new old more book profile blog rings host

prev jolly snowman & the fallopian tubes next
2001-12-28 | 1:27 p.m.

I feel like a grownup because I actually made a decision with regard to the holiday china---or more accurately, "china," because what I bought is just ... dishes. And that's a good thing: I feel virtuous for not having spent two or three or four thousand dollars over the course of the next ten years on Lenox, Spode, or my original favorite, Bernardaud. Maybe when I am living a Bernardaud lifestyle I will buy Bernardaud, but now is not the time. Instead, I spent $200 on what is almost a complete set of these:

I had to talk myself into it because I do have a snobbish antipathy to Target, especially when it comes to their store-brand home furnishings (which are often on display in the store in a state of decrepitude and sometimes near-collapse, and far more suited to dorm living than here with me and the Samsonite gorillas) but there is such a thing as being an idiot and that is what I would have been if I had ignored the fact that I liked these dishes way better than any others I have seen. Like me, they're retro, secular, and not terribly serious, while stopping short of being purely juvenile. So I took the plunge and bought the dishes. What I couldn't get at the store, I bought online, at Target.com.

However---and this is the part where I attempt to take advantage of my captive audience---I could not find the Jolly Snowman salt and pepper shakers or more than one box of the Jolly Snowman dessert plates, which are quite different from the dinner plates, featuring an all-red background and a large white snowflake. If YOU find either of these items in your local Target on clearance, and you are inclined to serve as a personal hero to me, I would be very happy to pay you back for the item and the shipping. I think these things will be very hard to find but I figure it is worth asking. Thanks a bunch.

Here's a picture of the salt and pepper shakers:

This has been a boring entry if you're not interested in my dishes, so I'll leave you with a little anecdote before I go. I was in the grocery store on Christmas Eve at 5:30 p.m., with about five thousand other people, and I'm trying to remember what ELSE I'm supposed to get, because of course the store is closing at 6 and won't be open the next day (which is a major source of anxiety for me every freaking year), and as I edge the cart into a long line, preoccupied and surrounded, with the girls hanging off the cart like the little monkeys they are, Felony looks up at me with a thoughtful expression and asks in a voice that couldn't possibly have been as loud as it seemed, "Mom, how does the man give the sperm to the lady?"

I had to work to control my expression. I wanted to burst into giggles but instead I affected exhaustion and begged off. "Sweetie, can we have this discussion later? I'm really distracted right now." And she was fine with that. I think it's high time I bought one of those books about reproduction for kids. I know the basics but she grills me like Oriana Fallaci until I stumble into some corner of my own ignorance (ex: What exactly is the role and function of the fallopian tubes?). I hate when that happens.

prev archive next
0 comments

if you're not reading mawm you're not reading me
random