grampa clock

sidenote: i'm hungry again but it's too late to eat.
i just set the hanging grampa clock to tick and gong and it still scares me every hour and half hour. i may turn it off again. it hasn't been on for a year... i am reminded why.

when i was little, we'd visit my great aunt and her family in marina, california. i loved visiting the marcos family. it always seemed to be cold and foggy when we went. the crisp air was like an old welcoming friend; a break from the norm; a reminder that we were on a vacation away from home.

we didn't spend much time outside of the marcos home. but whenever we did, we seemed to be somewhere near the water. fishing on the pier where my brother somehow managed to hook my finger, rollerblading (cuz they were actual rollerblades) for the first time with cousin susan on the hilly sidewalks near the monterrey aquarium-where i painfully learned how unnatural but important it was to use a heel break. shopping at the px at fort ord (don't know if that was near the ocean but it was cool), and finally, in their backyard. although the house was away from the beach, the sand in the backyard and the smell of the brisk moist air would tell me otherwise.

i have fond memories of these visits. here is where i first recall us spending what seemed like hours at the dining table eating steamed crab alongside thanksgiving turkey. where i admired and seriously envied my great uncle's perfectly coiffed pompadour. where i learned that soaps in a glass container could be used as bathroom decor and that they came in all different shapes and colors like pink seashells and baby blue roses. where i looked forward to going to sleep in the room with a fantasy zoo of stuffed animals around the sofa bed.

the one downside to these visits (much worse than the fact that we weren't allowed to drink anything till after we'd eaten) was the haunting gongs of the grandfather clock. when all was quiet and dark in the house, the only thing keeping watch, and it never let me forget, was the scary grandfather clock at the beginning of the hall. it was taller than me and it set off a sound that echoed much louder in the still of the night. it freaked me out and kept me awake. thankfully, they'd turn it off upon my timid request. but when they'd forget, i sure wouldn't.

funny how setting that grampa clock on the wall brought back all these memories. i shut it off again last night before i could be startled by 11 and then 12 gongs.