Friday, January 31, 2003

OK, I confess. I am on a roll here. Sorry about that (nah, not really). Anyway, I put this thing on my old homestead page "If you were born before 1945 -- Consider the changes we have witnessed since we were born............."
posted by Lorraine 12:15 PM 
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Ever wonder what your desktop icons are up to when you walk away and leave your computer on? Check it out. Neat-o
posted by Lorraine 10:41 AM 
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Doggone it, I am so bummed~~~the weather persons last night promised that 3-5" of snow would start falling about midnight. They also gleefully reported that morning commutes could be nasty, with slick roads and stuff. Well, poopie to them. There was a little white fuzz on my windowsills this morning but nothing remotely resembling a snowstorm.

I am bummed and just a little pissed because I scampered around yesterday replenishing my stock of popsicles and other important edibles, ran some errands and then settled in with the knowledge that -- nyah, nyah -- I could just sit around today and feel smug about not having to white knuckle it to work. Stupid weather forecasters. What other job could you get paid a good wage and be wrong so often?

Rambo had a good morning, though. After a long and lonely vigil for the past eight days, waiting for one special door to open and it never did.................Uncle Jack is home. Yay!! When I let him "out" he saw Jack standing in his doorway waiting for him. Rambo was dumbfounded, then, like having his tail caught in an electric outlet, he went from a standstill to 50 mph down the hall. I swear I smelled fur burning. He was one happy cat. At one point he sauntered back home, said Mreouw to me, went potty then galloped back to Jack's place. About half an hour after that, he stopped back home again, scarfed down some of his unfinished Fancy Feast, then went back again.

Well, I finally had to limp down there and retrieve him. While Jack and I were chit-chatting out in the hall, Rambo was still rolling around and torturing the feather on a stick that Jack was waving around. I started walking back to my apartment, calling Rambo "Come on, let's go" -- of course he totally ignored me, so I went back to get him. I picked him up and he waved his paws around trying to slap me !! What a brat.
posted by Lorraine 10:08 AM 
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Wednesday, January 29, 2003

I lost it~~, my really great post about staying overnight at my gramma's house when I was little. These were really fun times for me, my gramma and grampa were so neat. I was their first grandchild, but a whole gaggle of cousins came along in the next few years. I suspect I was really their most favorite, though. Well, maybe not. At least they made me feel like I was #1..

I talked about my two youngest aunts, who were still single and living at home. They worked, of course, but young women generally stayed home till they hooked a man and got married, not like the independents of today with their own apartments.........my grandparents probably needed their room & board money anyway.

I slept upstairs where it was felt that heating the room would be a waste of money so it was reallllly cold. The "featherbed" that you snuggled into was like being wrapped in a cloud---until you had to get up and run barefoot across the icy floor to the warm kitchen downstairs. I slept with Connie, the youngest aunt, and I will never forget the way she smelled when she crawled under the featherbed with me after a night out with Edna, the other sister. Cigarettes, perfume, booze, maybe a little sweat? Such grown-up smells and so comforting in its own way to a little girl......

Did I mention that the "girls" did not use commercial sanitary pads in the early '30's? Gramma made strips of white cloth, don't know where the material came from, but she always bleached and washed them after the "girls" used them.......Can you say *Yuck* ??? Well, why not, I guess. This is the same woman who retrieved two nickels I had swallowed and I was having a fit about losing my candy money. Far as I can remember I only had to wait two days before I got my nickels back, a little green and corroded but the candy store took 'em anyway. Ten cents bought a lot of "penny candy" then. A treasure trove of sugar..........

Gramma's house was in the middle of a neighborhood of immigrants, Jewish, Russian, German, who knows what all. I loved walking to the bakery for a special treat of "store-bought caraway rye", and either getting a doughnut or a hunk of halvah from the proprietor. Sweet!
posted by Lorraine 10:26 AM 
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