Grandma’s Scrabble Phone
“Who is this?”
“Who is talking?”
“Where are you?”
Gram, it’s me, Jennie. You just FaceTimed me.
“What is that? Oh shit, can you see my face? I look 100-years-old. I’m not wearing earrings and I don’t have any lipstick on. I can’t see you. I can see me. Can you see me? Dear God, I’m closing my Scrabble board.”
No, Gram. I can’t see you. And you’re in Face Time, not Scrabble.
“Well, Eric is in Canada and he emailed me and said he tried to get me on this Face thing but I wasn’t there so I pressed this button while I was playing Scrabble and now I can hear you but I’m not on the phone. I see Scrabble, Facebook, YahooMail but no phone. I’m not on my cell phone, either. I guess I’m on my Scrabble phone.”
Gram, I’m gonna hang up and dial back, see if the camera works.
And so I did.
My 93-year-old grandma, who was born before televisions were invented and 35-years-old before the first satellites were put to use, appeared on my iPhone, beaming. 
“You look wonderful Jennie, and here I am, looking like something any decent cat would cover up.”
And so we chatted, covering topics we’d just discussed an hour earlier on the (actual) phone all the while she fidgeted with her necklace (she tossed that on before she accepted my dial-back) and the neckline of her satin pajamas.
“I turned this around; the v-neck is quite provocative and I didn’t want to flash anyone. I put on fresh lipstick, too. Could be worse, though, you mighta caught me bare-ass-naked.”
Well, Gram, since YOU called ME… that would’ve been really awkward, dontcha think?
“I just can’t get over this. I was sitting here with my Scrabble machine (iPad) and a glass of wine and now I’m in your living room there in New York.”
I mean…
“Tell me then, whose been helping you with Scrabble? Some times you have a real lame game and sometimes you come through with really big words. Are you outsourcing?”
What? No, Gram. Sometimes I take my turn(s)— we usually have 12 games open because she takes her turns later than I do at night and once she’s played her turns she opens new games until Scrabble tells her to stop— when I’m multi-tasking and sometimes I sit down exclusively to play Scrabble.
“Multi-task more. I like winning.”
Indeed.
“Why are you up so late? It’s almost 11 there.”
I’m up because my phone rang…
“Well, I didn’t call. I sat down with Scrabble and wine and there you were. This is out of this world.”
I love you, Gram.
“I know you do, Jenn. I love you too. Can we talk on the Scrabble phone anytime we want?”
Yes. Yes we can.
We discussed some of the topics from earlier, she showed me her manicure and I showed her my in-need-of-a-fresh-coat-of-paint nails before she caught me yawning and called it a night.
And then took her (12) turns in Scrabble.
She’ll freak when she sees this photo, but I don’t care. It’s awesome to be able to connect with her like this. We email and play Scrabble daily, talk on a regular basis but FaceTime really closed the 3,000 mile gap.
She laughed as we talked and I don’t know who enjoyed the “ScrabbleCall” more— her or me.
Gonna cycle through my 12 turns and call it a night.
Gram FaceTimed and I can’t stop smiling. ?
