Her name is Geraldine, but don't call her that or you'll get sworn at and possibly concrete things hurled at the general direction of your head. Call her Gerry. Gerry was meant to have been born a man, or that's what she says, and I believe her. She's tough as nails, would eat dirt, blah blah.
Gerry is the mother of my father, which explains a lot about him. She is missing a one of her front teeth and I'd be surprised if she didn't get mistaken for a homeless person sometimes, when her hair gets ratty and she wears her preferred flannel shirts, mommy jeans and these fug leather boots with rabbit fur no matter what temperature it is outside.
She has a voice like she's been drinking and smoking solid for the last 50 of her 60-some years, although she doesn't smoke and if she drinks she's the master of disguising it.
Gerry drives the biggest boat old american cars you can imagine. Buick, Lincoln, Cadillacs. They have to be american (
they're the only ones who know how to made goddman cars that won't kill you if you hit a deer. Or a tree...) and the bigger the better. And she's hit four "deer" and walked away unscratched from each one. She's got more hunting rifles than she has shoes.
The most she'd ever dress up was to put on those pull up brown pants (still wearing her flannel), clip on earrings and change into cowboy boots. I've never smelled perfume on her - most of the time she smells like woodsmoke from her fireplace in the house.
She rides motorcycles, 4-wheel drives, snowmobiles. She's gone on many rescue missions when dumb ass newbs go out into the mountains and get caught in snow banks or skiiers who are too inexperienced to bring enough gear.
Gerry always has big, old dogs. I don't know why they're always old - maybe she is the last stop for a lot of them. She lets them live out their lives and die peacefully in the woods when their time comes. They always slobber and she yells at them to get off the furniture but it's the only time some tenderness shows in her voice and they know she doesn't mean it so they ignore her, giving her something else to mutter about.
She's lived in the same house all her life, and though the city civilization is encroaching on her wildlife, she still gets her water from the well and had never dismantled the outhouse out back,
just in case.
She has a bear skin rug, that she killed and skinned herself.
Gerry should have been born a man, but is my Grandma.