I love dishes. I used to have a lot of them, but I had to taper off as I kept moving to smaller places. Now I’m down to two sets (practical tempered glass dishes for everyday and microwave use, a slightly nicer set of casual china), but I still look at them longingly all the time.
I look at dinnerware the way other obsessed people read cookbooks. (Overstock.com is my favorite fix.) I also picture myself entertaining with them, which is pretty silly. No one comes to visit me anymore and when I get together with my friends, it’s always at a restaurant – with someone else’s dishes.
I still remember my first set of stoneware. It was Danish, with brown and orange accents. (Hey, it was the Seventies. Earth tones were everywhere!) Then I got another set of Danish stoneware, but it was deep sky blue with speckles. I remember it had these lovely curved teacups that fit right into my hand. (The ex got them with the divorce. Damn.)
Now my dishes are white, surrounded by a band of primary colors. Because I can’t stand to commit to a single color scheme, you know?
Sometimes I like to dream about having a spacious loft apartment, with those big rolling wire restaurant shelves which of course would be stacked with dishes. When people would come to visit, I’d say casually, “Oh, which dishes should we use?” And they’d say, “It’s so hard to pick, you have so many nice dishes!”
I’d bring out some big handpainted pasta dishes and put a pile of fresh pasta in the middle of the table, family style. I’d have some fabulous hand-blown wine glasses I picked up somewhere “for a song” and we’d all toast.
In that other world, the one where I have all the dishes.
A friend has a bed and breakfast. She has at least four sets of dishes.
Just a thought.
Oh my, been there, done that, now they’re packed away and I dream of when I’ll be able to use them again….
But I’m so close the Medicare, will that ever happen?
Once, when Macy’s was selling out display placesettings, I picked up about 10, maybe 12, with daydreams of eclectic table settings.
Hhhmm, where are they now….
(I had water damage to my house, insurance reclamation company packed everything up, put in boxes stacked toward the ceiling in my living room, guest room, all over. They brought in huge heater air exchangers to kill mold spores (yeah, like that works for long in a humid, moist place like NJ), tore out drywall, woodwork, whole coat closet down to the former pation bluestones, among other “reclamation” work. When they mold expert said the mold count was low enough, they made me move back in — without even my bed in the house! They did sent the reclamation guys back to pull the bed and a bedside table out of the metal storage container in the driveway so I least had somewhere to sleep. I eventually dug out my sheets, duvet.
Then they refused to place items in storage so I could get the rehab work done. They did leave the container in the driveway for awhile. They told me they had included $150 for moving things, so I had to move things from one room into another, get that room done, then clear out another room, etc, etc. And move things out of the container. All for $150.
Contractors told me that having to work around my household goods would inrease work costs A LOT. And my house insurance parasite had determed the work could be done for 40% of what the actual contractors said it would cost in a cleared out house.
I tried to fight my parasite’s estimate — and it said I had to get very explicit, detailed estimates from three contractors. The kind that cost real money to expect a business to produce. So, I paid out over $500 bucks for the three estimates, and the parasite never got back to me once they were submitted. No calls returned, no letters responded to. Insurance commission people told me that since it was beyond the date for complaints, their hands were tied. (Yeah, to the insurance industry.)
I realized I’d been not only denied and delayed, but made to pay out money I needed for the work. They had the whip hand and knew I could not afford a lawyer.
But, somewhere, there are some beautiful, somewhat heavy dreams in some box somewhere…. My mother’s china set is in my rather dampish sort of basement, waiting to go to the next generation now. I’d had hopes of using those once again as well….
we used to have these awesome pasta dishes I trashpicked, and then we gave them to the thrift store when we were downsizing. the dish was deeper than your standard plate. the border was red and green, and in the middle of each dish was the word “spaghetti” in black script.
I loved those plates.
I never knew how much people could be addicted to dishes until I started working retail a couple of years ago and saw just how people go for the Fiesta ware. They’ve got to have every color and just keep buying, who ever came up with the stuff must be rich and why didn’t I think of it.
We HAD to “downsize” in 2005 because my wife almost died (36 days in intensive care, hospital bill total: $625.00, due to an incompetant doctor), so we gave up the house we’d been in for 17 years. Having to leave was SO scary and sad, but we were mostly just grateful she survived the medical ordeal, although she had to wear a coloscopy bag to wait for her intestines to heal. Anywho, we stayed in an apartment for two years after giving up lots and lots of dishes and other stuff. Now, thankfully, we’re in great health AND (right before the housing meltdown) we are blessed to have purchased a brand new house—-they damn near gave it to us with NO money down (not that we had any to put down). God is good!