mortar in the court

when my darling spouse and i were courting, things were different. it was 1890, and times were simpler. it wasn't really 1890. if you read this blog, you know by know that i'm not even over 40. there. well, back to our early days: we would take the train on our visits to one another and we would stroll by the seaside and drink old-fashioned sodas and eat fake chicken in a bowl. on our first date, there wasn't even a tiny kiss anywhere in sight. it was the picture perfect victorian date, though it lasted 8 hours. which was actually half a person's life in victorian days. i think people were about 2 feet 7 inches tall then and they lived to be 13 and a half. can you imagine what they would think now? they would think that every one is tall. and old. anyway, speaking of tall and old, that's sort of the courtship picture i am painting here: tall and old. mr. tall and mrs. old. we are both the same age, but this is an attempt at being funny. it's victorian humor. here's a victorian joke: A chicken comes into a breakfast restaurant and says to the host: 'bitte gives you to me nevertheless an egg cup, a small spoon and something salt, the remainder can I then besorgen!' that's not really a victorian joke, and by now you know that i am not a joke teller. but even my brother-in-law couldn't make that funny. even if he were a german-american, which he is not. he is tall though.

anyway, i was in france in the early days of my and my beloved's courtship and i bought a pair of candlesticks, the style of which i understood to be a rat de cave, whose purpose was to illuminate the wine cellar. this particular design had a little rat tail-ish piece that serves as a sort of long hook so a wine cellar visitor could hang the thing on the edge of the cask or barrel of ageing wine while you check on things. they are neat candleholders and they also have a sort of spiraling design, so that you put the candle in and as it burns down, you can rotate the base up the spiral, so there is more candle sticking out of the top. i'm sure you are bored to tears at this point, but i'm getting to the crux of the matter with the candle here--thrilling, i know.

i recently read something about this candlestick that is confusing to me. i was under the impression that this was a wine cellar candle, but i saw a photo of this kind of candlestick and they called it a "courting candle." apparently, one (or one's father, actually) would put a candle in, and then rotate the base up or down, depending upon how much he liked the particular suitor. see, if he had the candle sitting down very low, the candle would burn out quickly, and the young man would go home, quite unsatisfied. but if the father put the candle up very high, there would be plenty of time for the date. but then i was thinking: what father would put that candle up high? do you know of one? i don't? you know what though? who cares. that's what. forget about the candle for now. i am going to tell you right now what really matters and that is that i bought this particular pair of shoes YEARS ago. years. and they are the most comfortable shoes in the world. they are not birkenstocks so just don't picture that right now or it will ruin your experience of the next section. but they are kind of weird. they look like the kind of shoe you would wear if you went to a foreign country because you wanted to help. that's the kind of shoe they are. or they look like the kind of shoe you would wear if you made wheatcakes in your kitchen on an old iron stove while simultaneously giving birth. that kind of shoe. and it's kind of husk-colored or mortar-colored. but this pair of shoes is SO COMFORTABLE. well, i have occasionally worn this shoe out to dinner, where nobody would really see, or to the grocery store to buy a light bulb or something, but i haven't really tried to wear them anywhere else. on one trip to the store late at night, the person i really love (the aforementioned darling spouse) said the shoe was attractive. (i am not using pronouns, that is why that sounds weird, ok?) so it was at that exact point, in the biscuit aisle, that i wondered if we might end up making wheatcakes while simultaneously giving birth to a baby. i think that might have been the turning point. maybe that was the day i really knew it was going to last: when the clay shoe was given the approval. here was the person who could understand and validate the shoe. well, you know what? today i was looking through a super high fashion magazine and there was a person WEARING THE SHOE! there was some kind of outfit that was like wall street meets dirndl and some kind of yellowy duckling hair and there is that shoe. now, i am not one to follow trends, but i think i'll wear the shoe tomorrow. and maybe i'll get an extra little kiss from my darling one who understands.