Moving, Part V

This was probably the most enjoyable move. We weren't leaving anyone, simply moving on base. And in any case, moves with Italian movers are bound to be exciting. There were very few actual mishaps, as i remember, but the potentiality... Almost having ID's (required for entry on base) packed away, bowling balls placed in pitcher bowls without even any paper b/w them, fragile items practically tossed off the balcony. There's a scene in The Hobbit where the dwarves taunt Bilbo Baggins by singing this while cleaning the kitchen - very apt, if i do say so myself. The house on base looked just like all of the other houses on base. It was a pale yellow one-story structure, divided in half. However, we had the loveliest trees in our backyard (unless you talk to my mother, who did our laundry) - some lovely eucalypti and an absolutely gorgeous fig tree. One of the eucalypti even had a sort of treehouse attached, and a ladder, and a hammock. If we didn't feel like climbing those, there were some pine trees acrost the road. We could (and did) walk to church, to the commissary, to the school, to the track, and to the creek behind the hospital (to catch tadpoles)... And it was safe. My friends and i biked and rollerbladed all over that base so that even i couldn't get lost if i'd wanted to. Halloween was amazing - we'd all get dressed up, and the people that lived off base would set up in the parking lot, and all of us kids would go trick-or-treating while the adults rested from having to assemble knights, ghostbusters, princesses, zombies, and legomen from the thrift store and packing cases. I still remember that boring, cookie-cutter old house (which is no more, i've heard - they bull-dozed that part of the base, so all of our beautiful trees and favourite haunts have made way for the new hospital, or something practical like that) as a place of beauty, not because it was of any aesthetic value, but because living there was beautiful. Okay, so i rhapsodized about living on base instead of actually talking about the move, but the move was even less interesting. Trust me. If you are insanely bored, links to all the other parts can be found here.

My Christmas Holidays…

So… My brother and i go to school a few hundred miles from my parents home – in clear weather and on good roads, this trip takes 12 hours to drive. Of course, this was the first time my brother and i had driven our new vehicle for any length of time. It is also my first winter driving up North, and was his first time driving at all in some months (and i know my tense changed, but i think it makes more sense that way. I’ve never understood why people freak out about tense changes). If you live in the states, and have been paying any attention whatsoever to the national weather… It took us 45 minutes just to get out of the neighborhood. We had to shovel approximately 10 inches of snow out of the driveway, and then i drove while my brother followed me with a shovel. If the postman hadn’t been stuck and willing to help us, i think we would have stayed there until the thaw. It took us another 45 minutes to get out of the city proper, and on the highway (or expressway? There’s a difference, i think…). About 3.5 hours later, my brother expectorates – or explodes, take your pick. While driving. On icy roads. In heavy traffic. Of course, it could have been worse – he might have eaten more than an orange for breakfast. Guess who got to drive the entire rest of the way? Oh, and guess who couldn’t eat because someone else couldn’t stand the smell of food? On the drive back, some poor transportationless sucker was talked into coming along and assisting with money for gasoline. She didn’t realize at the time that the way my brother and i stay awake is to sing. We spared her our jazzy/operatic/harmonized/rap/just-plain-weird version of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall (which kills about 1.5 hours, if you’re curious), but she was forced to listen to us “singing” along with Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Julie Andrews, Nickle Creek, and the Beatles. I think she must have decided it was best to simply humour us, as she joined in our impromptu (and improvised) hymnsing, and even attempted to harmonize with our attempts at the melody. In fact, if my dearly beloved brother had not driven 50 miles off course before noticing… I just realized i haven’t written about my actual holidays at all. So i guess my title line kind of mislead you. I’ll imagine you are all absolutely panting to read about my Christmas vacation, and you imagine i’m desperately apologetic, and we’ll get along fine. Or not.

Collections I

When my mom was growing up, her mom gave away or threw out or sold some of her things when she wasn't there and without asking. Nothing major - i think it was paper dolls or barbies or something. This experience so traumatized her that, in spite of our many moves and pack rat instincts, she generally refused to throw anything away for us. She would plead and bribe, of course, but we would have to throw things away ourselves. This has led to some rather absurd but sometimes really cool collections over the years which we blame on our Dutch heritage. I mention just a couple here, to leave room for further posts. The first collection i remember having myself was of candy wrappers. Any candy wrappers, although i was sensible enough to see the folly in saving any that still had sweet residue left on them. I had visions of making a beautiful doll dress with these wrappers, and then talking mom (who can hem, and that's about it) into making the dress on a larger scale for me. In the end all i got was a couple of drawers full of brightly coloured candy wrappers, which were eventually emptied into the dumpster with much heartburn. I must confess that i am still susceptible to Winnie the Pooh candy wrappers - i once got a large chocolate Pooh, and i still have the wrapper pinned to my bulletin board. It's cute. Really! My eldest brother collects bits of string and very short pencils. That's very Boy Scout-ish of him, don't you think? He hates to wear any thing that doesn't have at least four very large pockets, which he keeps the choicest bits of string and the longest short pencils (as well as a couple of pens, a book to read, a notebook, a couple of knives, and i don't know what else). As far as i know these have never actually come in handy, though he swears they do. I think my youngest brother is the most practical. I'm not sure exactly what you call it, but he collects these miniature war toy thingies, that you use to play some silly game, and plans on selling them later for more money. He did that with the Star Wars miniatures, too (the one's they've stopped making because stupid people think they are edible). Dad collects war games. He used to belong to a group of guys that would get together and play them, and i think the idea was that us kids would grow up and play them as well. Unfortunately, only the youngest has the head for that sort of think (i tried, but for some reason, moving the troops to the squares where they look the prettiest doesn't seem to be a winning strategy). So he just collects them and right now they are all sitting in our old entertainment center, looking rather pathetic and alone. Mom collects plastic tubs, to store all of our junk in. Oh, and straitjackets.

FYI

I'm going through another slight transition period where my access to internet and inclination to post will be rather limited - moving from the place of my internship to the place where my school is to the place where i will be living during the school year to the place where my family lives and back.... Well, it's all rather confusing, but i won't be in any place for more than five days until after the first week in September. So posting is going to be even lighter than usual until then. If anyone is really that bored, i do have archives on the left side. Merry Christmas!!

Moving, Part IV

Motta Sant'Anastasia. We just called it Motta (pronounced mohtah), and it was a long while before i realized that wasn't its whole name. It was built around a Norman castle - a Count Roger was responsible for that - on the slopes of Mt. Etna (Sounds quite romantic, doesn't it? Living on a volcano? But just wait until you have to hang your laundry out to dry). We moved into a fourth floor apartment (Sicilian movers, like Sicilian drivers, are something else), and as we weren't supposed to drink the faucet water we had to carry all of our drinking water up. I must have run up and down those stairs several times a day, but it was simply the way things were and i counted it no hardship. I would moan horribly today. Nobody lived on the ground floor. Second floor was also an American family - the Whites. I don't remember much about them, except that they had marital issues, and that Mrs. White taught me basket-weaving. I very much enjoyed it and made several baskets, but have never done it since. Third floor up was an Italian family. They were very friendly, and invited us over a few times. However, since we didn't speak Italian and they didn't speak English, our attempts at polite conversation were somewhat limited. At that point in time, we were the top floor, but i'm sure they have since added another level. Our landlord was also very friendly. He lived a block down the street, and was in the process of finishing another floor on his own residence, for his son and family to live. This was not uncommon - most apartment buildings were owned by families, and if they ran out of room they would simply build another floor. Building-wise, this apartment is my favourite of all the places i have lived so far. Like most Europeans, Italians eschew closets, and so we had the most enchanting wardrobes. I have to say that i do miss those wardrobes. They are so much more attractive than closets, and one is much less tempted to simply throw junk in there and lose it. It also gives one much more freedom as to where one's furniture may be placed. If ever i were to build a house, i would have a pantry and a nice large linen cupboard, but no other closets. The floor was all tile - so easy to clean, though chilly in the winter. It was a point of pride between my brothers and i to never wear socks inside. My mother rolled her eyes, but said as long as we stayed a reasonable distance from the kerosene heater, we could be as cold as we liked. There were no yards, of course. But we had a narrow balcony that went around three sides (bouncy balls, as you may imagine, were in high demand), a couple of trees, and a lovely steep hill to bike down. All of the rooms except the bathroom, and my parent's bedroom, had at least one pair of large glass doors that entered onto the balcony, and which were usually covered by persianas (large, heavy wooden blinds that went on the outside) to protect from the rain or sun. And anyway, my brothers and i preferred to climb out the bathroom window. I finished out my second grade year at the DOD school on base, but going from a school of 26 to a class of 26 and a school of over 300 (which sounds small now) was slightly whelming. We were home-schooled the rest of the time we were there. I still miss that place - Mt. Etna and Catania, the gelato truck, the orchards and the aqueducts, the fresh breads and cheeses, Taormina and Siracusa, Caltagirone and Palermo, Erice and Agrigento, the markets and the ruins... We never did find out what our dog thought of those stairs. He jumped off a couch while stateside awaiting transportation and paralyzed his two back legs. They had to put him down, and it was years before we were able to get another pet. However, there were quite a few strays running around - people who would bring their dogs here, and then decide it was too much work to take them stateside and abandon them. We stayed there for just over a year, and then a house opened up on base. UPDATE: Moving, Part I (links to all the other parts available in Part I)

Moving, Part III

We had to leave our dog at my grandmother's house. She would send him to us later, when the paperwork was finished. We arrived in Sicily. Our loyal van would follow us a few days later. None of our goods have arrived yet, so for the first month or so we live in TLA. I'm not sure what that stands for anymore - Temporary Living Assistance? We lived in one apartment for only a few days, and then moved into a different one. Us kids loved it. It was on a hill, so that we could walk off the street into our front door, but out the back was a balcony which looked down a whole story into a parking lot. The floors were all marble, and the bathroom was the biggest room. Right when you walked in, you could either walk down three steps to the side, or facing straight ahead make a flying leap into the boys' bedroom. Inexplicably, my parents preferred the former. My first memories of Kinder Eggs are in this place. We thought they were the greatest things, and they were the only toys we had with us at the moment. They call them Kinder Surprise here, and actually have made them illegal most places stateside in case people don't realize that the toys inside aren't edible. This is a great pity. Polly Pockets, of which i still have a large collection, are illegal for the same reason. Silly people. The Sicilians were (and i assume still are) very friendly. One lady gave us a ride around town in a great white van soon after we arrived. It was just Mom and the kids - Dad was at work. You have never driven, until you have driven in Sicily. The lanes are narrow, the hills are steep, the driving is fast, and there is absolutely zero personal space on the road. We thought it was just as good as a roller coaster ride, and treated it as such, leaning into each other and shouting. Mom looked a little green, although both she and my father came to love driving in Sicily and constantly complain about the arrogance of American drivers. Dad has a favourite story about one of the first times he was driving: It was the first time we saw a police car, we saw another driver flash his headlights(the signal for "Get out of my way, please") at it, and instead of ticketing the guy for speeding the cop moved over. Another time, on the mainland, traffic was jammed solid across four lanes (which in Naples means six lines of cars). There was an ambulance with sirens going lights flashing, stuck behind all of these cars. One driver really needed to get through -he was honking his horn and waving a whitehandkerchief. People just squeezed their cars tighter together so hecould get on through, which he did, through several miles of such traffic.The ambulance had to wait, though, with the rest of us. As long as you kept your head and were respectful, you could get away with pretty much anything. Soon, though, we found a more permanent residence in Motta. Before we left the landlords invited us to a sort of party downstairs. There was a lot of pizza, and wine. Each pizza had different toppings on it, like eggplant, or french fries. We didn't eat much. My brothers and I spent most of the time playing with bouncy balls in the parking lot. UPDATE: Moving, Part I (links to all the other parts available in Part I)

Moving, Part II

My mom was never going to marry a sailor or a pastor. She had moved around all her life, and wanted a nice, steady life from now on.

Then she met Dad.

My dad is a pastor. His first church was in a tiny (literally - there were about 14 people living in the town, and half the district had the same last name) town in the rural Midwest. Us kids (i have two younger brothers) loved it. We lived right across the church and would run barefoot over the gravel parking lot, or in the huge puddles which would fill the plain behind our garage. We had several sets of "grandparents" who loved to treat us, and so we ran wild (well, as wild as PK's ever get ;) - climbing trees, having toad circuses, feeding chickens, building huge snowforts, and sneaking into the abandonded house across the way.

One day my dad got a postcard from the Navy. They were recruiting for chaplains.

The moral of that story is: Never say never.

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I was in the second grade when we moved.

I remember standing in the kitchen. Everything was white, and brown - not pristine white, not even all the same shade of white, but the floor and walls and fridge and phone and countertops were all white. Only the cupboards were brown. I was trying to wheedle a snack out of mom, and wondered why she wasn't paying as much heed to me as i felt i deserved.

"Your father wants to join the Navy," she told me, in despairing accents. I wasn't sure how this was supposed to make me any less hungry.

Later my parents told us we were moving to North Carolina. They probably showed it to us on a map, but i was born without the proper wiring to process information formatted in such a way.

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Our laundry room was on the end of the house. It was blue, and grey. There was the blue hamper which our dog used to tip over so he could chew on our underwear (maybe he liked the elastic??) and which we still have (unlike its pink counterpart which was mortally wounded in a struggle with a kerosene heater).

Mom was facing away from me, folding clothes. Her movements are precise than usual, yet hurried.

"Now they say we will be moving to Sicily." I thought that sounded prettier than North Carolina. Almost like sister. I'd always wanted a little sister. I went looking for the dog.

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I rather liked moving. Everybody paid us a great deal of attention, and made us all sorts of presents.

My aunt came to help us and cut my hair. I remember her and my mom in the toy room, putting signs on the things for express shipment, and deciding to get rid of our loveseat. It was cream with huge dark red and blue flowers all over it. Dad wasn't there - he had gone to Rhode Island to learn to salute properly. Movers came, and packed up everything. It was great fun, rather like camping.

We had a navy blue minivan which stood out against all the white of the house and the empty parking lot. Mom packed us all in, and the dog.

We drove off in a snow storm.

UPDATE: Moving, Part I (links to all the other parts available in Part I)

Moving, Part I

I have moved often enough that it's been a rather defining characteristic in my life. And since they always say to write about what you know... The first move i remember took place when i was around four. Naturally, i don't remember much; all i do hold of that place in my memory is of the move, and i have no idea how accurate those memories are. I remember my grandmother came down to help us. I was tired, but excited. All i remember of the house is small room - there was just space enough for my parents bed. There was a lamp on a nightstand next to it which made the yellow wooden floor seem to glow. The rest of the house was empty. It was late at night. Then i am climbing up, up into the truck bed. There were stars in the sky. Dad was driving - he had hair. An old pair of black and blue flip-flops were on the ground. It was just Dad and me. There was a yellow bag in between the seats - Peanut M&M's (his favourite). Even though it was past my bedtime, he let me have some. Not much, is it? UPDATE: Moving, Part II UPDATE: Moving, Part III UPDATE: Moving, Part IV UPDATE: Moving, Part V