Nobody came to my class last night (Time out: y’all are lame. Come to my class. There’s even a special promo for 5 classes for $30 and first class is on the studio AND I’m awesome! No excuses.), so I had some extra time to kill. I went to Minor’s for more plants and hit up the Walgreens on 92nd and Good Hope. Since I was in the area, I thought I’d drive by the Park Manor house to reminisce. (Newbies to my life – this was the house my parents lived in from 1991 to 2004 or ages 11 to 24 for me… critical time in a young girl’s life…)
As I came down the street, there she was…the big white house that I swear is the last one you can see from Good Hope. From far away, she looked familiar, but something was different. Gone were the black shutters that were the bane of my mom’s existence and bushes near the house which dad would light up in “modified U” formation every Christmas. But the Fisher Price mailbox was still there. The rusted up Tlaquepaque mail flag was even still hanging on by a thread.
I sat there for a moment and drove over to Ed and Maria’s house (still looks the same!) so I wouldn’t look creepy. But since I do have the Mark Skarich gene in me (more on that in a second), I came back again to take a picture for posterity. Just as I pulled up Green St., a car pulled up the driveway and into the garage. After 2.4 seconds of debate (and an even bigger rush of “Mark Skarich don’t give a rip to etiquette…” adrenaline), I got out of my car and introduced myself to the new man of the house. We chatted for a second and once he figured out I wasn’t a complete lunatic, he offered up a tour of the house. My house.
Oh my gosh.
Gone was ugly white carpet and parquet floors. But the rock wall over the fireplace was still there, as was the extra fridge in the garage. Gone was the fake brick wall and the sink where dad tried to force me to learn how to take pills without chewing (4 hours of stress and a lifetime later and I still can’t) in the kitchen. Instead, there was a beautiful new kitchen and eat in area. Gone was mom’s table, but my safe zone, the stair landing where I sat for hours listening to mom and dad sometimes talk and sometimes fight was still there. Gone were the blue fixtures in my bathroom, but the closet where I hid the creme de menthe brought back a smile. Gone were the mirrors lining my parents’ room, but the two mirrors in my room were the only things that brought back tears. I grew up a lot in front of those mirrors.
Gone was the stuffed Ernie doll floating in a wok on an oil slick in 12 inches of flooded basement water. Instead, there was not one, but two family room areas. One regular one with your slightly above average TV and sofa and another with THREE ROWS OF MOVIE THEATER SEATS AND A PROJECTOR SCREEN!!! Just a bit cooler than the Christmas tree that we never technically took down (just moved it to the basement) and bins of baby clothes that lived there before.
The pool (and slide) were still in the backyard, but the broken bricks and railroad ties were gone. The table that was yanked out of the wall at the original demo party (where Sarah hung in her bouncy chair and carpet was removed from every flat surface in the house) was still under the pergola that dad built. All of the trees were cut from the backside of the yard and the hole where Max stuck his head in the fence has been filled in. The shed where I got a bee sting on my shoulder was still (barely) there, but the railroad tie where dad went to town on a garden snake was gone. Gone, too was the wood bench thing where Penis De Milo lived and frankly, the absence of other ugly yard art and squirrel repellers was kind of nice.
Gone was my mom on her throne and my dad in his chair and Max in his lap. But another happy family was filling the house with love. I didn’t realize it until the end of my 20 minute tour, but I had interrupted their dinner that the gentleman must have run out to get. I kid you not, it was Yen Ching’s dinner for 3. Some things never change.
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