It’s been life changing. I have had 15 different housemates. They ranged in age from their early twenties to late eighties. Four of them returned after a time away. Most have stayed a year or two. The longest was with me for over six years. Three of them were twins like me! I have learned something from every single person and most of it was positive. Even the housemates that didn’t work out gave me practice in important skills like boundary setting, and a window into my own character defects that never would have been possible if I had lived alone. My most memorable experience in boundary setting involved a pig. I had a young girl who lived with me for a short time that I just didn’t feel comfortable with. It was a gut feeling. She rarely spoke to me. The longest conversation we had was when I interviewed her as a prospective housemate. After many months I finally decided I was not comfortable sharing my home with someone I barely knew and obviously was never going to know, so in line with our rental agreement I gave her a month’s notice. The day she left I had a day off from teaching and was unexpectedly home. I was kind of shocked to see her boyfriend, who had spent the night, come out of her room carrying a pot bellied pig under his arm. It was not a happy pig and squealed loudly as it was marched out of the house. Surprise, surprise, she had never mentioned pigs in her interview or in any of the months she had lived with me. Later I wondered if she might have been purposely planning to leave it in the bathtub when she left. It certainly solidified my gut feeling that she was not the right housemate for me. This was a rare negative experience. Most of my housemates have been great. They have often been in a major transition in their lives, having recently moved, changed jobs, or ended relationships. I like to think I have provided a safe and comfortable place for them to land. One of my housemates drove all the way across the country with two cats in her car to be closer to her daughter and her family. She found a new relationship in the process. Unfortunately he was allergic to cats. As a result of his allergy I inherited two lovable fur babies when she left. We still keep in touch even though she has moved back to the East Coast. My housemates have encouraged me and enriched my life in so many ways. The original cat Mom is a writer and artist. We used to set aside time to paint together and she is the person who helped me start this blog. We also took a trip to Sweden, Denmark, and Finland together. My longest running housemate, is a political cartoonist, a die hard socialist, and an avowed atheist as well as a former actor with an edgy sense of humor. He gave me lots of practice in defending my own political and religious views and helped me to not take myself so seriously. We still argue at least once a month or so on the phone. My greatest joy, however, was when one of my housemates became pregnant. I was able to be at the birth and hold the baby in my arms. “The baby” is now 25 and nearly six feet tall. Her Mom and I are still close and I consider them part of my family. I am so glad that I took the risk and stepped out of my comfort zone when I decided to put the first “house to share” ad in the paper. It has brought amazing new people and wonderful experiences into my life . . . and a couple of special cats to boot. Kitty and MarioMy inherited cats: Mario is now in cat heaven with my previous cats. The vest was not to make him look stylish. I tried to put a lease on him because he was protecting his territory from dogs in an aggressive way, but he just laid down and refused to move when I put the vest on him. He was very social and friendly with PEOPLE. Kitty is still hanging in there at 18. She has always been shy and anxiety ridden. She is an indoor cat and more of a one person lap cat.
1 Comment
I have a lot of stuff. To me it has meaning because I grew up with it but to the ordinary eye it probably looks more like junk. I had a fantasy that I was going to pass some of it on to my nieces and nephew but I doubt that they will want it. So I am taking photos and writing stories about the things that are special to me. I have two chairs that I value beyond gold. They are both older than me and I am 73. The Windsor Chair![]() The Windsor chair was always there, kind of like the sun, the moon, and the stars. The term “Windsor” comes from the name of the town in England where the style originated in the 1700’s. This particular Windsor chair predated our birth as you can see from the photo of my twin sister Lin and I snuggled into it outside on a cold Duluth Day. It followed Mom and Dad to California and for over 20 years was the telephone chair next to the sewing cabinet that held their phone - a land line of course, so you had to sit in the chair whenever you called someone. I now use it in my bedroom as my zoom chair for online meetings. It is comfy and understated. It bears many scars from years of constant use. The walnut stain on the arms has been rubbed away by all the Masons who sat in it on a daily basis. It’s legs are bruised by the many times Dad ran into it with his electric cart on his way from the bedroom to the front door of his apartment. Still it survives, a testament to it’s solid construction and classic design. I hope it gets a good home someday. It will definitely outlive me. Mom’s Louis XV ChairMy very favorite family heirloom is Mom’s Louis XV Chair. It has a long history and has traveled through our entire family. In the 1930’s, after she graduated from high school, Mom saw it, along with a matching sofa, being taken out of a home next door to the house where she was living and working, as a nanny in a fancy neighborhood in Duluth. The neighbors were getting new furniture. It was love at first sight and Mom practically followed the truck to the store and bought the used sofa and chair for her parents’ home. Grandpa Anderson redid the cushions. After her Mom died and her father was moved to a nursing home Mom took the sofa and chair to our house on 59th Avenue West. Dad reupholstered them in a tapestry. They are deeply ingrained in my childhood memories. But that was not the end of their journey. My older sister Sue and her husband Jim took them to Michigan and redid them in 1970’s gold velvet. Lin took them after Sue died so they spent time in her home as well. The sofa was given away but Lin kept the chair. She sent it to California thinking she was going to move in with me but she changed her mind. The chair was sitting in my garage and I knew I had to do something to rescue it so I spent more than the chair was actually worth to have it recovered in a swirly greenish print. It’s sentimental value is worth way more to me than it’s actual value as an antique. It has touched every member of my family and has spent time in every home. It’s still beautiful, not only physically, but also in the memories it holds. I wish it could talk. It would have a lot of stories to tell. Lin and I in the reupholstered version that Dad did. Sue and Jim’s 1970’s velvet version. The chair in it’s current transformation. I painted my house blue. I wanted it to make a statement, which it does. I’m just not sure what it’s saying. It’s not exactly what I expected even though I spent a lot of time trying to find the “perfect color.” I didn’t realize there is no such thing. Nothing is perfect. I wanted to express the feelings I have had since my twin sister died. Maybe subconsciously it was about sadness and loss but that wasn’t my real motivation. I have felt an incredible surge in my desire to embrace life. I feel Lin’s spirit is challenging me to enjoy it while I can. Losing her has brought me face to face with my mortality, but in doing so I have found an unexplainable joy in trying new things and a willingness to take risks I would have avoided in the past. I feel this way about creative things in particular and I threw myself into looking for that elusive perfect color as if I was Sherlock Holmes solving a mystery. My house has always been an expression of who I am and I wanted it to reflect the “new me.” The color is definitely different. I hope it’s not different in the way that Mom meant when she used to say “That’s different” about something she didn’t really like. So what exactly is my blue house saying? Let’s see! Thinking of my house as something alive with a voice made me realize I am having a hard time loving it. I agonized over picking this color and I was hoping I would love it from the first moment it was on the house, but I didn’t. I had looked at it a thousand times in little paint chips and then in patches of color that I painted on every side of the house. I thought I knew it, but it turned out to be a big surprise. Color is like that. It morphs depending on the light. I am getting to know it better as I live with it. I do like it and I think, like other things in life, I can grow to love it. It says how I feel and that I am embracing life. It’s different - in a good way.
![]() I bought an older style table on craigslist and also some fancy modern chairs. Now that I have forked out the bucks and they are sitting in my living/dining room I wonder if this look is really me? It changes the look of my home dramatically which is what I wanted. I was sick of the pseudo hippy oak table and chairs that I bought in the 70’s. It was more “little old lady with cats” and less little old lady with taste. Now I have a more elegant mahogany Duncan Phyfe dining table and modern black chairs. Even though I cobbled this dining arrangement together on the cheap, it is much more stylsih than the old table and chairs. I want my home to be the me I am now, not the me I was in 1979, but I think I’m having a hard time deciding who the new me is. ![]() When I saw the chairs on craigslist my heart gave a little pitter patter. They had beautiful curves and a simple design. I had been looking at chairs on line and the ones I was thinking about getting were more like kitchen chairs, painted a light soft green. These chairs were black and sexy, and much more formal. Although I do wear black occasionally, I’m not exactly formal or sexy. I like to be casual and comfortable. I want my home to feel warm and welcoming. Does this table say come on in and sit a spell? Will I want to sit here and eat my bowl of yogurt in the morning, or will I just walk by it admiring how fancy it looks? Can I live with it, not just stare at it? It does make me want to invite people over which is something I have let slide in the years I was caring for my Dad. I do want to do that again. I like the fact that the table can expand and that I now have enough chairs for ten people. I have invited some friends for Thanksgiving. I can imagine everyone sitting around this table. I see myself breaking bread with people I care about and entertaining in a way I haven’t done for a while. I think that is the best part of this dining furniture. In that sense it doesn’t matter how formal or informal it is if it makes me feel like having friends gather ‘round. Maybe I’ll even feel like treating just myself with an elegant dinner sometimes. I can hear the table telling me it's OK to experiment with a new image of myself and my home. Like the commercial for hair coloring says, “I’m worth it.” ![]() I am in a mood to redecorate and I have been considering getting rid of my old dining room table. I looked on Craigslist to see what was out there and I found a table that I liked but I wasn’t sure why. Then I realized it was a lot like the dining room table we had when I was a kid. The words “Duncan Phyfe” bubbled up out of the depths of my memory. I think that’s what my Mom called the style of our old dining room table. There was something about the way that she said it that made me think it was something exotic and special.
|
Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
* * *
The Book Naked Little Old Lady with Cats A collection of Little Old Lady with Cats blogs * * *
WHAT IS A LITTLE OLD LADY WITH CATS - REALLY?
(from an entry posted on 5/1/2015) “I definitely fit some of the characteristics of a little old lady with cats: Retired - check, Single - check, Like to knit - check, Have cats - check. . .I do not want to get stuck in my Little Old Lady persona, however. In fact, this blog is a risk taking experiment in exploring and redefining what I want my retired life to look like.” Categories
All
Archive
June 2024
|