At some point I should check out Zillow and Google Street Maps and see what the buyers did with the empty lot where my aunt's rambling and lovingly eccentric beach house was -- destroyed by Superstorm Sandy. Most likely it is going to be some soulless McMansion with all the salt-tolerant trees that survived the storm dug up.

Not that I'm angry or anything.

I don't think any of the houses my grandparents lived in are still standing. I'm only mad about the one in St. Pierre and that my dad's book of autographs may have still been in his parents.

Actually the first house we lived in when I was born is no longer standing too. It got severely damage in a flood and was torn down.

The farmhouse my mom was born & raised & got married in is gone. My uncle tore it down a few years after he built them a new house. It was a practical decision- they rented it out for a couple years to farmhands, but it stood empty a lot & upkeep...well, it made sense & all the family agreed in typical stoic midwestern.

It raised 10 kids & two generations. With one bath & 4 small bedrooms! And grandparents lived in one of those bedrooms when kids were small both generations. Wasn't the original farmhouse either, that burned down when my eldest aunt was a baby & they had to move into the chickenhouse (which still stands-tiny 2 rooms! They set up a kitchen in a lean-to & well, the old house didn't have indoor plumbing, so) while the new house was built.

But I can still wander through it in my head. It seemed so big to wee me because it had stairs! But really, probably a smidge larger than my house now. Bigger kitchen, though, as a working farmhouse would need.

Life with R., Vol 24:

Me: I really hate it when you leave lots of silverware in the sink.
R: Oh, did I leave some out? It's all in a glass.
Me: IN THE SINK.

I drove by my grandparents house in Chicago during the first F2F.

What's been weird for me lately is that my old landlady and I have reconnected in the last couple of years, so I've been visiting her house (the one in the middle of the big turf field) now and then. Except now she lives in my old apartment. It's very weird being in the space that I lived in for 14 years that's now much more tastefully decorated.

I drove by the house I grew up in back in 2012, when I was vacationing in northern Michigan. They'd painted it a much nicer color, but they'd also gotten rid of Mom's amazing (but high maintenance) gardens. A few years later the house went up on Zillow and I got to see some internal changes. They'd done a nice job, but it was still weird.

R: Oh, did I leave some out? It's all in a glass.

I am R and that is why I live alone.

I would be fine with the silverware in the glass as it was on the counter and not in the sink, personally.

See, I would like stuff in the sink, and not, say, left on the stove that is just a couple of feet away from the sink TIM YOU HAVE ARMS I KNOW IT SO YOU CAN USE THOSE ARMS TO PUT THE DAMN PLATE IN THE SINK.

Ahem. We've lived together for over 10 years, and apparently that battle will never end.