Dance the night away!

I bought a peach-colored dentist's chair

The village is tearing down the buildings behind my house that used to be Raasch Pharmacy, various doctor and dentist offices, and an interior decorating service. I've been able to watch the crane tearing down the apartments directly behind my house--they even have a fire hose but I still can't figure out why they're spraying the debris--so I've taken some pictures with my crappy disposable camera that I bought in the clearance bin at Walgreens. So strange to watch these buildings go down, which have basically been our shade from the sun ever since my parents lived here (30+ years now). And I keep thinking about Raasch, and when I discovered I could have a "family charge account" so me and Maureen Faydash would hit that place constantly and buy Jay's Bar-B-Q chips, Dr. Peppers, chocolate Charleston Chews, strawberry Big League Chew, and, if we were feeling particularly spend-thrifty, we would get ice cream. They had this delicious chocolate malt-in-a-cup and you got to eat it with a wooden "spoon." Whenever I had friends over, I'd always say, hey wanna go to Raasch? And we'd spend like $4 or $5 there. This is my early experience with credit. I'll never forget my parents confronting me with the bill and being like, Sarah, do you understand what a charge account is? Of course in my head I thought, yeah! Free food!

Oh, but so on my way back from babysitting, I saw the two chairs sitting on the sidewalk, one lime green, the other peach, so I decided to ask the guys who were tearing down the buildings if I could buy one. They were going to sell them on Ebay for $200 or $250, so I was trying to be respectful of the fact that they were technically there first and had "finders, keepers" rights, but the other construction guy was like, Just sell it to her for a hundred, Chad! So later on today, they're going to drop it off. And I totally needed a chair in my room, and now I have a RECLINER! Plus, they're throwing in the matching spit-bowl for no added charge and Katie (who was with me at this point) said I should turn it into a glass-covered table, like for drinks! Wonderful idea! I hope it's more comfortable than it looks though. Maybe I'll just buy a shit-load of pillows. I can't wait!

I babysat today, for Lizzie and Doyle, and I'm getting obsessed with babysitting again. As I was about to leave, she was like, Sarah, don't go home! Kids are the coolest. And I forgot to mention that when Maggie saw me at Memorial Park (when I was the pied piper for children, from that earlier post), she said she recognized me bc of my Jackie O's. She said, "No other babysitter wears huge glasses like that." How true. But today, I made two killer hopscotch courses (multi-colored this time) and we played Hide and Seek at Stone Monroe Park and did some chalk experiments with water on their driveway then we played school (Doyle and I were students though; Lizzie was "Ms. Lizzie"). She is a mini-mom, and I love it. We took a break from playing school to play house, and she tucked Doyle in, covering him up in a blanket, whispering to him, "Okay bud, time to go to sleep. It's okay baby, time to go to sleep." And I was imagining her mom saying that to them--of course that's where Lizzie learns to be a mom! Then she tucked me in, and gave me a Madeleine doll to "sleep" with (nighttime was really like four minutes long with the lights in the basement turned off), and I thought to myself how much getting tucked in rules. No wonder kids love it, it gives you such a level of security before falling asleep like, ah, there is someone who cares just to what extend my blankets are tucked around me.

I have to go with my mom to pick up a rental car though, and we might catch a matinee of "Crash" which I'm excited about seeing; I'll see any movie with Don Cheadle in it. Even if he plays Little Black Sambo or something awfully typecast.

posted by SES @ 5:39 PM