oh the places i've lived...

Here's a chronological list of all the places I've lived from birth until this moment:

• Hemlock, Michigan
• Kalamazoo, Michigan
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Antioch, Tennessee
• Lansing, Michigan
• Bath, Michigan
• Arlington Heights, Illinois
• Pittsford, New York
• Swannanoa, North Carolina
• Black Mountain, North Carolina
• Clifton Park, New York
• North Chili, New York
• La Quinta, California
• Rochester Hills, Michigan

It's so easy to think of memories from some of these places, but there are some others that feel like a mist creeping around my mind.  My goal is to pull out a memory for myself of each place.

Here's one moment I can remember from Antioch, Tennessee:  I was in first grade, and our neighbors took me (along with their kids) to pick strawberries.  They had an old VW Beetle which I thought was the coolest/strangest thing ever, and that is the only time in my life that I've ever ridden in one.

Another one (it's all coming back to me now, my little miss six-year-old self):  I had a pair of black gerbils who I named Becky and Cindy (no explanation whatsoever for the names).  They had this amazing plexiglass habitat that we got at a garage sale that had cool twisty places for the girls to crawl around.  One night we came back from dinner at Shoney's (I don't know why I remember the specific restaurant), and Becky (or Cindy) had chewed a hole in the plexi that was almost big enough for them to escape from.  I don't know if this was the last straw for my mom or what, but we drove them out to a field and my stepdad let them go (i.e. be free little gerbils!).  Now looking back on this with my 34-year-old brain--a bird probably got them if they didn't pass away from exposure.  Not cool.