White China

If I play my cards right, my birthday could last all week!

Yesterday, Mom took me out to lunch. We went to Ruby Tuesdays in the mall, which has a pretty wide variety of food. I like it for the salad bar. I had that and broccoli soup. Mom ate steamed broccoli, creamed cauliflower and sauteed mushrooms. We split a brownie with a scoop of ice cream on top. Delicious!

Afterwards, we wandered around the mall. Those of you who know me know that this is NOT something I normally do. I might see the inside of a mall twice a year, but since this was the middle of the day in the middle of a workweek, it was not crowded and we could mosey around like the people who normally irritate the hell out of me when I go to the mall alone. When I usually go, I am going with a purpose and that includes getting in and out as quickly as possible. I hate shopping and I hate malls. But somehow, shopping with Mom is different.

Maybe it's because when I do shop with Mom, I have nowhere else I need to be. There is no ultimate goal involved. We're just looking to look, not because we must buy. During the course of our wanderings, we found ourselves in the china/housewares section of a department store. We looked at lots of china in lots of patterns and styles. Fancy, colorful, crazy looking, staid and correct, hippie china. One set looked like it was set with tiny bathroom tiles. A wall was covered with fire-engine red china. There was a display with 70s-sort of flower art in turqoise and white china.

The first time I got married, we had china that I hated. It was a compromise between my then-husband and me and we both wound up hating it. Very frilly-looking green flowers with silver edging. Horrible stuff. When I married my now-husband, I picked out a really cool southwestern-y pattern - a border of indian art around a stoneware colored plate. We've had it for 11 years and much of it is chipped now. I would like to smash it all and use the patterns for a mosaic top on a table and start all over.

My next china will be white. Plain, unadorned white. I've already started the move towards white. The "extra pieces" I've bought in the last few years are white. Gravy boat, turkey platter, butter dish. It goes with any decor and never goes out of fashion. It's much easier to change your table cloths or napkins, but when you buy china, you're stuck with it for a long time and it's hard to get rid of. China is tied to your history, usually your marital history, and says something about who you are when you're with this person.

The older I get, the white-r I get. I believe in having strong, uncluttered basics as the bones of my life. The color comes from my surroundings and my whimsy, but the centers of my life should be white.