Detail from a large platter in my grandmother's Mason's English Ironstone china (pattern: "Croysdale"). I have a fair amount of Mason's china, but this is the only pattern I have that a) come from my family, and b) has a pattern that wears off over time. My dinner plates, heavily used and thus heavily washed, have faded and, while still beautiful, aren't nearly as vibrant as they originally were. This platter, which gets used once a year, if that, retains its original brilliance.
Speaking of brilliant, it's a bright sunny day out, after yesterday's variable sun and clouds. It's also a good bit colder, with a high of only 52F --- which is not cold, but it is sweater weather, and it's 36F right now, which is definitely chilly. In other words, it's a good day to bust out some warm layers, without fear that by midday I'll be too warm.
Agenda:
*Make some significant headway on my MFA student's second thesis draft. I really have to get it back to her this weekend, with notes.
*Track down my stupid purse. I have to wait until after noon for the wine bar to open (they do takeout lunches), and I'm crossing my fingers that that's where I left it, and that everything in it will be undisturbed --- like every form of ID I possess, for example. Even my passport is still in that purse from my last trip. I don't carry my Social Security card anymore, thank goodness --- but remember when we all did that as a matter of course? I remember doing that as a matter of course, but I'm glad I don't still do that as a matter of course, though I guess it would be easy enough to access if you had in hand all the other forms of ID I've been carrying around with me. Sigh. I've been praying that said purse would just turn up in the house, that I put it down in some strange place when I got home the other night instead of hanging it on its accustomed hook (which is how I know it's missing --- I noticed yesterday that it wasn't on the hook). But no. It seems genuinely not to be here. SIGH.
One last day with the younger set of children --- they fly back to Dallas tomorrow. It's been lovely to have them, and I'm looking forward to seeing them again in two weeks, when exams are over. The older set are with their mutual in-laws (or, in the case of the Fire Son, his girlfriend's family who also happen to be his sister's in-laws), but the Texasgirl has posted a lovely shot from her Christmas-card photoshoot today --- basically starring her gorgeous hair and the green NPL dress she bought with the gift certificate I gave her for her 30th birthday in January. As you can plainly see, the women of the Going-Like-60 Family are creative dressers. If you click through that whole set of photos, you see a rare image of the Fire Son as well, posing with his sister by the Thanksgiving table. Somebody's clearly making them laugh.
Coffee and pumpkin pie, breakfast of absolute champions.
My riffs on Julia Child's pumpkin pie recipe (from the classic The Way to Cook, which I got for Christmas two months before I got married) were excellent this year. Generally I leave out the rum or bourbon that her instructions call for, and I used coconut sugar and honey this year as replacements for brown and regular granulated sugar, to good effect. I also include a generous teaspoonful of vanilla extract, which she inexplicably omits (I guess the booze makes up for it, but I prefer vanilla extract). Having for many years used heavy cream and five eggs for the pie filling, as she does, I could never settle for a can of sweetened condensed milk, the 1950s housewife's friend.
The recipe makes enough filling for two pies, which is good, because the first one always more or less evaporates.
Today I'm feeling especially grateful for a kitchen sink that drains. Ours backed up after dinner yesterday, so the husband spent an unscheduled couple of hours under the house unclogging it. I'm careful about what goes down our drain, but even so, over the course of years disgustingness does get down there and build up. Anyway, it's gone now, thanks to his heroic confrontation with said disgustingness, down under the house. He was in the middle of doing the dishes for me when this backup occurred --- I was happy to finish the dishes, since I was not the one who had to crawl under the house.
Years ago, a plumber gave us a big jug of some industrial-strength degreaser made for pipes, and we had never used it. Boy howdy, we used it last night, once the pipe was unblocked, and it has earned a place under our sink, to be used on a monthly basis. I do put vinegar and boiling water down the sink drains periodically, but I think we need something a little stronger to keep things clear.
So, speaking of creative dressers, and also (though we weren't explicitly speaking of this) of being a total goober in the privacy of your own bathroom, here's what I'm wearing today:
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Leila dress (S/M) in Cinnamon Rose, bought December 2023, last worn November 24. Total wears this year to date: 21
*Thrifted cashmere pullover (I forget the brand --- it's not one I readily recognized, anyway), bought September 2023 with Marly at a consignment shop in Waynesville, turtleneck cut out and length and sleeves cropped by me with a pair of scissors. The Artgirl said, "I thought maybe it was just made kind of boho and cool like that," but no. Boho and cool is my own doing, apparently.
*Snag merino tights in Sand Dollar, bought this past summer for their first season of wear.
*Xero Tari boots, bought summer 2022, default winter shoe.
Yes, yes, I just wore this dress last Sunday, but again, I know I won't be wearing it through Advent, and I wanted to squeeze in one more wear before everything goes purple for four straight weeks. I also probably won't wear it on Christmas, though who knows? It's not a traditional Christmas color, but it looks pretty with the sparkly cashmere shrug I wore yesterday, so maybe I will wear it for Christmas Eve dinner and Mass. It's hard to believe that we're just about in the zone for all that, but here we are.
Time to walk the dog, and then shortly after that, it'll finally be time to go in pursuit of my lost purse.
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
Purse strikeout at the wine bar. Pub opens in an hour, so that's my last hope. If you are the praying sort, and you happen to see this, please pray. If it be God's will, I'd love not to spend Advent reconstructing my forms of identification and canceling my debit cards.
EVENING UPDATE:
So, when the pub opened, I walked over there to inquire. No purse. Came home despondent. Husband called police (no sir, no purse surrendered to us, sir). No untoward activity on cards in my wallet, however, so that at least was good news. Husband then decided to walk back over to wine bar to hash things over with them again.
AND HEY. YOU KNOW WHAT? My purse was at the hostess stand. The bartender I talked to at 1 pm had not gotten that memo. So my husband got to walk home carrying a purse, and I don't have to reconstruct my entire identity, and life is GOOD.
So.
(OK, I got distracted and now don't know what I was going to say after "So." So there it ends).