Twenty Years in Seattle

Twenty years ago this month Denny and I moved our family from a home in Houston to a new home in Seattle. We started out on an exciting new journey. Twenty years have passed. Amazing.

In 1991, Chris was five and Laura just three years old. The kids were excited about the move to a new city but sad to leave their grandparents (both sets), cousins, extended family and their beloved nanny. The same sense of ambivalence about leaving family to move thoursands of miles to a place neither one of us knew much about affected Denny and me. We had exciting new jobs ahead and a beautiful new city to explore but still we wondered: Would we be happy in the northwest? Would we ever be able to call Seattle home?

We're still living at the same address two decades later. Once the new folks on the block, now we're the old timers. Our house proved to be a good choice in a great location. For years the sounds of  young voices filled every room but now the spaces seem large, spacious and way too quiet; the proverbial empty nest. How did that happen?

Our house looks much the same as it did on that September day in 1991 when the moving van pulled up with all of our belongings.  Sure, we've renovated the main floor a bit and there's a new exterior paint job, new roof and a redesigned deck out back but the bones of the house remain intact. We've planted new trees at the back and front of the house and in the space of those years, the former hedges and bushes have doubled and in some cases tripled in size.  Time marches on.

The view from our bedroom window changed over the years as homes across the street were leveled and rebuilt and others had their roofs lifted, creating second stories with views of Puget Sound. What once was a decent expanse of water seen from our upper deck is now mostly a view of our neighbor's homes. Sigh.

How many more years will we call this dwellling our home?  Probably not another twenty years. Without those young voices, the house feels different; not bad....just different.

Memories

My kids rode this bus to and from King's School ten years ago. I took this picture several days ago as I trailed the bus and braked my car to let a student disembark. He was young, had a heavy backpack, and a hoodie.

Time keeps moving on.

The Sony Journey; 45 years plus

I posted a "wordless piece" with two photographs of our family room before and after  updating our television system yesterday. D and I have owned a lot of  TVs in our 33 years of marriage. Many have been Sony brand but we've had many others as well. I don't have a particular affinity to Sony products but it struck me that my very first television back in 1966 was a Sony. Just how far technology has taken us during those four plus decades floored me as I thought back to my girlhood and that first television.

My first TV looked very much like this...

Aruba in 1964; I was ten years old. Under the Christmas tree that year was a sturdily wrapped (and heavy) package. I'll never forget the pure joy when I opened the box and found a tiny, tabletop TV with a 5 inch screen, a Sony. Television was new to Aruba in those days and there was only one channel available, the (relatively) new "Tele-Aruba" station. A lot of the programming was in Dutch or Pappiamento but there were also broadcasts of stateside shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanne.

The station had been broadcasting for awhile but my parents shunned the idea of buying a television even as I whined that "all my friends' families had TV". I was never quite sure why they were so resistant; was it the money they'd have to put out for a TV that held them back or some more fundamental dislike? I never really figured that one out. When spending summers stateside, I watched  television like an addicted couch potato for endless hours, memorizing the advertisements and the NBC logo of the peacock's plumage fanning outwards as the announcer broadcast, "The following programing is brought to you in living color on NBC". They could barely drag me out to do anything; the TV promised and provided all I needed. Perhaps that soured them. I'll never know.

Nonetheless, that first black and white set provided thousands of hours of delight before it finally gave out. We saved it for many years; I had it in the back of my closet thinking that someday it might be vintage. I was right but somewhere along the line, that tiny Sony got thrown out, recycled or donated. I don't even remember.

And now, after much discussion about "the look" of our family room and the pros/cons of going big screen, I find myself in awe of this new Sony, high definition, flat screen, LCD television that mounts on the wall atop our fireplace. I had been the resistant one this time, flinging off my husband's regular comments that "everyone is going big screen these days (years, actually)". Was it the expense? Was it what a big screen whispered to me? Was it something else? Finally, I said to him and to myself, "What the hell, I've always kinda wanted a big ass TV set". And so it goes. He was only too delighted to oblige.

Two thoughts about the expense:
1. The original black and white Sony in 1964 cost my folks $200.00. I remember seeing the entry in their check book. The inflation calculator says that 200 bucks back then equals 1,407.00 in 2010 dollars. That's about right although what you get for the money is awesomely different. How could we have even imagined, us old timers?
2. I've said it before and I'll say it again; it is very nice to be DONE with college expenses and have our two, beloved offspring launched. The kids are wont to say, "Geeeeeez, you guys are really sprucing up the place. How come you didn't do it when we were around to enjoy it?" Sigh.

Before and After

Before

After

Eating on the Couch: Coming Full Circle

Years ago when it was just D and me at home, we ate many a dinner sitting on the couch in the living room. Sometimes the T.V. was on, sometimes not. A dinner around the kitchen or dining room table was unusual and felt weird somehow. Once the kids came along, we ate our meals at the table. In fact, eating anything while sitting on the couch was discouraged but done anyway. No wonder we had to replace our sectional sofa last year; spills of milk, sticky juices and soda mixed with remnants of snack food destroyed the fabric after years of the kids sneaking food and drink on to the furniture while watching television or doing homework (homework? huh?).

Life has come full circle.. As empty nesters, he and I are once again migrating on to the family room furniture to eat meals; not all but more and more all the time. We are going back in time. And, we don't spill!

I'm loving it.