this just in

for the greater good
i will smile
i will pretend
i will love
   as a friend
   a mother
   a servant
but one day
i will be free

More quirkiness at 2840

Whenever my siblings and I talk about our parents' home, the house where we pretty much all grew up, we just refer to it as "2840", which is the street address there.

So here are a few quirky things about this home, things I'll remember about my parents and this house after they're...gone.

The crow feeder.  This was once a squirrel feeder that I got my dad for Christmas,  but they have since become obsessed with the crows in the area and started feeding the crows table scraps on a daily basis.  They collect old meat scraps, bread, noodles, oatmeal, whatever, in a plastic bucket on the kitchen floor, then bring it out and slop it onto this wood thing.  Looks gross,  but they love watching the crows come to feast upon it.

I gave them this personalized rug for Christmas one year, and it hangs above our basement freezer. (the ice cream freezer).  It's from an old saying from their favorite radio show host, Garrison Keiler, of Prairie Home Companion.

ok, don't get scared now, but this is a part of the basement that always creeped me out: this dark tunnel that leads to an even creepier place, the storage room, a dark, damp place where my mom used to store all the jars of vegetables and fruits that she used to can, plus all sorts of other miscellaneous junk.  Once inside, with the light on, it's not so bad, but walking down there in the half-darkness always scared me, and pulling open that heavy door and listening to it scrape along the hard cement floor...I'd keep telling myself, "don't think about amytiville horror, nope-nope-nope-i am NOT going to think about amytiville horror and the last scary scene in the movie where they run back downstairs to get their dog and the walls are dripping blood...AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! (or something like that, i refuse to watch it again to remember the details..)

Then there's my dad's big wood pile.  He is 90 years old, and up until recently, he has always loved to have logs brought to our yard, where he chops them himself, creates huge stacks of wood outside and in our basement, and then heats the home almost entirely just by using this wood stove.  It's his passion.  But now that he has cancer and is not doing well, this may soon be a thing of the past.

and thinking of these things makes me sad...andgodijustcan'tdothisican'tican'tican'tmyparentswouldbewillbedevastatediftheyknowbuti'mdyinginsidesosadsosadjustwanttobreakdownandcrycrycryandhavesomeonetoholdmeholdmeholdmesomeoneicanmeltintolikeabigteddybearwithskinonbutidon'thaveanyonelikethatneverdidgodpleasebemybigteddybearandholdmeholdmeholdmewhileicrycrycrymysoulkeepsgettingcutopendeeperdeeperdeeperandisoundsostupidanddesperatebutiamlordhelpmepleasei'mdying

oh and here's our creepy yucky basement shower...complete with a plethora of skinny daddy-long-legs spider running wild and free, and a cold trickle of water that takes for-ev-er to get past the lukewarm stage, and then you'd better not dare close both eyes or think about scary shower movies while shampooing...just don't.

and finally, my dad's little man cave, or office. this is where he sits, or used to sit, while doing his writing. he wrote and published one book down here and has been working on the second one. both about his days as a soldier in world war II. 

i will always cherish these spots in our home, at 2840, long after the house is cleaned out and sold. its ghosts of our growing up there will always remain. just as our love for our parents will remain in our hearts. i love you mama & papa.

Trip to the library w/parentsf

                                   Papa needed more large-print books to read. so here we go...

                                                   

cool statue of girl reading book inside circle

funny signs...

sorry, no long naps here...

oh, gee i never thought of that.

awwww, look at dee itty-bitty bunny...how sweet!!!

it's hard seeing your parents get older. so much older.

Morning jog

A little walk/run around my old neighborhood this morning was like a walk down memory lane.

Just around the corner and a  couple blocks down...lies my alma mater.  North High School.  The place where some dreams came true... (made the dance team every year, got to hang out on the fringe of the "in" crowd all those years..a big deal back then..)  and some dreams were broken. (lost at love, learned to be cynical.)

Walked some more, ended up at my elementary school.  Walked in from the back.  This is the warming house, where we'd go in to warm up after ice skating on the frozen ice rink they'd create on the adjoining field every year.  We'd bring our ice skates and go skating at the noon recess and after school.

The bike racks.  It was nice living in a small town where the light traffic, safe neighborhoods and plenty of sidewalks allowed us to ride our bikes to school and home again.

And the houses on our block.  This particular one is still owned by the Anger family.  what a name, and what a family.  I was good friends with the second youngest, a girl just a year older than me.  She was the only girl, had about 8 older brothers, one younger.  Most were in some kind of trouble with the law, it seemed.  The saying "bad company corrupts good character" applies well here.  Soon after we became friends, she taught me how to smoke cigarettes, and once her older brother even introduced us to pot in the woods behind their house.  This same brother, she told me, once did "dirty stuff" with her...my first encounter with a victim of incest.  yuck.  I'm glad that friendship ended soon after I got caught smoking once by my parents.  We lost touch of each other, I think she became pregnant in junior high school.  Her dad still lives at this house, below:

just stuff you think about as you walk down these old streets.

more throw-backs...

OMG, guess what i found in the back of an old closet here at my parents' house...

....my old high school prom dress!!!!!

(i feel so silly..)

now all i need is that old dried-up corsage i might still have hidden in their attic. 

oh and a date. or not. he was several inches shorter than me so dancing was awkward. 

plus he locked the keys in the car after dinner so we had to walk all the way back to his house to get his parents' car, crossing busy highways & sneaking through backyards, me in my high heels. memories. that's all.

p.s. using webcam for these, not easy, but sd card on phone is full. 

blogger struggles.

Tbt

throw-back thursday

ahh yes, i could do tbt every day for many days while staying here, in my old childhood bedroom, the house i grew up in, with all its memories on its walls, and its ghosts within the walls.

From old trophies, knick-knacks, art projects,

...some old favorite stuffed animals...

...to the faded photos on the walls. 

Like this one, my family minus one. (with 5 kids it was hard to get us all in one shot, especially as the older ones moved out)

and somebody's dorky senior picture, don't laugh...(can you say "feathered bangs"?)

so embarrassing...

(and i still remember the day that photo was taken, my sister & i had just returned from a camping trip, just the 2 of us, which ended with us getting in a big bisquik dough fight when our project of pancakes over the campfire failed, and it took me a loooong time to try to wash my hair before that picture was taken, i think i still had dough in my hair...)

and a variety of other stuff...

..like this little gem that my sister will kill me for sharing if she ever finds out, (sorry Heidi!)

and there's our wild & crazy pound puppy, Marty...

..and the dance team I was so proud to be a member of throughout high school.  We supported our various athletic teams by performing at football & basketball games, wrestling (like above), swim meets and hockey games.

And that just covers the stuff in this one small room. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the memories, good and bad, whenever I come home and spend time just thinking about it.

Maybe I should go back to the feathered-bangs look....

...then again, NAAAAHHHH.

goodnight.

TMI

I love my parents but....do we really need these on the dinner table? #oldpeopleprobs #awkwardconversationstarters