Sauteed Hodepodge

1. How has your hometown changed since you were a kid? What has changed most about the neighborhood you grew up in?

~ How hasn't it changed?  The neighborhood I grew up in was made up almost totally of families who were related to each other either by birth or marriage or who knew each other so well they might as well have been related.  We kids knew the grown ups too well to call them Mr. or Mrs. Whoever so everyone was Aunt or Uncle Somebody...cause kids showed respect back then and didn't call adults by their first names (or someone would knock some respect into you).  Half the adults in the neighborhood used to hang out in our backyard and the adjoining neighbor's backyard on nice evenings.  Everyone brought their own lawn chair and just sat around shooting the breeze.  We kids would play through all the connected yards until the street lights came on or our moms called us in.  My generation was the first to grow up and live somewhere else (a few of us have come back, though).   Now nobody knows anybody.  There used to be swarms of kids outside everywhere you looked.  It was never a problem to come up with 20 or more kids to play kickball or wiffleball (and the high school kids had no problems playing with the junior high kids or the little kids).  I rarely see kids outside now, even though I know they live here.  There were plenty of houses in the 'hood, but you didn't have far to go to be in the country....just a short walk or ride on the bike.  Now you have to get in the car.  Steel mills were the main employers.  Now it's machine shops.  We had a neighborhood restaurant and bar plus an ice cream stand at the end of our street.  When we were little it was a rite of passage to be allowed to walk to Smitty's for a grape slushy without an adult along.  In junior high we thought we were hot stuff going to the restaurant on the weekends for pizza and plugging quarters into the jukebox.  The restaurant's just a bar now and Smitty's has been closed since the tornado in '76.

2. What song makes you laugh?

~ Heard this for the first time yesterday.

3. Are you a fan of Harry Potter? Read the books? Seen any/all of the movies? Will you be standing in line somewhere close to midnight later this week? For those of you playing along today who live outside the US or UK is Harry Potter a phenomenon in your part of the world?

~ I'm thrilled that the Harry Potter series has gotten so many kids reading, but I personally haven't read a single book or watched a single movie.  Nor do I plan to.

4. If the truth hurts, will you tell a lie? Are we better off as a society in a world that allows no form of deception whatsoever?
~ A lie is a lie, but I will admit to the sin of omission to save some one's feelings.  Or maybe of playing something down.  I mean, I'm not going to tell you those plaid shorts that make your behind look bigger than Texas make you look like a movie star, but I'll probably fudge around the truth by complimenting the style or color or something like that.

5. What is your favorite 'sauteed in garlic and butter' food? Or garlic and olive oil if that makes you feel better.

~ I just made this Sunday.  Fresh green beans.  And I use olive oil.

6. Attending any reunions this summer/year? High school? family? Other? Do these events stir up excitement or dread?

~ None this summer.  Thank goodness, because dread is usually the feeling I go with.  I wasn't a fan of high school, haven't been to any reunions, and hate to think of next year when I may be nagged into going by the classmates I've reconnected with on Facebook.  As for family reunions, only one side of my family has a reunion and I think maybe it has ended now that my aunt can't run it any more.  Kind of sad since it happened every year for like, 100 years (except during WWII), but a relief for me because none of the cousins my age go.  It's all people in their 70s and 80s and there are fewer of them each year.

7. Lilac, hydrangea, peony...pick one.

~ Lilac smells the best.  I have a pink hydrangea (it used to be blue).  I can't get peonies to grow, but I'd probably pick them.  I love their big, romantic, old-fashioned blooms.

8. Insert your own random thought here.
~ Seeing a snake isn't the problem....it's when it was there....and then it's not.  Okay, and maybe a little bit of seeing it, too.