01.31

I've watched this so many times:

I Love the 90s

This morning at the Smart Museum, my classmate Kim and I were looking at a photograph of a man surrounded by boxes and she mentioned that it reminded her of Caboodles. After wracking my memory for about a minute, but then I remembered:

Caboodles were these big bright makeup organizers for girls who were too young to have real makeup - I can't imagine anyone over the age of 15 (I'm being generous) buying one. I was so excited when I got mine - bright purple and green, two layers, tacky. Now it's in my bathroom at home, in the back corner of the cabinet under the sink. I think it lost its novelty after a month, but I kept it despite never really using it.

Remembering the Caboodle made me think of all of these other forgotten treasures...Skip It, Topsy Tail (my mom made me one), karma bracelets, Connect 4, pogs, a blow-up chair, piles and piles of X-Files stuff. Sapna and I are always griping about how our parents never indulged us, but looking back, I appreciate the fact that my parents bought me a Skip-It that they knew would be forgotten in a month. Do simple kid whims like this even exist anymore?? It seems like every 10-year old has an iPod and wants a Blackberry.

Family Heirloom

My parents bought an AE10 Canon in the early 80s that served as our only camera for years. My mom calls it a "family heirloom", although she says that about everything, including her Sacagawea golden dollar collection. She's partially right though - it was the first camera that went to my dad's house in India, it took all of my baby pictures, documented every birthday in the house...it has a Lufthansa tag hanging on it with an "If Found, Return To" address from three moves ago (<1994?). I wanted to study photography since my freshman year of highschool and never got around to it, so I'm glad I'm finally getting my time with the camera in the home stretch - only 6 more months of college!
So I finally know how to fully use it....although I realized that it's actually not hard at all - I'm just a product of the automatic generation. I found an oooold color roll inside while inspecting it and I've been looking forward to getting it developed. It's particularly promising: the camera was last used during Sapna's awkward years...what a treasure this could prove to be...