|
|
When Trouverman looked at this photo he said, "That wasn't in our apartment." He didn't recognize our old apartment. The reason he didn't is because with the exception of the tea cup under the lamp, and the concrete block and wood plank shelf and the books in it, nothing in the photo was ours. The pillows weren't ours. The lamp covered with the crocheted doily wasn't ours. The doily on the lamp wasn't ours. The doily on which the tea cup is sitting wasn't ours. I see that there seems to be a burgundy rug down on the floor. I don't know if it was ours or not because I don't recollect it (I wonder what happened to it). I was making a valiant attempt to get along with my family and that is why nothing in the photo is ours. When it was said, "We're getting a new sofa, before we give the old one to the Salvation Army we thought we'd check with you and see if you wanted it since you need a sofa," I said, "Yes, we need a sofa and thank you," because had I said no that would have been taken as justifiable reason for making yet another voodoo doll of me and stabbing it full of pins. And it isn't that my mother crocheted things like "for" me, it's just that she never ceased to crochet, thus the pillows with crochet on them and the lamp with the crocheted thingie on it and the crochet under the tea cup. She crocheted covers for kleenex boxes (yellow and green). She crocheted tea cozies for teapots though she didn't drink tea but since she crocheted them she bought pots for them. She crocheted a cover for their birdcage. But nothing really useful like an afghan. She didn't like afghans and a project that big was too much to crochet but she crocheted millions of doilies. She did once insist she wanted to crochet me a sweater so I went through her magazines and chose a nice one that I would have actually not minded wearing. She paid no attention to the ply of yarn that should have been used (things like that got in the way) and instead made the sweater out of this thick bulky polyester yarn and it was three sizes too big and looked like an afghan.
I wouldn't have brought any of this up but I wanted to explain why nothing in the photo was ours though this was our apartment.
We were never home so it didn't matter much that there was no reflection of our style in our apartment. And we were broke so a reflection of our style would have meant an empty apartment.
This was a great apartment. It was in this large complex where, at that time, most Vietnamese immigrants moved. And immigrant Mexicans. In our little courtyard, there was a German family, a French family, a Mexican family and the rest were Vietnamese. One never heard English spoken. And the apartment was actually pretty comfortable except that we couldn't afford an AC and it was beastly hot in the summer time. The apartment was somehow designed to cook you. It was one of those complexes that was probably built in the 50's and the floor plans for the apartments were well-designed and the windows were these wonderful ones where you turn a crank to open the side panels. The resident manager was nice and every time we had a problem it was promptly fixed.
After we moved out the whole area was razed for a shopping center.
Click away this window to return to the Sofa Vitals page.