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         xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss"><docs>This is a RSS file. Copy the URL into your aggregator of choice. If you don't know what this means and want to learn more, please see: <span>http://platial.typepad.com/news/2006/04/really_simple_t.html</span> for more info.</docs>
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<title>Home Bitter Home</title>
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<item rdf:about="http://platial.com/post/1118854">
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<title>The Hair Salon</title>
<description>
        <![CDATA[
        I went to the salon today. The wait was about 15 minutes which I knew meant more like 30, but luckily I wasn’t in any big hurry. I come to this place every single time I come home for a break. Shear Accents. Clever name. The same stylist works on me every time even though I’m always a walk-in. I feel a little bad for never caring to remember her name, but you can’t miss her. Her red ringlets always pose a challenge for me to decipher whether or not it’s her natural color. To this day, I have no idea, but I don’t care that much. It’s just something to think about when she’s messing with my hair. To tell you the truth, I don’t trust any hair stylist. No matter who it is. I mean, if you fuck up my hair, that’s it. I can’t do anything about it until months after it grows out. Then, I just become one less person who puts money in your hands and the next time I go to get my hair done, I’m even more paranoid than I was with someone I was thinking about starting to trust. No matter what, cutting someone’s hair just seems like an easy thing to screw up. But so far, she’s done alright. And I can always count on walking in and having those big, bright blue eyes greet me. She doesn’t have to say anything. Those puppies speak for her and it’s impossible not to keep good eye contact with her. To tell you the truth, it’s kind of creepy. Crazy “red” hair and big blue eyes…big, like she’s trying to open them wide, but that’s just the way they look normally. She’s nice, though. 

Today I went in and her eyes told me she’d be with me as soon as she could. I sat down and took a gander at everyone else getting worked on. Eyes was coloring someone’s hair and some young girl I’d never seen before was doing something to some lady. They were complaining about how they couldn’t get the sound to work on the television. The lady’s husband was nervously pacing around while his wife was getting worked on. Eventually, he started pushing buttons to fix the TV. He seemed very determined to become our hero. He could barely reach it mounted on the wall and as I watched him on his tip toes, I wondered how much of a handy man he was at home. He didn’t look the part. Khaki pants that begged to at least reach the top of his sneakers and his sweater vest made me think he was more of a…well, not a handyman. I was proud to be proven right when I was forced to take my eyes off of the magazine I was thumbing through due to the snow screaming from the television. It startled everyone in the room and we all had to stop what we were doing. The volume was all the way up for sure, but before he had touched anything, I was able to guess what Montel Williams was saying. Now, I was getting a headache. He struggled to fix this problem, but after every few hits of the volume button to turn it down, he had to lay his feet completely on the ground to retrieve his balance. A few seconds later he would lift himself up again to finally hit the volume button a couple more times.  “Just turn it off, Jay,” his wife began to scold him. I immediately started feeling bad for having secretly been making fun of his pants since I got to the salon. His wife wasn’t nice. He obeyed her and again he started pacing back and forth. He would study all the different shampoos holding his hands behind his back. I sincerely felt that he was literally interested in these toiletries. “Jay...Jay…” his wife tried calling him, but he failed to hear her. With each repetition of his name, she sounded more and more like an owner getting impatient with her dog who wasn’t budging from the couch where he wasn’t supposed to be lying. “Jay…Jaaaaay…” the last call was irritated with a little bit of whine. He jumped a little bit when he finally let himself hear his wife’s voice. He turned around and walked next to the chair she was sitting in while her hair was marinating in a bag. I couldn’t hear a word she said, but I heard his reply. “She’s gonna be at the house in about 15 minutes.” He sounded so sweet—like he hadn’t just gotten yelled at. He even called her Honey.
“15 minutes!? Jay, does it look like I’m going to be finished in 15 minutes?” she snapped back at him. He was clueless. “Does it? That doesn’t even make any sense, Jay,” she continued. No matter what she said to him, she would always include his name before or after the statement. I just felt bad for him.
Carrot Top called me back as I started watching the way Jay was letting his wife degrade him. As I started walking back, Jay turned back towards the shampoos when I heard his name being whined again. “What now?” I thought. I couldn’t make anything more out after I started getting worked on. I felt like I was so close to figuring out their love story. After I was finished, Jay was gone, but his wife was still there. Laughing, telling stories…she was a completely different person now that Jay was gone. So as I was paying I wondered for a minute if she loved him. I made my decision. 

Poor Jay.  And…what a bitch.<br /><br /><a href="http://platial.com/post/1118854">Map this on Platial</a><br /> 
        ]]>
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<georss:point> </georss:point>
<dc:creator></dc:creator>
<dc:date>2007-03-27 16:07:59.983515+00:00</dc:date>
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<item rdf:about="http://platial.com/post/1118918">
<link>http://platial.com/post/1118918</link>
<title>The Cemetery</title>
<description>
        <![CDATA[
        	I drove by the cemetery this afternoon. I noticed how the rain had flooded a few of the gravesites. It was just a tiny corner of the cemetery. I looked across the street and thought it sort of funny how at the bottom of the hill there had been no flooding at all, but in this one corner, on much higher ground right near the street, there was a little pond with three gravestones peaking out of the muddy water. I pictured the ground underneath. I mean, not just the grass, but everything under the grass. Morbid thought process, I know. But I pictured the mud between the grass and the coffin and hoped that the family purchased a leak proof one. I noticed that the graves around these few had been recently visited. The colors of the flowers weren’t wind-blown and faded. It just seemed obvious that people took advantage of the first spring-like day of the year and replaced the old decorations with new. Little did they know, I guess, that Mother Nature had been tricking us and she had more snow and rain ready to bring us all down again. And those poor plots that had been flooded. I felt bad for the dead. For dead that I didn’t even know. I just felt bad. I felt bad for the person that could pick this day, of all days, to visit the gravesite. Then, I felt bad for the plot and its owner who might not even have anyone to come visit them. It was a mess of a reeling mind, but something about the whole situation just made me sad. 
I thought of Kearstin. She used to be one of my best friends and both of her parents were buried here. I remember both parents well and remember the days that they passed even better. Her mother had lung cancer and passed away the day before Christmas Eve. I was with Kearstin that night when they got the phone call. We were in 6th grade. Her dad passed much more suddenly…a heart attack. I found out the next morning and while I spent my entire day at school with the rest of the circle of girls, Kearstin spent her day planning a funeral. At 17, she planned her father’s funeral. Two days before spring break. 
I looked back at where her father was buried and remembered the day. To this day, every funeral I have gone to, it’s rained. I remembered my heels kept sinking in the mud. We all struggled making it across the yard, but all of us girls shared an umbrella. We were all a family and it was like we’d lost a father, too. We stood under the tarp with the rest of the family. That’s how you knew we were all sisters. The people that stand under the tarp—I mean, it’s like the VIP section at funerals. You don’t just get randoms under there. And we were under there. We were asked to stand there behind her. And I think we cried harder than she did. Now, I wonder how often he gets visited. Every spring break? I know I think of him when that time comes around. I ditched my trip to the Gulf Shore that year to stay home. We all spent every day and every night together. We became something even greater than family that year. It was the best spring break I’ve ever had.   

I don’t talk to her much anymore. From spending every weekend with her in our elementary and junior high days to rarely ever speaking with her now, as strange as it may sound, she is the epitome of the person I wish I could be. This year, over her spring break, the same week that her father died four years ago, she’s going to Cairo as part of Habitat for Humanity. There is nobody else in this world that I admire more than her. Funny thing—she has no idea. <br /><br /><a href="http://platial.com/post/1118918">Map this on Platial</a><br /> 
        ]]>
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<dc:creator></dc:creator>
<dc:date>2007-03-27 16:15:44.670595+00:00</dc:date>
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<item rdf:about="http://platial.com/post/1118273">
<link>http://platial.com/post/1118273</link>
<title>High School Parking Lot</title>
<description>
        <![CDATA[
        Today was the first day that I walked out of my house since I’ve been home. It doesn’t take long before I’m ready to scream at the top of my lungs that I just want to get the fuck out of here! There are a lot of bad memories associated with home. In fact, the reason why I went to school was just to get away. High school was hell. No, I wasn’t a nerd. I wasn’t harassed. But it was the worst time of my life. I went to a small school. My graduating class was 74. Small. We started our freshman year with 140 kids. You’d think as a small farming community, it wouldn’t be as corrupt as it is. 

I first learned about sex when I was in elementary school and not from the sexual education instructor. We’d sit in the back of the bus and I’d listen to my guy friends talk so vulgarly about the act. It never hit me to mind or ask how they knew so much. Years would pass and I would realize that they’re all just perverts. It’s like some kind of gene they’ve all got. I’ve been boy crazy since preschool (yes, preschool), so I never went through the “Ewww! Cooties!” phase. I remember buying Valentines to give to each of the kids in my class, but when I was filling out the To:’s, I always chose my favorite cards to give to the boys I liked the most. They were my weakness. They are what broke me down. In junior high, sex was just common knowledge. In 8th grade, I learned about alcohol. I’d listen to the guys in class talking with the girls (that kissed the most boys) about the past weekend. They’d always laugh in the corner about how “cool” it was. Nearing the end of junior high and starting our freshman year in high school, my class really started going to hell. It started with marijuana, but Triple C’s were the most popular. By this time, every single weekend there would be a party happening in someone’s basement or in an open cornfield. By this time, I was spending every weekend at Kearstin’s house. We’d stay up all night and eat pizza, watch movies, and lip sync and dance around her room to the best songs on the radio at the time. Lame, right? But thank God that’s where I was. Before the first semester of our freshman year ended, Stacey got pregnant. By the time we were seniors, 11 of my classmates would have kids. Some dropped out, some didn’t, but all but one is struggling to survive today. 

I decided to cut through the high school parking lot to get to the other side of town. I live about four and a half minutes away from school. The memories came flooding back before I even turned into the parking lot. Classes had just let out so students were trickling slowly out the doors. As I neared the pedestrian crossing, I saw her. For three years, she’d been a part of both of our lives, I just didn’t know it until it was too late and he conveniently failed to tell me he was in love with her, too. High school drama, right? It never fails. She made my life a living hell. Without speaking a word to me, without looking at me, her existence made everything from my senior year in high school throughout my freshman year in college (keep in mind, I took a year off after graduating) pure hell. She was the all-American bitch perfect at everything. Co-star pitcher on the school’s softball team as a freshman and starting volleyball player, again, as a freshman. Later, after finding out the truth, I’d ask him if it would have made a difference if I were an athlete. He claimed it wouldn’t have, but I know better. Three years of my life, and this rich, perfect, Daddy’s little princess, took away the one good thing I had going for me (at least at the time that’s what I thought he was). There she was, in front of my car, with her little white visor and her French braid sticking out underneath it, her glove under her arm, and those stupid sunglasses with the lenses that you can’t see through. If you try, you only see yourself. She is just the start, and surprisingly only a miniscule part, of why home is such an awful place to spend my time. But with the mere sight of her, I think of him. I think of us. I think of what we did. I think of the nights I would pick him up in this very spot after football practice, after his track meets, after school, and on that day. As she walks by I remember that the entire time I was struggling to survive with my decision that I had made because he claimed to love me and he promised me the future, he was fucking her on the side.<br /><br /><a href="http://platial.com/post/1118273">Map this on Platial</a><br /> 
        ]]>
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<dc:date>2007-03-27 11:20:48.692262+00:00</dc:date>
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<item rdf:about="http://platial.com/post/1119163">
<link>http://platial.com/post/1119163</link>
<title>My Room</title>
<description>
        <![CDATA[
        I’m making over my entire room. Every time that I step into it, I get a little sick to my stomach. Coming home this break has been harder than any other. I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it’s because in a couple weeks it’ll have been one year since everything associated with home, either inside the house or just a few miles away from it, became a bad memory. I’m painting all the walls red, a deep red, and covering the walls with my black and white photography. It hit me one night, though, to search through my family’s old photo albums to see if I could find anything. It was one of the best ideas I’d had in a long time.
I was sitting on my bed. It was nearing 2 a.m. and here I was thumbing through pictures I had never seen before of my mom and dad before they even got married. A lot of polaroids. I found pictures of mis abuelos. There were pictures of me and my sister from vacations I had no idea I went on with my family. It was a bit of a nostalgic feeling I had running through my heart, but at the same time, I didn’t really know what I missed. And I don’t really long for anything to be the way it used to be. If anything, I wish I had never met him. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t hate home. I wouldn’t be bitter. I wouldn’t be heartbroken. I wouldn’t be broken. Yet, if I hadn’t, I would have never grown up. 
I can never decide, when I think about him, if it was a good thing to fall in love or not. I can never decide if he was ever worth it. And then again at the same time, I can never even try to imagine what I’d be or where I’d be if he hadn’t been a part of it. So really, it’s not even worth contemplating. And, I realize that it may be absurd to one who knows no details that one person who’s been in my life for almost four years now can have such an impact on what I consider my past, but in the matter of the first two years that we were together, I went through things a normal 18 year old should never go through. 
So here on my bed I sat with a million things running through my mind. I want to paint over my past. Ironically, I’m painting over it and covering it with more past…just not mine. I came across a picture of my mom holding me when I was first born. I had a head of crazy, black hair, let me tell you. She was wearing a pink gown, lying in the hospital bed, and looking down at me smiling. She told me I was an accident. In most cases that wouldn’t be encouraging to hear, but I figure…look at me now. I walked to my mirror and took a look. I looked like shit. My hair a mangled mane which I hadn’t touched all day, wearing a gray t-shirt with a picture of a black oak tree imprinted on it, and a pair of black sweatpants with its bottoms pulled up to my shins. I turned to my side and remembered how I got this thin. In less than a month, I lost 20 pounds due to depression. I was never able to gain it back after my stomach had shrunk. I stared at myself for only a minute and I held up that picture of my mom and me again. I wondered what she thought about when she was holding me at that moment. Was she happy? Scared? I was an accident, right? And don’t people usually try to avoid accidents? 
It wasn’t until it was too late that I got rid of possibly the greatest accident of my entire life. I just got rid of it. Like it was trash. Something that my mom could have done, but she didn’t. And now I want a new room. New walls, new pictures, new bed…a new bed because the one that I sleep in every night when I’m home is the one that my accident was conceived. A new bed because the one I wake up in every morning is the one that someone should be waking up next to me in. <br /><br /><a href="http://platial.com/post/1119163">Map this on Platial</a><br /> 
        ]]>
        </description>
<georss:point> </georss:point>
<dc:creator></dc:creator>
<dc:date>2007-03-27 17:48:58.363338+00:00</dc:date>
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<item rdf:about="http://platial.com/post/1118802">
<link>http://platial.com/post/1118802</link>
<title>The Living Room</title>
<description>
        <![CDATA[
        	I sleep in a lot. I don’t really have a social life here at home right now since all of my friends from around here actually got to enjoy their Spring Break somewhere that’s not Indiana. I woke up this afternoon (yes, afternoon) and when I opened my eyes to yet another dreary day out my window, I heard his little shriek that meant either his grandpa was picking him up or that he was getting his bib put on. I stayed in bed for about 30 seconds processing the idea of collecting myself before getting out of bed and starting the day on foot. I’ve only been home for a couple of days so my parents hadn’t had the time to annoy the hell out of me yet. As of now, we were saying “Good morning” to one another and it was okay for them to tease me about the fact that it was 12 in the afternoon. There’s a good chance that tomorrow it’ll have gotten old. 
	I walked into the living room only to find my mom reading a book to my niece and my dad lying on the floor with my nephew sitting up next to him and hitting him with a big, blue Lego. As I walked towards the couch, they all stopped to watch me. Audrey is four going on about seventeen. The girl learned to roll her eyes at a very young age and to be brutally honest at an even younger age. “Hiiii, Twitty,” she spoke to me condescendingly. “Have you been sleeping this WHOLE time?” I didn’t feel so bad since she was still in her pajamas. Benjamin is nine months old and I can safely say, he is the number one boy in my life right now. He look over and up at me with his lower lip just hanging with the slightest shimmer of drool weighing it down and his big, brown eyes just working to remember who I was. I stand in front of him and he easily beats me in this staring contest we’ve got going. I know it’s only a matter of time before he—oh, there it is. “There’s that smile, baby! I’ve missed that smile!” His grin turns into a bit of a laugh and a maniacal tossing of his arms and Legos flying all over the place. I step over him and my dad. Sherry Lewis and Lambchop are annoying the hell out of me on the TV, but I’m the only one who’s acknowledging them. After a few minutes I turn my head around to ask where my breakfast is. As I looked over to everyone sitting in front of me, I stop for a second to take it all in. 
	“Today is Halloween, Clifford!” my mom read. I watched Audrey’s eyes as she read along with her, as much as she could. As she was concentrated, she wouldn’t realize that she was gawking until she felt her mouth being weighed down much like her baby brother’s. I was distracted from Clifford learning about Halloween when Benjamin started another shrieking fit. I watched my dad play with his grandson and wondered what he would think if I told him I was pregnant. I remembered the day my sister sat us all down and told us she was pregnant with Audrey. I didn’t speak to her for weeks and I was the one that had to help my dad as he cried claiming that he wasn’t a good father. Three months after they told us they were having a baby, every tear that streamed from my eyes down to my lavender bridesmaid dress was full of dread and disgust. Today, I’m convinced that they love their children more than they love each other and to be completely honest, I wait every day to hear the announcement that she’s leaving him. Not because he’s a bad father or husband (because he’s absolutely amazing to put up with my sister’s bullshit), but because while my sister is a wonderful mother, she’s a stuck-up, overwhelming bitch to him. After Audrey was born, it didn’t take my dad any time to accept the reality of the situation. The second he held her in his arms, my new brother-in-law was accepted into the family. 
	I have a sneaky suspicion that he wouldn’t have been so kind to me. The only people in the hospital that day would have been me, my parents, and his parents. I’ll have shamed him too much.  
	But as I sat there and watched everything that was laid out in front of me, I smiled…right there with no one around, with no one to acknowledge it, I smiled. Every once in awhile Benjamin would turn his body around to make sure I was still there and he’d smile as soon as making eye contact. We have a strong connection—much stronger than Audrey and I ever did. She would scream the second I’d walk into the room. Benjamin reaches out for me. I like to think he was brought into this world for not only his own purpose, but for my own well-being—as a reminder that one day, I’ll have to forgive myself.  And every single time that I hold him, I just can’t help but wonder if someone else is looking at me through his eyes. <br /><br /><a href="http://platial.com/post/1118802">Map this on Platial</a><br /> 
        ]]>
        </description>
<georss:point> </georss:point>
<dc:creator></dc:creator>
<dc:date>2007-03-27 15:06:35.825107+00:00</dc:date>
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<item rdf:about="http://platial.com/post/1118843">
<link>http://platial.com/post/1118843</link>
<title>Love's</title>
<description>
        <![CDATA[
        I went through the parking lot again today. I did better this time, though. It wasn’t until I got to the gas station that I felt like I was in high school again. This was the second time that I’d decided to fight my better instincts and leave the house. Of course, this just proves why I should never be put in charge to make decisions. 
I pulled into Love’s. It’s about seven minutes away from my house. My car hadn’t been driven since the last time I was home…about a month ago. I remember leaving it with no gas. I pulled in to this local drug transfer spot and as soon as I parked I said, “God, I hope I don’t see anybody I know.” Which not surprisingly is something that I say anywhere I go when I’m home. And of course having just said that, I saw Scott. His older sister used to be one of my best friends and he was absolutely awful to her and his entire family. When I think about the shit that he put his mother through, it pisses me off. The rest of his family is one of the sweetest and most Christian that’s a part of my life. They’re good people. That’s all I can say. They’re such good people. The second day that he didn’t come home we knew something was wrong. He’d been grounded the night that he left for getting his eyebrow pierced and his mother had actually been very lenient after finding his stash of marijuana. We all just grew more devastated as we learned the things he was getting into—mainly because at one point, he had fit into his family. It didn’t take him long to find that “wrong crowd” once he became a freshman. Our high school just fucked everyone’s life up. Anyway, he ran away, broke his family’s heart, and finally once they found him he agreed to stay out of school and work online to finish out his semester as a sophomore. He also moved out of his house for awhile and stayed with an uncle to work on his ranch. Apparently it had done him some good…until he came back to school. I saw him walking towards the car full of every reason why he’s failing himself again. 
I actually stayed in my car for a few minutes before getting out hoping that they would all drive by and I wouldn’t have to deal with the usual glares from every single person that was still in high school. Unfortunately, I was in too much of a hurry to hide forever so I just got out and walk towards the entrance to pre-pay. They started driving as soon as I started walking and as I stepped onto the curb, they drove past me, honked the horn, and started screaming at me. Literally hanging out of the windows, half of them I didn’t even know, they just yelled God knows what. For me it wasn’t possible not to turn around and look. They pulled me back into the hallways at that moment. These kids who didn’t even know me, except Scott, knew one thing I did, and I’m being ridiculed while they’re driving around high. Who’s a worse person? 
I already know the answer.
I was so close to getting in the gas station without anything happening. So close. But as soon as I walked up to the register, I saw two girls that I had graduated with. This is what they were doing with their lives. They were gas attendants. From high school to the local gas station? I remember these girls. From the way they worked and treated everyone around them, it seemed obvious that they didn’t really have much going for them, but they didn’t even try. I felt embarrassed for them, but then when I gave her my money she just looked at me like a bug. Then it hit me. They knew everything about me. And at that moment, my life was a bigger joke than theirs.  <br /><br /><a href="http://platial.com/post/1118843">Map this on Platial</a><br /> 
        ]]>
        </description>
<georss:point> </georss:point>
<dc:creator></dc:creator>
<dc:date>2007-03-27 16:01:53.557761+00:00</dc:date>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://platial.com/post/1118982">
<link>http://platial.com/post/1118982</link>
<title>Wal-Mart Aisle 21</title>
<description>
        <![CDATA[
        Here’s something I’ve strongly believed for a very long time. Love is buying tampons for your girlfriend or wife. You know what I mean? I feel that a lot of men have issues with the topic of menstruation, which is understandable, but when it comes to the necessities of getting through that week, we girls usually need all the help we can get. I believe that if he really loves you, he’ll go out and buy you your tampons, or whatever it is that you prefer.  
I came across true love at Wal-Mart today. He was an older man who, from the looks of his suit, worked in an office somewhere nearby. There was a definite rush going on in all of the 4 out of 30 lanes open. I chose Aisle 21 (20 items or less). Business man in front of me had one thing and one thing only in his hands. A little bag of Always. I stood behind him, keeping enough distance between the two of us that I could chuckle a little to myself. That was it. I can’t make it clear enough that that bag was all that he held in his left hand. My mind simply reeled. 
As he kept looking all around him, I wondered if he was embarrassed or hoping that none of his business associates would see him. I wondered how much his wife had nagged him to MAKE SURE and stop by Wal-Mart on the way home just to buy these for her. Nothing else but these. I wondered if he struggled with the idea. I wondered if he immediately said, “Okay, dear” before hanging up the phone or if he groaned. Here is the consensus that I came to. He loves his wife. A lot. Because this was the ONLY thing in his hand and he didn’t care to distract the cashier with a lot of random items, not even gum or something, I smiled at the fact that he just loves his wife. Maybe I’ve got it all wrong. He has his story, but as for my belief, he loves her. 
When he walked in front of the cashier with his single item, she made the situation even more entertaining for me as she pointed out the exact same mini-bag of Always behind him. “Well, there’s a bag right behind you!” she was very friendly. She was a bigger, black woman with a voice as sweet as her smile…and observations. “Right in the middle of those bags of Cheetos!” I couldn’t help but to laugh out loud at the thought that you don’t see pads in the middle of Cheetos every day. The man turned around and as she handed him his purchase, he held his pads up in the air seemingly proud. “Welp, I’ve got what I need right here!” And indeed he did. Indeed he was quite proud of his pads. <br /><br /><a href="http://platial.com/post/1118982">Map this on Platial</a><br /> 
        ]]>
        </description>
<georss:point> </georss:point>
<dc:creator></dc:creator>
<dc:date>2007-03-27 17:00:04.393938+00:00</dc:date>
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<link>http://platial.com/post/1119544</link>
<title>Abuela's House</title>
<description>
        <![CDATA[
        Since it’s warming up outside, Buela’s moving back to her house tomorrow. It’s the same old routine. During the winter she comes to live with us because the only means of heat that she has at her house is a wood stove. She’s not exactly the most muscular 78 year old so to save her the trouble and us the worry of her carrying logs all over her house, she just comes to stay with us. Each year we pray for the announcement that she’s just going to stay, but on that first warm day she starts packing her bags. A few days before the official move, we all go over to her house to clean up what hasn’t been cleaned thoroughly in months. My uncle watches the house, and by watches I mean, he comes to get the mail every once in awhile and he feeds the cats in the garage. Buela doesn’t like the idea of returning to a dirty home and she’s the one that taught us to clean a house from top to bottom so it’s never a chore to complain about when the times comes. 
I rarely ever see her anymore. Nowadays, it’s just when I come home from school and on every holiday. But each time that I do get to see her, it’s like Heaven on earth. There’s something about her…about just being able to wrap my arms around her that fills me with a sense of peace—temporarily anyway. Near her, I feel protected. I always have. Yes, she’s my grandmother, but to me, she’s an angel. 
She practically raised me in this house. She raised me and all of my cousins in this house. Each time I walk through the front door, I step into my childhood. And a visit never goes by without a session of Remember When? Corner at the big dining room table that we’ve sat around for years as an extended family. When I walk through the door, I stand in the dining room and behind it is the kitchen. When the door shut behind us, it was always a race to the warmest tortilla and then to the TV for first dibs on picking the channel. We’d take advantage on what little TV we got to watch since any minute we’d be summoned to the kitchen to wash dishes or the garage to sleep the floor or the back yard to pick up sticks. While you think grandparents spoil their grandkids, we lived in a completely different setting. Buela taught us discipline, but at the end of the day, Buelo would come home from work with a Big Size Crunch bar that he’d sneak to us without Buela knowing. It was a nice, little system we had going for us, really.
Since it was warm out the day that we went to clean up, I went for a walk around the house outside.  Memories began to flood from when Buelo made us a golf course in the backyard—little dug up holes randomly created on the ground—so we could try our hand at knocking a golf ball into them with a stick we found in the garage; in their long driveway where Buela would take me for a walk every day to fetch the mail and along the way we would pick up those big rocks that had tiny diamonds in them which caught my eye every single time. She would never attempt to break my heart and tell me that they weren’t diamonds at all. I walked back to el monte which was just an extension to the backyard where Buelo would keep his tractors and trucks that he would fill with tomatoes and drive over to the Red Gold facilities. There were a number of tiny sheds that I was always too scared to look inside of and a lot of parts to God knows what that were just rusting in their place. I don’t visit this place often, but each time I do I come back to the house more fascinated than before because when I was little, it all seemed so much bigger. I specifically walk back to the hole in the ground that we used to burn trash. There was only one day in my entire life that Buela took me back there and we had a mini-bonfire. Sticks, hot dogs, and all, we started a fire and had dinner out there. Today, I can barely ever find where the hole used to be.
On my way back across the yard to the house, I can’t help but feel a little heartbroken that it’ll be another long while before I’m back here again…before I get to be with Buela again. Each time she leaves, I fill myself with fear with the thought of the inevitable. I never long to say goodbye and drive away. And it never fails that each time I leave, she cries. She tries so hard to wait until I leave, but she just can’t and seeing my grandmother cry is one of the hardest things I deal with in my life. She blesses me before I walk away and when I get in my car, my heart breaks even more. If she only knew what I did. She tells me every day that we’re together how proud I’ve made her and that she knows I’m going to do good things. She’s convinced that I won’t screw up and when she compares me to all of my other cousins who aren’t in school, who have kids, and aren’t married, I can’t help but cry at the realization that I’ve already failed her. 
If she only knew. <br /><br /><a href="http://platial.com/post/1119544">Map this on Platial</a><br /> 
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<georss:point> </georss:point>
<dc:creator></dc:creator>
<dc:date>2007-03-27 19:31:40.420558+00:00</dc:date>
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