The sun has appeared, disappeared and reappeared. I totally understand why even the sun is despairing. Who’d want to hang around stuck in what feels like a polar weather pattern? We even have a morning breeze making the day feel colder. The dead leaves still hanging at the ends of branches are being blown about as are the tops of the pine trees. We had snow flurries last night which put a soft layer on top of the snow from last week. It wasn’t even an inch, but it is more than enough. I checked the week’s weather in the paper this morning, and it looks as if Thursday may be our salvation. It might just reach 40˚.
Popcorn was one of our TV treats. They were the old fashion kernels. Once one popped, the whole pan had to be shaken or the popcorn would burn. Nothing smells worse than burnt popcorn. My mother was a true believer in butter. She’d melt the butter, put it on the popcorn in stages then use her fingers to mix the popcorn around so you could taste butter all the way to the bottom. My mother had a set of nested white bowls with tulips on them. She used the biggest bowl for the popcorn. Once when she and I were shopping in an antique store, I saw a set of tulip bowls exactly like the ones my mother had. I bought them all because of that popcorn.
Hung across from the toilet in our bathroom when I was young was a picture of a little boy just getting ready for his bath. He carried a brush, soap and a towel and had a halo over his head. His bathrobe was blue and was fuzzy the way old cards and books sometimes were. Santa’s red suit was often fuzzy in the same way. I used to sit and read the verse on that picture. I read it so many times I can still recite from memory. In a B&B in Ireland that same picture with the fuzzy bathrobe hung in the bathroom. I tried to buy it, but the woman didn’t want to sell it. When I got home, I googled the verse and found a metal reproduction. I really wanted fuzzy, but I bought the metal one anyway for my mother’s stocking. She couldn’t believe I remembered it let alone found one. It hung in her upstairs bathroom. Now I have it hanging in mine. The verse, by Mabel Lucie Attwell, starts “Please remember don’t forget, never leave the bathroom wet…”
My childhood lives in my memory drawers, but some of it is also strewn about the house.
