Kitchen

Old Kitchen Nostalgia

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imagesGTMBP5VTI enjoy home improvement shows. I particularly like those where renovations happen to bring a “bargain” purchase up to modern speed…but my “weirdness” comes in during the first look at the “before” aspects of the homes.

renovation101216dIt almost always makes me feel a little twinge of poignancy. A pang. A bittersweet sense, of nostalgia for those times and places gone by.52ebec5f697ab040980006d1__w_540_s_fit_

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Beautiful 1950s kitchen

I can’t help envisioning, sometimes – especially with the kitchens – the happy times, the meals cooked and eaten by countless people, the gatherings enjoyed, and holidays and birthday celebrated. It can be places from times long before I was born; it doesn’t matter.

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Kitchen from around the time I was born in the 1960s

The room(s) that hosted those events is being cleared out, emptied, stripped down. That wallpaper or those cabinets and countertops so lovingly selected in 1957 or 1963, or 1990 are nothing more, now, then a mark of a bygone era, and the people who chose them and lived there have moved on, literally or figuratively, to greener pastures.

It makes me kind of…sad.

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peeking into a lit window at a cozy scene

Perhaps my feeling is connected to the game my mother and I would play (and that I still do sometimes even now, I confess) when we’d be driving somewhere, especially at night, and I could glimpse through some open shades or curtains a lit room or two in a home as we passed by. I was always fascinated by that, imagining the people who lived there by having that quick look. What were they like? What were their hopes, dreams? Were they happy or in the grip of a tragic or challenging circumstance? That “What if?” game led to me writing novels, I’m sure – but it’s also part and parcel of what niggles at me during those home improvement shows.

I’m pretty sure that makes me weird (so if you’re akin to this, or even understand what I’m talking about here, please chime in through the comments, so I know I’m not alone, LOL)!

Do YOU ever get a bittersweet sense of poignancy about something that doesn’t have personal meaning to you?

Fear and Loathing in My Kitchen

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I come home from work to face villains in my kitchen.

It’s been a long day, and I felt quite virtuous to have contained myself to a salad and some plain roasted chicken for lunch.

chips

First the open bag of potato chips sits there, staring at me with a “Come hither” pose.

I resist and pull back in terror. But before I get more than one step away…

leftover pieI shift my head just a bit, and there is the single piece of apple pie leftover from Sunday dinner. It’s lonely, desolate, and exuding the need to join me (maybe with a nice cup of tea).

“No!!!” I shake my head and back away even further.

brownies

Just as I’m certain I’m in the clear, the dark, chocolately goodness of last night’s leftover brownies sings a siren song to me, inviting me to taste just a crumb. “A little bitty crumb won’t hurt you,” it whispers in a seductive purr.

Sigh.

In the end I succumb to half of the piece of pie. So far I’ve held off from devouring the rest, but who knows how long I will be able to be strong? Eating a celery stick isn’t going to cut it. I suppose I could drink some water, but that ruby port over there is looking far more enticing… 🙂

Anyone else have nutritional struggles, especially when you’re really trying to be good?  Sigh…