2001-11-15
Weekend is upon us, Grandma's house sells., posted at 7:41 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Thank goodness today is Thursday. With me not coming into school tomorrow because of the big NCTE conference, it's like it's a Friday for me. This will be a good day; I can feel it.It will also be a busy one. I still haven't figured out sub plans for my 9th graders. I went to Blockbuster yesterday and nothing caught my eye to match with either To Kill a Mockingbird or Their Eyes Were Watching God. I looked for some sort of Harlem Renaissance educational video as well - to no avail. I thought about Crooklyn (another point of view type thing to match with TKAM, except instead of a white girl in the 30's, it's a young Black girl in the 70's), The Color Purple (to match with TEWWG - a tale of a survivor, African-American), and even Babe (point of view, acceptance - both match well with TKAM). But none really persuaded me. I've never seen Crooklyn, and I figure I should preview anything I show, even if it's rated PG-13. The Color Purple was a disappointing movie for me, if only because the book is so incredible - I feel like I'd be doing a disservice to show the movie without reading the book. And Babe? I guess I just worried about having the principal walk in while I was showing a movie about a talking pig.
So I'm left without anything for them to do, at this point. That will be one of my projects today.
Another one will be calling my bank, and figuring out why a check I wrote six weeks ago bounced - when I had enough money in my account to cover it the whole time. I'm weirded out. My landlord put it in on Oct. 4, and she just received notice yesterday that it didn't go through. She was very understanding, luckily. I'll have to figure out what happened. I'm still not very good with money, but I honestly can't figure out how it could have happened.
Tonight, I'm off to see the big Melissa Ferrick / Dan Bern concert, and ferociously clean my house before and after in preparation of friends arriving from Michigan at 2pm on Friday. It will definitely be a fun weekend, full of laughs and beer.
***
Yesterday, my grandmother's house in Redford sold.
My grandma and grandpa, along with my dad and his two uncles, moved in there in 1957. I have been visiting there since birth, so it's a big chunk of both my and my family's history that was sold yesterday.
Here are images that are mos tprominent in my mind regarding their house:
*Princie, their feeble yet friendly collie mix, who lived from 1968-1982. He was such a well-behaved dog.
*Playing menche agre dicht niche, the german version of "Sorry!", with my grandma and Heidi.
*My grandpa always running out to Randazzo's fruit market and getting us loads of fresh fruit upon the arrival of his grandkids.
*Playing "Pig" and "Horse" in the backyard, on their hoop without a net.
*Helping grandma plant her flowers every spring.
*Helping grandpa - a man who never could sit still - wax his car.
*Getting haircut upon haircut from my grandpa on his chair in the basement, and always being amazed that he did such a good job.
*The poodle bath thermometer in the basement bathroom, with readings like "sit and sweat", "cold and wrinkly", and "scouring." It now hangs in my bathroom.
*Grandpa's kielbasas hanging in the downstairs pantry.
*Grandpa putting in the stepping stones in the backyard during one of grandma's return trips to Germany.
*Grandpa building birdhouses and chasing away squirrels.
*Making placemats out of old Christmas cards with my Grandma.
*Grandpa with a smile always on his face.
*Getting caught joking with Heidi that Grandma's face looks like a prune.
*Begging grandma to swear at us in German.
*Sleeping in the basement with Misty when we came and visited.
*Hearing my grandpa had passed away of a stroke in 1991.
*Neighbor Caroline coming by and collapsing into tears in grandma's arms upon hearing of Grandpa's death.
*Hearing Mr. Borowki's speech at the funeral, in which he taped an envelope containing soil from Poland onto Grandpa's coffin, and said in Polish about how they had promised each other during the war that this is what they would do at the funeral of womever died first.
*Listening to Whitney Houston sing the national anthem a few days after Grandpa died, and thinking it was wonderful.
*Grandma's dissent into Alzheimer's - the turning on the a/c in the middle of the winter, the attempt to light the furnace on fire, the turning on the stove and forgetting about it, the watering of her artificial plants.
*Seeing all of her furniture being carted away and her moved out.