Home & the House I Love

With the mantles cleaned off, and the tops of all sorts of things, teh kittehs have been having a good time exploring new perches. Just now TimTheCat hopped up next to the fish tank, then up on to the mantle (which stretches the width of the room). He walked to the middle of it, posed, sniffed around contemplating the possibility of hopping up to the second mantle (does not stretch the entire width of the room, just about two thirds of it), discarded that idea, deftly turned around and finished walking the length. At the end, he paused, contemplating whether to hop up on top of the tv thingy, or turn around and go back, or jump down. He jumped down. Then in his little girly kitteh voice (he looks *totally* butch-cat, then he tries to say something), he opens his mouth & emits a delicate, gentle “meeee-ehhh?” And flees downstairs as though something were chasing him. And then he flees back upstairs & meeeee-ehhh?’s at ‘Spew who responds, much less femme-ly than TimTheCat, “MRAP.”

Last weekend we cleared out 12 yard-waste bags from the house that my folks will be living in as of later this summer. My Dad grew up there, it’s where I was living when P & I met. My brother has lived there. It was one of the first houses on the block, my grandparents chose the design & had it built for them. It is home in a way that very few places I have ever lived, or will ever live, will ever be. There are so many memories tied up in that house for me — raspberry freezer jam on toast for breakfast before going down to the beach on the lake not far away; moving from Calgary in the dead of winter when I was 10 & being amazed & shocked at the lush green and the sweet-smelling rain; playing the baby grand Steinway (Grampa was a concert pianist) in the living room after meticulously washing my hands and having Gramma inspect & approve their cleanliness; walking the upper garden with Gramma and, after being shown exactly where & how to make the cut, cutting the roses that would make the dinner-table bouquet; not to mention all those early days with P… Last weekend when we were there, when no one was looking, I hugged the wall in the kitchen. For the last few years, they’ve been renting the house to some friends of theirs, that’s been very weird. This house is an entity, a personality in its own right in my life.

This weekend, my parents came up & tore out two bushes that had been around easily as long as my Dad has been alive. They’re re-siding the house this year. That was kind of weird. We also cut back more of the jungle in the back. I pruned the roses that had, with one or two exceptions, gone back to their stock roots. What used to be gorgeous yellow, & pink, & peace tea roses are all now thin, light, almost scentless wild bramble-y red roses. There were two beautiful roses though, one for each girl, a lingering gift from Gramma P. Out of a rose garden that used to be home to 10-12 roses, only three or four are left, and those in sad shape. My Mom wants to restore the rose garden up there though. The renters did an ok job in front, although the bushes are all hideously over-grown, at least they were trimmed in front. I cut the rosemary in front back last weekend to about a third of it’s former size. This weekend, besides pruning all the roses, I weeded the front garden that runs up the side of the driveway, pulled grass from the thyme that cascades over the rocks, trimmed back some sort of evergreen bush thingy, cleared out old tulip/daisy/bulb-y related no-longer-so-greenery, tidied up the lavender… then for Father’s Day, since they’ll be moving in, I planted some marigolds around the lavender to put a little more color in the front & make it look like a bit more of a kept garden. Hopefully the siding guys won’t waltz all over it. My Dad took the two stumps off to the dump in his trailer, and as many branches as he could fit alongside, the rest is left in the back. We probably added another eight or so yard-waste bags, possibly more. There is more back there that needs to go off to yard-waste, but the garage is half full of yard-waste bags… sometimes, it’s best to just make piles…

And of course, there are the little girls… turning the corner, towards the garage, there’s M2 sitting on the steps going up the side of the house, singing a little song to herself with her carefully collected buttercups, the sound of M1 with meticulously cleaned & mama inspected-&-approved fingers playing the piano. I hope this house brings them as sweet childhood memories as it has brought me.