Grandma's creepy wallpaper

I live in an unusual house. It was built in 1974 by a husband and wife who immigrated from Poland. They built the house around many features they collected from prominent local buildings and homes of the late 1800s that had been demolished for a variety of reasons. We have fireplaces, windows, staircases and more from the bank, the opera house, a doctor's home and other long-gone structures.

Overall, it's a pretty cool and interesting place to live. But there are some bizarre touches here and there, things I've gotten used to for the most part and usually no longer think too hard about them. On most days.

Yesterday was not one of those days. For some reason the wallpaper lining the hallway to the laundry room caught my interest once again and I thought you all might be able to help me solve the mystery surrounding my creepy wallpaper.

From what I understand, the wallpaper is one of the touches from the homeland of the original owners. It appears to be illustrations of cautionary tales, much like Grimm's Fairy Tales, but of a Polish bent. The illustrations are fine and good and understandable when considered as part of an old-time nursery book. We all know fairy tales and such can be, unfortunately, weird ... and violent. Which is exactly what the illustrations on my wall are. But why would such images be taken from the page and placed upon the wall?

Take a look:

Creepy, huh? That is what I see every time I do laundry, every time I use the ironing board, every time I change the litter box.

And every time I show people around my house, I have to explain the creepy wallpaper and why I don't remove it.

I don't remove the paper because it's antique. I think. If nothing else, it's unusual. And like all the other unusual features in my house, there's a story attached to this wallpaper; I just don't know what it is. I'm pretty sure it was put there by the couple from Poland, but that's it.

My biggest question about the wallpaper, though, the real mystery to me, isn't why the builders of our home put it there, but why anyone -- no matter where they lived in the world, no matter what period of time -- would think these pictures might look great on a wall, why they should qualify as print for wallpaper, why that wallpaper was ever manufactured in the first place. Did people in Poland line nursery walls with these images? Were resident children better behaved when they had these constant reminders of a horrible fate that might befall them if they misbehaved? Was such wallpaper used in places other than nurseries? Did anyone and everyone who ever saw it have nightmares?

It's a mystery I'll likely never solve.

Unless, of course, one of my dear readers has knowledge of Polish fairytales, the ones featuring drunks who fall in the lake or drag kids through the forest by their hair. If so, please enlighten me. Give me the "rest of the story" to regale the next group of visitors to my home and provide me with details on why these wacky illustrations figured so prominently in a culture that people adorned their walls with them.

Then maybe -- just maybe -- I can move on to seeking assistance with yet another mystery of my home: the one involving a discoverer of sunken treasure who has seemingly gone missing and I think just might be buried in my front yard.

Like I said, I live in a very unusual house.

Today's question: (If you read this early, yes, it was a different question. I like this one better.)

What's the creepiest feature of your house?

Photo replay

Captured on my deck.

June 5, 2010

Today's question:

Look out your nearest window. What is the most awesome thing you see?

My answer: Yet another mourning dove has nested and had two more babies!

A sequel better than the original

Back in April, I posted about the mourning doves outside my study window last spring and the unhatched eggs left behind by Mama and Daddy Dove.

Well, the sequel ended on a much happier note.

Mommy and Daddy Mourning Dove arrived to nest once again outside my window about May 18. Here are a few photos of what took place from that date through the time the little ones learned to fly just last week:

Mama starts the process.Ta-dah!

Mama loves her babies!The little ones grow to be big ones ... FAST!The last feeding before Mama tells them they're on their own.The youngsters go it alone -- and do just fine! I know that mourning doves are really just glorified pigeons, but I think they're so darn cool -- especially since they like to nest just a few feet from my desk and were happy to pose for me each time I pointed the camera at them.

Happy Monday!

Today's question:

What are you most looking forward to this week?

How to make grandmas scramble

Last year's happy begonias.I was at Lowe's the other day to pick up some flowers and such before the mad rush of Memorial Day Weekend cleans out the place. I have a lot of containers in the backyard to fill, so I set about picking up some zinnias, some begonias, some pansies, some geraniums, knowing that was only about one-third of what I need, but it's a start.

Shopping on a Tuesday afternoon, when most folks are working, meant lots of older folks were roaming the aisles, lots of grandmas and grandpas ... some old enough to be my grandma and grandpa. I waited my turn in the checkout line amidst the other grandparents and finally made it to the counter, where the young cashier gal scanned my zinnias, my pansies, my geraniums. Then she got to the big hanging basket of begonias. Naturally, there was no barcode sticker on the basket.

"Let me look it up," the gal says, typing it into the register, then flipping through the cheatsheet notebook beside her. "Nope, it's not in there."

So I asked if she'd like me to run get another basket, as they were pretty close to the door. She said "yes," I ran and got the basket as irritation set in with the older folks waiting in line behind me, a look of sympathy for those irritated folks on the faces of the grandmas and grandpas in the line next to us.

I race back to the counter with the basket, the gal scans it. "What's it ring up as?" I asked. I hadn't even looked for a price when picking up the basket because for the past two years, I've had a cuss of a time finding begonias. Yeah, they're not the most beautiful or fragrant flowers in the world, but they love my backyard. And living in a crazy high-altitude climate such as I do, I've learned that if a plant loves my place, then I love it. So I felt I'd struck gold when I found basket after basket in the garden center at Lowe's and it didn't really matter to me what they cost.

"Well, it says $1.24," the gal said. "But that can't be right."

"No," I told her, "that's certainly not right. Do you want me to get another basket?"

Of course she said "yes," so I grabbed the one, raced off for another, grabbed it and returned as quickly as possible so as to minimize the daggers directed at me by all the other grandmas in line. One grandpa even moved from the line to lean against the racks just beyond the register, so he could act impatient directly in front of me, like it was my fault the cuss begonias didn't have a cussing tag.

"Nope, that one rings up at $1.24, too," the cashier gal said. To which I responded that if that's the case, if it's coded wrong and that's what it's ringing up as, there's nothing the poor girl -- who looked worried because she knew darn well it was a $15 to $20 basket -- then it's not her fault. "But ... if that's what they're ringing up as, I'll take that one, too," I told her.

The grandma in line behind me leaned in and whispered, "What are they going for?" So I told her -- and she nodded to her partner Grandpa and quickly headed to the outdoor display to grab a basket for herself as he held their place in line.

Then the grandpa impatiently reclining on the shelves nearby leaned toward me. "How much?" And I had no choice but to tell him.

Next I heard one grandma behind me say to the next grandma in that second line, "Begonias? For $1.24? I'm getting some." She headed out the door ... just as the first grandma to ask me tapped me on the shoulder and asked just exactly where they're located outside because she'd rushed off not knowing where she was going. I pointed, and another grandma raced to that area. Then another grandma in the second line asked her fellow customers about the price. "If that's what they're charging, I gotta get some," she said.

Murmurs of exclamation moved down both register lines, all the while my poor cashier girl looked concerned as she finished up my transaction. "If that's how they coded it, it's not your fault," I tried to console her.

"Yeah, I'll need to check that right away," she said.

"At this rate, there won't be any left for you to worry about," I said.

We finished up, and I pulled my big ol' cart of garden goodies past the grandmas scrambling for begonias. I felt a bit like a thief as I walked to the truck to load 'em up, pretty sure that at any moment I'd get a tap on the shoulder from a manager who'd proceed to tell my to get my tail back in the store and pay up.

Didn't happen. I was thankful to get such a deal but regretted putting my cashier gal in such an awkward position -- probably fearing for her job -- by sharing that deal with the other grandmas around me.

Most of all, though, I regretted not picking up another basket or two while the getting was good.

Today's question:

What's your most recent great deal, on a purchase or otherwise?

Metamorphosis

My current house is not the family home, the home in which my daughters were raised. We moved into this house two and a half years ago, from the home we lived in for 19 years, the childhood home the girls remember.

Megan has never lived with us in this house. Andrea lived here less than a year, Brianna a little more than two. So few marks were ever made on the place to remind us of our once hustling, bustling childrearing years watching the girls grow from toddlers to teens to young adults.

But there were a few. And yesterday I removed the very last one.

When we moved into this house, Brianna adorned one of her bedroom walls with the rub-on quotes that are popular home decor of late. Yesterday I removed those letters, one by one peeling away the final trace of any other family members in residence, any occupants other than Jim and myself.

As I picked away at the corner of each letter, prying up an edge of the sticker-backed text then carefully pulling it up and away, I thought again and again about the phrase Brianna so carefully chose to express her frame of mind as she moved into adulthood.

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly," it said. And here I was, working from right to left, removing the letters, erasing the sentiment.

As the words disappeared from the wall, they became written upon my heart. With that final purging of the past, I embraced the words, appreciated their significance as well as the significance of my removing them from our home: One by one my babies had become the butterfly, one by one they had moved on.

Now it's my turn to do the same.

Remnants of what once was no longer decorate my cocoon, and I look forward to moving on.

I look forward to the butterfly I will become.

Today's question:

What upcoming change in your life do you look forward to?