Friday, May 15, 2009

Sugar and Spice

Happy Friday for all who get the next two days off to relax and enjoy. I hope you have nice weather predicted.

Yesterday I had all of these things flying around in my head that I was going to share with you for this post, but today all of those thoughts are gone.

Vanished! POOF!

I need to start writing stuff down.

As I am typing I am listening to the racket that a pair of starlings are making. They've decided to build their nest in my vent again. They weren't here last year thankfully, but they are back now! Time to get out the ladder and shoo them away. Unfortunately I've become rather shaky on high ladders as I've gotten older. Maybe it's because if I fall now, I'll probably get hurt as opposed to when I was younger I would have just cursed a little, rubbed it off and gotten back up there. Getting hurt really didn't enter my mind as much.

Middle age - blech.

I did some more work around the yard this week. One of my rain barrels sprung a bit of a leak so I had to fix that, I got some planting done and I'm working on building a raised garden bed. My veggie garden is going to be a bit late this year unfortunately.

Yesterday while I was tooling around the yard a group of neighborhood kids whizzed by on various means of transport. One was on a bike, another on a razor skooter, then a lil' dude on a skate board and the last guy was whizzing along on those sneakers with the little wheel in the back of them - roller shoes.

Those are pretty cool I have to admit. If I was a kid I'd be wanting me a pair of those.

Instead we had these:



Later I graduated to these:


(add a pair of striped knee socks and you were a totally hip and happening kind of chick)

Fun times! Scraped knees and elbows - no helmets or pads, just put them on and ZOOM we were on our way! Well maybe not so much in the metal skates - they just kind of did a "scuff, scuff, rool - scuff, scuff, roll" kind of thing.

The skating rinks were big back then too - roller disco! (That's a whole other subject for a whole new series!)

Watching these kids zipping around got me thinking of a particular song and it's been stuck in my head so now I have to let it loose and get into your brains instead of mine!

Brand New Key - by Melanie
(Does anyone remember her?)

She had this shrilly, squeaky kind of voice that kind of went right back to that nerve in the back of your neck and your shoulders would skrunch up and winced - but you probably sang along too. (Yeah...you did, admit it)

So let's pay tribute to the past and remember our first pair of metal skates and looking for that freakin' key that you needed to adjust the things so that they would stay on your feet. We could never find that key when we needed it!

Happy Weekend all!



Peace!

3 comments:

Kat Mortensen said...

I remember that song! I always pictured her as a long-haired blonde for some reason. There was a girl in my class called Melane Labelle and everytime I heard her name, I thought of that Melanie song. (Melane once whacked me with a golf club when I tried to teach her how to swing - I still have the dent in my shin.)

I remember those metal skates - they were so hard to adjust and I have really narrow feet, so most of the time I just ended up with the strap hanging off my ankles and landing flat on my face. You read my roller-skating post on Blasts From the Past, right? I just posted about sleepovers - Neetzy told me about her Boy Scout sleeping bag. Check it out and put in YOUR two cents.

Kat

Maria said...

Ugh. I remember those keys that had a skate key. Mine were hand-me-downs from my older sisters and by the time I got them, they were ancient. You would just get a nice speed going and then....BLAM...they would suddenly get four sizes bigger and you would go flying...

neetzy said...

Those old metal skates were crap! I remember when Mom bought me a pair of used (indoor) shoe skates. I skated around Sara Ann Court on them. Skating at a rink was so smooth and effortless in comparison. I thought I was hot stuff as soon as I learned to skate backwards.
(I had the Melanie album - one of Dad's promos). I didn't like that song, but it can certainly become an earworm.