink wine. That's when she really gets going. She doesn't put the glass down and she talks with her hands a lot so after a while you feel like you are being annointed with some sort of holy water).

She has this way of telling a story she knows you will find funny but in such a dead pan way that she is testing you to see if you get it. She'll give a little singular laugh at the end of these stories then hold her hands palm up towards you almost as if to say "you should be laughing at this point."

When I was a kid I spent a huge amount of time with her. She moved close to us after my grandfather died and she would pick up my sister and I after school and we would go to her house to play and just hang out with the kids in her neighborhood.

I must tell GG was a bad influence on me. She taught me how to ditch school. In the first grade she taught me how to ditch school. Now it's not like I just got up in left, she told me to tell my teacher I was sick so I could go home early and she would pick me up and we would go out to lunch with all seven of her sisters. She also had cable. I didn't have cable growing up so when ever I went home "sick" or stayed home "sick" she let me lay on her couch and watch TV. It was FANTASTIC! GG didn't really see the point of first grade. She didn't really see the point of kindergarten either.

GG dropped out of kindergarten after the first day. On day two she got to the corner by the school, refused to go any further and went home. Her parents made her go back but as she tells it she went back but they couldn't make her like it! (insert single laugh and raised hands here).

My mom likes to wash over the fact that she did the exact same thing. She dropped out of kindergarten after the first day as well because the nuns were mean. She never did go back to the nuns and instead went to the public school.

Now keep in mind that this is two generations in a row that have dropped out of Catholic school after the FISRT DAY. It was so horrible they didn't even make it a week before throwing up their hands and saying screw that mess! I'm not going back! So one would think that my mom would have sent me to public school right off the bat. But noooooo not my mom. If she had to go, I had to go. I was too stubborn to drop out though. I was so stubborn that I stuck it out all the way through high school. I was such a rebel. (insert single laugh and raised hands here).

And where are my kids going? Thats right people! Catholic school.

Things I must remember to talk to GG about

There are certain things I must remember to talk to my grams about. I think the biggest one on that list is marriage. She was married to my grandfather for FIFTY YEARS. Fifty years is nothing to balk at. Especially when I think that I am not even 30 yet (damn close but not yet). Thats is almost double my life time. I want to pick her brain and see how they made it work. How so many of our grandparents made it work and so many of us just can't. The divorce rate now is something like 50% which is scary in it's own right. But how did they make it work? It's not like divorce was unheard of in those days. Rare yes but it's not like it never occurred.

What is it about her generation that was able to go the distance when so many people my age are not. I think I am most interested in this because I have only been married for.... oh gosh.... for almost 16 months now and although married is not easy at times I do absolutely love being married to my husband. He's my balance, my person. The one you go to wether you are having a good day or a bad day. When it's a good day they laugh right along with you and when it's a bad day they let you watch crappy reality television and has a bottle of wine open so it's ready for after you put this kids to bed.

My my grandmother didn't have crappy reality TV. They didn't have TV for almost 20 years after she got married. So how did she make it work? What was it that made it last for 50 years? And the only reason it didn't last longer was that my grandpa died in 1986. That's 24 years ago. How long would it have gone if he was still here? All of her sisters are sill married to their husbands as well and most of their husbands are still alive.

I am one of those people that never ever thought I would get married but I found that person that actually made me want to be married and I have never even thought twice about it. I joke with Brian constantly that I hope he knows he's in this for the long haul because my families genes go on forever so I really do want to get advice my grandma or her sisters or anyone else who has made a marriage last 10, 20, 50, 60+ years can possible help me, my friends, and anyone else who might be wondering the same thing. Just how did/do they make it work? I should ask Brian's grandparents the same thing. the have been married for I believe 62 years now and watching them is really one of the sweetest things you have ever seen. They are still so in love. They are each others person and I don't know what they would do without one another. I really need to start picking all their brains.... It's probably some pretty good advice.

Saturdays with the GG

So another Saturday down, another day spent with the GG. It's incredible to me how quickly this project has evolved from just a film I was making about our family history in to something so much more. It's really turning into what my generation is missing out on. Maybe missing out on isn't the right way to phrase this. It's more like what we lost but never knew we had. Things like writing letters or simple thank you notes or just stopping into visit someone, just for a chat. That our lives have become so busy that we would rather text someone then talk to them (by the way I had to explain to her what texting was and she still thinks email is useless.)

We talked about what it was like to live in Berkeley in WWII and how it was absolutely nothing like Berkeley is now. And we talked about her and my grandfather. Where they lived, their first date which wasn't really planned to be a date but turned out to be. How they were married almost 8 months to the day later and why they picked the day they got married.

One of my favorite things she does, and she has done this in every taping we have don so far, is that about every 4 minutes she says something to the effect of "and that's my life. Just kinda there. Not to interesting." Then she proccedes to pull out another funny story and talk for another 20 minutes before she says how boring it all was then starts in on another story.

She told me about her favorite car to drive and that she never actually went car shopping. My grandfather had a friend in the car business (GGs term not mine) and he would just show up at the house with a new car for her when my grandpa thought it was time. Her favorite was the convertable Buick. Who knows what type it was but she said she loved that car and if she could she would only drive convertables and never put the top up. Her next car (when grandpa decided it was time for a new one) was the very first Ford Mustang in bright shiney red. That was fun too but she really liked that convertable.

My grandpa on the other hand never, ever drove anything but a Cadilliac.

She told me about when it was finally time for her to stop driving (she was 92) and she gave her car to my sister Kelly. Now this was not some fancy car. It was a silver Geo Storm that was the first car my grandma ever bought on her own at a dealership (she was 86 at the time). She liked that car. She called it "the Bullet." So anyways she gives this car to my sister which my sister the SELLS to my stepdad! GG though this was absolutely hysterical! She couldn't believe that Kely, little sweet Kelly, could be so ruthless. GG said "Well Kel, I guess you'll do alright in this world."

GG really is one of my favorite people to hang out with. Always has been and even if I weren't doing this project I would still be hanging out with her one my saturdays....

Second Filming Complete

Hi Everyone!

So I was able to accomplish this past week from both the behind the scenes stuff and the filming aspects all of which were very cool. Great news is I got a composer on board this week for when I get closer to the end. It's really nice to have that wrapped up so early in the process.

On the filming side GG was great this weekend! We focused mostly on her childhood and early twenties and I learned some things about my great grand parents that I never knew. Like my great grandmother was a member of the first class of women graduating from Cal. She got her degree in Latin. She also played the piano and the violin and was an amazing cook. She had three sisters and four brothers one of which was a nun and another died as a child. They are all buried in Palo Alto... GG thinks.

My great grandfather sold real estate out in Contra Costa county and absolutely adored his eight daughters. He thought they were just the best thing that ever happened to him and was always praising him. GG said it was quite the shock when she went out into the world and discovered that all men were not as wonderful as her dad. I really wish I could have known them both but since he was born in 1875 and she in 1883 the odds of that happening were pretty slim. They lived in their house in Berkeley until they both passed, She in 1964 and he in 1967, they were married in 1908.

GG told me about how all of her sisters met their husbands, most at the weddings of another sister and how one by one most of the husband were shipped off to "The War to end all Wars," World War II. How when the war started they were too old to be drafted as they were in their late twenties but as the war dragged on and they needed more soldiers they all received the call. My grandfather was sent to Hawaii for three years and during that time my grandmother never saw him. He was sent to Hawaii because at 29 he was deemed to old to fight. They exchanged letters and pictures as often as they could. She moved back home during the time of his tour as many of her sisters did. Another husband was an airplane mechanic, most of the others were sent to the Navy.

The next go round is really going to focus on her and my grandfather. They were married for 50 years before he passed in 1986 so there are bound to be some great stories there...