Well, it’s finally here.

We are back to being Granny-free.

Not that I minded her being here, but her own son was ready to put her on a plane and send her back after the first three days.

Here’s a woman, at the age of 82 - no, not 92 as she liked to claim - who never got over being spoiled and selfish.

She happened to have a sackful of chocolates, kept forgetting about them, but would whine that she was desperate for a piece of chocolate.

I was withholding chocolate from her because she had no concept of how much she would eat at a time. It would just get gobbled up the minute it was placed in front of her, no matter how much it was.

Hubs got her a big Symphony bar at the grocery store one afternoon and 15 minutes later I asked, “What happened to that candy bar you just got?”

Not that I wanted any, but I was just curious.

“What candy bar?”

“That big honkin’ Symphony bar that your son gave to you a few minutes ago.”

“I didn’t get any candy bar!” she said, panicking and looking around her chair, thinking it had fallen on the floor.

“I would know if I had a big candy bar!” she said, reaching behind her as if to find it being warmed up by her hot water bottle.

She pulled out a wad of paper.

The Symphony wrapper.

All balled up. Not a speck of chocolate left.

I was aghast.

“You ATE all that already?”

She got this look on her face, something akin to “bewildered.”

“I couldn’t have just eaten a chocolate bar and not remembered!” she claimed.

“Yes. You could. And you did. Gone. Lickety-split.”

She was more disappointed that she couldn’t remember having devoured it than she was concerned about not remembering it!

“Oh ... well that’s just terrible! ... do you have any more?” she asked, giving me her insta-grin.

I shook my head and said, “No, I think you’ve probably had plenty for today. Way more than plenty, actually.”

She crossed her arms and scowled, like a petulant 4-year-old.

I waited a couple of hours before offering her something decent to eat. I offered up several selections and she opted for chips, salsa, and sour cream.

After plowing through that, she sat back and said, “Whoo! I am so full! They won’t let me on the plane at this rate!”  which was an oft-repeated phrase of hers.

“Oh, too bad you’re so full. I was gonna ask you if you wanted some ice cream.”

“Oh well, I’ve always got room for that,” she said, repositioning herself in the chair and pulling her little table closer. She warmed up her hands like a fly on a pool of honey.

There she sat, happily scooping up hot fudge and whipped cream with a scant bit of ice cream and asking for just a dollop more of the hot fudge.

Hubs walked in and said, “It’s like freakin’ Hansel and Gretel in here! Every time I come in here, you’re stuffin’ another spoonful of sugar into your mouth! Knock it off!”

“Oh go away. You just don’t know how to have fun!” she said, shooing him away with her hand.

“I better not hear you crabbin’ about heartburn or how you have diabetes! Your own fault if your pancreas goes belly up on you!” he admonished, wagging a finger at her.

She found that highly amusing, chortling through a mouthful of her sundae.

“You can’t let me go to my grave without chocolate in my casket!” she said, her daily reminder to all who were within earshot.

“Oh, you’ll have chocolate all right!” Hubs said. “I’m gonna crank open that mouth of yours and stuff it with chocolate!”

“I just want a pack of marshmallow bears. Right here...” she said, smacking the middle of her chest, which was covered with dribbles of hot fudge.

Hubs shook his head and said, “No way. If you die in my house, you’re being cremated.”

That statement took her by surprise and got her all worked up.

“No! You can’t do that! I have to be up next to your dad!”

“Dad doesn’t want you up there next to him ... he’s happy to be free from you! Carryin’ that purse of yours around, painting your toenails ... you left him nothing to be proud of in his final years!”

She got a snide grin on her face, remembering how she’d bullied Hubs’ poor dad in the last few years of his life.

She tilted her head up at him and said, “He did everything for me!”

“Yeah, and you nagged him ’til he did! You don’t deserve that ice cream you’re eatin’...”

I had to intervene at that point, because she was taking it as a ribbing and Hubs was gettin’ serious. I popped a cookie into his mouth and he went away, muttering, but happy for a cookie.

Yeah, it’s true.

The apple really doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

The Kid appeared around the corner.

“What’s goin’ on? I heard dad yelling.”

“He was, sorta.”

“At you, Grandma?”

“No, he wasn’t yelling at me ... he hasn’t been in here, has he?”

The Kid looked at me with that downward turned head, eyes cast upward like, “See what I mean?”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I gave him a cookie. He’s fine.”

“Oh! I’ll have one!”

I popped a cookie in his mouth too, and off he went.

Another apple in the long line of fruit and nut trees.

But off she went the other day, sobbing into the rumpled brown paper bag that held the remnants of her chocolates.

I called to make sure she’d gotten home safely, and it was as if she’d never left the comfort of her old blue recliner.

And that’s fine.

Sometimes, no memory is a good memory.