NEEDING A SHOWER

I need a shower.  No, not the clean my body wash my hair kind.  And not the kind that waters my garden.  I need the kind where people bring beautifully wrapped gifts to my door and we have a sweet little party with petit fours and champagne flutes.

I need a bridal shower for the woman who has been married 42 years and never really got very domesticated.  If there is anything that makes me feel not quite a grown up (except my lack of appreciation for, or knowledge of, classical composers and jazz musicians) it's the kitchen.

I had a wedding shower in 1972 and have a half-dozen items still in my possession from it.  I actually LOVE my stoneware canister set which has sat on every countertop of every home I've had since then.  I kept my olive green stacked mixing bowls, surface color well faded, just for nostalgia sake.  I have two or three silver serving pieces I don't believe I've ever used.  And I have my original Oneida flatware, dated and worn, and now serving as my "back up" set when needing extra pieces.  But really, I am hard pressed to set a nice table, or have enough of anything that matches or didn't come to me on sale or in a piecemeal fashion.

We had a group of 13 here on Sunday and I used my old everyday JC Penney plates that came in a big box with bowls and dessert plates about 20 years ago.  The pretty edging and painted vegetables that dance around the rim are worn and faded, the center white area cracked into gray lines.  I bought some cheap stainless flatware somewhere some years ago and noted that they come out of the dishwasher with water and rust stains fairly regularly, but I've never replaced it, only kicking myself for the poor showing whenever I set the table for company.   I used a few tumblers I bought at Fred Meyer and filled in with a few of Hub's pint beer glass collection.  The coffee service was an old sugar bowl, a stainless steel pitcher that came with my espresso maker and a mish-mash of unmatched coffee mugs collected from here and there over the years.  I was little embarrassed.

Every once in a while we do buy a new set of knives or some pots and pans, mostly because Hub does most of the cooking and he knows what he wants.  Our baking pans, however, are warped and worn and a little rusty at the edges.  I don't have too many "gadgets" because I don't know what they are for. I don't have a decent salad bowl -- I just use mixing bowls.  Really, I'm just a mess at this.

I didn't grow up in a "fancy" house.  My parents were farm folk who moved in the great exodus from farm to city after WWII.  My mother's kitchen was well stocked with practical items for every day and one set of "fancy" dishes for holidays (including a gravy boat which we still get out for Thanksgiving, about which we seem to be unnaturally delighted, like it's a cool toy we get to play with).  It may have been a modest home, but everything matched and Mom set a beautiful table.

When I was in my most stridently feminist period, I rejected all things traditional and "girly"  and never bothered to learn many of the womanly arts of cooking, cleaning, sewing, or entertaining.  My life was going to be oh so much more important and oh so much more bohemian than that!  Over the years I've regretted that naive rebellion.  There are things I wish came easier to me now that I really am a grown up and can see that a meal cooked with some aplomb (without the hyperventilating stress that I bring to the task) and served upon a nicely set table is not selling out to the patriarchy.

I want a do-over.  I'd like to do it like the kids do nowadays -- go around Macy's with a scanner aiming it all the things I'd love to have for my kitchen and then someone can throw me a little party where my friends bring me those things and show me how to use them.    Now, wouldn't that be fun?!?  I think so.

At least that's the view from here…. ©