Today’s blog is a collection of memories that I hold like leaves pressed between the pages of a book. They are more beautiful with age, and yet as fragile as a leaf’s brittle edges after years of safe keeping until they flutter from a page onto this keyboard.
Here goes:
1. When I was about two or three years old I remember us standing, (you holding me), up against mom and dad’s bedroom window and I waved as they drove off for the evening. You set me down and I cried. Puddles of tears running down my little pink cheeks. “Rachel, you don’t need to shed big fat crocodile tears, they’ll be home in a few hours.” I think I was sad about them being gone, yes., but yet, I think I was more upset about not being included, haha. I hated being the little one who couldn’t do this or that because I was too young and too small. I felt left out. L.O.L., I know…hindsight is twenty-twenty as dad says!
2. When I was about four years old I discovered an active interest in science. I would pull earth worms up from underneath rocks in the garden, I collected them in mom’s old Tupperware containers. I supplied them with grass and sandbox sand and I placed them in our clubhouse. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I would forget about them and rediscover them days later, poor earth worms. Secondly along these scientific lines, I would concoct fascinating experiments in the bathroom. My beaker was a Dixie cup, my stirring rod a q-tip, and my variables: water, toothpaste, baby powder and sometimes your bathroom items hidden inside of drawers beneath the sink. I’d stir, stir, and stir some more, and I’d wait to see how much powder I could get to slip below the surface, aha! Suddenly you would knock or rather, pound on the door, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE RACHEL? DID YOU FALL IN THE TOILET?!” Maybe that’s why the toilet would get clogged suddenly. Sorry dad….
3. We shared the coolest club house around. I must say. It was pretty fabulous! Inside it was decorated with my scribbles and later my love declarations with my first boy friend, awww young love….I think one of my favorite finds as a youngster in that clubhouse were the giant carpenter pencils we used to scribble on the walls. I hope that whoever bought the house from mom and dad in 1999 had children. I hope they enjoyed and or still enjoy that magical, imaginative, and fun play house dad built. Who knew that we’d be all grown up and still love that house, even more so now!
4. Three words: BOARDS ON DOORS
I’ll never forget when I was about eight and I tried to put the board on the front french double doors. I luckily balanced it correctly and did not take out the chandelier dangling from the tall ceilings height above said door. “Phew,” but let’s just say, I may or may not have accidentally dropped it through those two posts or pegs a time or two. The first time I tried to explain to a friend what it was, it was just too complicated for me to express. Upon further reflection now, I get it, I totally understand the boards on the doors. As a young kid, it seemed like, oh, ok that’s what we do, doesn’t your family board their doors? Haha. Well…you know, mom was ahead of her time. Early alarm system, talk about built-in security!
5. Mouse.
One word, super short, five letters, one syllable, and yet, it can summon up some of the most unprecedented responses from a human being. I shall never forget the shriek of fear echoing through the garage, into the house, and down the hallway. Remember how we kept the dog food in giant garbage can bins in the garage? Yeah…well…you encountered what was probably a shrew. I later met the same fowl in the garage area, only I found it’s number two sprinkled about in the vita bone cookie box and amongst the shelving around that area. I gotta say, “I’m not into mice.” Our poor neighbor Grandin had the privilege of removing said mouse once it became trapped on a sticky live trap. Dad was out-of-town, mom and I tried to be really responsible and take care of it with rubber gloves. Try as we might, we could not get past the rubber gloves and squealing sounds as we took steps closer toward it. I screeched, cried and laughed, and mom did as well. It was a mess to say the least, and dear Grandin swooped in with a laugh and a dust pan. What would we ever have done without him?
6. Now I know you say that you are not a runner. But hear this and you might retract your previous statement… 🙂
I believe I was age seven, you a young seventeen. I was playing on mom and dad’s bed with, “My Little Ponies.” I would make them gallop across the desert, i.e. carpeted area, and up the mountains, i.e. long hanging curtains that blocked out both the Anchorage frosty winter and kept in the heat. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of hair, jeans, and a long skid across the cul-de-sac. Yep, that blur was you my dear sister. I’ve never seen someone run as fast on ice as I saw that day. You ran so fast between the houses, up our street, across the circle, and into our driveway. I’m pretty sure that was probably one of the best cardio moments of your life. Why all this running other people are wondering? I know you must be recalling at this present moment Debbie, the one word I have: moose.
Ok, now people, you need to understand that moose are not sweet, they are not friendly, and they are not our friends. They are wild animals that roam down from the mountains in search of food and unfortunately, they bed down in yards especially yards without fences. HOWEVER, they do occasionally cross over fences too, but that’s another story, never mind, anyway…. (Into the Woods reference…:) ) Needless to say, a gigantic bull moose was in the backyard of Mrs. Bell, our piano teacher’s yard. It stood up, you saw it above the snow bank, you fled, the rest is history. Thank heavens it had the sense enough to just ignore the small teenager that approached it. We had too many close calls with these mammals. There are countless stories we could share at a later date, right Debbie?!
Have a wonderful day! Enjoy the moose-less streets of H.K. but watch out for those mini-busses and fancy cars, crazy drivers in the land of H.K. roam quite free. I love you! xoxo.
Pretty tulips for you! It’s beginning to feel like spring time! 😉
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