residue

I am off today, and it's been sort of perfect thus far.  I have been for three glorious days in honor of my favorite holiday, my birthday.  while yesterday was spent pretending I was a new fixture in the living room - recovering from the all-too-much wine consumed saturday night and watching a marathon of the only tv show I can actually stand at the moment - today has been productive, and I'm glad I took it off.

 I just finished the dishes, and the process has made me quietly nostalgic.  from the pint glasses stolen from former roommates' kitchens  to the plastic hawkeye cup I use for multipurpose cleaning, I notice that in my kitchen, it is hard to escape the past.  

the best thing about my current kitchen is the space.  nick doesn't like it, but to me, it is at least three times as big as my first kitchen in saint louis, and that is good enough for me.  baked goods made in my tilted stove come out lopsided, but the double sink and the counter space is quite perfect.  and the view out the back door into the alley has become one of my favorite sights.

I am no longer doing the dishes for four people and a pitbull, but the uptown glass is among my favorites.  its retro black logo is one I've yet to see in person, but I am reminded of stories told on the back porch of my neighbor's house in tempe.  washing that glass... or putting it in the dishwasher (when I actually lived somewhere with one)... makes me grateful for the people I knew there.  

further back in time, that glass and the bridalwreath kitchen made me especially grateful for moving after I used to wash piles of dishes while staring out the window that faced south in my scottsdale house.  I'd watch planes land and wish to be somewhere else, out of that house or elsewhere.  I'd avoid sitting alone in my room and wait for my future roommates to call.

I am no longer fighting with dishland, its lovable quirks and pouty workers.  that was an awful dishpan-hands summer, when the only thing I could do to keep sane was gossip over filling tubs with water and cleaning out a trap I could almost fit in.  I felt a sense of ownership in that part of the camp kitchen, but I would not like to be there again... something I realized when I broke the pints & quarts glass a year ago, and was okay with it.

I miss the kitchen in benona so much more.  that was the summer that I really learned to cook and bake, and to love doing so.  we gathered around the prep table so often that they finally bought us anti-fatigue mats.  we hosted themed parties, and we were extremely good at it.  my triplet sisters would never chide me for my nalgene storage containers, as we all ordered them and think they're perfect.

the epsilon rho kitchen could be the most disgusting room in that small house, until someone forced us to do our chores.  the recycling piles up throughout my kitchen, but it can't come close to the amount of trash and recycling produced by 12 sorority girls.  I am still thankful to my lazy sisters for their lack of desire for pop can deposits, for I would not have been able to buy gas for my entire junior year without that.

and my mom's kitchen in portage, and all of the hand-me-downs I inherited and still use from that small space, remind me of messy holidays, perfect birthdays, and how I finally felt home after flights back from phoenix.  it is still my favorite place in that house, and I still refuse to use a plastic glass there.

as I prepare to take over fissell's kitchen, and inherit the residue of years of people and things that have passed through it, I am realizing how much of my life I have also inherited from the people I know.  how carrying forward a physical piece of history can be just as important as carrying forward the memory, for it makes that memory real to us again.

fiss, I'll miss you.