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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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Is the pandemic affecting any small businesses you know well? If so, tell us how.
The pandemic has affected my husband's art business. He is a professional aritist and we own a small art gallery in a storefront on the first floor of our building We live above the art gallery. He displays his art there and sells prints and paintings from there. Since March 19 he has been closed. He sold one or two prints since then. One print was sold after he did a Zoom tour of the gallery. A participant called to ask if she could come to the gallery and see the work. We allowed her, and her husband a short visit, with masks. We opened the doors and let air circulate. The other print was sold to an acquaintance who happened to park in from of the bundling just as I was exiting the house I invited her in, for a brief period, with her mask on and she decided to purchase the piece of art. He usually opens the gallery on Saturdays for visitors and music performances, with neighbors and friends coming by to play music. This can't happen until the Covid is over.
December 23, 2020