why i love suburbia.

On the sunniest, warmest day of last week, my neighbors across the street had their three grandbabies over for a visit. The oldest one is no older than six, the youngest around two, and the third is somewhere in between.

They ran around the driveway, the youngest one obviously anxious to ride the “big boy” bike (which was still a three-wheeler) like his two elder brothers. The oldest, with firey-red hair, held the handlebars and helped him from toppling over.

Later on, two of them went on a walk around the block with their grandma, the middle one staying behind. His grandpa, a man whom I have only witnessed as a parent of teenagers and then adults, took turns pitching and hitting a wiffle ball with his grandson. Hearing his "grandpa voice" - the one that’s light, fun, and encouraging - made me smile. But it was hearing the ball smack against the bat and come bouncing across the street that warmed my heart.

Once upon a time, before my neighbor was a grandpa, he was simply a father of his own three boys. They are all a good ten years older than me; I only ever remember them as teenagers. Back when my brother and I were little balls of energy and spent hours playing outside, they’d occasionally come out and hit the wiffle ball. At first they’d come across the street to get the ball themselves when they hit it, other times we’d stop our own activity to throw it back. But then they did something awesome: they officially invited us to be their outfielders.

We never played for long and I don’t remember it happening more than a few times. Still, it stuck with me. The older kids let us play with them. We were part of their wiffle ball game even though they were in their late teens and we were still under the age of ten. It was the coolest thing ever.

Since then, the boys – now men – have grown up and moved out, one of them sadly passing away much too soon. The oldest one is married and now brings his three rambunctious sons to play in the driveway in which he once swung the bright yellow plastic bat. It's memories like these that make me love suburban life and never want to leave it.

my history with pumpkin carving.

Twitter and the blogosphere have been buzzing with Halloween-type activities, including the ever-popular pumpkin picking and carving. As I scrolled through posts and clicked on picture links that had been tweeted, I realized the number of times I actually laid hands on (or in) a pumpkin was very small. In fact, after some careful research – flipping through old photo albums – I came up with an exact number: two.

1993, 6 years old.
This one barely even counts, since my dad probably did 99.99% of the work.
(Also? Matching haircuts! That my dad did! And I cried! /hate)

Yes, there have only been two times in my life (at least that I can remember and/or have been documented) that we carved pumpkins in this house. And, as far as I know, I’ve never set foot in an actual pumpkin patch. The closest thing I’ve done is gone on a haunted hayride.

1997, 10 years old.
I can safely say that the only reason I carved this one was because it was a Girl Scout or Boy Scout project.
(To clarify, the reason it could also be a Boy Scout project is because my mom was den mother, so I got to take part in all the cool craft projects).

Needless to say, for the past few years I kept meaning to at least go over to Shoprite and pick up a pumpkin, but it never happened. I even bought a kit that I thought was cool – it wasn’t to carve the pumpkin, but instead turn it into a Light Brite-type display. After passing over the kit for at least three years now, I decided it was time. I picked up a medium-sized pumpkin to use with the kit and three baby ones to decorate with my yet-to-be-used Martha Stewart glitter set.

My camera died right as I was getting started, so I there aren't any 'before' pictures or ones of me pulling the insides out of the pumpkin. To summarize the experience, I didn't realize how hard it is to cut through the pumpkin, had fun gutting the pumpkin, was unsure of how good the end result was going to luck, and completely forgot that the light that comes with the kit I bought changes colors. Here are the results.

My bat, which was the only decent-looking stencil from the kit.


My fiber-optic pumpkin in action!


Glitter pumpkin!


Spotty glitter pumpkin!

Overall I'm very pleased (read: extremely giddy). Any craft project that includes glitter is automatically amazing in my book, and the fiber-optic-type kit that I used ended up being really cool!

I'll be back on Sunday with a picture of me in my costume, but until then, have a fabulous Halloween-y weekend!

remembering.

One of the weirdest things about me, I think, is my obsession with seeing myself on video or in photos. It's not really a narcissistic thing, I promise, but a desire to reconnect with all my memories and keep them fresh in my mind.

I think it's weird not to watch home videos. If you've got them, why not watch them? Isn't that the point? I say this because when I first got into these video-watching sprees, my parents frowned on it a bit. There was an implication that they were meant for when I was much older, like when I had my own kids. I understand that to a degree, but I fail to see the point of recording all this video only to have it sit in boxes, waiting to be dug up years and years later to look back on.

I thoroughly enjoy watching the videos and learn something new every time. On some of the videos, while the kids are being taped, you can hear the adults talking about family drama. The banter between the adults while the kids rip open Christmas gifts is hilarious. I learn about myself - how I was a very quiet kid until my brother was born, at which point I subconciously learned to vie for attention by being loud and chatty; how I liked to explain things, even if it meant stopping my gift-opening to tell everyone every character on the box; when exactly my fear of my two six-foot-tall uncles ceased.

There are also moments that I am so very grateful to be able to see whenever I want, ones that I would have never remembered but that are now ingrained in my memory. I have been blessed to have videos that include my late nana and poppop, because while pictures are good, video is better. I can see how they acted and spoke, remember how they interacted with us, and best of all, hear the sound of their voices. One of the early Christmas videos, when I was the newest grandchild on my dad's side of the family and only about two years old, contains nearly back-to-back moments that pull on every single one of my heartstrings.

The first is with my poppop - a tough man who smoked and drank heavily, with dark tattoos adorning his arms and a rough, hardened face, whose tough exterior was melted only by his grandchildren. And there I am in his arms, in stark contrast with my pale pink party dress and porcelain doll resemblance. He asks for a kiss, but I'm distracted, so he reaches in his pocket for quarters, or as we called it, "monies." Handing it to me, my little fists closing around my prize, my dad prompts me to give him a kiss. My red-lipped little face plants the lightest of kisses on his own mustached mouth; when asked for a hug, my hands full with quarters, I simply lean against his body and rest my head on his shoulder.

The second is with my nana, whom I believe I resemble the most out of anyone in this family. She was kind and giving, worked hard to keep a clean house and put food on the table, always keeping her appearance immaculate. To this day, when I hear her voice on video - the smooth raspiness from years of smoking - it soothes me. This moment might not have ever made it onto video, as I had wandered from the gift-opening to the kitchen, where she was cleaning up dinner. As I sit in a chair that's still too big for me, she answers the question asked of me, "how's Katie?" She says, "Say, I'm beautiful, that's how I am." There's a pause before she says, "do you know how much nana loves you?" And there is not one single moment that could possibly touch me any deeper than that. The first time I heard it (and every time I hear it or think of it), I feel as though she's reminding me, that she's somewhere close, asking that same rhetorical question to which I surely know the answer.

It's reasons like those that make me thirst for every moment of my life that's recorded on film or in photos. I want to drink in every memory so that I can retain those that I've lost or that I never remembered in the first place. My greatest dream is to find a day when I can force the rest of my family to pause, to have all my aunts, uncles and cousins sit together and watch all these memories, so they can be reminded, too. I think it would do us a lot of good.