Home sweet home

We moved to this house right after I turned 12 about a month before 7th grade started. I got home from summer camp and helped my parents pack up the dregs of our small cramped house in New Jersey. I was disillusioned and mourned the end of camp tragically. I refused to pack the contents of my dresser and desk drawers, so my father just duct-taped them shut and packed them into the truck still full. I remember the cats were miserable in their carriers, Dennis was just two years old and had earaches the whole way, and it was hot, sticky and crowded in the car. I picked my room first, the long rectangular one in the back with two closets. I was invited to R___'s house to sleepover with D____, M___, K____, N___ and M___-- I didn't know that they would soon turn on me and my straight-legged khakis and that I would walk to school by myself. We watched the Olympics (it was the year of the Dominiques) and Grease and stayed up until R___'s father thundered down the stairs and told us to be quiet. Back then the forsythia bush just bordered our yard-- you can see in this picture that it is about 20 feet wide now and slowly engulfing the yard. It's twelve years later, and those three cats (Missy, Spike, Einstein) have three new friends (Cisco, Kringle, Chumley). We moved and a year later I got diagnosed with diabetes. We moved and our mailbox slowly rotted into the ground until the city of Ithaca purchased us a new one. The blue tarp you can see in the picture covers the back porch which started falling off the back of the house last year under the weight of another Ithaca winter. I have no idea whose car that is.