A is for Albums
It's weird to start this with talking about something that we're not leaving behind. If anything, the set of 60 or so albums that we have as a family were one of the first things packed away and put in our storage unit. The albums are a snapshot of the 32 years (or realistically, of more than that). They show the time when the house was brand new. They show all the years in between. They highlight every trip we took, from short ones to long. My Dad was (and still is) a meticulous chronicler through photos and notes, something like abridged versions of my own trip diaries. They started out hand-written. They ended in a time where he printed them out. The photos also span generations of technology, from when you developed film, to prints of digital camera photos to finally even select print of phone ones. There is something tangible of those early albums, and they were a constant presence on all three levels of our house. If I ever felt down, I would just pull one out, especially from say the 1993-2000 days, and just flip through that time capsule.
B is for Bunk Bed
I've been pretty good I think in throwing out a lot of my old memories, momentos and random things I've collected. The one big exception is the bunk bed that my sister and I shared for roughly six years (1993-1999). It was in her room, and I guess at first too little, then too scared, and finally too attached to move out. We exchanged top and bottom bunk multiple times, though my fondest memories are me at the top, and Karen at the bottom pushign up my mattress with her legs in a little bit of fun every night. Even if we are needing to disasssemble it anyway, I'm definitely keeping the bunk bed for no reason other than the most joyous of faint memories. In fact, on our second to last weekend, I decided to sleep in the bunk bed for a final time, and decided then and there that I'll just use that as my bed. Yes, this seems insane, but who cares man. It's still comfortable, and the memories are another added level of comfort.
C is for Christmas Tree
Christmas season as a whole is a whole set of memories (and a post!), but the tree itself holds a special place. In early years, when it was small, it was in our family room. It finally grew (i.e. we replaced it) and it moved to the living room. One year, I had the brainy idea to test it out in teh foyer - which I still say it worked well, but it went back to the living room. Year after year, I spearheaded to campaign to keep it out later and later. In 2024, it stretched to March - granted because my parents were away mid-Jan through March. I wasn't certainly taking it down. I never will in my mind.
D is for Dining Room
There was this room in our house that I probably spent less time than any - the formal Dining Room. It became more formal when we added crown moulding, tow-toned paint, and a more formal dining table. We held all our main events there, from Christmas's to Easter's to Graduation;s. Granted, I never liked the room, mostly because I found the chairs a bit stuffy and, more pointedly, not comfy. But what was comfy was the food, the conversation, the days that turned to nights just sitting at that table. Over the years, we started using it more and more. Beginning was maybe just Holidays and Birthdays, but then it became just basically for any reason at all, and why not. That room was underused the first say 20 years, but we made up for lost time in a big way.
E is for Eating
Food is a big part of my life in our house. Obviously, in later years (from Covid onwards) I was an active producer as well, from my weekly three-course meals, to Sunday Shakshouka's and so much more. But before that, eating was a big part of our life in that house as well. From remember my Sister and I having breakfast on the kitchen counter on our two stools - egg or oatmeal, and maybe once a week a proper (i.e. "Sugary") cereal. To the sandwhiches for lunch after kindergarten, watching Berenstain Bears. From fancy nights with lobster, to low-key ones with various curries. We'll continue eating in the new house, and a fancy new kitchen may even inspire some pretty great things, but it won't be the same as eating in that one.
F is for Fires
We did a lot of "lasts" in our house these last few months. But one of teh first "lasts" was the last time we lit the fireplace. That was mainly my Dad's domain in terms of lighting the wood. The fires were a staple of later years in winter, but more than those times, I remember him lighting them when we were younger. Maybe it was I used to go clsoer, just gaze at the flames and wood and kindling. It was as mesmerizing as it was warm and cozy. In later years, the fires also went outside, with an outdoor firepit that was added to the patio. That was probably better in concept than in reality, but inside it was better than reality.
G is for Grilling
H is for Hockey in the Garage
I could write about hockey in the basement - or more rollerblading in the basement, which after a while tore up the basement concrete to the extent it was a warzone of dust. We carpeted the basement, and I took my rollerblades to the garage. So many times from ages say 9-14, I came home from school and convinced my Mom to drive the cars out of the garage, and let me skate and shoot on a goal with a makeshift garbage can goalie. I even threw myself into teh garage door in play-acting getting hit. It was fun, it was stupid, but the best kind of stupid in that it was, again, really, really fun.
I is for
J is for Joints with Mikey
I realize my Mom and Dad will probably read this, but so what - let's tell a quick story they don't know. In 2010, I met my high school friend Mikey Nestel to watch a Devils game in Newark, and then after for whatever reason on a whim we decided to go back to my house (my parent's were travelling somewhere), and called a couple more friends over. It was just 4 of us (before we then headed out to Rutgers for the night), but in that moment, Mikey saw my mom's garden, said it was too beautiful not to enjoy, and Mikey, Sashank, Parth (the last two are two other friends of mine who were at Rutgers) and I enjoyed a joint or two on our backyard patio, Nothing crazy, nothing too illegal, but just enjoying the beauty of my Mom's garden with some bud and grass. My parents were always annoyed how much I avoided having friends over - well, this story is for you.
K is for Kitchen
I've wondered what room I spent in the house the most. Obviously, my Bedroom is first. The basement is probably second, but the kitchen actually might be. We ate most of our meals there, if you count the breakfast nook that was an extension of the kitchen. I spent hours cooking there. I spent hours reading, writing, studying, or just milling about, on my stool watching my Mom cook there. It started off with these violent green counters (the house was built back in the teal craze days), and white cabinets. It was fully renovated in 2004 or so. It was probably after that it became one of my favorite parts of the house. Now, the new house has an even nicer kitchen, but it won't be exactly, the same. It won't be this kitchen, where I learned to cook cheesecake, sorpotel and so many other dishes. I'll probably have a giant smile on my face the first time I cook a 3-course meal in my parent's new kitchen, but until then I'll look back at the memories of the one gone by.
L is for Lazy Sundays
Just to be clear, this doesn't apply to Sundays in September through February - no laziness then baby. But in those other months, the Sunday blues are a real thing. How to avoid them? Well, maybe just sit in the backyard rocking chair, admiring my Mom's incredible garden for hours upon hours. Maybe your reading a book. Maybe your watching a show. Maybe your just sitting there on your phone, really wanting to take a quick cat nap. But all in all, there were few better spots in my life than on that rocking chair, taking in the sights of one of the world's greatest backyards. I've taken so many photos on my phone of roughly the same view, from roughly the same angle, over and over for a decade or so straight. They were almost all over weekends, when I just wanted to do nothing. There was no better place to do nothing than this particular spot in our backyard, watching a Sunday go bye - escaping the normal Sunday blues because the views were too beautiful.
M is for Monsters Blocked by Barrier
When I was a kid I was deathly afraid of monsters and robbers breaking into our house. Not necessarily hiding under my bed (maybe helped by me being in the top bunk!), but breaking in and coming up? Yeah, was afraid. So my Mom developed this ingenious way to calm me by saying that she made a barrier at the foot of the stairs each day before she went to bed. And furthermore, the barrier would only be there when I was asleep. I probably knew super early on that this was bogus, but it comforted me a ton. As a young kid, this was a big house - another reason why I slept in the bunk bed with my sister for years instead of my own room which was even that much further away from my parents, but this little bit of creativity from my Mom really did do the trick.
N is for Nest
It was my Mom who first coined the term for a room being her "nest" - it being the nominal "playroom" - basically the spare 5th bedroom that doubled as my Dad's office for some period of time. After a while, her nest changed to the guest bedroom downstairs, where she would hold fort on a comfy chair a lot. My nest from the beginning was the basement, but overtime, I took over her old one of the upstairs playroom. That was my Sunday Night spot, just lounging on the couch that came from my Sister's old New York apartment, and then just watching random NETFLIX on the TV nearby. It was a room that turned from our "playroom" into a makeshift TV room. But all in all, it was my nest.
O is the Outdoors
P is for Patio
We got a patio in probably 2003 or so. Before that, my favorite place in the backyard was the jungle gym, where I would climb up the slide as a 7-9 year old and pretend to be the statue of liberty. The jungle gym was torn down to make way for the patio. It wasn't 1:1 - the jungle gym had already seen better days. But the patio that replaced it more than made up for it. It went through a few iterations of furniture sets and setups - from the first set with reclining chairs that were better in concept than in practice, to the later iterations that were better, to dinners spent on the add alcove we architectured into the plans that was first a table and then a gas fireplace. The patio served its purpose through decades of parties, but more improtantly just weekends with the 3/4/5 of us.
Q is for Quarantine
I wrote a lot about our house as it pertained to Covid - in fact, I wrote a whole A to Z around covid where a good third of the entries were things to do, or things we did in the house. Anyway, to summarize, deep early Covid, call it April through August, 2020, was a renaissance for our house, with me moving at snails pace into the apartment I bought right before Covid, and my sister and her then fiance moving back home. The four (five, with him) of us were together living at home for an extended period for months, doing so for the first time in probably 10 years (my sister's last summer before graduating college). It was an inredible time, to be with the people you love at this scary point in teh world, which still feels so surreal.
R is for Recliners
I don't remember exactly when my parents bought the first two reclines - bulky, blue bastards that sat in either corner of the family room. It was long enough ago that we were small enough that my Sister and I could cuddle up with either my Mom or Dad in one of them. Soon, those two early recliners literally wore out their welcome and transitioned upstairs, aroudn the same time we changed our overall sofa set to a plush, leather set that electronically reclined. Life was never the same, at least in terms of our collective comfort. How many great movies, shows and other things were watched by all of us on those, with our feet up - or lying across. How many naps we (my Dad, mostly!) took on them. How many incredible memories overall. That sofa set is coming with us. Arguably, that breaks the spirit of this list, but the blue ones aren't, so it still fits to me.
S is for Staircase Stuffed Animals
I love stuffed animals. As does my sister. Way more than I would like to admit (I don't know her position on this). But in the end, I don't make any apologies. Thsi is a love from toddler-hood. The most memorable part of this shared love was each Christmas, when we would unearth the box of Christmas-themed stuffed teddies (and stuffed santas, reindeers, mouses, elves, etc.), and do this strange but amazing (for the two of us at least) routine of each taking turns naming one and throwing it off the top step to the ground. In the end, we would then place them on teh steps. In theory, we also had stuffed animals for Easter (mostly bunnies and ducks and stuff) and Halloween, but somehow neither of those two holidays got the pomp and circumstance of the show of the Christmas set. I don't think we put out the teddies hte last six years or so (the show ended way before that), but this past year when emptying the basement we were shocked to realize the teddies box somehow escaped the scourge of mice - a lasting gift from the real mice not defacing the stuffed mice (and other animals).
T is for Two-Hand Touch
I've alluded here to my reluctance to have friends visit my house, preferring to go to their digs. The one glaring exception was on snow days from school from probably 7th grade through 10th grade, where the local boys in my grade and I would meet in my backyard and play two hand touch football in my backyard. My backyard was the perfect dimension for this with the snow (in normal conditions, was probably a bit too small - defintiely by high school). It was a great tradition, that usually ended with my Mom making hot chocolate for all of us. It's these small moments that I'll remember years from now when I think about that backyard. Well.... I mean when I get past all the other ones.
U is for Under Cabinet Lights
In around 2007 or so, my parents renovated our kitchen. It generally was a good facelift, but the single best upgrade, to me, was these over and under cabinet recess lights taht were added, along with dimmers to control theme. I'm not a huge dim/mood lighting guy in any other scenario. When we as a family watched movies in our family room, I was the one more often than not pushing for us to keep the lights on brighter than others wanted. But for some reason, in the kitchen it just worked perfectly. Most recently, I would put those on to keep my company on my sojourns upstairs for refills when I was in the basement on weekends and the rest of my family was asleep, but in earlier years they played more practical roles as well. In the end, I started mandating that our new house has these also.
V is for Vegetable Garden
As I noted in my "The Garden" piece, the vegetable garden was probably the area more than any other that I spent a lot of time. I was my Mom's little helper. I didn't really ahve the patience for mulching and watering and tending to flowers. This has remained true even in the terrace/patio of my current apartment, where after a solid first couple years my plants have slowly devolved. Maybe I need to plant my own vegetable garden. In the actual one, I remember planting those little seeds of beans, peas, peppers, and so much more. I remember the impatience at the time in how long it took to grow into something, but grow they did do, and turned into little plants, little pods of peas, adn so much more. As an eater, I far prefer meat, but I did find calm in tending for those little veggies.
W is for Weekends
My bedroom faces eastward, so the morning sun comes directly in. My bed was put away from the windows, so it rarely ever woke me up, and I ahve a great ability to go back to sleep if it ever did. But one of those weird sensory memories of the house was waking up with the bright sun shining, a clear view of our amazing backyard underneath, and realizing it was a Saturday or Sunday morning and the whole weekend to relax in that house was in front of us. From nights with my family outside on the patio, or inside on the recliners, to afternoons lazing in the patio chair (once the shade reached, around 3pm), to so much more. I spent likely a thousand weekends in taht house, and every one was special. Especially so in recent years - the cause of the Sunday Blues that often struck my Sister and I was a cause of amazing days preceding it.
X
Y is for Youth Wildlife
I have a thing for cute animals. Primarily Polar Bears and Penguins, which obviously have never wandered over to our house. But deer, squirrels, rabbits and a whole panoply of birds have and did. And I loved all of it. They were all so adorable and cute, all such frequent joyful visitors. Even in recent years we even got drop-ins from hawks (regal) and foxes (sharp). It was the rabbits that always did it for me though. I have probably 5-6 videos, taken over a span of likely 7-8 years, of just little rabbits munching away on grass and leaves - so content to enjoy our backyard. My Mom definitely disagrees, but I'm so hopeful taht some of these animals mosey their way over to our new house.
Z is for Zero Regrets
