Change.

I was mediating a visit between a cat and a dog at the window this morning, and I thought to myself:  

I was alive when they changed the green Skittle from lime to green apple, and I was alive when they added a blue M&M to the bag.  

I was disappointed when they changed the green flavor to apple.  It totally wrecked my “taste the rainbow” experience.  I used to haphazardly throw a clump of Skittles in my mouth and enjoy the conglomerate of flavor that happened.  Now I have to intentionally sift through the bag for the green ones while I miss lime and then decide if I want to eat green apple or not.  I do not like being wasteful.  One of the things I still wonder to this day is: What was wrong with the lime skittle? I miss it that much! 

To me, green apple is a complicated flavor. Grape, strawberry, orange, lemon, lime even sounds simpler.  Let alone tastes simpler.  

Strawberry Skittle.  Yum!  The Skittle’s version of strawberry is my favorite strawberry candy flavor.  Ackchewuhlee, it is my only favorite strawberry candy flavor.  Just like cherry Jolly Rancher is my only favorite cherry candy flavor.  

Matt told me one of his good friends just bought himself a Corvette, and I am a fan of the color he chose for himself.  It just looks like a big ole cotton candy lollipop!  Only the blue cotton candy lollipop sold in the Young Scholars’ fundraiser will do!  Its cotton candy flavor did not try so hard.  It was a cotton candy flavor that would hint until you knew you knew it was the best cotton candy flavor apart from the original cottoned sugar flavor ever!  The only funds I raised in that bag were my own purchases of all the cotton candy lollipops! 

Now those brand of lollipops have presence of mind in my mind, I take the Jolly Rancher cherry flavor as my only favorite back. The cherry Jolly Rancher is behind the flavor of the cherry lollipop sold during its Valentine’s fundraiser.  That glassy red lollipop is my favorite cherry flavor.  Or was the lollipop flavor I am remembering raspberry?  I cannot remember exactly because I could raise my own funds when it came Valentine’s time, too, and the entire bag all really just tasted shades of red. 

Sadly, I do not know where to find those lollipops.  I only have my memory.  I will go looking, though, when I am not so present in my memory of them.  I love the thought of finding and revisiting something I enjoyed much younger, like Mr. Gatti’s pizza, but what if the effort in finding it does not yield the same taste that is present in my memory.  That is one of life’s great disappointments, in my opinion: Something not tasting as good as remembered in childhood/adolescence.  It reminds me #daysgoneby 

I found a time machine in Kingsland, Texas.  The Mr Gattis in Kingsland is where I can find one of my favorite tastes of childhood.  I did not taste Kingsland’s Mr Gattis spaghetti, though.  I didn’t take my hopes that far.  Victoria’s Mr Gattis spaghetti sauce is my favorite spaghetti sauce of all time, and the last I remember, it became a church.  #alittletooironic Just like the third grade wing of my elementary school became a hospital.  I liked third grade; it was where I rested after first grade before the challenge of fourth grade hit me.  Good thing it was Miss Spell waiting for me in fifth grade.  The classroom chinchillas and the pot bellied pig we took an all of fifth grade vote to name Blackie took the heat off learning about The Voyage of the Mimi!  Fifth grade was another good rest stop.  Although, I could have done without The Oregon Trail, too.  

I asked Matt if he voted in the 1995 Election.  He voted for the blue M&M, too.  I remember sitting in my grandparent’s bedroom casting vote after vote on the bedside telephone for blue!  

I am one of the reasons a blue M&M exists.  #hotdamn

[2/18/22 Matt and I were talking one day, and I cannot remember the question remark he made, but I do remember my response: I think something to do with it is convenience.  Kate and I went to visit Grandma on a weekday afternoon when she returned home, and she was telling Grandma about a conversation she had with Mom.  Kate remarked how she would like to live way back when.  Mom had told her just not too far back because even the work just a little bit back when was tough.  Grandma agreed with Mom.  Not too far back.  I think something else to do with it is the timing of gratification.  When convenience meets instant gratification discipline has little room to grow.  

Matt and I are watching “The River Runs Through It” in the evenings with supper, and I am still getting over just how much the telephone has changed.  

I found my high school CD collection one day in 2019.  I don’t know what to call the feeling I would have been if I realized the 2018 car we have didn’t have a CD player that moment.  I just assumed it did.  Granted it only has capacity for one and not six, but I was glad for mine in the moment I came into the knowing CD players in vehicles are being phased out.  The music I collected in those years will never go out of my style.  I also plan on holding on to that car as long as I can.  I am glad for its body style.  It is a little more refined than the older models but not the new body style.  It’s the #theydontmakethemliketheyusedto model.  It was easy to decide to put something totally unnecessary like a lift kit on that car.  I remember a lot of dog miles contributed to that kit and labor and tires too!  Not even the Subaru dealership will touch the installment of lift kits.  We found an off road company to make the installment, and Chris tried to fix the insignificant rattle left behind, but it’s just going to be there.  The rattle seems to coincidentally sync with my annoyances some days, but then I remember it is minor in the grand scheme of it all.  And I remember Chris, too.  Chris thanked Matt for the thank you note I wrote to him, over the telephone call Matt was making about the rattle.  

That was so fun to revisit my cd collection in the car that day.  I am not surprised CD players are being phased out, but it does take me a moment to realize #daysgoneby when I come into the knowing.  Especially when you come from the days, too, your perseverance in reeling the creased cassette tape strips the tape player ate up with your pinky finger was successful! #hotdamn]