Hold on, we're swerving all over the place today...

Since I haven't written in a couple of days, I have all sorts of little, mostly insignificant, sometimes noteworthy thoughts, feelings and impressions floating around in me noggin. One may think I have no other outlet than to spew these things all over you, my loyal audience (I hear you rustlin' around out there behind the crickets); however, Hubs and I have managed to get in some quality conversing lately, about stuff other than (as well as, this is real life, you know) kids' schedules, bill paying and the like. Often, though, stuff just flits through my mind that I would like to explore, when there isn't someone to talk to older than three who is not affected by geriatric dementia or occupied by work matters. So that's when you get treated to my blather, dear interweb, or sometimes even after, when I thought the conversation yielded blogworthy tidbits of it's own. Some of these are related, others completely random, and maybe someone other than me out there will find them interesting (show me the comment love, if so. Amen!)

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Had a couple of completely nostalgic moments this week. The warm fuzzy kind, for me, and one for Hubs.

I was fixing a cup of coffee for a resident who takes hers with sugar. I cannot put sugar in coffee without a visual impression of this sugar holder: and a really warm feeling about the place I used it.

I was a tail-end baby; I am separated by my blood siblings by 16 years. My folks were older, and so were their friends. Such folks were Hank and Hannah. They were a lovely NW Iowa Dutch couple, married nearly 40 years at that time. Hannah was the eptiome of a Grandma, although I never made the connection until years later, because my Grandma was plenty different than most. Hannah was pleasantly plump, had an easy laugh, and a houseful of crocheted items to dress it up. Her home was always neat and pretty, but I never felt scared to mess it up by playing. Hank had an infectious chuckle and wire-rimmed glasses that fascinated me. He could also wiggle his ears. It was the. coolest. thing. EVER! As I got older, my mom's unknown-at-the-time neuroligical disorder made her isolate herself, and my dad by proxy, from their friends. While they still were getting out and about, however, we would sometimes go to Hank and Hannah's for coffee. Sometimes my mom and I even walked down there ourselves (small town, and stay-at-home moms and grammas. Wow.) Hannah always had good toys (including the Tupperware lock blocks--I'm seeing a definite pattern here) and would tell me and Mom about her grandkids, especially KayLynn, and Loren and Leroy, who were close to my age. I wouldn't set eyes on them until years later, but I always felt like I knew those kids. Inevitably, we would sit at the kitchen table for coffee, and I was always offered some, just like a grownup, and they would pass the Tupperware sugar bowl. There was always laughter, and easy chatter, and those brief, too-few moments of my childhood are treasures. I take cream these days, but if I even think of sugar in coffee, I feel the warmth around that table, and I smile.

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Hubs' nostalgic foray has been humming around the back of his head for quite a while. His paternal grandma died the week after we married, and since then, her farm has been sitting empty. He has frequently wondered about the apples on the backyard tree there, as he can never get an apple pie like hers. Tuesday evening, we drove out the the farm, scavanged some apples and a branch, and had them identified at the local orchard as Red Barons. After sampling some the grower had on hand, Hubs concurred, and we have a bagful atop the fridge for pie making. I should do that later...

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My brother and his wife dropped in for a visit Tuesday night, too. I felt a little guilty were so busy, but they stayed over and we got to spend some time together yesterday. I love to hear my brother's voice from another room. After an overseas stint (which we will revisit shortly) my brother and his wife were stationed in Omaha, and visits home got much more frequent. I would wake on a long weekend or holiday, and hear he and my folks visiting in the kitchen. It was always a sound I associated with vacations and fun.

While overseas, stationed in the Netherlands, my brother and his wife would send home packages with interesting, supersized comics in English with a little hero named Asterix. The whole family was immediately hooked. Years later, Asterix would show up in American video games and a cartoon, but folks in the US just don't get it, for some reason. When Bro returned to the area a few years ago, he camee to housesit for us, and we found him some Asterix books as a Thank you, since his and mine had been scattered away over the years. He now has collected most of them again, and has loaned them to my kids, who eat them up. Hubs recently found a copy of the 2002 movie, and we watched it on our big screen yesterday with the whole fam damily, and had a great time.

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Hubs has cobbled together a home theater over the years that is starting to be company-worthy. We have all sorts of old sound equipment to rig together surround-sound, he painted out one side of a chalk board for screen, he uses the digital projector to show movies from DVD or VHS, and we have some old dual seats from the church basement for theatre seating. It's tucked into what used to be a tiny room with tinier windows, now a lovely little, easily-darkened alcove for comfy movie viewing.

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I really like the word "dustbin" today, and I have no idea why it is bouncing around my subconscious. Speculation?

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Need to go tote Thing 1's clothes to town for her. She is going with friends on a long weekend trip to Yellowstone. Cool. Have a great Thursday!