I used to enjoy reflecting on the year that was passing, but have not done that in a while. I used to like to lie in bed and think of all the things that happened to me during that day. But not anymore. I don’t know when I stopped reflecting and I don’t know why, but I become uncomfortable when I think back on what I did the past day, or week or month or year. So I won’t look back on 2009 even though several people whose blogs I follow did.
Nor will I look ahead to what 2010 might bring. I don’t want to tempt fate. I’ll just go along for the ride. I don’t have any big plans for the year and am not looking forward to anything important. I just want to live each day and enjoy them as they come and maybe document some of the days through writing or photographs. Not much different than before, but this time I’m making a conscious effort of living each day. That’s got to count for something.
I’ve been waiting for Google Street View to arrive in our neighborhood for quite a while. It was close-by — in the business area of Bethesda, but it had not made it to our immediate neighborhood until very recently. I discovered it had when I tried to figure out where the neighbor who needed a tutorial in how to delete unwanted emails lived. I noticed that Pegman made the neighborhood streets turn blue when I lifted him off his little tower — the universal sign that we were now on street view.
When I told Dean about it we spent an hour or so trying to figure out when the Google street view camera came through the neighborhood. It was like a mystery. We first looked at our house, of course, and found some clues:
It was warm, but not hot outside because our bedroom window was open (but we had the air conditioning off and the windows open most of the summer, so this is not really a clue):
Window Clue
It was this past summer because our new neighbors’ cars were parked in front of their house:
Neighbor Car Clue
It was a few weeks after the 4th of July because we found this flag, but no others (the local real estate agent puts flags in front of each home for the 4th of July):
Flag Clue
It was early in the morning because of the way the sun was shining:
Sun Clue
It was not a Friday because the Fish Guys were not at Bethesda Community Store:
No Fish Guys Clue
It was not a regular weekday because the entrance at NIH was barricaded:
NIH Clue
It was probably not a Sunday because this construction worker is getting ready to work on a house:
Construction Worker Clue
It was probably sometime in August. The leaves on the tulip poplars started to drop early this year, and I saw several yards with yellow tulip poplar leaves in them. I cannot tell if our house repairs were completed — the basement windows, with one blurry exception, are not visible in the photos and the back porch is too far away to tell if it had been repaired. The one big clue for me is the branch on our across-the-street neighbor’s curb — I remember seeing a fallen branch in the street, thinking that I should move it, getting distracted by something else, then seeing the neighbor had moved it. I asked her about it the next day at a neighborhood coffee get-together and she said she thought it came from her tree.
Branch Clue
I checked my emails and found reference to the neighborhood coffee get-together. It took place on August 1st, 2009. So, I’m thinking now that the Google Street View camera car came through on Saturday August 1st.
I’m a pack rat. Maybe not as bad as my mom, and certainly not as bad as my Aunt Leila was, but I’m worse than many. Much of what I’ve kept is only of interest to me, like notes from former students and their parents, paper napkins from special (or ordinary) meals and trinkets (and sometimes the boxes they arrived in) given to me by friends, students, and loved ones. I’ve also kept samples of my writing from middle school through college (including my personal journals and diaries).
The reason I’ve kept these things is to look back and remember who I was and what I felt when I used/was given/wrote these things. While there is nothing wrong with that, at some point the extra room in the attic or basement becomes filled or the silverfish find the paper and chew holes through the words and it is time for these things to go. Well, many of them at least.
I began such a purge a few months ago. The first to go were a few posters I’d been keeping just in case I ever taught again. No need for a 12 year old poster about the White House anymore. And my Middle Earth poster from 1976 really has seen better days, even though I did laminate it when I was a teacher.
Although I discovered a few things that I am not sure why I kept them, the reason I kept most of them is still clear to me. Here is a short list of some of the items:
A Washington Post Style section article about the end of the series, Roseanne. I have no idea why I kept that. I didn’t like the series that much.
A Holly Hobbie bell with a saying about friendship. (I never did like Holly Hobbie and don’t remember who gave me the bell)
A shirt with unicorns on it that I was making into a pillow. It was an ugly shirt and would have made an equally ugly pillow, but I was a sucker for Unicorns.
A Ziggy figurine holding a “Last Place” trophy. I don’t know who gave it to me, or why. I only hope I didn’t buy it for myself.
A shoebox full of slogan buttons from middle school, high school, schools where I taught, department stores where I worked, campaigns, tourist gift shops and miscellaneous other places. These did hold meaning for me and for a while I collected “badges”.
A dictionary full of paper napkins. This might be worth a separate post. Some are pretty funny.
Two disintegrating envelopes. One labeled, “Cinder – One year” and the other labeled “Cinder’s whisker”. The first still holds a small bit of black fur from the cat my father gave me 40 years ago but the whisker has disappeared. (Um. Ick?)
A silverfish-eaten piece of paper which has a note written on it by my dad. I know why I kept this. It might be the only piece of his handwriting I own.
A couple of broken or chipped coffee mugs. One of these mugs was the first piece of kitchenware that I bought for my first apartment and the other was a wedding gift from a Pittsburgh friend.
A boxful of broken crystal unicorns — the were intact until Clare, in an attempt to get something from a shelf in our secretary where the unicorns lived, tilted it enough so they all fell to the floor. I’d given her my unicorn collection, so it wasn’t as if they were mine anymore, but it was a little traumatic — for the both of us.
I got rid of nearly everything from the list above, but did take some photos /scans for old time’s sake.
Clutch Cargo Lips 