Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Welcome Courtney Mortimer!

In early March, I mentioned a commercial for the California lottery that has a quick shot of a house I was startled to recognize--the house in Hollywood that Mom and my sisters bought and moved to at the end of Mom's Cancer. I caught the commercial on TV last night, which inspired me to search for it again online today. And, well, this time I found it:




It's the home of the "happy homemaker from Sunnyvale," with two white wicker chairs on a brick front porch. Mom spent a lot of time rocking in those chairs watching the neighbors go by, strolling their babies and walking their dogs. When Mom's brain tumor affected her ability to walk, I spent a long, very hot weekend building a wheelchair ramp down those steps and across the yard.

After Mom died my sisters eventually sold the house, which was too much for them to keep up and not really compatible with their lifestyles. Despite the fact that Mom spent the last months of her life there, I have warm memories of the place because I know it made her happy. And every once in a while, it pops up on my TV and makes me smile.


Mom helping me build her ramp. I don't think she
got too far pounding a 4 x 4 post into solid brick.

3 comments:

Sherwood Harrington said...

What a cool thing to find on your tv screen! (Icing on the proverbial cake for me: until we moved up to Boulder Creek, we lived in Sunnyvale -- where Diane was, indeed, a "happy homemaker from Sunnyvale," since she also grew up in that city.)

And as for the post, I'm sure your mom wasn't driving it into the bricks, but I bet the spider underneath it was having kind of a bad day.

ronnie said...

I finally got the chance to view this clip.

I know that house!

Thanks for sharing it, Brian.

James said...

Wow. I thought those commercials were made in Vancouver. Glad to know that at least one of the "location shots" is domestic, not just to the US, but to the Bear Republic.