Month: October 2012

It is the last hour of my 24 blog-a-thon and I struggle to find the words to write. There are some memories (despite what you’ve read here,) that don’t or won’t make sense written. Secret things in the languages of families that only make sense to them, inside jokes with timing that’s only perfected when the one you love who knows you can remember what it stands for and laugh while the rest of the world quirks their eyebrows quizzically at you. My mother and I were a lot like that. We had our own strange language where I parroted…

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As I’ve mentioned before, when I was very little, we used to live on base in Alberta in a lower income area called Tin Town, named creatively due to the fact the buildings were tin roof and tin siding. When it rained in Tin Town, you felt like you were in a drier full of pennies. A very, very big, hollow, drum like dryer. Our little house had a front door with a little alcove. I want to say that the paneling there like in the living room was dark and faux wood. The alcove for coats and shoes, the…

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Things I learned from my mother:  How to pick out the most expensive thing; be it coffee, food, perfume or makeup without even trying. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again or until you’ve blown $800. If you are going to belch in a diner full of Truckers, go for the gold. Baby shit is not a viable paint.  You don’t have to wear make-up if you don’t want to. Music, especially your favorite music cranked up as loud as it will go, makes everything better. Laugh like no one is watching so they can’t make fun of the snorting you…

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My mother told me that when she was very, very little she had a doll. It was one of those very-large, stand-up and walk dolls which quickly became her favorite. She took that doll everywhere with her and everywhere with her went it. I do not recall if her sister, my Aunt made mention of it for sure–but I want to say that anytime the doll is mentioned her sister would tease my mother about it. I’ve searched everywhere to try and find the doll that  my mother gave to me–a huge stuffed doll in very old fashioned dress with…

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Afternoon sunlight angled in through a glass door at the end of the hallway, spilling light across a spotless black and white tiled floor. It was so clean; not a single tread mark or smudge, not a smidgeon of dust along the molding or under any of the black plastic chairs that littered it. The walls were nothing but white with tastefully non offensive photos or photos of paintings that were scenery: fields and flowers and faceless children near the ocean. There was a distinct smell. It’s the sort of scent that, if you spend a lot of time in…

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You didn’t take my mother to a casino unless you had money. A lot of money. Alot of money that you might not want to see again. In Alberta, there seemed to be a Casino tucked away in just about any corner. Some of them were discreet, windowless buildings with parking lots that went on forever. Others were bright-lights, Las Vegas style squat monsters of flashing colors and bright signs. Couldn’t miss them unless you were blind really. My mother could had a list of favorite ones that she “had good feelings,” about. She often liked to roam around them and I suspected that…

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I love music, and that’s not such a strange thing to say. Many people do–music helps you get through the day, work harder, work smarter, work out harder or relax. I love a weird, wide range of music that spans everything from a song just released a week ago, to Mongolian throat singing. A lot of my music choices are simply sounds that move me to respond to them. I would like to think that my father and mother were especially responsible for my broad love of music. My mother was music. She was constantly humming, if she wasn’t humming, she…

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Being a military kid can generally go one of two ways: you’re lucky and your parents end up stationed in one place for a long enough time they c an get a house, settle down and you grow up near base with the same people and same families you were born around, and retire there, too. Or, you get stationed everywhere frequently. You uproot everything and leave friends and new people behind. You hope you’ll keep up but time and distance often keeps that from happening. There are several smaller degrees of severity: sometimes your parents get stations a metric…

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