Alas, poor Irving...

Irving was the name of the latest mouse I had in my apartment. He resisted all of the poison and traps the exterminators put under my kitchen radiator and stove. He resisted all of my entreaties to leave. And apparently he decided to come with me to the new house. He's not staying, and come trash day, he's leaving Mount Airy for good. George and Paul tell me I need a cat.

I started a post last night, but was too tired to make it coherant. I use this time to write while the latest batch of dishes is drying downstairs.

It's been a good weekend, primarily full of errands and dish washing. I completed my Saturday list of things, made it to Home Depot this morning looking for screws and a bracket for the breakfront, but completely forgot about the doorbell. But the main activity of the weekend has been dishwashing. And at last, thanks to Eleanor's help, the cabinets are nearing full, and the boxes are getting emptied. Things will be no near perfect for Passover, but at last I've made some serious inroads.

One of my latest obsessions these years has been with tableware - china, serving pieces, unusual fancy utencils. Among the things that got unwrapped and washed today were the various pieces of my grandmother's good set of meat dishes, which we also had at home and used as our every day meat dishes:



Our version of this was faded and minus the gold rims from many cycles in the dishwasher. Grandma's are in great shape having never seen the inside of a dishwasher (I think I only saw the inside of their dishwasher once).

I never thought very much about whether I liked or disliked these plates. They were just normal and familiar. And fine. Now facing dinner for a dozen, I found myself counting place settings today. And coming up short.

It was a service for 12, but I only have 11 dinner plates and 10 soup bowls. And I'm fairly convinced that I have all or most of the dessert plates, but they must be in another box. All of the salad plates, saucers and berry bowls check in, with the gravy boat, platter and vegetable bowl. I have the sugar and creamer, and the cups are among the next things to get washed and counted.

So like anyone might, I checked Replacements and ebay for the missing pieces. No dinner plates to be had (I just need one!). Bowls and dessert plates, no problem. I might pick them up. I'm still thinking about it.

The style these days is to not necessarily match all of your pieces. Something relatively plain with white and grey would work, or just plain white, or a white on white pattern. If I wanted to get anything pink, a solid pink or pink-rimmed plate in the same color way would work for layering.

And while it's not the set I would choose today if I were registering for china, I'm happy to have it and use it this holiday.

And if you come across a dinner plate, send it my way.