[270/365]

[cosmolinguist]

On the way to the old house, Mom was thinking about the couple of things she'd forgotten or overlooked. Her sewing kit (luckily she was reminded of that by my dad needing a patch on a favorite pair of pants after they got snagged when he was crawling around rearranging things so it would all fit in properly) and a pinch bowl. "I don't know what to do about that," she fretted about the latter. "Grandma [my grandma, her mom] gave it to me, but... No one wants these things any more. I suppose I have to just close my eyes and throw it in the dumpster."

When we got there and she handed me the box with the punch bowl, I walked halfway to where the dumpster is, stopped like I was in a goddam after-school special and had just learned my lesson, turned around and put it in the car. Which meant it was going with us. It was going with me.

Soon I texted my little family with the news: "We are getting a very 70s pinch bowl." mother_bones texted back right away: "Oh hell yes!" I was delighted to get to tell Mom she'd been wrong about no one wanting this stuff. She seemed surprised to say the least, but then said "Well you guys are young, you might use it!"

Hell, even if we just put chips in it at parties, we will use it.

I am so glad to have it. When I was tiny, I was given the job of serving punch at the open houses held for my grandparents' 40th wedding anniversaries. I was about seven for the first, maybe ten for the second, so it felt like a great grown-up job and also punch is kind of like pop but fancy which was about as good as it could get for my tiny sheltered brain.

The other thing I took that I couldn't bear to let it go is a jug and basin I remember as a fixture of that house, always visible when we were playing in the basement. It turns out it was made for my mom by her best friend, in the latter half of the 70s based on where my mom told me my parents were living when Mom got it. Mom and Dad said they had no use for it, but I am confident my household will enjoy it.

I can't tell you how glad I am that I have a weird little family in time to give good homes to the things I want to save from the house where I grew up.

#

Just before we left the farm for today -- house cleaned, dumpster full -- my dad picked raspberries and my mom took some to their neighbor. Family friends live just down the street! It's such a nice novelty that this sort of thing is possible for my parents.

My mom ended up being gone so long, even though the person she went to see wasn't home, that I had to intervene with the dinner she'd started. Another neighbor had told her no one was home at the house she went to, and she got talking to him, and another guy who maybe lives on the other side, and it was so funny to hear her rendition of their conversation: my parents, always so nosy, found out that they have been the subject of gossip themselves!

When my parents went to view this house, these two saw them and reckoned they'd buy it. Then they saw us bring carloads of stuff, and marveled at how much stuff in how many trucks, wondering how much Mom and Dad thought they could fit in this house. They have a bet on how long it will take my parents' farm to sell: one said two weeks, one said definitely less than a month but maybe more like three weeks.

They were amazed that my dad is the age he is and asked my mom if she went to high school here too. My dad knows five generations of this one family: two either side of the guy who lives near the end of the road; but he joked that he had to go to the Big City (of about 18,000) to find her.

Comments

[otter]

Good saves!

[cosmolinguist]

I'm so delighted with them.

[silveradept]

Glad that there will be things for your household to enjoy and continue to make use of.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah. I expected to be more sentimental than I ended up being, but there were these few things I just couldn't stand to see disappear altogether forever.

Bringing home to home

[jesse_the_k]

...is lovely.

I have one grandmother's small ceramic dish with lid taking care of my $2 coins. Our fruit (including tomatoes) rest in cheery lightweight pottery bowl my mother bought in Italy.

I just learned that a "pinch bowl" is a tiny silicone 3/5ths sphere to hold your bits and bobs while cooking.

It would be much easier to transport the pinch bowl than the punch bowl, but I bet it's the latter.

[forests_of_fire]

I'm glad you were able to save something from the house.