When I was growing up in Ohio, our little farmhouse had an outhouse. We didn’t use it, of course, but we would paint it when it started chipping, knock the wasp’s nests off of it when they began to show up in the summers, and peer curiously into its butt-size seat hole when we’d use it for concealment in games of Hide & Seek.
My mom used to tell my sister and me about the days just after she and my dad got married in the 70s, before they built a bathroom onto our house. The two of them actually did use the outhouse as if it was a normal toilet back then and would just drive up the road to my grandparents’ house to shower every morning. Sometimes when my mom would have a hard time pushing her poop out–and I can tell you this because she’s dead now and likely won’t be able to do anything about it–my dad would bring a glass of hot water or milk to the outhouse in the middle of the night to help her out.
Can you imagine this? It’s the dead of winter, the ground is covered in snow, and you have to trek out across the yard in your parka to get to the bathroom. And once you’re there, you have to sit in this unheated little wooden room, shivering and still half-asleep.
AMAZING! And, you know, my parents only did it for a year, I think, which is crazy enough. But I wondered to myself today: who lived in our farmhouse before us, and what the hell were they doing without a bathroom?
Barefoot Katie with Maria – 9/21/08
My second-best friend back in Ohio, Katie, is expecting her second baby in 7 weeks. Considering that I like her firstborn more than most adults, which is really saying something for a girl with an I ♥ Abortions t-shirt, I’m pretty pumped about the idea of another one running around.
Do not take this to mean I’m getting soft.
1) I spent the night with my best friend, Tracey, as I will do nine out of the thirteen days I’m in Ohio, and as she was dropping me off at my parents’ house yesterday morning, one local radio station played Soundgarden’s “Blow Up the Outside World”, and another played Grant Lee Buffalo’s “Truly, Truly” after it, and we affirmed our dedication to 90s music despite the overall concensus that it sucks.
2) While getting ready to go to my great-aunt’s house to decorate a gingerbread house with my cousins, I happened to turn on “Degrassi” to celebrate the fact that my parents have cable for the first time in my entire life, and it was the episode where J.T. gets stabbed! Which I had never seen before! It was meant to be.
3) I came home from my great-aunt’s house to find my dad, one of his friends, and my step-sister’s future husband using a wooden board in the backyard for target practice. I was surprised to find that I thought it was kind of cool.
4) My parents drove me two towns over to buy New Super Mario Bros. for Wii as my final Christmas gift, and the guy who checked us out at this tiny gaming store that probably sees ten customers a day told me, “Just so you know, this game is awesome.” I didn’t tell him that my co-workers Jeff and Steve stayed late at work with me every night the week before vacation so we could beat it on the office Wii before I left for Ohio.
5) My parents and I watched Julie & Julia, and then when they went to bed, I found an episode of “The Office” on. It was the one where Jim tells Pam he loves her at the office casino night and then kisses her. I am a sap and won’t apologize.
My friend Roy sent me a link to Sketchy Santas yesterday, and while I appreciate their offerings, I think I have a photo of the sketchiest Santa of all:
Tracey may be smiling here, but not ten seconds before, she was crying out in horror from her car at this giant red-faced Santa. The thing has been hanging outside of my Crazy Great-Aunt Dorothy’s house every Christmas for as long as I can remember. The smashed nose is a recent addition, but the duct tape holding it up is not.
We’re thinking it may have been used as anti-American Indian propaganda back in the day. No?
I went home to Ohio last month for
which is a five-day street fair in a town ten minutes away from where I grew up, beloved by the world and chock full of country charm such as
the belief that pumpkin-related foods are entertainment,
so many effin’ pumpkin displays it makes the pie center of your brain kick into triple overdrive,
inappropriate signage,
and so much food that you start to force feed it to your family pets just to get rid of all the treats you bring home with you.
All of our eatin’ is cataloged here at donuts4dinner.com, because you non-food-loving types don’t deserve to get to see photos of deep-fried peanut butter.
