Summer memories: catching Junebugs and tying a length of sewing thread to one of their legs so they couldn't fly away. You'd hold the end of the thread and fly them in circles around you.
Pulling leaves off the red hot poker plant in the back yard (when my Dad wasn't looking) to use as bullwhips, or to peel into thongs to braid for headbands, or "reins" for our bikes, or to tie stuff to our "saddles". But mostly to pop like bullwhips.
Gathering for games of tag in and out of the circle of the streetlight at the top of the hill, and watching the bats swoop after moths the light attracted.
Standing out in the yard listening to owls call back and forth. Watching the Perseid showers. Finding constellations, or making up names for new ones we "found".
All day at the city pool, with everybody in the neighborhood, and never ever burnng in the sun.
Beverly, you just reminded me of all the time we'd lay on the front lawn after the sun went down and just watched the stars over our heads. Being sixty miles out of Chicago, we didn't have problems with light pollution, and the skies were black as could be.
Speaking of yards, by the time I was 13 after my brother got busy with high school football practice, it became my job to mow the yard every Saturday morning, which wasn't fun when it was 90-something degrees out. I'd try and finish before it got that hot, but the humidity would be horrendous even by 9:00 am, and since this was pre-mulching mowers, I'd have to stop every so often and empty the bag of grass into the plastic garbage bag (it was also pre-recycling). It'd take two hours to finish mowing and clipping around the trees and bushes, and then I'd immediately go in and take a long, cool shower and get all that grass off my sweaty skin. Soooo glad I don't have to do that anymore!
Occasionally on the weekends, we'd head over to Grandma's house a few miles away. She lived on the family farm and there were normally a few cousins who lived next door to play with. We'd explore the barn where the dairy equipment still was stored even though the cows had been sold off back in the late '50s, play a game of basketball in the hayloft, making sure to avoid the old desks Grandma stored for our parish school in the corner of the loft, feed sugar cubes to Dolly, my great-uncle's old horse that he kept stabled there, and then climb the apple trees, looking for some good-quality green apples to wash off in the front-yard well and eat without getting too sick. After that, we'd sit in the front yard and wave at the occasional passing car driving by on Route 52. Back then, there weren't that many cars going by, but quite often we'd get a wave back and we'd cheer.
catching Junebugs and tying a length of sewing thread to one of their legs so they couldn't fly away. You'd hold the end of the thread and fly them in circles around you.
Heh, the thought of this horrifies me! I *hate* Junebugs.
I had that panic this morning when I looked at the clock and thought that the alarm hadn't gone off and that we had overslept and Tom would be late for work. Bleurgh.
Should think about getting up to check out the farmers market.
oh mind, never change. Dreams included a horrible landscape of parking lots, living in a dorm room that opened into a rarely used theater space and a show being put on while I was away for a weekend and the players using my room as backstage, and then something about living in a house with a rotating group of people who annoyed me.
I've been having some freaky ass dreams the past few nights myself. One the other night about Lucy that was one of the most horrible things I've ever dreamt and I still haven't really shaken off.
Between that and some work stuff, I am feeling very off kilter and unsettled. Think I will take the dog for a long walk and try to relax a bit.
I should really be cleaning, or at least straightening. But I don't feeeeeel like it.
My dreams were unsettling too. I even dreamt an earthquake, plus work stuff. I don't *need* to do work for another few hours, but my brain wouldn't let me rest.
I was decribing different accents to mac and he started trying to imitate my fairly bad australian, but it sounded more like a pirate. Then he morphed into doing full on pirate talk, but sounded more like a 30s movie gangster. "Yeah, yeah, so shiver me timbers, kid."
My dreams lately have included vampires, ghosts, and zombies. No idea what's got into me lately.
sorry, javachik. It's hard.
