You know how when a lot of little things go wrong and it messes with your day? Yesterday I couldn’t find my sugar spoon. I didn’t want to go garbage diving so perhaps I will never find it. I liked having a spoon just for one thing. When I first lived with Ed in his apartment in Forest Hills, NY, I was cleaning out cabinets in the kitchen and would find items that I didn’t understand. And he would say oh, that’s for cleaning crumbs off the tablecloth or that dish is for serving asparagus. And then Ed would add, “For when I had a life.” Anyway, I can probably get one on line at Replacements Ltd. If you are missing pieces of discontinued sets, try this outfit. They specialize in stuff that is hard to find.

There were automatic cutting tools that technically rivaled the controls of a supersonic transport. They came with many parts – this for that and that for this – and putting them away was an IQ test I never passed. Kitchen gadgets that are intended for parties of 50 or more are useless for people who don’t give banquets, so I stuck them in boxes, labeled “totally useless kitchen stuff” and they are in the crawl space. Also, Ed said, we should give an elegant dinner party and use the silver. And I am thinking, silver and crystal for guests who may easily show up in shorts and flip flops (SW Florida is not the fashion capital, in case you missed it), was a bit much, so I demurred.

Now Ed wasn’t totally aware how gratuitously insulting that remark was. He was just thinking back to when he had friends of note from around the world, some of which were introduced to him by his late wife, who knew some members of the British royal family, and also, Mike Todd and Elizabeth Taylor. Her late husband and Todd had done business together.

His noteworthy friends had titles. Mine had literary and musical credentials. I thought mine were more interesting. Speaking of which, I found Hydra Club records under the master bed. They are full of adorable notes such as when Jay and Fred Pohl and Harry Harrison and Dave Kyle ran the 1950 world convention at the Henry Hudson Hotel in New York. There was a bill from a printer addressed to Fred, the treasurer, and a handwritten note at the bottom, “Fred, a check, please???”

Anyway, it occurred to me that the sugar spoon might have fallen under the rotor blade of the dishwasher and be hiding under it. So I stuck my hand back there and came out with crud, cellophane, dead Palmetto bugs – really dead – sometimes you try to pick one up and it is still writhing. Next time I’ll wear gloves – I did the aaarrgghh* dead-bug-scream, and kept on. And no spoon. It’s gone. Phew. There were also shards from a glass that had broken while being washed so I had to stop and do the band aid thing because I was getting blood on everything. I had to change my jeans and treat the spot before it set and I was really annoyed because they had shrunk in the wash and it had taken me a half hour just to zip them up.
But we all know these are happy problems.

xx, Teal

*I have it from the horse’s mouth that Harry Harrison invented the term “aaarrrgghh” when he was writing comics before he got serious. Now we’re talking major stuff. I knew the guy who invented aaarrrgghh. That is big.