Kirkland Washington, USA. Where Dreams are Born

It's also where I was born. Ok, well technically I was born in the neighboring city of Redmond, but that's just cause Anne and Steve found that Group Health Cooperative best suited their overall health care needs. Y'all know I'm 425 till the day I die! The neighborhood I was raised in was AWESOME!! There's a Sandbo Family home video, in which my sister Robyn is forcing us three little girls (Me, Emily and Brittany) to give a tour of the neighborhood. She instructed us to tell a little about each house and its inhabitants, and finally to inform the viewers if said inhabitants were friends or foes. As we're walking along, I can be heard asking why we can't just talk about how we feel. My questions, of course, go unanswered.

My Neighborhood according to Google Earth. It'd be easier to see if all those gorgeous trees would die.

The best thing about growing up on my street was the amount of children there were to play with! Aside from my siblings there must have been at least 5,000 other kids in our neighborhood (ever notice how, occasionally, memories from your youth can be skewed?). This fact pretty much made up for the absence of street cred. from which I suffer, due to being born and raised in Kirkland. We would make clubhouses in people's yards (unbeknownst to them), we run through any sprinkler that happened to be going whether we had permission to or not, and if a family was busy eating dinner we'd go ahead and play in their backyard. Oh, and there was all the ABC gum you could ever hope for!

AleadyBeenChewed Gum.
I accidentally typed "chewed bum" into the Google search bar. And you do NOT wanna know the results I got. Ok, I'll tell you. Google asked me if I meant "chewed gum" and this picture showed up.

Although most of the neighborhood kids were my friends, I did have a few foes. One young man quickly springs to mind. His real name is Michael, so I'll go ahead and call him Matthew (wouldn't want to embarrass him, by calling him out for picking on a little girl). Matthew falls somewhere between me and my brother, in age. Probably closer in age to my brother. So, in his defense, the laws of nature dictate that I would be the one who bears the brunt of his cruelty (I'm just being EVER so slightly dramatic about the whole thing). I distinctly remember during street-wide games of hide-and-seek, Matthew would ALWAYS get me. I was an easy target, my stubby legs (I'm really all trunk) and pigeoned toes made running quickly and efficiently difficult for me. Inevitably, after Matthew tagged me some bigger kid would let me tag them, then that big kid would tag Matthew. This would go on until I started crying. At which point, one of my siblings would let me hit them until I bad feelings were forgotten, so I wouldn't go crying to the 'rents. It's a trick they learned from our cousin Joby. An all around healthy way of dealing with things, if you ask me.

From the above illustration, you may be able to surmise that Matthew and I had a hate-hate relationship. One day, I was minding my own business in my front yard, pretending to clip and sort items in a plastics factory (the television show Roseanne had just recently debuted), when along came Matthew. I can't remember EXACTLY what he did, but I do remember it was the greatest injustice of my life. I was so frustrated! I yelled at him to get off my property (he must have been on my property at the time), and when he wouldn't I screamed "YOU BENCH!!!"... only I didn't say bench. I said one of THE words, the queen of dirty words. The B-I-DASH-DASH-DASH word. I knew it was a mean word, that's why I said it. But I certainly didn't want any grown-up to know I'd said it. It was right then that I heard those two words that'll turn your blood to ice while causing you to evacuate your bowels and bladder... "I'm. Telling". I was scared, but you see Matthew was in an awkward situation. He couldn't tell either of our parents, because then he'd have to admit he was tormenting me. His only option was to tell the resident drug addict. And that's just what he did.

Our friendly neighborhood crackhead, was/is named Shelly, and lived with her parents at the end of the cul-de-sac. You can read a little bit more about her here. As I mention in that post, drug addicts were so much more predictable in the days of my youth, and Shelly was seen more as an oddity than someone to fear. She was a bit of a liability however, because people were constantly robbing her. Probably because of the drugs, but I'm not one to assume things. Anyway, after a while she got a life-sized cardboard cut out of Mel Gibson, that she would prop in front of the door, when she was out. That way, anyone looking to rob the joint would look in the window and think that Martin Riggs was going to shoot them.



Matthew picked up his bike and started toward Shelly's house. I can still hear his spokey-dokes announcing his movement, and signalling my demise.



After a quick pow-wow, Shelly called me over. I mentally prepared myself for what might be in store. I decided that if things got too intense, I would sucker punch everyone and run away to one of the many clubhouses. From there I'd get a job, and just start over. Sure I'd miss my family, but what else could I do?!?!? I was 6, and the 9 year old neighbor boy just told on me to the cracked out neighbor!!!!!!! Shelly looked in my general direction, with glassy blood-shot eyes. She said, and I'll never forget this, "Matthew's not a 'bench'. THIS is a 'bench'" (only she didn't say bench either) at that she pointed to one of the countless dogs that always seemed to be wandering around her yard. "Okay" I said. And that was it! Shelly cracked open a Natty Ice and the whole thing was over! Haha! Take that Michael, if that IS your real name (if you'll remember, it is in fact his real name).

I want to end this post by saying something along the lines of "Justice, like a crackhead, is blind". However, I would like for it to make sense, and be very very funny. Ah, well y'all have the ingredients and know my intentions. Go ahead and think up a saucy end for this post!

Regards,
Kate