When I was young, maybe 8 or 9 years old, I would spend parts of my summer staying with my grandma and my uncle who lived with her. My uncle’s first wife had left him some years earlier and he had moved back in with his mother in his 30s.

I'm guessing that when most people think of the word "grandma," they tend to think of plump, little old ladies who bake cookies and bring you presents when it's not your birthday or Christmas and generally more or less spoil you rotten.