Seeds vs. Nails

Dear Diary,

When they are in my mouth, I can't tell the difference.

Sure, one is pleasantly salty while the other is, well, hopefully plain.

I'm talking about pumpkin seeds and fingernails.

Come on, we've all chewed off a nail or two. 

You know how those nails feel in your mouth?
When you look for the nearest tissue box or garbage can?

It is the same with my indigestible pumpkin seeds,

year
after
year.

Every year I try a new recipe, most which claim to be "tried and true."

I've gleaned, rinsed, dried/not dried.
I've seasoned, oiled, or buttered.
I've boiled, slow roasted, or flash baked.

They always turned out like fingernails. 
Only well seasoned with sea salt, and slightly more nutritious.

Admittedly, I've had some tasty batches, once cooled, right from of the oven. 

But to keep them longer than 12 hours means goodbye crispy, hello chewy.

Why, I asked myself this week, do I go through this painstaking, messy process every Halloween?

To pass on the nostalgia of unsuccessful pumpkin seed baking to my own kids?

Not a good enough reason.

Please remind me next year that it ain't worth it.

And pass me the Halloween candy.
LJ

Candy Jars and Florida Rooms

Dear Diary,
I'll be forthright.  This post is mostly for my own indulgence. 

I had quite the trip down memory lane the other day -- no, literally, I was driving, so I was on a literal trip that took a figurative turn down memory lane.

I drove past a home that triggered my earliest childhood memories of visiting grandma and grandpa's house when I was still in the single-digit age.

In my early childhood, I actually had the benefit of having both sets of grandparents in the same 'hood.  So if we visited one, we usually got to see the other too. (And we got to walk down the block to church, where my granddad was the pastor!  So novel!)

Seeing this house immersed me into a daydream about my grandparents' homes and what I remembered, tangibly, about each one....

Climbing the backyard fruit trees and playing outside in the concrete window well.

The room the adults oddly called the Florida Room, but my young mind was confused at this label since we were in the middle of the Midwest!  I can still smell the vinyl from the indoor/outdoor furniture in that room, and remember listening to the ocean from a conch on an end table.  (Yes, the room does seem obviously named, but you aren't seven years old, either.)

I remember a special stool in the kitchen we cousins would sit on, and loved the icy-cold feeling of an aluminum cup in my mouth, which offered up water or lemonade on a hot summer day.

My other grandparent's home had the water bed.  A jiggly, gurgly, rockin' and rollin' kind of bed from the '70s, which really could make a kid nauseous trying to sleep on it. Even reaching to scratch an itch could cause a tidal wave effect for the surfers sleepers.

I remember drinking Pepsi at this house. We were Coke and Tab kind of people so Pepsi was such a fizzy, sweet treat!  My grandparents had a fridge where ice and water came out of the door!  That was a novelty to me. 

I also remember the green glass candy jar with chewy, sugar coated jellies in it.  The fragile nature of the jar ensured I had to ask an adult for candy, rather than sneaking one myself.  I am the lucky owner of that jar now.

I also remember a naked lady lamp.  Well, maybe in my maturity I would now call it tabletop Greco Roman light-up art.  A Grecian style female was the centerpiece, surrounded by 360 degrees of wire pillars, which dripped beads of oil so it looked like water was constantly raining down around her.  I remember it glowed a soft yellow and I couldn't resist touching a drop of oil occasionally. 

I am not the owner of that piece of memorabilia.  (Maybe my brother nabbed it?)

I was so lost in thought on my trip down memory lane that I emerged from my past only when I found myself pulling into my present day driveway. Ever wonder how you got from Point A to Point B sometimes?

For folks blessed enough to grow up with visits to grandma's house, I hope this instigates candy jar and Florida Room memories of your own!

And if you still are reading this,
thank you for indulging me.

LJ

Missing the Prize

Dear Diary,

Flashback to childhood in the '70s, where joys came from simple and next-to-free activities:

Coloring books
and
roller skates
and
macrame belts
and
listening to grooved, black, vinyl discs on a turntable while studying the album cover and reading every word on the jacket.

And ranking near the absolute joy of
                                Saturday morning cartoons
                                                     came

the prize in the cereal box. 

I was suddenly reminded of these trinkets this morning while eating my cereal.  The box I used had a picture of those rubber wrist bracelets -- the kind Armstrong made popular.  Except these said BREAKFAST ROCKS or something.

I thought, wow, it's been a long time since I've had to dig for a prize out of a cereal box.  On closer inspection I discovered these bracelets weren't in the box, they were a mail-in promotion:  collect a couple of labels with codes, go to the website and register, and then you are eligible to receive this latex-free bangle (probably after you send in your $4.99 for shipping and handling).

When did cereal prize retrieval get so complicated?
Why did it get so complicated?

I had only one sibling, and yet I gained some valuable life skills negotiating or sneaking my way to that one prize in the box!  And there was no post office nor allowance money involved.

The same goes for Cracker Jacks.  At least it still has a prize, even if it is just a joke about a banana or an elephant.  Or my favorite: a tattoo of a flower or some random object.

So, just as I mourn my kids' lack of Saturday morning Warner Bros. knowledge (and Schoolhouse Rock Jingles), I also silently bereave their lack of useless prizes from a box of Sugar Pops.

Perhaps I shouldn't get so upset. 
They are bagel eaters anyway.

Nostalgically yours,
LJ