HMOKeefe

I’m a dish-aholic

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I’ve touched on the fact that I’m inordinately fond of dishes and glassware, but I’ve never actually admitted to this addiction on the blog.

I Love Cobalt BlueI love dishes. It’s almost a sickness.  My kitchen cupboards are jam packed and the china cabinet doesn’t have room for much else – though I’m holding out for more moriage dragonware plates.  Besides dishes, I have a fair amount of tea pots and tea cups – one set a gift from a friend who died a few years back.

I have multiple sets of dishes and pretty much use them all as circumstances dictate. A good many of them are cobalt blue and I’m completely in love with my blue and white “everyday” dishes.  While dishes, in general, please me, cobalt blue ANYTHING makes my heart sing.

Doug Birthday DishesBut I’m not exclusive to blue. There’s the delicately colored bird set with square plates I bought to celebrate Mother’s Day as my mother is as fond of birds as I am of dishes. [Square plates just rock my world.] And we can’t forget the brightly colored Mexican style dishes I bought to celebrate HMO’Keefe’s 60th birthday – bright red, orange, yellow and green.

With Doug’s death, I inherited some stunning Mexican talavera. Included are two lobster plates that I gave him one year for his birthday.  Doug was as fond of talavera and lobster as I am of shoes.

Of course, there’s the “good china” and matching stemware that was a gift from my father. I’ve told that story already.

I have a 4-piece place setting of some beautiful Lennox Christmas china that I use for Chef Boy ‘R Mine’s private Christmas dinner. For years, I wanted enough Christmas dishes to feed a large horde should one ever show up for the holidays.

The Ruby Red Christmas DishesA few years ago, I found some beautiful antique ruby red, cut glass dishes at Target. They were stunning and stunningly affordable.  Over three years, I bought 24 plates, 24 bowls and 4 goblets.  The goblets always sold out before I could get in to buy them.  It’s nagged at me for eons that I can’t provide beverages in matching glasses for the 24-person-horde that has yet to show up.

Yesterday, I went on an online shopping binge. In addition to buying more Christmas village pieces (that I certainly don’t need – but what’s need got to do with it), I found 20 goblets from various sellers to complete the Christmas dishes.  I am STOKED.  I am so excited about it that I’m resolved to invite 24 people over to the house this holiday season!

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Happy Day of the Dead

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The Beautiful Babette and Doug

The Beautiful Babette and Doug

Today I’ve been reflective about all the changes that have occurred in the past few years – chief of these the loss of Doug, my partner, and The Beautiful Babette, the sweetest Shih Tzu of all time.

5834854826_53e1ba9362_z (2)The Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations are joyous affairs. While reflective, I was also happy in my memories of Doug and Babette today. It’s been long enough that it doesn’t hurt to think about them. I like the idea that they might be walking among us today and tomorrow. I hope they’re together and I hope they think of me as fondly as I think of them.

Doug – One Year After

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fieldwork dougBy the time this posts, it will have been a year exactly since Doug died.

The picture to the left is one that his daughter just posted on her Facebook page.  Carruthers noted that her love of fieldwork was inherited from her dad.  I believe that to be true.

Doug told me he was a nomad and expected to journey throughout his life.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t true in the last years or maybe it was.  His death was a long journey, so much so that when he finally left us it was accompanied by not just sorrow, but also some relief.  His end days were everything he didn’t want.  It had been awful to watch the vibrant, healthy man I knew and loved become an invalid whose days centered on medical appointments and care instead of fieldwork and intellectual discussion.

Even so, I miss him.  I miss his sweet spirit and optimism.

It’s been a rough year.  Intellectually, I’ve known about the grief process since Psychology 101 way back in 1977, but until you go through it. . .   I had thought that by now, I would be easy with the idea that Doug is dead.  I’m not.

I loved him.  I still love him.  I think that’s the hardest part of the grief process — love continues even when the person is gone.  I can’t tell him that I love him.  I can tell the people he loved, the same people I’ve gotten closer to since his death, that I love them.  So, I will.   KT, Martha and Roy?  I love you.

 

This lawn chair is mighty comfortable, y’all.

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I have waxed rhapsodic about an Appalachian spring many times.  I won’t bore us by doing it again.  However, suffice it to say that I’m glorying in today’s weather and trying to create order in what passes for my yard.

daffodilskyLast year was the Great Garden Palooza of 2013.  HMOKeefe was mighty sick and I took off work to be here with him.  He slept a lot and during his naps I started two big garden projects:  leveling the back yard and creating a kitchen door garden.  He worsened and died before either project was finished, but he was excited about what I was doing.  He would sit on the daybed by the bay window and watch me move retaining blocks, dirt and mulch.

There was no need to go to the gym last year.  I moved enough wheelbarrow loads of stuff to surpass any gym workout.  Unfortunately, I need to move as many as I did last year plus a few dozen more.  I’m finding it hard to motivate.  Instead, I sit in the lawn chair with the warm sun on my face and fantasize about how great the yard is going to look when I’m done with it.

I have a plaque that looks like a rock with the words it takes a long time to grow an old friend engraved on it.  It’s really going to take a long time if I don’t get out of this lawn chair and get moving.  Never mind that the house is also a mess and my to-do list is in volumes. . .

While I won’t wax rhapsodic about spring, let me just say that after the polar vortex, record cold and snow, and a generally sucky winter, I need this spring.  I need this warm sun on my face and I need the soft, new grass curling around my bare feet.  I need it all so much that in addition to finishing last year’s projects, I’m committed to restoring the front garden to its former glory.  Yes, I’ve said this before.  Yes, yes, I know.  . . but really, I’m going to do it.  Just as soon as I get out of this lawn chair.