This green mug with the yellow stegosauruses (stegosauri?) was a flea market purchase more than 10 years ago. I saw it, I wanted it (like just about everything else at the flea market, I couldn’t articulate exactly why), but at that point in my life I was perpetually broke enough to dissuade myself from spending the dollar. My friend Lauren bought it on the spot and handed it to me. Every time I use it, the cheery colors and the perky dinos make my day just a bit brighter, and I think of Lauren (who now lives way too far away for my taste and whom I don’t see nearly often enough), and thinking of my dear, funny, smart, caring, and wonderful friend also makes me smile.
This mug with its square-ish handle I found when I was clearing out my parents’ house. My dad worked for RCA, but not as anything more exciting than a bookkeeper, so I have no idea what a Trident translator is – I just think the mug is way cool, it reminds me of my long-deceased dad, and I dig the funky handle, the heft of the mug, and its wide mouth. (My dad had a mug we got him for one Father’s Day - a nice weighty white mug with its printed “#1 Dad” long ago worn all the way off. I wish I had kept it instead of putting it in the Goodwill box when we were getting rid of stuff. Stupid me.)
This dark blue mug we got as some sort of freebie when we renewed our ACLU membership. I like how heavy it is, I like the color, and I like the quote on it: "The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave." - Thomas Jefferson
- it reminds me almost every morning how important it is to develop my social conscience and that working to preserve our rights and civil liberties is necessary. Sort of like how the prayer of St. Francis tucked into the side of my dresser mirror helps remind me everyday to try harder to be a kinder, gentler, more loving person.
But my favorite – for no reason other than it is the perfect size and shape and weight - is my ancient Philadelphia Flyers mug. It does serve to remind me of my South Jersey roots, of which I am proud (have you ever met a Jersey girl who wasn’t *proud* to be a Jersey girl? Bruce sings it for us, you know). So much for all the sentimentality, it all comes down to which mug holds my tea best, which one comforts me most when I wrap my hands around its soothing, rounded warmth.
Friday Show-and-Tell, courtesy of Blackbird
13 comments:
Trident - submarine based missle system.
no. we too have the power of google : )
I am a total humbug regarding mugs, because I grew up in a house where not a single mug or glass or plate matched another. It drove me bananas that the table only ever looked nice at Christmas and Easter, when the "good dishes" came out. (My mother didn't care about making the sheets match, either. I vividly remember a Bullwinkle pillowcase and flowered flat sheet on my bed--at the same time!)
So I have no favorite mug, because all of my mugs match.
that's funny because blackbird talks about using good stuff for everyday and i try to do that, too - my depression-glass platters and pretty cake plates, etc. i have a set of mugs that match my china but i prefer these. could not tell you why except the martching mugs are not big enough or heavy enough...or comforting enough.:)
i can so relate to the sheet thing. which is probably why i like my bed linens just so - nice and pale and soothing. no clashing patterns.
could not care less about matching towels however - as long as they're huge and absorbent.
I looked at Blackbird's post, and I'm with her. I do like my mugs/dishes--the white diner-ish ones with the blue bands around them--very much. They just aren't especially . . . special to me.
I *long* for new towels. Mine are all getting to be threadbare, but I hate to cough up the cash for them. Wouldn't it be nice if you could have another bridal shower every ten years--whether still married or not? :-)
"Youse guys," as they say in South Jersey -- from a fellow Jersey girl -- Here's what I think you should do.
I think you need to start a wish list and post the link on your blog. Then, when admirers want to get you a token of their admiration, they know what to get you. (Please, no stuff that you'll never really use, though -- that's my one suggestion/qualification/request.)
What's the worst that can happen? People don't send you anything? Tom Tomorrow has a wishlist at Amazon.com, and you know what? People actually send him stuff!
Give it some thought.
bygwjes = BIG WISHES!
I couldn't do that--I use my wishlist on Amazon purely to remind me about books I want to buy/check out/give as gifts. I didn't even register for my wedding!
My sheets all match perfectly, at least the parts with the toddler vomit stains on them.
My favorite mugs are the ones that hold the biggest amount of coffee.
oh well, carolyn - the toddler bed linens are a different story altogether. they match perfectly because they are all Clifford or Thomas or Dora the Explorer. Who else would want to use them? and they're all screaming flourescent colors.
I love that each of these mugs mean something to you...they are each special in their own way, and this cannot be traded for a set that match but have no emotional value for you.
Yours all match your heart.
I've just linked to you via your comment on pea soup about your brothers-in-law microwaving water for their tea which made me laugh. I see two of your favourite films are Roman Holiday and Love Actually - I've just been posting about both in the last two days. In fact, Gregory Peck is my Hot Pash of the Week...
Must. get. digital. camera. sooon. I love mugs. Perhaps I will post on them sans photos. I also have great tea quotes...I feel like the girl too late for the prom or the kid whose dog ate their homework...cool thing, though, I im'd with jessamyn west (of librarian.net) this morning. She's in Phoenix for a conference.
xrmkc: x marks cake...
Just posted my show and tell, with images ala Google. Tea for two and all that.
trqyzr: tea raises quantum yearnings, ralph.
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