Souvenirs Aléatoires

The above title is just the fancy French way of saying random memories, which was the title of my blog a couple weeks ago. I didn’t feel like repeating myself and adding pt. 2 or anything like that and besides, adding a little refinement can’t hurt. I found some pics online that harken back to my childhood and sparked a little nostalgia.

I absolutely LOVED these cough crops and would sneak them whenever I could. I could consume and entire box if allowed.

I had a diary EXACTLY like this, except it was a 1 year. I loved that book and poured my heart out in it. To hide the little key, I glued a small magnet inside the top desk drawer behind the front where no one could see it. Since the key was metal, it rested safely in the desk until I needed it.

We had glasses like this! Almost the same pattern. Then we got a dishwasher and the glasses were run through it, instead of hand washing. There went the pattern!

I HATED this dryer! What my mom, grandma and I used was this ancient hand held thing that was very heavy and tiresome to use and took forever to dry my hair. Especially in curlers. My dad thought he was doing us women folk a big favor by buying one of the pictured models. I have no idea what my mom and grandma thought of it, but I detested it. That hose thing made it difficult to place the hood so the hot air wouldn’t burn your scalp. And where the opening of the hose was, that was the area of hair that got really cooked while the rest of your head was wet. Hated it!!

Man! Did I use a LOT of this stuff!! Since I was always into some kind of craft, even as a kid, I went through a LOT of this mucilage. That rubber tip wasn’t always the easiest thing to deal with. I usually didn’t get enough glue coming out to try and spread with the tip. Then I would try to amend the slit and would more often than not, get way too much.

Random Pic - Mushrooms

I was trolling some of my favorite sites for blog prompts and one had a random picture generator. I used to look at pictures in magazines and make up little stories about them. I haven’t done that in a long time and decided to try it again. The picture above is what came up.

The first thing I thought of was maybe a poem or two. Haiku is one of my favorite forms of poetry, so that was easy:

Mushroom or toadstool

Is a fungus among us

Either one can kill

~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~

I also love fairytales and came up with a little poem for children:

7 little fairy houses

On the forest floor

Each one lived in all alone

Behind a hidden door

They sleep all day

And play at night

Because they love the moon

They write their names

On all the trees

With special Fairy Runes

Because they’re shy

Of humankind

You won’t see them about

Unless you learn

Their secret names

And softly bid them out:

Moonwind, Petal, Shimmer, Whisper, Leafkind, Star, Liana

~*~  ~*~  ~*~  ~*~  ~*~

I doubt the mushrooms in the picture are the kind they serve in restaurants, but I LOVE sautéed

mushrooms in butter and garlic. I could eat them with almost any meal other than breakfast. Strike that, I would put them in an omelet with cheese. Hashbrowns on the side. And now I’m hungry…

Random Memories

Tootling down the memory path, I came up with a few more pieces of my life that you may or may not care about. Doesn’t matter. I’m putting them down…

My grandparents had a little grocery store in Kansas City and lived in the apartment above it. When my mom had a miscarriage, we moved in with them. My dad was an iron worker and had to travel to wherever the jobs took him, so this was the solution. I was about 2 or 3. At some point, I was given an empty tobacco pouch with a draw string closer. I kept bottle caps in it, and it was one of my most prized possessions. I loved opening up that little bag, taking my bottle caps out and arranging them. I played with that for several years. I don’t know where it is right at this moment, but I do still have it.

I’ve worn glasses since first grade and probably needed them before that, but until I started school, there was no reason back then to have my eyes checked. Once I got them, though, a whole new world opened up. I truly believe that the trouble I had with learning to read was because I couldn’t see well. As soon as we moved to Chico and I was going to a different school, the teacher noticed right away that I probably needed glasses. And from that point, I became a voracious reader. When I was in 2^nd or 3^rd grade, I woke one morning and reached for my glasses on my nightstand. They weren’t there. I went into the kitchen and told my grandma I couldn’t find my glasses. She said my mom had taken them to the optical lab to get the new lenses that were ordered at my last eye check. So I was allowed to stay home from school that day (yay!) BUT I couldn’t read or watch TV without my glasses! I was SO BORED.

My mom was never a real “hands on” type of parent. It was mainly my grandma that raised my brother and me. There was one point in time, though, that for some reason my mom was home more in the mornings. Don’t know why. Maybe the job she was doing at that time started later in the day. Anyway, Mom started making breakfast for us. It was winter, and we frequently had a fire going in the fireplace. Several mornings we were awakened for breakfast and she had made a fire, put the coffee table in front of it, and had bowls of oatmeal all ready for us. It was so great to be eating a nice hot breakfast and watch the flames.

Growing up, all meals were eaten at the kitchen table. There were very few exceptions. I think I might have been in junior high when one evening, my mom set up a TV tray for me in the front room. She said I would be eating my dinner in front of the TV because there was something special on that night that I would enjoy. It was the movie “Bell, Book and Candle” starring Jimmy Stewart and featuring a cat named Pyewacket. Looking back, this was such a tremendous thing my Mom did for me. I wish I could tell her how much this meant to me.