My Refrigerator, BlackBerry Shots, Golden Valley, Minnesota, September 2010, photo © 2010 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
To some, refrigerators are bare places, slick and spit-polish clean. Enamel, stainless steel, plastic. Avocado greens and lemon yellows in the 1970’s. Black, white, and stainless steel, the current aesthetic. For some, appliances are pieces of art — sleek, retro, places that make a statement through even curves and vintage hardware. In our house, the fridge is a place that collects — grocery lists, receipts, magnets, calendars, bits and pieces of our lives. One day, we realize the clutter for what it is, throw the valuable photos and magnets in a shoebox, and toss the rest. Until the cycle begins again.
The front of my refrigerator reflects a timeline of my life, something I call fridge typography. Magnets from Ocean City, Maryland, an old photo of Liz’s sister when she was a small girl, the Morton Salt Umbrella Girl, the official Geocaching logo, Lily and Hope black bear swag from our trip to the North American Bear Center in Ely, Minnesota last July. There is a school photo of my niece, a postcard of Hershey Kisses I sent to Liz when I was in Pennsylvania in May, another of the World’s Largest Boot (size 638 1/2 D) sent to Liz by Bob (or was it Jude) when we were down near Red Wing, Minnesota for a writing retreat earlier this year.
What does your fridge look like? Is the outside uncluttered and sparse? If so, open the door. What food do you have inside your refrigerator? Is it all fresh and ready to eat? Or are there a few rotten items to be tossed. What about the freezer? Do you have old-style vintage refrigerator coils (remember what it used to be like to defrost condenser coils)? Or is yours state of the art, energy efficient, humming along quietly in the night.
Fifteen minutes should do it. Or if you’re on a roll, go for 20. Get out your fast writing pens and Writing Practice notebook. Jot down My Refrigerator, and Go!
-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, September 19th, 2010
This one shouldn’t take 15:
My refrigerator is a white, unemotional two-door box with an ice dispenser in the left-hand door.
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I have been photographing my refrigerator and don’t see a way to transfer here. This may call for a sister blog. But for a word picture:
Side A is three objects: A shadow box from a friend with silver heart & live, love, laugh, a picture of an old woman and joke about memory from another friend, a spread-wing anhinga my son bought me at Hontoon State Park.
Side B has a yellowed Far Side joke (an old lady on a park bench is feeding zebra legs to buzzards), an old free Auntie Ann’s pretzel coupon my diet doesn’t cover, a fortune from fortune cookie which says “you are a lover of words and someday will write a book.” These are secured with multiple magnets of cats’ butts.
Lord only knows what these say about me!
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Gunnar, says a lot about you. Maybe the second sentence will be the jumping off point. I’m guessing these Writing Practices will move way beyond the fridge.
anhinga, to drop photos into the comments, you have to paste the code in. The way to get that depends on where you’ve uploaded the photo. From Flickr or into your blog. Once the comment code is saved in the comment, then the photo appears. You can also do a link to your blog and drop the post link into these comments. Would love to see it. I’m glad you described it in words though. I have a vivid picture in my head. 8)
Others can drop photos of their fridges in these comments as well. A great idea. Again, you have to paste the code. Not always easy if you don’t have a blog or have uploaded it into Flickr where you can grab the code. I think this will be a fun write. Liz posted the link on her Facebook page where it got some great comments. I wish I could paste them into these comments!
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Ah, this should be fun, QM. I love the look of our fridge, retro and sleek, it’s gorgeous. To plaster it with stuff would be sacrilege to my design sense. BUT, a few things have managed to make their way to the sides. Especially one side has become the posting place for important school information. Except, it’s kind of recent that we’re using the fridge that way, and more than once I’ve gone crazy looking for some release form or flier about this event or that one, only to remember that it’s on the fridge.
But even though I am trying hard to keep the front of our fridge clutter-free, I do enjoy going to other people’s homes and looking at all the topography contained on the fridge and asking the owners who this photo is of or what this item symbolizes. Your fridge looks like it would make for a good long conversation. 8)
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Yes, a long conversation. 8) Lots of people have sparse fridges. Mine’s always had stuff on it. When I was growing up, Mom tacked some of the important stuff on the fridge. Now she’s got photos of all her grandkids there. The photos of the kids line the hallway walls. Our kitchen is too tiny to have the kind of appliances I’d like to someday own. Maybe when we move into the next house, we’ll have the kitchen we want. Post a photo of your fridge in the comments, yb. I think you had one on red Ravine once but I couldn’t remember what post it was on.
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Here’s a photo of our fridge in the background:
I’ll have fun writing on this topic, QM. Fridges have become quite the amazing appliance to buy, you know. They come with such a wide variety of styles and features and in a wide range of prices. But I love the idea of looking at the outside and inside of the fridge and what that tells us about ourselves.
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BTW, is that a stuffed bear I see hanging off your fridge? 8)
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From May 09 photos
Hope this works – This is a photo I took last summer, my grandson decided to play a practical joke on us by loading the fridge with trolls! Had to take a picture of that!
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This should work this time….
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I tried making a few changes to the code, lil, but nothing worked. I can upload it to my Flickr account perhaps and share a photo that way. I did notice that on Picasa, there is a “share” menu option at the top. If you click on that, is there an option to go fetch some HTML code for different sizes? Perhaps that’s what you did.
But hey, if none of this works (and I’ll work on it tomorrow) then the link you provided in your first comment does go to the photo album that contains the pic of your open refrigerator filled with trolls. So funny! I want to now leave something in our fridge that will scare people. Fake eyeballs would be great. 8)
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yb, YES, that’s a stuff bear from the North American Bear Center in Ely, MN. We like to think it’s little Hope (who is not so little anymore). The tag says “I was adopted at the North American Bear Center in Ely, Minnesota.” 8) There are little magnets that stick to the fridge.
I love your photo of your retro fridge. It’s sleek and curvy. Nice. I can see why you would not want to cover that surface up. Does it have a freezer section? One thing I’ve noticed about some of the newer fridges is that the freezer sections can be laid out all kinds of ways. You get to take your pick.
I remember defrosting the old coil fridges. I think I punctured mine once with an ice pick and had to get a new one. Remember how the ice tasted when you chipped it off of the coils with an ice pick? (Do they still make ice picks?) You weren’t supposed to eat it but I couldn’t help it. I kind of miss that taste sometimes. It’s old and familiar.
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Hey, for those who want us to post their fridge photos, send your photo to info@redRavine.com and we’ll post them! It’s sometimes difficult to paste the code into the comments. So just send us your photo by email.
One thing were were talking about on Facebook when Liz posted a link to our Writing Topic was why there are two different spellings of fridge and refrigerator. I mentioned it to Liz when I was doing this post. I always have to stop and think about how to spell it.
Why is fridge spelled fridge. And refrigerator missing the d?
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what is on my D or no D? BITE ME from Assateaque Island, two PSU football player cards that match the jerseys my daughter and i have, a picture of my honey, weight loss ideas, a school photo of my bonus son.
My family calls the fridge/refrigerator an icebox. from the old days when you put a block of ice in one door.
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YES, the icebox. I think I remember that from the South. Seems like we called it icebox. I like your fridge swag. 8) Bet that was a great trip to Assateaque. You saw the wild horses, right?
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fridges are similar to people they can be ornamented and decorated on outside to make them more inviting and indiviual .They keep important fuel inside like ideas and the ability to do task/work. some poeple are like the freezer in that they are colder than the usual cool fridge . And in saying that people wounce place outside or invited to comunicate are animated and interesting souls with a life time of experince
but does the light go out when door is shut
some seem to have light out alll the time
wink kyle
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I like your humor, kyle. If people are like fridges, I guess the question is, are our contents stale and rotten or fresh and crisp?
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