Crayons, green houses, red hotels and Playdoh

This weekend I helped my Mom and Dad clean out what we lovingly call "the playroom". Nothing has been 'played' in this room for years. Many moons ago, when this room was conceived by my parents and built by my Grandaddy it was a storage/play area. We had a ping pong table, dart board, various play areas. I remember wearing my roller skates and playing ping pong at the same time. The added difficulty must have gained me some knowledge, havent discovered what yet. My brother and I would see who could hit the ball the hardest. We also played a million games of darts. Probably not by any rules heard anywhere in the world, but we had fun. I found that dart board this weekend, it is barely holding together there are so many holes in it!

There were also boxes and boxes of our childhood toys, games and things. Puzzle pieces, game pieces, marbles, Legos, trains, books, on and on. It was fun uncovering some of these things. My brother and i had a lot of fun discovering these small treasures. An old red metal trunk full of Adventure People and Legos, two of my brothers favorite toys. Our old Monopoly game, not all the pieces we there, I think I found them all by the time we finished. I kept finding little green houses and red hotels. My favorite thing was uncovering Cootie pieces. The Cootie game was a strange game where you rolled the die to pick pieces to build, well, a bug. Why was this a game, much less a popular game in the 70's? Who knows but my Aunt and I played it till we built every bug size, shape and color combination available. I still have one, Cootie Bug that is!

Why do we hang on to all of this junk? Why does my Mom keep an old Monopoly game with hotels and houses missing? Dice that are missing from who knows what game. Puzzle pieces, paint brushes, dried jars of paint, crayons.

Opening an old metal can filled with crayons was wonderful when the smell of them hit my nose. Brought back thousand of memories of coloring old scraps of paper, construction paper, coloring books and melting old broken ones between pieces of wax paper with my Mom to make stained glass windows for a cardboard church we built. And then there's Playdoh, I didn't find any while cleaning, I always took great care of my Playdoh, it never would of ended up hard in an old box! I never even let the colors touch each other, if they mixed, it couldnt go back into the contaner!



All of these things hold memories. Its like each piece when discovered released that memory back into the air. Small time capsules with our fingerprints all over them.

Of All the Things I've Lost, I Miss My... Cat? the Most??

Today I was thinking about things I have lost over the years. I have lost lots of things, from socks to cats, earrings to people. Think about it, what have you lost over the years? I can think of lots of things from childhood to now but starting at a more reasonable time, say college, I can think of lists of things. T-shirts, contacts, books, friends, shoes, sheets (long strange story), pictures, fish (yes the fish bowl kind), makeup, brain cells, keys, boy friends, a coffee pot (another strange story). As I have grown older I have lost more things, some more precious than others. Like cats, in the past 4 years I have lost 4 cats, Franklin, mine and Jeremy's first cat of 13 years, Thomas another sweet ole cat I miss a lot, Butter a scrawny loving cat and recently Cali the last of my outside kitties. I have lost and found and lost and found the same 60 lbs. over and over. I'm really tired of that turning up over and over again. Why can't the pink sock with the flowers on it turn up again? That I could use.

I can't seem to locate one of my favorite gold hoop earrings, my favorite pair of tweezers, and one of my brown sandals, a couple of DVD's, sans the cases thanks to Brindle, several hair things, like barrettes, clippy things and head bands, more friends. Well maybe I haven't actually lost the friends, miss placed for a while, while we un-confuse ourselves.

I lost my Grandaddy last June and I really miss him. I lost 2 weeks of happiness and a lifetime of planning for another little life. These things I miss the very most. I have lost a piece of myself, this I hope I find, although I don't know where to look.

Memories.....

Today at work i was, sitting at my desk, ear buds in ignoring everyone around me, happily listening to random songs on my itunes library. REM - Stand came on, I immediately started tapping my foot and smiling. If I had been in my car I would have been singing, hell I might of been, although no one hit me with anything, so I probably wasn't. Anyway, that song made me happy, made me remember really happy times. College times, parties and concerts. I think there were some classes in there too...

This song made me remember a road trip to Birmingham to see REM in concert. John Desaro drove his small toyota or honda something, 3 in the back, 2 in the front. John, Jay C., Jay S., Anthony and myself. What a a great time we had! Listened to REM all the way over, on cassette no doubt! I bought a black REM GREEN T-shirt, I still have it, its full of holes and is soooo soft. That shirt will never find itself in the rag bag!

I have lost touch with everyone except Anthony, I wonder if he or the other still love REM and remembers that day?

Memories of Pecans

I played hooky today! Stayed home with my hubby. We cleaned a little, went shopping took a nap, it was nice. By this afternoon I wanted to sit outside in the fading sun and enjoy the little warmth left from this beautiful day. I decided to make good use of my time outside and shell pecans. Thats pronounced pea-cauns, not pee-cans, anyway. You may find shelling pecans boring, strange, laborious, whatever i like it. So out to the swing I went, two bowls and the pecan cracker. My pecans came from my Memamas trees in Georgia. She has 12 or 14 huge, old trees. This year was the first time I ever got a bag of pecans from her without my Grandaddys grading system inside.

Let me explain. Grandaddy would pick up the pecans as they fell from the trees. He would put all of that particular year in bags, date the bags, time and approximate location and place them in a very large freezer to be used at will or given to family. So every year i get nuts from Memama, when I got them from the freezer to shell, there would be a small piece of paper inside, with Grandaddys handwriting on it with the date, time and approximate tree. Sometimes he would grade the nuts as good, dry, large or plump. This bag, had no grade, no description. Grandaddy died in June.

But I have such sweet memories of the pecans. Of picking up pecans in the yard with him for years and years. He made it seem fun, not the boring job it could of been. He had a pecan picker upper thing, it had a long handle with a wire, cage thing on it, looked kind of like a spring. You pushed it along the ground and the pecans got into the metal and couldnt fall out. It was open on one end to dump out the nuts. My aunt and i would pick them up by hand, he said we were closer to the ground and could get them better that way. He showed me how to hold two of them in my little hand and press really hard together, cracking one of the nuts, then you could pick out the good pieces and eat them in the yard while you were suppose to be picking up nuts.

Grandaddy and I would sit outside his shop and crack pecans, with the same type of cracker I have today. He would just crack them, not shell them completely. i wold take the bucket into the house to Memama where she would finish shelling them and make Chewy Cake! Yum!!!

Shelling the pecans leaves my hands dry with brown pecan dust under my fingernails, little bits of nut stuck there too. Sharp shells all over the porch floor, and you know what... I wouldn't change it for the world.

... these are a few of my favorite things...

what are your favorite things, really? and are they 'things' at all? what sent me on this journey today? The snow, its snowing in Alabama, a rarity here in this southern state. So when it does snow, even a little, we take notice and do strange things, like buy all the bread and milk in the store. Yea, this is what you need to survive a snow storm. I got beer and chili fixins'. That's more like it.

Back to the snow. I was standing on my back porch, letting the snow land on my face, listening to it fall. Yes snow makes a noise, very soft, beautiful noise as it falls through the trees and lands on the cold grass. I realized snow and the peaceful blanket it brings and the sound it makes floating down from the grey sky, is one of my favorite things. The smell of a wood fire burning and the sting of the cold air in my nose is one of my favorite things. A warm cat sleeping on my side, in the curve of my waist as I lie on the couch, the feel of him purring and kneading the cover is one of my favorite things. Seeing Jeremy smile at me when he realizes I am looking at him, is one of my favorite things. So many more: Memamas warm pound cake, Granddaddy's aftershave, the smell of a fresh clean baby, fresh cut grass, cherry vanilla pipe smoke, an old couple holding hands, riding downhill very fast, comfy shoes, over sized soft sweat shirts, pickles, baking, having a brother, watching leaves fall, kissing, Halloween, friends, freedom, memories.

I could go on and on and on. Think about your favorite things. What are they? are they actual things. I have a few things i couldn't live without, well at least i think i couldn't live without. Like this computer for instance, i love my lap top, my ipod, my digital camera. Jeremy thinks I should have a USB port installed in my head for all my gadgets. My wedding ring, its a thing and one of my favorites, my bike my old Jenga game, strange but one of my favorites, something special from my Grandaddy, the clef in my chin that looks just like my Daddy's. on and on. So many of my favorite things, aren't things at all, just memories, thoughts, loves. Things i could share or keep to myself.

But if i keep them to myself, no one will know or remember my favorite things and quite possibly me.

photographs and memories

yes, I know this is a Jim Croce song, thats the point. Memories are so strong and songs, out of no where, even musac (elevator music) will provoke a memory of where you were, who you were with, someone who dedicated a song to you or you them (I grew up in the 80's), a deep hurt, whatever, a song can bring soooo many things to mind. and people, how many songs make a long lost love or friend or enemy for that matter, pop into you head.

A few examples, every time I hear 'Aint No Sunshine' (The Neville brothers, Tom Jones, Al Jarreau.... whoever) sung by one many different artist, it reminds me of Jeremy, my dear husband. He sang that song in the shower the first 2 years were together, and still does when requested. A new artist, just heard her Friday Ingrid Michaelson's song 'The Way I Am' made me immediately think of him. 'Lips of an Angel' makes me think of The One mentioned in a previous blog. Diana Krall 'Little Girl Blue' makes me think of RR (yes, to protect the innocent, I am using initials...) every time I hear it. Richard Marx 'Right Here Waiting' always will remind me of Anthony, that one takes you back doesnt it! It was 1989-90, college, Sigma Phi party, wow! Who knew the feelings that could re-surface after so many years. The slow dances, the make up... wow ok, enough of that one. moving on. remeber 'Shock the Monkey' Peter Gabriel, HA HA HA havent thought of that one in a while, that one reminds me of High School Art class and Skeet, that was his name, well nick name. Mr. Mister - Lee thats you, Beatles-Mark you get them. Soft Cell 'Tainted Love' Kelly thats you! 'Kokomo' Shawn thats all you (Cocktail...) 'Mr. Midnight' Garth Brooks Justin, thats you!

I could go on and on, obviously. Well, I didnt realize till I started typing how many I had in my head. I mean when you are humming to the elevator music and realize they have put David Lee Roth, Hot for Teacher to musac, something is WRONG! wrong wrong wrong. DO you realize that todays children will never know anything but CDs and ipods, maybe not even CDs, they will think LP's are plate chargers and forget 8 tracks, I mean I came in at the end of 8 tracks, but I know what they are. I have a box full of 45's in the basement (Jen thats the small vinyl records.. ;) )

Seriously how can I preserve all the memories in my head, how can I put this stuff somewhere for someone, years for now to read and be board with? I mean you cant Will Memories to someone, that would be cool though. To leave all the stuff in you head to someone, not the gooey stuff, but the memories. The things that songs and smells and pictures make you recall. The long lost times, childhood, teen years, early life. I have so many and I dont want to loose them.

Therefore, you, those who read this, will be entertained, punished, enlightened by, board by, whichever, by my memories! I hope you enjoy some of them!