Featured Refresh
Text & Image
Additional Material
Years ago, at an annual rummage sale, I bought this silver tea set for about $40. This is the kind of rummage sale where you can tell people are clearing out the homes of their parents who are aging/relocated to retirement homes/deceased. It's a terrific window onto changing tastes and how younger generations have little patience for the trousseau-style materiality of post-war weddings and associated bourgeois accumulation. My grandmother had a tea set like this (probably both), my mom has a tray like this, and probably lots of middle class women who got married in the 1940s, 50s, maybe even 60s and 70s in the US had this kind of stuff -- which probably now strikes many as unbelievably kitschy. As for me, I love it. I initially saw the set in the huge rummage sale hall and didn't buy it immediately, but then I sat at my desk thinking about it all morning and eventually hopped in the car and went back saying "if it's still there, I'm buying it and that's it." Well it was still there, and now it's mine. When I got it, I used it a few times -- most memorably, for our daughter's 3rd birthday party, where we had "pink" (hibiscus) and peach tea for a couple of little ones who wore pink hats and decorated mugs at the picnic table in our backyard -- but since then it's mostly sat in our basement getting increasingly tarnished and gathering dust. This weekend, with the first glimmers of spring arriving, I decided it was time for a tea party. Spent a good hour and change polishing the whole thing, tried a new lemon cake recipe, and had a friend from the neighborhood and her daughters over to hang out with us for tea at the picnic table. The kids all see each other at school every day, but I hadn't seen my friend in a couple of months -- after lots of summer and fall masked gatherings outdoors to drink wine around fire pits and such. Nothing fancy, but the 4 kids all seemed to enjoy it, and we did too. A great way to spend a beautiful, if still a bit chilly, spring day when options for socializing are still limited.
April 6, 2021
Text Only
¿De que manera el coronavirus le está afectando su vida en este momento? Cuéntenos sus experiencias, sensaciones/emociones, y pensamientos.
Estoy otra vez en cuarentena, esta vez las cosas se pusieron serias, mi papá esta contagiado. Han sido días muy duros, de verlo retorcerse en una cama, ardido en fiebre, quejándose de dolor en el cuerpo, sin recibir casi alimentos. Soy quien lo está cuidando. Ayer jueves 24 vinieron a hacerle la prueba de covid, ese exámen se ve terrible. La próxima semana me lo harán a mi porque soy quien lo cuida y por solicitud de mi rector, debo descartar el contagio. Hay que estar como relojito con la medicina y el fisioterapeuta que lo atiende me dijo que es probable que esté asintomática pero contagiada por lo cercano con papá. Cada 4 horas llaman para preguntar su temperatura y la saturación del oxígeno. Si respira bien, si no esta alcanzado. Lo más duro es en la noche, llevo días sin dormir y el trabajo mas el estudio, no me rinden. Sólo espero que en mi próximo diario les cuente que se mejoró y que yo también. Espero poder subir fotos también que acompañen estos textos. Han sido días muy difíciles para mi familia. Los vecinos nos miran como bichos raros, tuvimos que llevarnos el niño a casa de sus tíos para que no se contagie. Fue todo de repente.
September 28, 2020