MemDayWknd

As Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry" wafts down the alley and into my window, I take a few moments to recall that party from which I just came. This must be the week for reunions for me because I saw Molly and Ransom and Brittany at this cookout, old school neighbors who I've known since they were born (in Brittany's case) since they moved in (in Molly's case) and since we moved in (in Ransom's case). I wasn't close with Brittany or Ransom, though I did give Ransom (and Eric and Ryan) a ride to school every day my senior year. And then there's Molly. Aside from seeing her in passing once last summer, I believe it's been around 7 years since I've seen her. Molly was like my Eddie Haskell, always suggesting we do things that got us in trouble, like walk to the Cavalier hotel and ride the elevator up and down, particularly after my mother had specifically told us not to. But I have a picture (somewhere) of us kids around Christmas time when Molly was 4, I was 6, Allison & Phillip were there as well as our siblings, and we were forming a pyramid. Priceless. :)

The more time I spend in this city, the more memories of my childhood resurface. Last night, Greg & I walked down to 17th Street for free ice cream, and I gave him a sort of history lesson along the way. "That's the hotel where so-and-so had a birthday party--you can see the pool is on the 8th floor." "That restaurant used to be the Rajin Cajun where Jack's Special was whatever happened to be on sale at Farm Fresh that day." "Before this park was here, and it was a gravel lot, there was a little carnival here, and I remember Friday of Memorial Day weekend 1993 when Laine, Marianne, Katy, her brother Daniel, Sarah, Vicki, and Eddie all piled into Eddie's car and we parked at the Oceans and walked down to this fair and rode the ferris wheel and went down the slides. I think we stayed out til 10:00!" "The family that owns the Blue Marlin has two children: the son was in boyscouts with my brother, and the daughter was in girlscouts with me." "This is where my grandfather had his gourmet junk food stand. We still have the sign in his garage." "We used to watch 4th of July fireworks from the roof of that hotel where the pool is." "We used to save up our coins and ride out bikes down to the 16th Street Pier where we could buy candy for ten cents at the little store." "We had an endless supply of coupons for a free round of Jungle Golf."

Anyway, like I said after the concert Tuesday, I'm enjoying this nostalgia, but I don't want to get too comfortable with it because I know my tendencies and I could easily waste a lot of valuable time dwelling in the past. Although, 1993 was a great year for me, so if I had to pick one, that would probably be it--going to Tides games, sleepovers at Laine's, that was the summer we met Josh (again) and Ryan. Wow, I wonder what Josh is doing... I bet Mom knows. See what I mean--this is dangerous.

In other news, I talked to the PSM from the Joffrey today. She's really excited about me accepting the job and moving to Chicago, and she had good advice for me in my apartment hunt and re: my oral surgury on Wednesday. She also told me all about the trip to Australia she's taking in June and July. I think we're going to get along famously.