Return of Memoryfest - Day 17/31

[bironic]

I have read all of your lovely memories as well as your conversations about vision quality and blurry monitors -- thank you, again, for sharing and chatting and generally making life that much cheerier, informative and interesting. I hope no-one is put off when it takes me a while to reply

Comments

[nightdog_barks]

*is smiling*

The house I grew up in was one of those little post-war frame houses that my mother used to say was built with "green lumber" -- meaning it wasn't aged long enough and thus shrank after building, causing it to be drafty and somewhat rickety.

No central air, no central anything. The only air conditioner we had for the longest time was an enormous water-cooler type thing.

It had a huge flywheel, and a continuous supply of water (from a hose?), and the flywheel turned, forcing the water-cooled air through a filter made of straw.

Sometimes our living room smelled like hay. Wet hay. It was all we had, though. I didn't know there was anything different until I visited friends who had real air conditioners and (gasp!) wall-to-wall shag carpeting. I thought they were rich.

Heh. It sounds like I grew up in the Age of Dinosaurs. If you want, I can write about how we watched Ook drag Eeki off by her hair and the way the pterodactyls screeched at night. ;-)

[bironic]

Ook so should have ditched Eeki for Urk.

...Yes, that was caveman slash. These are the dangers of condensing online time to the last 45 minutes of the day. I'm probably gonna *facepalm* in the morning when I realize I actually posted this.

Anyway. That's quite an interesting mechanism. Do you flash back to your living room whenever you smell wet hay? (If you have many opportunities to smell wet hay?)

[nightdog_barks]

Yes, but Urk was quite the metrosexual -- kept wanting to invent the hoagie, way before its time.

Heh.

Do you flash back to your living room whenever you smell wet hay? (If you have many opportunities to smell wet hay?)

Yes. And no. Sometimes just a humid day and the smell of wet earth brings it back. I don't smell wet straw too often these days.

[bironic]

At least pickles hadn't been invented yet to spoil the potential sandwich.

Sometimes just a humid day and the smell of wet earth brings it back.

Neat. I should do a post on sense memory with smells -- I'd be really interested to hear the sorts of associations people have.

[purridot]

I remember that in Grade 1 we were read a story about a city mouse who visited a country mouse, and then vice versa. The moral of the story was that the city was an EVIL PLACE and the country was where all was beatific and serene.

Even at that young age I felt frustration at this moral. I could not understand how anyone could not love the buzz and opportunity of the city. Since then I have had the chance to "farm-sit" for profs and I have to admit that indeed you can hear yourself think in the peace of the countryside and it is nice to smell all the fresh air and growing plants. And yet, my heart still shivers happily when I catch sight of that green Starbucks sign.

[thewlisian_afer]

Yeah, that story always annoyed me a little, too. Everyplace has its own sound and everybody has their own preference, dammit. I grew up in the middle of nowhere but I lovelovelove city sounds, and don't tell me I'm wrong! XD

The only thing I really prefer about rural areas and would/will miss if/when I move to a city? The stars.

[elynittria]

The country/city dichotomy in that story always seemed annoyingly exaggerated. Both types of places have their good points and bad points.

I guess the ideal solution would be to be rich enough to have a place in the city and one in the country (preferably in the middle of nowhere). I'd definitely go for that solution.

[bironic]

Or a friend or relative in the country to go visit when all the people and noise and bustle and cement get to you. :)

[thewlisian_afer]

Oh, man. When I was a kid I always hated summer. I still do, even though I have an air conditioner in my room now, but that's another story. Anyway.

When I was a kid the only thing we had to cool the whole house was an air conditioning unit that we'd put in one of the living room windows the first day it was hot enough and we'd put sheets over the entrances to the living room so the cool air stayed there and was actually effective in at least one room. I remember trying to sleep at night, lying sprawled out on top of the covers wearing just underclothes, with both the windows in my second-floor room open as wide as they'd go in hopes that the night air was cooler than the air that'd been trapped in the house all day. It always took ages because of the heat, but eventually the sounds from outside -- crickets, owls, June bugs, the creek in the woods if it'd rained a lot recently, sometimes the rain itself, etc. -- would lull me to sleep.

I now have an ambient sound program (Natura Sound Therapy 2.0) on my computer and when I go

[bironic]

Trying to fall asleep when it's hot is just the worst. At home it wasn't usually a problem, but visiting friends or our grandparents or on vacations or when I went to college, even on warm nights it was tough. Bleh. I'd rather wrap myself in cozy, heavy blankets against the cold than strip down and sweat over a sheet in the summer.

[pynelyf]

My first entry for Memoryfest 2007: http://pynelyf.livejournal.com/33057.html

It’s long and digressive as always.

I apologize for the long silence--the specter of Fall semester papers is still haunting me although Spring semester is already underway. I will send you a nice real actual response to the email you sent me a long time ago too (I didn’t forget…I just got buried!)

[bironic]

No, no, 'tis I who owes (owe?) the apology. I did promise to write that long email -- then thought it would be much easier and more fun to say it all in person -- then neglected to ask when you'd be around over break! Ha. Oops. We need to figure out a good weekend to meet up someplace.

I love your memory, by the way, as always. Will comment on it over there.

[roga]

When I was three or four, I loved spending the night at my Aunt's, who had an apartment in the city. At home I usually slept with the windows closed, but when I slept at her house the windows were always open, letting in the hot, moist, smoggy summer air. My cousin and I would fall asleep to audio cassettes of Nils Holgerson and the sound of motorcycles rumbling outside the window. I still love the sounds of motorcycles at night.

[bironic]

Ambient traffic noise is excellent to fall asleep to. Never thought about motorcycles specifically. That's a sweet connection to make.