Return of Memoryfest - Days 27-29 of 31
Jan. 28th, 2007 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicI felt happy and otherwise emotionally sturdy enough today to look through some photo albums from when I was a baby up through about age 11. I remembered most of the pictures, but they still sparked fresh recollections. Even the smell of the plastic pages brought back memories.
27. Pre-school
My maternal grandmother died when I was four. Our family went down to Florida, where they'd retired, for the funeral. What I remember of the trip is:
- Driving by a field lined with orange trees. I'd never seen orange trees before.
- Walking down a refrigerated aisle at an A&P with dim, yellowy lighting.
- Horsing around with the other kids in the carpeted living room, and someone (possibly me) bumping his/her head on the TV table.
28. Elementary School
My dad's friend's daughter, L., and later, his son R. too, used to baby-sit us sometimes. I was a fan of hurt/comfort even as a child, and I remember two nights when I asked one of them to do something to or for me so I could try to physically enter the fantasy. Once, at bedtime, I asked L. to carry me up the stairs in the position of all the best Mary Sues, with my arms around L.'s neck, one of her arms under my knees and the other supporting my back. It was probably not the safest thing for us to do, but we made it to the landing and into my room without incident. The other time, also before bed, I asked her or R. (can't remember which, though I suspect it was R.) to hold my arms behind my back as they led me into my room. S/he obliged, possibly after some convincing. I remember being surprised when it hurt.
Heh. Our time together was really very normal otherwise. We'd watch TV and play board games; L. used to read to me or play Pachelbel's Canon on the piano while I fell asleep, and R. used to entertain us with wildly funny made-up stories and shadowboxing.
29. Middle School
Two domesticated rodent-related memories. Consider it penance for skipping a few days here.
We had a guinea pig—well, technically, I had a guinea pig, although she was really a family pet—for six or eight years. My sister's friend J. had one, too, and because we had experience, when J.'s family went on vacation one time, they asked us to watch it. The thing was pregnant, so when they dropped it off at our house they gave us the basics of what to do if it gave birth, even though they didn't expect that anything would happen while we had it. Of course, it gave birth to three little guinea pigs whilst in our care, and our parents, being nervous about any of them dying or becoming injured before the family got back, told my sister and me not to touch any of them. Well, she and I decided one afternoon to take one of them out and play with it. We let the little guy run around on the carpet within an enclosure of our legs or some boxes or something. Again, of course, it escaped, ran behind her dresser, and would not be coaxed out. So I had to go tell our parents what we'd done and what had happened. I was banished to the living room while they got a flashlight and food and moved furniture to rescue the traumatized animal.
Another time, we were hamster-sitting for our neighbors. We'd put the cage on the coffee table in our living room. I don't think we took it out to play much, if at all. One afternoon I went in there to feed it some carrots or something, and I reached out a finger to pet it on the head. It bit me, right on the tip of my index finger. It hurt like hell. I jerked it away, and a drop of blood splashed onto the table. It was welling up and dripping fast; probably nicked an artery. I had to go into the bathroom and apply pressure over a series of tissues to get it to stop bleeding, and then I put on some Bacitracin and a Band-Aid. By the time I went back in to wipe up the drop of blood, it had congealed on the wood and needed to be scraped off.
27. Pre-school
My maternal grandmother died when I was four. Our family went down to Florida, where they'd retired, for the funeral. What I remember of the trip is:
- Driving by a field lined with orange trees. I'd never seen orange trees before.
- Walking down a refrigerated aisle at an A&P with dim, yellowy lighting.
- Horsing around with the other kids in the carpeted living room, and someone (possibly me) bumping his/her head on the TV table.
28. Elementary School
My dad's friend's daughter, L., and later, his son R. too, used to baby-sit us sometimes. I was a fan of hurt/comfort even as a child, and I remember two nights when I asked one of them to do something to or for me so I could try to physically enter the fantasy. Once, at bedtime, I asked L. to carry me up the stairs in the position of all the best Mary Sues, with my arms around L.'s neck, one of her arms under my knees and the other supporting my back. It was probably not the safest thing for us to do, but we made it to the landing and into my room without incident. The other time, also before bed, I asked her or R. (can't remember which, though I suspect it was R.) to hold my arms behind my back as they led me into my room. S/he obliged, possibly after some convincing. I remember being surprised when it hurt.
Heh. Our time together was really very normal otherwise. We'd watch TV and play board games; L. used to read to me or play Pachelbel's Canon on the piano while I fell asleep, and R. used to entertain us with wildly funny made-up stories and shadowboxing.
29. Middle School
Two domesticated rodent-related memories. Consider it penance for skipping a few days here.
We had a guinea pig—well, technically, I had a guinea pig, although she was really a family pet—for six or eight years. My sister's friend J. had one, too, and because we had experience, when J.'s family went on vacation one time, they asked us to watch it. The thing was pregnant, so when they dropped it off at our house they gave us the basics of what to do if it gave birth, even though they didn't expect that anything would happen while we had it. Of course, it gave birth to three little guinea pigs whilst in our care, and our parents, being nervous about any of them dying or becoming injured before the family got back, told my sister and me not to touch any of them. Well, she and I decided one afternoon to take one of them out and play with it. We let the little guy run around on the carpet within an enclosure of our legs or some boxes or something. Again, of course, it escaped, ran behind her dresser, and would not be coaxed out. So I had to go tell our parents what we'd done and what had happened. I was banished to the living room while they got a flashlight and food and moved furniture to rescue the traumatized animal.
Another time, we were hamster-sitting for our neighbors. We'd put the cage on the coffee table in our living room. I don't think we took it out to play much, if at all. One afternoon I went in there to feed it some carrots or something, and I reached out a finger to pet it on the head. It bit me, right on the tip of my index finger. It hurt like hell. I jerked it away, and a drop of blood splashed onto the table. It was welling up and dripping fast; probably nicked an artery. I had to go into the bathroom and apply pressure over a series of tissues to get it to stop bleeding, and then I put on some Bacitracin and a Band-Aid. By the time I went back in to wipe up the drop of blood, it had congealed on the wood and needed to be scraped off.
no subject
Date: Jan. 29th, 2007 12:16 am (UTC)A few years ago my sisters bought two hamsters. I don't remember what prompted it; it seemed like a pretty bad idea, considering our family history of fish, a chick, a pair of birds, and a bunny, none of whom survived more than a few months (the birds) at most.
About a week later, I was up in my room, supposedly studying for a test but actually writing in my diary, while my sisters were playing with the boy hamster downstairs. "We have a new pet," I wrote. "I'm almost surprised he's not dead yet."
Half an hour later a shriek came from downstairs. I ignored it, focusing on my studies. It was followed by a few more panicked screams, and then silence. Finally going down to check what the fuss was about, my sister informed me that she'd been playing with the hamster on the carpet and suddenly he just started to twitch. Minutes later he was dead.
Very few things are poisonous to hamsters, but apparently, one of them is parsley. And guess what the little guy had been given for lunch?
Having no emotional connection to the hamster I couldn't help myself and started to laugh hysterically, the kind of laugh that just won't stop, and I'm pretty sure my sister was seconds away from killing me. When I finally caught my breath, the first thing I did was go back to my diary and add a post script: "News update - scratch that, RIP, Hamster."
We were still stuck with the girl hamster, who had also eaten parsley and therefore felt like a ticking time-bomb- would she survive the nest 24 hours or not? We tried pass on the problem by offering her to my cousins, who didn't want a hamster. So the next day we donated her to my youngest sister's kindergarten. She ended up surviving, by the way, and I ended up writing a fic in which Angel, having previously accidentally killed Wesley's goldfish by electrocution, buys him a hamster to compensate, and ends up accidentally killing him too, by... you guessed it. The fic ends with them turning little Henry's corpse into a stuffed animal to the funeral march of Parsley, sage, rosemary and Thyme.
It was... more funny than morbid. I hope. And I had a rat story too, but I think I'll stop here.
I know it seems like we're an Addams-animal-murdering family, but really, we aren't. We have a dog now, and she's alive and healthy. Um.
no subject
Date: Jan. 29th, 2007 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 29th, 2007 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 29th, 2007 04:57 am (UTC)When I was five, my dad's aunt and uncle died within a few days of each other. One of those things where one falls ill and dies and then the other just kind of ... follows. Anyway, it was December when they died, so some Christmas shopping had been done. One of their daughters gave me the present that was supposed to be from them. I remember thinking this present was very important because it was the last thing they would ever give me. I have no idea what it was anymore, but I do remember I didn't like it and I cried because I felt horribly ungrateful for hating a present from a dead person.
January 28
I've always hated my sister's taste in men. Apparently, when I was a baby and her boyfriend (who became her first husband) got anywhere near her, I'd cry like mad. Once when I was about ten (which would've put him somewhere in his mid- to late-20s) we -- me, my two nephews, and their dad -- were all playing outside in the yard of their apartment complex. The jerk threw a baseball at me when I was turned around and he nailed me right in the back. When I cried (IT FUCKING HURT!) he sneered at me and called me retarded. I went to hide in the gazebo to cry by myself. I heard my oldest nephew ask where I was and his dad said, "Probably off somewhere whimpering like the stupid baby she is." I still remember this every time I look at him.
January 29
I learned the hard way that animals often reject their young if they've been handled by people. When I was little there was a swing set in our side yard. It had a slide (metal, which got very hot in the summer) on one end and above the top of the slide there was an opening in the structure of the set where some birds nested. One day while I was playing, I heard some chirping. Standing on top of the slide, I peeked into the hole and saw three baby birds. They were extremely young; they didn't have much in the line of feathers yet. I carefully took them out and managed to get them back to the ground without incident. I played with them for a while, petting and prodding them to see what made them cheep at me, and generally just studying them. When I was finished, I put them back where I found them and went inside. Several days later I went back outside to play and discovered little birdie bodies on my slide. The fall had been sufficient to splatter them a little and because I hadn't been outside in a few days, the summer sun had sort of ... baked them onto it. I asked Daddy why a bird might push its babies out of the nest and then I realized my mistake. Ashamed that I'd been the cause of their untimely demise, I didn't say why I'd asked the question. The next day I did my best to scrape the remains off of my slide and buried them. I didn't use the swing set much after that, not even the swings all the way on the other side.
no subject
Date: Jan. 29th, 2007 07:00 am (UTC)28. My least favourite class in high school was Home Economics. I didn't mind the cooking section so much, but I hated sewing with a passion. The teacher probably wasn't all that impressed with me, either. I was into Starsky & Hutch at the time and very much into hurt/comfort. One day I was working on a story where I'd shot one or the other of them (probably Hutch), and as I was cleaning up from my mediocre attempt at making applesauce, I asked her if she'd ever been shot. When she looked horrified, I explained that I was writing a story and wanted to know how it felt. I'd mostly said it for the shock value, but I really did want to know.
29. My sister had a gerbil when she was in elementary school, a replacement, I suppose, for the cat that decided that the entire neighbourhood was his kingdom and wandered from house to house, occasionally meandering through our catdoor for a snack (I blame S. - he was a tough cat and she called him Softy; how could he have stayed?). The gerbil lived in the den, which was adjacent to my bedroom.
The Hallowe'en I was 12, I returned from trick or treating to a dark and empty house. I remember watching Salem's Lot on television by myself and working myself into a delicious state of terror. When I went to read in my bedroom, the sound of the gerbil running around its wheel sounded exactly like the nails of the little boy vampires tapping on the windowpane. I tore apart my room looking for a cross and raced downstairs to find some garlic in the kitchen. When my mother got home I was in the living room, with the record player blaring and every light in the house on.
no subject
Date: Jan. 29th, 2007 11:01 pm (UTC)Hee! I would have loved to have seen the look on her face. It would have been cool, though, if she had answered "yes." Then you could have taken notes and shared it with your fellow h/c writers.
no subject
Date: Jan. 29th, 2007 10:56 pm (UTC)I think I must have been too, although I didn't know it had a name back then. My brother (who was only a year older than me) and I used to play lots of fantasy-type made-up games: pretending we were two of the three musketeers, for example, or Robin Hood and one of his merry men (I never agreed to be Marian or any other female role). Quite often these games would involve me getting (fictionally) injured or captured and my brother having to rescue me.
Of course, sometimes we'd really get injured by doing stupid things like fencing with pointy tree branches, but that just made it more realistic. *g*
no subject
Date: Jan. 30th, 2007 01:59 am (UTC)Funerals:
I've been to too many. But that aside, the one I recall the best is my uncles. He was 52 and left wife and two kids, a boy and a girl. I've rarely cried that much in my life... That was around 10 years back, a bit less, so I must've been something like 22. I still can't hear "The Rose" without crying and forcing myself to sing it is very catharsic.
Babysitting:
Once, my cousing (female, four years older than me) babysat my sis and I. I remember that evening quite clearly because we watched Indira Gandhi, former PM of India's funeral on TV. Which means it must've been in 1984 when I was 8.
When we went to bed, we'd managed to get ourselves somewhat paranoid and put the security chain on the door and forgot that my parents wouldn't be able to open the door when they got back. So when they did, they had to call for us through the crack in the door. The only one to wake was little sis, four at the time, who got out her little stool to reach up and undo the chain and rescue my parents :-)
(Same little sis gave birth yesterday to a baby boy :-D The first grandchild. Wow. Time flies!)
Rodents:
I obviously have loads of rodent-related memories, but here are a few favourites:
Our first rat, William, had been out for the usual out-time and we were trying to teach him to go back to the cage when coaxed. He did it, but on his way down the ladder leading into the cage, he turned, stared at us and made a very displeas "meep!" sound that I've never heard any rat imitate since. He was clearly only going inside again because he was forced!
Waking up in the middle of the night to the realisation that you know there's a loose rodent in the bedroom and they shouldn't be there. Then spend some time locating said creature - it was Thyra, a white mouse - and capture her again.
Having a rat do my nails - they are eccelent manicurists, get every piece of callous, every torn nail.
The feeling of a rat "petting back" when he's scratched in the right place. They lick fingers, hands, whatevers is closest, and their tongues are round and soft and a tiny bit raspy. They look so loving.
The incredible sight of a girl-rat in heat waggling her ears (that's a literal expression!) or a very content and happy rat doing the equivalent of purring: a movement of the jaws that make their eyes "bubble" or "pop" back and forth in their sockets at a high pace.