22.06.06     We're baaaaaack, more pictures to come soon... I hope. Thanks to Tree, Wendy, Geoff, May and family, Deven, and my family for logistical support among other things.

04.06.06     My grandmother (father’s mother) wanted to clean out the storage locker in the basement of their apartment, so she called in my Dad, me, and one of my uncles. We dug through the dusty piles, finding boxes full of empty boxes and plastic bags full of neatly folded plastic bags, many from now-defunct institutions. There were also jars and bottles of all descriptions, being saved for some pre-apocalyptic round of canning that will never take place. The recycling bins never knew what hit them.
    We were working under the proviso that if we found something we wanted, we were to take it. I picked up a nifty metal Vita-Weat tin circa 1970, and a deeply groovy lamp with a big red light bulb that used to be my Dad’s. The lamp makes me wonder if my Dad’s experience with the late ‘60s was a bit more colourful than I had previously imagined. I also found a pair of never-worn sandals identical to ones my Dad used to have, which wore out years ago. We are a family that buys in multiples (my car, passed down from my grandparents, is one of three similar models in the family). It is not uncommon to be at one of my aunt’s or uncle’s and to find identical dishware, furniture, or accessories to ones in our own home.
    Also amid the rubble, we uncovered a lacquered tree-stump turned flower planter which I vaguely recalled from my grandparents’ previous home, some ceramic figurines my grandmother had been looking for, a bag from the Singapore Girl’s Brigade, and a single moose antler.
    Of particular interest was a rice mill, or technically, a rotary quern; two large, flat, circular stones, one on top of the other, the top one turned by wooden handle to grind rice into flour. It belonged to my great-grandmother, and my grandmother recalled making rice flour to use in New Year cakes when she was young. These granite stones, which milled a million grains, saw the occupation of Singapore during the war, and sailed across the ocean, are resting in a dim basement, but they will see light again, and I will keep their story.

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