27 August 2010

sugar bowl

I have been looking for a sugar bowl for a long time. Not actively looking, of course, but periodically I remember how handy it would be to have the sugar out on the counter in a bowl instead of in the cupboard in a bag, and I surf etsy for a while hoping to find one, and I am disappointed, and then I forget about it for a while. Today, after running such vital errands as changing my address at the bank and getting a library card and bus pass, I began walking in the direction of the Freddy's store to buy a mattress pad (the allergy cover for the mattress is so horribly heat-trapping that I can't sleep, especially now that I don't have air conditioning).

I walked for a while through little neighborhoods, which were pretty and which cause me to think, looking at a For Sale sign, I might actually someday be able to buy a house if I stay in this town. That would not have been possible, ever, in Gone West City, but it just might be here in Universe City. Then I left the neighborhoods behind and the trees disappeared and the road was full of cars and I was getting hot and tired and lo, a bus pulled up just as I walked past a bus stop, and it was going to the very place where I needed to be.

I went to goodwill first, and there I remembered, again, how nice it would be to have a sugar bowl. This time, I found one that I actually liked, but it seemed sort of... wide and squat. I began to doubt myself.

The following conversation ensued:

Me, to Fifty-Something Motherly Woman: Excuse me. Can I ask you a question? Do you think this is a sugar bowl, or is it something else, like maybe for gravy? It has a lid like a sugar bowl but it's the size of the gravy boats.

Fifty-Something Motherly Woman: Oh, wow. People used to use those to put sugar out for tea and coffee. With those little jugs for the milk.

Me: Um, yes. That's what I want to use it for.

FSMW: I never use them myself. I just get the sugar out of the container. It looks like one, though. Little lid like that. The gravy ones have a space for a ladle. Yeah, people used to use those sugar bowls all the time.

Me: Yeah... I am planning to use it, too. I don't need a creamer, though, but I just thought this sugar bowl was pretty.

FWMW: It is pretty. I just didn't realize people still used them.

So I've spent months to years looking for something that even people my mom's age think are old-fashioned.

I wonder what she would think if she knew that I also bought a pyrex bowl with the gold pattern that my mom's corelleware had in the 80s. Oh, and? On Wednesday, I bought a tupperware canister in classic 1979 green, to match the yellow tupperware container I inherited when my grandma moved to the nursing home. That yellow container got a lot of compliments - from people my age - when I brought cupcakes in it to work.

1 comment:

traci said...

i know LOTS of people who use sugar bowls. if you don't, how do you present sugar to people who are coming over for coffee? i spent an equally long time looking for a creamer container. finally got one that's in the shape of a cow. i liked this post on generational differences. when i first moved to the D, some ladies in their 70s and 80s had a housewarming for me. one lady got me cheese knives. i remember talking to K about it, and he said "i think yours is the last generation that will receive cheese knives as a gift." i disagree.