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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
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How has media coverage of the coronavirus influenced what you think, how you feel, or what you do?
Collectable thoughts Am I good enough? Used to be the question Until I found a nest in Music as my favorite drug, the best in Show and tell but the worst way to sell My own words thoughts full A-fright terrified with people's’ Delight in what I do Could this be true Or am I misconstrued? Why I can’t look him in the eyes Without saying goodbye To the lies that keep my sighs Heavy with dread so I Go to bed thinking All has been said Until dreaming Forces some to say they Can’t think straight While others are used to the Shake at night where Creative words are Blown away, at bay Kept there by the knight’s rest Receding resounds resonance At confessing the unwritten Words in my head Have a difficult way of getting onto paper. Three fourths of my life can’t be expressed In the change that buys my growth Of perception conceptualizing. Molding skin lamps become the barricade Plastering layers over light Shining through the window paine Skin is a craft crypted by one's eyes Transcending perfection’s pain To be a better you that was the Yesterday me who believed in Festering feasible fevers fastly fasting The fair fairytale. Was all a lie Conceived after a cry Leaving lines locally linear Relenting the hard bearing truths Jagged paths scarring the bark tree Manufactured synthetically effervescently. Painfully know how the 50 states of America Are grey, black and white dominated Reinforcing the red White and blue Story marionetting the strings of Children’s toys. Half feelings of guilty fulfilled desire Only to be souled by the completed liar Soiled confessions with inner shames that blame Those who came to the ‘lame’ events contesting protests Is this your very best?
November 20, 2020