A Trip Down Memory Lane

I have a friend who I have known since I was 4 years old. In order to protect her identity I'll refer to her as Remma. You know how some people have on again/off again relationships but neglect to take note of the periods of time when they hated each other's guts when calculating the length of relationship time so they celebrate their milestone 6 week anniversary with bald-faced don't-you-dare-mention-the-time-he-pashed-skank-face-it-doesn't-matter-because-we-are-in-love...IN-LOVE-DAMMIT ... er, not sure where that sentence was headed but y'all know what I mean, right? Anyway, this friendship of mine is sort of the same as that. We have been friends for many years but there was the huge fight that lasted about 6 months where Ramanda and I ganged up on Remma. I think it was because she liked to watch Sooty and we didn't. And later there was a disagreement over whitegoods or something. But I'm still going to claim that we have been friends for about 25 years (the advanced maths students have just figured out how old I am).

Remma and I met and became friends in kindergarten because we had the same shoes and one day we wore each other's home by mistake. In that cute way that kids have, I didn't notice that mine were too tight and she didn't notice that hers were too loose. Reema's mother is actually the point of this post, and she's the reason that Remma and I became friends and also that I didn't spend the rest of the year with really really sore feet. She was organised, and had put Remma's name and phone number on the inside of her sandals. Naturally, my mother has always chosen the fast and loose approach to life (much like my sandals on Remma's feet) and shuns such rigid approaches to parenting (the vegie maths students have just figured out how old I am).

Because she's so different from mine, Remma's mother Rmargaret has always fascinated me. Whenever I stayed over at Remma's house I used to feel sort of like I was stuck in the Adelaide version of The Sound of Music except there was no telegram boy and they didn't have a summer house in the garden. They did have a cookoo clock though. Speaking of clocks, Rmargaret had the kids running like clockwork. she had all their lunches made and frozen a week at a time. There were almost as many kids in their house as the Von Trapps, especially if you counted Remma's dad Ravid, and since Ravid's lunches were also made and frozen for him I think he should count as one. Anyway, this is a very longwinded way of me building up to the finale, because I'm not sure anyone would believe me if I didn't set the scene first....

Every Sunday morning, the family were expected to eat breakfast together. Rmaragaret had a gong that she would bang to summon the household to the table at 9am on the dot. Ya-ha, a gong. And yes, there are two 9 o'clocks.