Ice Box

My parents have had an ice box for as long as I can remember. While I was growing up (and I think still to this day) it served as the liquor cabinet. It may seem strange or dangerous to you that one would keep copious amounts of vodka, gin, schnapps, and various other hard liquors within easy reach of children, but it was normal to me. If I had wanted, I could have at any time guzzled a bottle of vodka or made myself a martini or stolen a bottle of Jack Daniel's for a friend's party.

But I never did. I knew the rules and I followed them. My parents were experts at instilling a healthy fear of and respect for them and their rules. That, and one sniff of any of these liquors was enough to send me in the other direction. Even as an adult I'm not a big drinker. I'll occasionally have a glass of wine and very occasionally a mixed drink in certain company, but I generally steer clear of alcohol, especially beer (blech).

While I didn't want the contents of that ice box, I have always loved that piece of furniture and wanted my own someday. Well, the same folks who generously gave me a bunch of teacups last month also offered their beautiful oak early 1900s ice box at a very good price (probably half what you would be able to get one for at an antique store or on eBay).

This lovely piece now sits in my dining room and is currently housing most of our board games, which we previously kept in the basement despite the fact that we usually play them on the main floor of the house. This will keep them on hand and at the ready.

Perfect timing as we enter the long, dark nights of winter.

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Afternoon Tea

This weekend when I went to visit my mother and father with my son, my modest collection of teacups almost doubled. My parents' friends Barb and Fred are scaling down. As they enjoy retirement they are going through their possessions and passing along some of them for several reasons, not the least of which is not wanting their children to have to go through two lifetimes' worth of stuff-collection after their parents pass away.

My mother mentioned to Barb that I might make a good caretaker of most of her aunt's teacup collection. Barb kept one cup and saucer for sentimental reasons and passed the rest on to me free of charge. They join the nearly dozen cups and saucers I kept of my grandmother's, along with a full tea service that was either my great-grandmother's or my great-great-grandmother's. (Mom, which is it?)

I do not collect teacups for the sake of collecting, nor have I ever bought a teacup at an antique store, or anywhere else for that matter (though I would if the right one jumped out at me). I use them. For tea. In fact, in my pre-teen days I used to brew a pot of tea on a Saturday morning and make myself a little tray of toast with various jams (which I guess was my substitute for scones and cucumber sandwiches) and drink the entire pot by myself using an antique teacup from my mother's collection (I think she must have about 50 of them at this point). I was very particular about which cup to use with which kind of tea. I had a specific cup for English Breakfast, raspberry, blackberry, Earl Grey, chamomile, and many other teas.

But I'm not ODC. Really.

Those cups are still part of Mom's collection, and I'm not so particular these days. But I ask you, which of these cups would you rather drink tea from?

Tea simply tastes better when it is in a fine china cup (no offense to the nice folks who worked at the now long-defunct Cornerstone Cafe). The teacup above is the one that I don't use, but only out of fear that I will destroy it. There is a hairline crack in it and it is my very favorite of my grandmother's collection. It is very thin porcelain and was made in Germany in 1912 (that's two years prior to the start of World War I) and I'm sure it would be nearly impossible to replace.

Most of the teacups I have are English. Most are fine china, but some are certainly not so fine. All of them make tea taste a little better and add a little bit of class to life. And we could all use a little bit of that.

I mean, look at that woman with her elbows on the table. Shameful.

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