taking stock
last weekend i was in the village, hopefully not for the last time this year...we'll see how the preparations go. it was a long-ish weekend, cause i arrived on friday afternoon by bus. no, my parents didn't pick me up at the top of the hill this time, i was still talking to a villager in the street at the other end of the village, when my father arrived to see what was wrong with the bus/why i wasn't home yet. aaaagh, moving to another continent! bye!
in the evening, there was a soccer game (don't ask) ("we" won that one, apparently) so my mother tried to set up a TV antenna, so we could watch the game along with the rest of the world. it was a very DIY process and i kept laughing throughout. like assembling IKEA furniture, really. and no, it didn't really work, why do you ask? i mean it partly worked, we got very good image, but no sound whatsoever. watching TV with the radio on????
aaaand i spend most part of the next day (the sunny part anyway, what might have been one of the last sunny days i see here this fall) (i hope not) moving the whole of my father's library from the dampest room in the house, where the books were lying around, into the not-damp room. i really deposited them inside a closet, with an inventory list. yep, this is basically what moving means to me: leaving books behind.
my parents didn't protest because 1)it's very true that the books were getting damaged there in the long run, and 2)they are planning to renovate that room next year, so better an orderly retreat.
anyway: these are the books of my childhood. i doubt that my grandma bought a lot of them, but she did read a lot of these and, obviously, put me up to tolstoi, dostoievski, gorki and the brontes (and forsyte saga!) in must have been my early teens. so i love this collection and i know it like the back of my hand.
i asked my father about buying books when he was young and he launched into a story of how hard they were to find under communism. they were very cheap but hard to find, so he bought everything he could lay hands on. now books are everywhere, but so terribly expensive that my friends and i have to get them in packages from sales in england (half-joke).
anyway, i wasn't super-rigourous, but i tried to have them arranged by size (to fit maximum into that huge shelf)(almost 350 all in all! and this is what survived the purgings and lendings) and by collections. really fun being a 20-century librarian.
and i found a box with small objects i had left in care of my grandma before i left the other time. as you see above, it's tied up with a paper on top. you know what the paper is? a map of europe+america i had hand-drawn for her, to show her where vancouver is in the world. oh well.
and i also found these things that i used to wear SO MUCH at their respective times.
i also found some very old pictures i had never seen/paid attention to before: my father at 5, with my grandparents; my father at 2 (!!) with my grandma (who was 20) and my aunt* (who was 8). so i took them to my aunt's for inspection and investigation. my aunt told us how they'd gone to town by cart to have that picture taken, specially to have it sent to my grandfather, who was in the army at the time.
then, of course, i challenged the other branch of the family to produce their photos and see if they had anything old enough to compare.
they did have photos of my aunt's wedding (some 53 years ago), which i'd never ever seen, so that was exciting!!
but apart from that, just the usual: all my cousins et co. in various stages of childhood or of getting married.
and love.
c.
* hilarious! yael warns me that my native-english-speaking readers will be shocked at the idea that my grandma gave birth at 12! so i have to specify that my aunt is in fact my *great-aunt*, the sister of my grandma. i call her aunt because 1) there's no specific romanian word for great-aunt really and 2)because she's closer to my father's age anyway. no one in my family for as far as i recall hearing stories has ever given birth earlier than 17. here, that's better.
in the evening, there was a soccer game (don't ask) ("we" won that one, apparently) so my mother tried to set up a TV antenna, so we could watch the game along with the rest of the world. it was a very DIY process and i kept laughing throughout. like assembling IKEA furniture, really. and no, it didn't really work, why do you ask? i mean it partly worked, we got very good image, but no sound whatsoever. watching TV with the radio on????
aaaand i spend most part of the next day (the sunny part anyway, what might have been one of the last sunny days i see here this fall) (i hope not) moving the whole of my father's library from the dampest room in the house, where the books were lying around, into the not-damp room. i really deposited them inside a closet, with an inventory list. yep, this is basically what moving means to me: leaving books behind.
my parents didn't protest because 1)it's very true that the books were getting damaged there in the long run, and 2)they are planning to renovate that room next year, so better an orderly retreat.
anyway: these are the books of my childhood. i doubt that my grandma bought a lot of them, but she did read a lot of these and, obviously, put me up to tolstoi, dostoievski, gorki and the brontes (and forsyte saga!) in must have been my early teens. so i love this collection and i know it like the back of my hand.
i asked my father about buying books when he was young and he launched into a story of how hard they were to find under communism. they were very cheap but hard to find, so he bought everything he could lay hands on. now books are everywhere, but so terribly expensive that my friends and i have to get them in packages from sales in england (half-joke).
anyway, i wasn't super-rigourous, but i tried to have them arranged by size (to fit maximum into that huge shelf)(almost 350 all in all! and this is what survived the purgings and lendings) and by collections. really fun being a 20-century librarian.
and i found a box with small objects i had left in care of my grandma before i left the other time. as you see above, it's tied up with a paper on top. you know what the paper is? a map of europe+america i had hand-drawn for her, to show her where vancouver is in the world. oh well.
and i also found these things that i used to wear SO MUCH at their respective times.
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| man, the biscuit! it was here all along! but now it's going to montreal with me! |
then, of course, i challenged the other branch of the family to produce their photos and see if they had anything old enough to compare.
they did have photos of my aunt's wedding (some 53 years ago), which i'd never ever seen, so that was exciting!!
but apart from that, just the usual: all my cousins et co. in various stages of childhood or of getting married.
 |
| with a special shoutout to mirela (who everyone agrees was the most photogenic kid ever!) (and your son is so much like you omg!!) , claudia and catalin. so many pics of you guys! well, of course it's cata's home here, but still. |
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| sunflowers in full bloom. but the light is clearly fall. |
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| my aunt rodica's walnut cake. by her own description, "i made some walnut with cake in it". |
c.
* hilarious! yael warns me that my native-english-speaking readers will be shocked at the idea that my grandma gave birth at 12! so i have to specify that my aunt is in fact my *great-aunt*, the sister of my grandma. i call her aunt because 1) there's no specific romanian word for great-aunt really and 2)because she's closer to my father's age anyway. no one in my family for as far as i recall hearing stories has ever given birth earlier than 17. here, that's better.
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