Bringing Home the Milk Can
An “upgrading” project is in vigorous action, thanks in part
to the very limited space in my tiny house. To say it was built by dwarfs for
dwarfs is no understatement, as anyone over a certain height ends up horribly
stooped in the entryway.
The upgrading started last year when an elderly relative
entered a nursing home and told me to take whatever I wanted from her house. Did
I add that I have the key? At first guilt overtook me, how could I just walk in
and take her things? That lasted about 0.5 seconds before I was over there dragging
home anything I could cram into grocery two bags.
Unfortunately an epiphany occurred: Stuff in = stuff out.
That is, if I want to bring antiques over, I am going to have to part with some
of my own things. To make this more palatable for me mentally, I entitled this
“upgrading.”
Upgrading consists of culling things that aren’t really old
or valuable and replacing them with things that are. OK, some of the things I
have acquired have been only practical in nature – out with the corroded old
electric kettle and in with the new. But I also brought home things I really
loved, like a ceramic piece by Kurt Feuerreigel, a book on a local castle, and a
wooden box full of antique buttons. I have tried to be very thoughtful about
what I bring home and make planned trips with my bags. But sometimes I just
lose my mind.
On Sunday I went back for a brown Geithain lidded enamel
milk can. I had just washed and rearranged everything on a display shelf in my
kitchen and decided that the milk can would fit right in.
Enameled dishes, pots, and utensils were made in Geithain,
Germany, from 1898 until 2006. You may even have one, if you have matching pots
and pans for your Villeroy & Boch or other high-end dishes. The company
went through this brown phase, which I really didn’t appreciate until I ran out
of vases and started putting the fresh flowers my company brought to me in the
enameled water pitchers. Boy, did they look snappy.
So having dutifully purged my shelves, I walked one block
down the street to get the milk can. An hour later I came back dazed bearing a
prewar, repoussé tin souvenir box of
Dresden; an oven-safe glass plate; a lusterware souvenir vase of Wittenberg,
the city where Martin Luther tacked up his church doctrine; a bar of soap; a
wooden rolling pin that makes cute animal patterns when you roll out the dough;
oh yeah, and the milk can. I think future purging may be in order.
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