Bruce and Grandma C

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Grandma C grew up in the world of novenas, daily mass and regular graveside prayers for the dead.  Devotion not much different from that of her roots in Portugal and Italy, though she grew up in Boston and attended Girls' Latin School in Roxbury.  For her conservative parents high school with young WASP and African-American women was preferable to proximity to young men of any race or creed.

Grandma C was also devoted to work and became a crackerjack legal secretary at a wealthy Boston law firm.  Her sons and daughters attended Harvard, Yale and Boston College.  Born a generation later, Grandma might have been a lawyer at the firm instead of a secretary.  That didn't matter to her.  She was content with her faith and rituals, taking care of her children and family, and preparing for the festival of Christmas.  Puritan New England defined itself through work and material success.  Latin New England expressed itself with food and art.  Christmas in the Chicarello household was a two-day feast, including hand made ravioli, lobsters, spaghetti with lobster sauce and cannoli.  The artist was exhausted by the end of the feast, but what a show.

Her sons might have called him unpleasant names, but Bruce was Grandma's work buddy.  This didn't soften the blow when Bruce arrived one morning dressed as Caitlyn.  Grandma passed out when she learned this was a permanent arrangement and that she was going to have to share the ladies room with Caitlyn.  The law firm advised Grandma that they would provide her with professional counselling to help deal with her problems concerning Caitlyn and the ladies room.  They never made the logic quite clear on why Grandma, and not Caitlyn, was the one who had to deal with the problem of sharing a rest room with anatomically correct men.