Da Fridge

When I look at my fridge in the NYC apartment, ( I can’t do it in our place upstate because it is stainless and nothing sticks but fingerprints), I see a visual diary of moments and people that are important to me.  When did putting stuff on the fridge become something people did?  (Even Wikipedia doesn’t know). And why do we make it the place where we keep these treasured memories?  Even when we were going to sell the apartment and the real estate agent said that we had to remove anything that would divert the potential buyers attention from thinking about it as theirs, the first thing we did was remove all the stuff on the fridge.  It was lonely without those things in which I found such great comfort and so much of our history.

Here’s what we have in our kitchen behind a variety of amusing magnets:

Pictures of our grandchildren and those close enough to be grandchildren.

Pictures of our children and their friends who we have come to know and love enough to attend any performance we can, within a regional geographical distance.

Sweet little notes that remind us of special days.

Telephone numbers we don’t want to lose.

Remembrances of events we attended and we liked or we hated but the pictures were good.

Pictures of people we may not know, but would like to. For example, we have a picture of Amanda Green, who produced Law and Order SVU – which we love and could watch 24/7.  As it happens, her father is a photographer who David knows, and I have met.  He’s a lovely guy, and we told him we worshipped his daughter (I think that’s how we got the picture), but we failed to mention that Jordan wanted to be the dead body at the beginning of each show.  Still we admire her genius and she has earned a place right up there.

So what criteria does anyone use for refrigerator prominence? We mostly stick things up when we have nothing else to do with them. Then we search for a magnet that will hold it, until we replace it with something more timely or meaningful. We do not have special attractive magnets that might also mean something.  We just use giveaways – so as not to take away from the importance of the stuff.

 The most interesting memento on the fridge is a drawing given to Jordan by someone who’s name got wet, so we don’t know who it is --  Ann something. But we like it so it remains. Oh yes, and a lovely note from Julie Harris, a remarkable actress, also written to Jordan.

 

Anyway, take a look at what you have saved in this prominent place and see if it creates a picture of who you are or aspire to be – ours has nothing to do with any of that, but at least I know where to find the telephone number for the garage.