Thursday, January 31, 2008

Hot Cocoa Swap Topic #3

Well, I haven't been doing the weekly topics, because I've had other things to blog about, but when I read topic 3, it sort of stuck around in my brain, making me think.

What is the most 'random' memory you have from your childhood?

I have lots of memories that are seemingly random. As I get older, it seems for some reason I get more of them, particularly memories with those family members who are no longer here. I guess the most 'random' of my memories is a toss up between two.

The first one is with my mom and dad. It was before they divorced, but I don't recall if it was before or after dad moved to Texas (he lost his job in Michigan and Ford moved him to work at a plant in Texas rather than lay him off - he would come home semi-frequently to visit). This means I was somewhere between 3-5 years old. We were having dinner at Vito's, which was my absolute favorite pizza place. Until the age of 15, the only pizza I at was with mushroom and hamburger on it. We were at our table, near the jukebox, and Chariots of Fire was playing (why do I know that. . . because I played it. . . oh yeah, I was an odd child!). When the pizza came, my dad took a piece and tried to cut it on his plate. I guess the fork wasn't really holding the pizza, because when he put the knife to the slice, it shot across the table and ended up upside down in the ashtray. It's not so funny in retelling, but it was hilarious at the time. To this day, if I drive by and mom is in the car, she says 'remember that time your dad lost the pizza?'.

The second is with my grandparents. My mom's parents stayed with us a lot, or I at their house after my parents divorced. Since my mom worked full time, grandma and grandpa watched me a lot, and took care of transporting me to after school activities when it was necessary. I was probably about 6 years old and I was obsessed with learning to snap my fingers. I couldn't do it to save my life. I practiced all the time, including in the bath/shower. One evening in the bath (or shower, I don't recall) I discovered that if my hands were wet, I could snap my fingers. I was so excited by this, I promptly ran from the bathroom - soaking wet and naked as a jaybird - directly into the living room to show off this newly acquired skill to my grandpa. I stood and snapped until my hands dried off enough that they didn't snap anymore. Then, I turned around, shook my nekkid behind at grandpa and ran off with my mom trying to catch me with a towel!

Like I said, I was an interesting child :)

3 comments:

km said...

Hi...it's Kristen. My package came yesterday. We all love HIM. HE doesn't have a name yet. And I haven't been able to photograph him in his new home yet because it was dark too quick after he arrived. I can't wait to read a bit more about you. I scanned a few posts down. I think these matchers did a great job. Some sort of cosmic force. My job before kids was as an architect. So, really...we should email about interiors and design. Then, my downstream has Wendy's Sizzle as one of her -to knit- projects. And we all carry the seatbelt bags. Even if we all lived in the same local, I'm not sure we'd run into each other. But, I'm sure glad i met you this way. Thanks for the package. And I love the bitty sheep markers. They will be so fun to use.

Mr Puffy's Knitting Blog: said...

Those are very cute stories. I particularly sympathize with your mother trying to catch you with a towel - I feel like that when I'm trying to dry off Mr Puffy!

Eva said...

Loved the story about snapping and your grandpa. It reminded me of two similar things -- first, like you, I was thrilled by my discovery of the wonders of wet-finger snapping (still haven't learned how to whistle with my fingers in my mouth, though); and, second, the time I, also about six, asked my grandfather if he wanted to watch me take a bath. He firmly insisted he didn't. I was very puzzled at the time since I figured that watching me do anything was just about the greatest privilege in the world. Now that I'm older, I wish the old guy were around so that I could thank him. As I'm sure you can understand, no one's looking for THAT therapy session.