Summer Hodgepodge #6

The heat continues and so does the Summer of Hodgepodge. Joyce at From This Side of the Pond poses a new group of questions to get our summertime sluggish brains moving and thinking.

1. Picture postcards were first printed back in the mid-1800's and deltiology is the official name for postcard collecting. When did you last send a postcard?  Receive one? Do you save postcards sent to you? Do you collect and/or send postcards when you travel?

I don't actually remember the last time I sent a postcard. We received one my daughter and her husband sent to us on their honeymoon; it arrived a month after they returned. I save most postcards I receive and sometimes buy them when I travel.

2. What treat do you most like to indulge in while on vacation?

If we're thinking about food treats, I would say fresh seafood. Otherwise, a treat I like to indulge in while vacationing is extra sleep.

3. Are you good at hiding your feelings?

I think I am good at hiding my feelings, but maybe not. This would probably be a good question for me to ask of people who know me.

4. Does your town/city/county still deliver telephone books to your home? Do you check the yellow pages when searching for a local business number or has the internet replaced the phone book in your home?

We now received quite slimmed-down versions of the phone book. I still use it, but less often because there are fewer listings included.

5. Would you rather be first or last?

Really depends on the situation. First in the dessert line, last in the immunization line.

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6. July is National Park and Recreation Month (in America, but everyone can still play along)...where and when were you last in a park?  Did you participate in any recreational activities while you were there?

I love parks, but haven't been to any this year. The last time was last autumn. We went to the Yorktown Battlefield and Historic Jamestowne, both in Virginia. We toured them. I hope to go kayaking at least a couple of times this summer at a lake or river in a local park. It is a favorite hobby I don't enjoy often enough.

7.  What was one of your worst ideas?

You mean I have to choose just one? How about moving away from California? My husband has to take half the blame for that one.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

My daughter and her husband will arrive in Peru this evening to begin their new life venture. We already miss them.

Nary a Neighbor in Sight

First, a little mood music to set the tone.

I grew up in a city,  Buffalo, NY to be precise.  (I love it.  Right here is where I always get little smiles of sympathy and understanding nods.  Tell people you're from Alaska, Minnesota or Maine and they say, "Oh that's interesting."  Tell them you're from Buffalo and you get the same kind of sympathy a person who has had to have all their limbs amputated gets).

So I knew all about city living,  public transportation, stores, entertainment, crime, police sirens.  Then I grew up and said, "Self, you're grown up now.  You don't have to live here anymore."

I don't do things by halves.  I moved 3,000 miles away to southern California.  Eden, Nirvana, Paradise.  A place of sunshine and suntanned smiling people.  They don't even know what snow looks like.   Happy, happy, happy.  I get married, have four suntanned smiling children, and then insanity strikes.

Husband and I start to think we are doing our children a disservice by living so far away from family.  Making a totally incomprehensible decision, we decide to move back to Western New York.

But not Buffalo.  No, husband's family has an unoccupied house on sixty acres, next to my husband's old family homestead (which burned down in a fire - that's how he made his escape).

Wonderful, grand idea.  We load up the moving truck and drive cross country in two white mini vans, each housing an adult driver and two children (minor occupants rotated frequently to avoid untimely deaths).

We eventually cross from Pennsylvania into New York and suddenly the sky turns grey and it begins to rain.  It was an omen.  We should have obeyed, turned around and headed back to California.

But, no, we are obviously not that smart.

My husband was a country boy and told many winsome tales of growing up on the farm (his dad was actually a teacher) and seduced me with thoughts of fresh air; room for the children to run and play and grow; space for a garden (no room for that at the California townhouse); family with whom we could spend holidays; a lower cost of living.

The partially furnished house had mice.  Mouse droppings in the pantry, mice in the walls, a dead mouse under the sofa cushions.  It was cold.  It was grey - a lot.  It rained - a lot.  It snowed even more.

We had no neighbors as far as the eye could see.  The eye could see a long way, we lived on a hill.  Our mailbox was a quarter of a mile away down a dirt driveway.  The closest grocery store (so called) was only a fifteen minute drive away, but charged extortionate prices.  The next decent-sized, modern grocery store was a 35 minute drive away.  We planned our trips to "town" to go grocery shopping, do errands and go to the library where we could borrow movies (television reception was a little bit fuzzy).  It was a big day, town day.

Even though we only lived 60 miles from where I grew up, I was homesick; homesick for California.

My husband couldn't find work, I was depressed, neither of the homeschool groups in the county wanted us to join, "Oh, so and so group is meets much closer to you.'"  Truthfully, neither met close to us.  Our family's were busy with their own lives so we rarely saw them.  Our white mini van was smashed up on a snowy January evening while driving to our nephew's wedding reception (he got divorced).

Eighteen months later we moved to Virginia.


Today's letter is N in the Blogging A to Z Challenge