And speaking of collections...

Sorry for the slightly wonky picture. I've got to start taking photos of things that aren't above my head height.

Today's collection from this collection-filled house that I grew up in is unusual in that I'd keep it. More than that, actually. If there was any room at all in my tiny apartment they'd be at my place on display. And possibly even being used.

It's not because they're particularly valuable. I'd imagine that they're not, but to be honest I really don't even know.

This is one of those cases where it's the associations that are important. These were my grandmother's cups. Some of them, anyway. These are the ones she gave to me and my mother when she moved out of her house. I think my aunt has the rest. Oh, and they're not all Grandma's, I guess I should say. The Old Country Roses stuff was my mother's, and the Lavender Rose is my pattern. I hate my pattern, so it's probably a good thing that I never settled down and found the need to buy (or be gifted) china. And why do I hate it? Long story that I've probably already told here (and if I haven't I should sometime. Whomever knows that I'm usually hurting for topics), but the short version is that I was talked into something that I didn't really want as a teenager.

Overall I'm not the type of person who gives a flying rat's bum about china anyway, but these cups are kind of special. They're not a set; just an assortment of cups. I have no idea where they came from. I'd expect that they were collected piece by piece as a not-terribly-rich family could afford them. There's not a one of them that matches.

Maybe that's one of the reasons I like them. They don't match. They're just random pieces of china that someone (presumably my grandmother) liked. And kept. And used.

The cups made regular appearances at every supper we had at Grandma's. We'd have supper, we'd have dessert, and then the cups would come out and we'd have tea. It was nothing out of the ordinary. I'm not going to tell you about special family rituals here or anything. We'd just have tea after supper, was all.

As a kid it made me feel a bit grown-up, I suppose. Choosing which cup I wanted (another reason why I like the fact that they don't match) and then being served out tea with everyone else. I'm not sure I liked the taste especially, but I certainly drank it.

Just as an aside, the tea was always Orange Pekoe (Red Rose, generally), and never served with cream or sugar. Mom's family apparently just didn't do cream or sugar, so they never thought of putting it out. Now, as an adult? I never buy Orange Pekoe (I prefer Darjeeling, although it isn't the easiest thing to find these days without going to an actual tea shop), and I almost always have my tea with sugar. I don't think I had my first cup of tea with sugar until university, come to think of it. It stuck, though...

Anyway. After yesterday's post I had a look around the house and realised that I could probably post for a month about the collections in this place. I guess that's what happens when you stay in the same house for so long. Things build up. I'm thinking that Collections In My Dad's House might end up being a semi-regular theme here on the blog, so I hope that you're not already bored. And if any of my two fans happen to collect some of the things I talk about, don't be afraid to drop me a line. I imagine most of this stuff is available for purchase, since I think my Dad has about as much attachment to it as I do (that is, not terribly much). For now, though, I'm thinking that I really could use a cup of tea.

Maybe I should use the china for a change.

The non-collector

What you see in the not-quite-pointless photo to the left is a fan. Excuse the weird angle and the dust; it's high up on the wall in my room here at my father's place, as it has been for years. it was from the China Pavilion at Expo 86 (we took a class trip out to Vancouver for Expo. It was a lot of fun, and the first trip I'd ever taken without my parents. I... brought home a fan. So adventurous, me). It shares the wall with a few other cheap fans that I've picked up from various places.

It was part of a fan collection that never really happened.

Thank goodness.

You see, I used to collect things -- the important word there being used to. I don't anymore and I have no desire to, but back in the day I had collections of buttons (pin-on badges, more properly, but we always called them buttons around here), stuffed animals, the aforementioned fans, books, porcelain dolls...

I wish they'd go away now.

The problem with being a reformed collector is that when you decide you've had enough of collecting the collections don't just disappear. They stay around to clutter your life until you finally get so frustrated that you either start collecting again or just get rid of the whole shooting match.

For years I've been leaning towards the latter. Doing something about it, even.

The stuffed animals went first. I donated a lot to a couple of preschool programs, and most of the rest to a charity drop-box. The maybe half-dozen that are left have specific meanings to me, so for the moment they're not going anywhere. Do you think I'd really give up my first teddy bear, even though I don't remember it and it has no face because I apparently chewed the leather nose off when I was teething? Not yet, anyway. It's enough that the rest are keepsakes rather than a mindless collection, especially because they don't take up the wads of space that they used to.

The buttons are on a bulletin board in my room here. They don't take up much space either, which is why they're still around (same for the fans, really. They're just decorating the place). If anyone out there knows someone who collects badges and might like a free box-load of them, let me know. I'd be happy to send them along, and they wouldn't be missed.

The books were a bit harder, because they're of value to me for their contents rather than just their sheer numbers. For a long time it was almost sacrilege to me to willingly part with a book. That changed about ten years ago, though. I got fed up with the way my one-room apartment looked more like my one-room library, and I actually sorted out a whole bunch of them and threw them in the same charity drop-box that received the stuffed animals. It felt... surprisingly good. I wasn't expecting it to, but it was nice to have the space back.

For more books. I need to sort again. To be fair, though, even the casual book buyer tends to accumulate things over the space of ten years, right?

Which brings us to the pickle of the porcelain dolls. I have lots of dolls, and I totally blame my mother for it. Mom was, unfortunately, massively into collecting. Bells, in her case. And brass objects. And when, as a teenager, I decided to spend what was probably too much money on a porcelain doll dressed in a kimono (I'd been admiring it for a while), she latched onto the possibilities of a new collection. I have probably over thirty dolls, and I think I bought four of them myself. She used to give me dolls for birthdays, Christmas... yeah, lots of dolls.

I'm tired of the dolls.

Some of them I'm fond of and would likely keep, yes, but most of them need to find new homes.

How do I do that? Some of them are worth a little money, so I should really sell them rather than give them away. I'm not too anxious about becoming an ebay seller at this point in my life, and something like kijiji means that I would have to put up with people calling me about bloody dolls at the worst times. I guess I want to see the dolls go without actually having to be involved? Yeah, I suppose.

Auction, maybe. I could just take them to auction.

Ah well. I'm not likely to do anything at all with them in the near future, since I'm not tripping over them every day. I'm open to suggestions, though. For the dolls and the buttons. And, for that matter, Mom's bell collection...





You know, I've mentioned before that as I get older I get less and less connected to my "stuff", and that's really true. If you'd told the teenager who bought that fan at Expo that one day she'd be wishing she had less stuff, though, she would have wondered if you were trying to teach her some sort of Wonderful-Life-type lesson. Funny how things change, isn't it?

I wish I'd brought back more than just a fan from Expo...