Way Back Whensday: Tales Of My Oma

I guess this isn't so much a flashback as a tribute to the nuttiness of my grandma, who I call Oma. I've always known that she was slightly off her rocker, but in a mostly harmless you-silly-crazy-old-lady kind of way.

My Oma is from Germany and her first language is German. However, when she moved to Canada, she knew no English and after he met and married my grandpa (at which time she knew slightly more English), they moved to a house where they surrounded by other European immigrants. My grandpa was from Canada, so this didn't really affect him. But after a lot of years went past, the other European families began moving away. Soon, the homes began to become occupied by various Asian immigrants. My Oma's accent was somehow altered from German/English to German/English with a hint of Korean. I often do impersonations of her (in a nice way) and people wonder why my accent sounds so wonky, but then select few people meet her and proceed to say "Holy crap, your impression of your Oma sounds just like her!"

I think the purpose of this little intro is so that you all can share in the joy I get from chatting with my Oma. After a break-up a few years ago, I lived with her for a while and we spent our evenings together enjoying reruns of CSN (really, CSN is CSI, but when I wasn't around she watched CNN and used to get them muddled...) and ordering Chinese food and pizza (from Pizza Hut NOT Pizza Pizza... She was very specific).

My Oma has a talent for a few things:

1. Turning ANY conversation into something about CNN
2. Turning a talk about going to Toronto's Exhibition into how one should be grateful for legs.
3. Regardless of what bar I'm going to, without fail my grandma will heed this warning: "Stephoonie, you going to the bar? Watch out, you gonna get shot!" It wasn't that I MIGHT get shot, it was without a doubt, if I went to a bar, I would be fatally wounded by a bullet. I can say to this day, I have yet to be shot at a bar.
   

*knock on wood*

With this info in mind, I present you my Oma and stories about her for your enjoyment (but not mockery).

I'll leave you with this mini-story from an Oma encounter:

Me: *watching TV in the basement*
Oma: Stepphooonie, come quick! There's someone SOOOOO famous on Letter-man. (I'm writing things how she pronounces them for full Oma effect).
Me: Oh ya? Who is it?
Oma: Just come quick or you will miss him!
Me: Ok! One sec!
Oma: Oh, nevermind! You've missed it.
Me: Who was it?
Oma: It was Steve.

I later proceeded to look up who exactly was on Letterman that night. There was no one even remotely close to being named Steve. I don't even think there was anyone THAT famous... But there you have it. I missed out on Steve on Letterman (not to be confused with our lovely contributor Steve).