How's The Weather

So, last night as we were sitting around the fire pit in lawn chairs drinking hard seltzer and eating appetizers I said to Kim I can't believe it's the middle of January. The grass is green. We're wearing hoodies and no shoes. How can it be January. It's not summery by any stretch of the imagination, but stays in the mid 50's most days - and the past few days have had some wonderful sunshine. But the rain! Ugh. This time of year most days  it either looks like it's going to rain, is raining or is sopping wet from all the rain. But, we assure each other, at least it's not snow. It does take some getting used to, this past week I had to keep reminding myself we're still about 2 months away from early spring, that we still have the rest of January and February to get through and it most likely will snow at some point. But even that - did you know my office closes if we get TWO inches of snow?? If I was back east I would be out of the office until April. We are here about 18 months now and my winter coats are still stored up in the attic of the garage, I think I wore the brown one twice last year, maybe twice. David mows the lawn year  round, not a lot in January and February, but he does it.  

The rain has been a lot lately, even for here. All the fields around our house are flooded, the cow pasture across the road is a 10 on the Stinkie-Poo scale when the wind is blowing this direction, everytime they walk to the feeder they churn up the poopy muck - Bee loves it though. She thinks it's ambrosia and sniffs deeply of the Poofume - I shallow breath and walk fast. I've been walking her on our road for the most part without a leash and she's good 70% of the time. The other 30% is us having a standoff in the middle of the road with me saying COME and her inching the other way. She knows what I want - she will stand there staring at me, then take a couple of steps in the other direction, stop when I say her name... but she's obeying more than she's not and she is only 3 months so there is that. And for the most part is pretty well behaved.

Last night we had dinner at Kim and Stephen, we had a pre-birthday celebration as he is turning 60 this week! Then in April I turn 60 - its that kind of year. Due to COVID of course his birthday got toned down, Kim's hoping to do something later in the year but for now it was just us. We bought him super expensive beer - this area is IPA intense and you can actually buy beer that's more expensive than champange. We had a fun dinner and since it was so nice out Steve fired up the fire pit and we stayed outside until dark. Bee had a ball racing around (their backyard is fully enclosed) and being a general pain. She can't play with Piggles too much now, she is 4 times his size but still a puppy and she plays too rough. So her time with him is heavily supervised and short, like a prison visit I suppose. It was so nice to sit outside, a little chilly but so sunny! Hopefully the rest of the winter will pass quickly. 

 

Use It - Or Someone Else Will

I love stuff from the 40's to early 60's - I think it's so neat looking. Designs were often what people thought would be futuristic or there was some other kind of craze - at one point it was anything pastel  (or floral, or my superfavorite Fake Orange Colonial). Anyhoo, I was paging through Facebook market place one day and came across a really beautiful china set. It's Noritake china from 1961 (the year I was born) and it's called Helene, also known as a sputnik design. Sputnik was a russian satellite that was launched in 1957, oribited for 3 weeks and then the batteries died so it just bumbled around for another 2 months before it fell back to earth. Essentially useless but we got a lot of cool cocktail glasses and lighting fixtures out of it based on that design, so win! But I digress - It was 8 full place setting, plus a couple of platters, cream and sugar, serving bowls. So, how much? Well, she was asking $60. 

I got it for 45.

With the internet you can pretty much find anything these days - you can type in Pink Leopard Cosplay Outfit with An Apron and I'm pretty sure one will pop up. So I typed in Helene5602 and a bunch of other pieces popped up. I found the very cool gravy boat on Ebay which is pictured below - the plate and bowl are one piece -  I ordered it of course. About a month later another person was on FB market place with the same china set, this time asking $150 so I offered her $50. She came back at $80, nope. David finally threw in the towel and bought it for me for Christmas for $75 - 8 more full place settings, more serving stuff AND the fruit bowl. You probably wonder at this point why I need 16 place setting - I don't. But it was odd that someone else was selling this set and now I have one, large set. And in the words of DaffyDuck - 

MineAllMine 

The thing that struck me about all these beautiful dishes - and some of the other high end things I own and bought used - is how new they look. All were carefully wrapped and stored, all of these pieces and not one wear mark, chip or crack. Not one. Because years ago when you had a good set of china you didn't use it. You stored it and only brought it out on very special occasions - I knew some families it didn't even make it out of the china cabinet for that. Because you didn't want to break it or have wear marks on it. You did it to hand down to the next generation or kept it pristine because it would be worth something some day. 

Yeah, no.

I was watching Antiques Roadshow and they explained why china is not worth much - before the internet it was worth money because it was scarce and hard to find. But now - the money is in replacement pieces which is true - but the large sets are very affordable.  Another issue is they are not microwaveable and often need to be handwashed since they tended to have metal based paints on the rim. All of this has contributed to expensive fancy china being sold for less than Corell. Crazy! So I use them - because, well you should. And I probably get far more enjoyment out of it than the original owners ever did, it's so much fun to eat off of super fancy dishes. I have hand embroidered table cloths and napkins to really set it off - same thing, carefully preserved and then sold at an estate sale to a stranger. Obviously if it's something very old and breakable don't use it everyday, but otherwise enjoy it. It's a shame that the person who spent all this time, effort and money probably never got to have the fun of using it, but I'm grateful and very much appreciate that I do. 

 

You Have To Break A Few Eggs

This morning I woke up thinking about the family reunion my family had years ago in Florida - maybe I was dreaming about it? But notice I said that my family had one, not that we did. Because I was not invited. To this day I have no idea why or what it was that I did that allowed them to make a group decision to exclude me entirely - and yes, it still bothers me. A lot. I was humiliated and heartbroken, trust me if you want it brought to your attention that you are not wanted in your family have that happen to you. I can guarentee you it will more than drive that  fact home. And no, I didn't stop speaking to them - I cried a lot but got past it. But it did change my relationship with them - I no longer had the illusion that I am a real part of that family, brutal but freeing. And I think it changed me too, as angry and upset as I was it did not change fact I will always be on the outside looking in. 

But you cannot sit and cry forever. 

It forced me to form new relationships and to strenghten old ones. It made me realize that like my reason not to believe in god - having faith  in yourself and depending on yourself first is not a bad thing and you will rarely let you down. Being free of that obligation makes you braver - I don't know if I would have had the courage to move across the country if that had not happened. And I don't know if it would have been as wonderful had Kim not been waiting for me. We have been best friends since Jr high school and through the years and children, job changes, moves here and there we've never lost contact with each other. In the back of my mind I always knew we would be together again. And we are. We see Kim and Steve every weekend, we've vacationed together - I have a real Emergency Contact now! And I have Brandi and the granddaughters, it is so wonderful being able to see them on a regular basis. They no longer look bigger everytime I see them - it used to be everytime we saw them it was a whole new set of kids. 

We're still mulling over what we are going to do with the houses, etc... but as I laid there this morning I felt like - life is good. A new house, a new state, old friends, a new puppy, David at my side and we still like each other almost 40 years later. So altough some changes have been painful, they don't stay that way, do they? And there are many times in life you don't ever get to know why things happened, you need to just accept that they did and move on. And for the most part I have, haven't I?

Here's to 2021 - and beyond.