4-30-12 Happy 79th Willie

4-29-12 the quiet weekend

found a book written just for me in the bargain bin at the bookstore for $3

curtailed the spring planting monster by deciding to just try a sunny corner for sunflowers.  

and I had to face this monster again. Have I mentioned recently how much 100% straight, unsweetened cranberry juice tastes like you are licking the full width and breadth of a giant green chalkboard? I got half the bottle down in one go. The trick is not to stop and not to breathe. Then you only have to get hit by the chalk mouth once at the end. Nasty medicine. 

(at 2:39)

4-29-12 the Sageville house and post #900

So, after the post a few days ago where I mourned the loss of my childhood home, I revisited the pictures I have of the place as it stands in my memory, filled with people, and memories, color... and walls.

I've tried to imagine the makeover phase of the house, which I assume happened in the early 90s per the odd touches like the round port-like circle in the, um, room that is the center of the house. (What do you call the spot where the living room room, dining room, utility room, and kitchen once had walls to differentiate them?) Someone doubtless decided to update since, after all, it was built in 1964 and still boasted the paneled walls and floral patterned wallpapers so popular at the time when it was sold in 1988. But between the zeal of knocking out walls, someone got a little carried away. Besides removing all but the load bearing walls, they also pulled out the greenhouse, the fountain, the northside-portico, the garage, the fireplace, the pool and all the landscaping in the backyard, the shed on the south side of the house, the south-side decorative fence, and most of the trees. The hand-laid tile in the house might have had more to do with hurricane flooding than interior design choices, but dang, what's left is a place even the drug-dealing dog-abusing renters probably hated.

So, in memory of what was once a very nice home, post #900 is for 11222, or Eleven Two Twenty Two as the script so jauntily described it, back in the day:

1976

south side of the house

greenhouse with original fencing

with later fencing and with my first car in the driveway

and with my second

the handmade fountain, poured cement with rocks collected from mountain trips

Pictures from the "great snow" of 1980

the aforementioned north-side portico and garage that are gone

taking a walk (so grandaddy could finish putting together my Christmas present in the shed)

Some of the sweet kitchen, complete with sunflower wallpaper, yellow counter-tops, green appliances, green carpet, and that big window I sat in waiting for my rides. This was originally the garage that the first owners had converted into a gigantic kitchen and pantry.

We ate most of our meals in the kitchen at the round table, with built in shelves and the surviving pantry door in view here:

I don't have any pictures of the utility room where the washer and dryer sat, where Alicia slept, and where the stairs up into the attic were built in. I wish I did.

I don't have any of Mammammy's room except this one, which is strange, because I spent so much time in there:

Outside my grandparents' suite was the door to the pool and the dining room, also featuring that stylin' paneling, and host to all the Christmas dinners and birthday parties:

Here are some of the living room. Behind us and to the right is the tiny hallway kitchen that led the earlier owners to converting the garage. It was smaller than any apartment kitchen I've ever seen. But so many Christmases (entirely out of order here) and family in this room. . .

Mom in the center of the living room by the fireplace, studying.

The other wall of the living room looking into the front room where the pool table sat.

One more of the fireplace and those paneled walls

The built in bookshelves and entertainment center that we never used for the television. We were all about facing the furniture toward the fireplace and window.

The front room and big window looking out into the greenhouse patio

My first bedroom was the at very back of the house, and we put up (and later took down) the raccoon wallpaper

The center bedroom started out as the reflexology office. After a few years, for reasons I can't remember, I got the bigger room and we swapped. Down came the loft bed and raccoon paper.

and new furniture was chosen by yours truly who, clearly, never had a terribly girly bone in her body

the window with the screamingly yellow blinds looked out onto the pool

My bed eventually stayed in one place, although everything else around it changed time and again

And the backyard/pool:

Bandit the rabbit's hutch was in the backyard, too. He, like the cockatiel that flew out of the sky and onto Christina's head at my birthday pool/slumber party, just showed up to be my pets.

To life and memories

and change...