Memories of friend's houses in childhood

I was listening to a radio show on Proust this afternoon, and today I seem to be remembering my childhood. Specifically, friend's houses.

My neighbor friend, Jeff, had a house that smelled like cinnamon, and his mom made great sugar cookies. We played this board game, I think it was called Labyrinth, and it had pictures of little monsters. In the summer sometimes we'd go outside, and once I had a cherry tomato, although I was disappointed that it didn't taste like a cherry. After Christmas one year, Jeff got a lego castle set. It had a drawbridge you could open and close. There were copper dough molds on the walls, and they had a copper-colored dog named Rusty.

Summer afternoons, we would eat macaroni and cheese out on the patio (this is a different friend). They had a picnic bench with an umbrella, for shade, and it was always in the wrong spot. After lunch we would get otter pops from the freezer in the garage. There was a kid's table that had a scratch n' sniff sticker on each corner. I was always trying to sniff the pizza-flavored one. We made miniature golf courses in the sandbox. It was cool when we could make an arch that the ball could go over and under. There was a large bush on the hill, and we would play in it and on it. It was kind of prickly though. Their computer was in his parent's room, and it was right next to a window, so his mom could see from the backyard if we were still playing a game.

At Lisa's we would often play super Nintendo together. We played Super Mario Bros. 3 and Donkey Kong 2. We also played Aladdin. I was never very good at the games, probably due to my lack of practice time. She had lots of Barbie dolls that we would play with, and we would trade Sailor Moon cards from the quarter machine in Toys R Us. Her mom had a collection of elephant figurines that we would look at sometimes. There was one made of pewter, supposedly cursed, that looked like it might steal your soul. Once I started eating a huge bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats, but my mom came over before I could finish it. I felt really bad about that. During one of Lisa's sleepovers we did a play of the movie "Chucky," which I had never seen. I was a very good actress and screamed quite convincingly.