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2006-03-22 - 8:00 p.m. Not orchids, nor meatloaf I just converted arcsec to degrees incorrectly. I think I’m done working for now. We spent money this weekend, spent money like fools or people who hate shopping. You see, we put off all those household errands for months [mumble, years]. Plotting our spending habits in Quicken shows (yes, I have the data. I could even tell you how much we spend on the SCA – but I’m not going to) once or twice a year we go on a mad, errand-driven, spree spending all the money normal folks spread out over two years. Let me just praise the Container Store who let’s you return anything for store credit, no matter how long it’s been, as long as they still sell it. We returned shelves we’d had for so long (maybe over a year?) the price had jumped 20%. And, after being married almost 12 years, we finally bought placemats. Which leads me to the random question about chargers. No not the destrier, war-horse chargers. They are circular placemat thingys in the shape of big plates that go under your plates. No, seriously. My sister-in-law and Sandra Lee (that crazy semi-homemade lady on the food network who always spends 3 minutes a show assembling ‘tablescapes’. Swear to God, she uses a glue gun to put ribbon edging on the table clothes, and irons the same ribbon on napkins and napkin rings. Then, makes topiaries out of moss or whips out one of her pedestal bowls/plates to build a centerpiece. If she spent less in craft stores, she’d have time to bake from scratch and wouldn’t need all the shortcuts. She must have the biggest pantry – maybe the size of Crate and Barrel – to store the infinite variety of serving pieces and cute glassware and plates and tablecloths and … Though her show amuses me, she needs an intervention to teach her synonyms for the word ‘cute’. All she’d have to do is look in a mirror and you’d think the word perky would come to mind.) … where the hell was I? Chargers. Right. Day after Christmas, my sister-in-law was serving potato soup and Reuben sandwiches. Low key, post-holiday simple dinner. Now, in your mind, stack up the following items to make a place setting. White tablecloth, 80” oval. White lace tablecloth over white table cloth to make a subtle damask effect. Linen placemat, standard rectangle. 14” thick, gold, cardboard plate thingy which goes over the platemat, but under the plate and is, for reasons defying logic, called a charger. 12” dinner plate. 10” salad plate. soup bowl. All this for potato soup and a reuben. I did not endear myself to poor sis by asking stupid questions about what you did with something shaped like a plate that you weren’t supposed to eat off of. Doing what all geeks do, I looked it up: charg·er n. A large shallow dish; a platter. [Middle English chargeour, from Old French chargeor, from chargier, to load. See charge.] And my point is the people who invented the word thought you were supposed to put things on chargers, not use them as a placemat on top of a placemat. So, when we were in Crate and Barrel we did not buy the 16” neon colored chargers that are, apparently, the spring thing. I started this entry intending to write about orchids and meatloaf, but, having strayed a continent away from the target topic, I think I should go put some alcohol in the handy new Scotch glasses acquired during the spree and recite to myself “3600 arcsec in 1 degree.”     Scribble to Theo previous - next