Cackle.

Nina cackles when she wins a head-to-head game of Uno. Her high-pitched head laugh reverberates around the room. It sounds like the laugh of the crypt keeper from the TV show I wasn't allowed to watch as a child. If you met her and her laugh was anything else you would be disappointed.

Sometimes Nina seems impossibly old. And impossibly fierce. Not only did she survive WWII, but probably the first one. She held on to the Unsinkable Molly Brown in the lifeboat off the Titanic. She walloped Ivan the Terrible on the back of his head for smarting off to her when he was a kid.

Nina is the "grandmother" of the center for street kids. In reality we think she's early 60s, but the math is always fuzzy at best. She's tough with the kids so that the rest of us (workers and volunteers) don't have to be. Which is nice. She treats me like one of the unruly kids. Which is not so nice.

And they ARE unruly. As a rule. There' a whole lot of crazy, a lot of crying, and screaming, and tantrums ... and the kids are bad, too. Our goal at the center is to model the idea of a healthy family to kids/young adults who live on the streets and at risk families who pass through our doors.

We offer warm meals and a safe environment. And a grandmother who very well could smack the silly right out yo mouth if you push too far.

Hahahahahahahahah.