London: I'm going!

Yes, you heard right, or perhaps read it on Facebook. I am going to London on Sunday. It's a two week, all expense paid class trip. Really, it's what sold me on my grad program. That and the Jane Austen references at interview weekend. If I only I had known that I would really be reading about furniture construction instead.

Of course, this will be a material culture trip, not your usual fun sightseeing. Our itinerary is long and detailed, exhausting just to read. There are dozens of museum tours, plus workshops on metal work, furniture construction, etc. We often will visit several sites in one day, sprinting from gallery to tube station to hotel. Oh yeah, we might eat lunch somewhere in there. Better pack a snack bar.

It's hard to get too excited yet. Right now I am mostly afraid of collapsing from exhaustion or dying of boredom in a ceramics warehouse. Getting our food allowances today did help. Look at how pretty their money is!!

I'm also learning that the Queen's English is ridiculous. They elide letters as badly as the French. Someone explain to me how:
Chiswick is prounounced "Chizzek" or Southwark = "Suthhuk."
Or how about the word "gimcrack" as in "The Hanoverian monarchs romped about their gimcrack palaces, creating scandalous gossip for the populace to enjoy." I do enjoy that there is a historian out there named Hermione Hobhouse, though.

Sweet Dreams

The Chinese drawing Room was ...a splendid, uninhabitable museum of Chippendale carving and porcelain and laquer and painted hangings; the "Queen' bed," too, was an exhibition piece, a vast velvet tent like the Baldachino at St. Peter's. Had Lord Marchmain planned this lying in state for himself, I wondered, before he left the sunshine of Italy? ... Had it come to him at that moment, an awakened memory of childhood, a dream in the nursury - "When I'm grown up, I'll sleep in the Queen's bed in the Chinese Drawing room"?

(Brideshead Revisited, page 316)

When I was a kid I really, really wanted a canopy bed too. I think it fed from the same princess complex that made me desire Cinderella pajamas, cone-shaped hats with sweeping veils, and ballroom dances with my dad that consisted mostly of low dips, much to the chagrin of his spinal alignment.

I've been reading a lot about state beds such as this red one from Kent's Melville house, and am reconsidering their appeal. My apartment's ancient heat pump can't keep up with the winter cold, so right now sleeping surrounded by draperies sounds pretty darn good. On the other hand, I read today that heavy drapes invited germs and bed bugs. Iron bed frames became popular in the Victorian era as a more "hygienic" sleeping option.

Still, those canopies are great fun. One of my fellow students proposes that our post-graduation class picture be all 8 of us snuggling in the Great Bed of Ware, which supposedly could sleep fifteen people. With so much carving and expensive textiles, it's ridiculous even by 1590 standards.
.

Material Culture Alert: Toyota Corolla

Have you ever named your car? I never knew of this concept until high school. When I was a kid, we called Mom's Ford station wagon and Dad's Toyota by the very uncreative names "brown car" and "red car."

Now I have inherited the "red car," and I can't seem find a name for it. My siblings of course suggested choosing some historical figure, but the only moniker that sticks is "My poor little car." This vehicle is a champ, but it has surely seen better days. It did turn twenty years old this year, after all! Toyota Corolla engines are fantastically reliable, but no plastic interior parts are meant to last two decades. Here are some of my "poor little car's" battle scars:

• Broken driver's side door handle
• Detached rear view mirror
• Ceiling upholstery that fell off, was held on with bobby pins and plastic picnic knives, and then finally replaced
• Driver's side door paint is corroding
• Left passenger door will only open from the inside
• Front passenger seat belt sticks closed
• Gear shift plastic case has cracked
• Interior light only turns on for driver's door
  

It doesn't help that I am sometimes a klutzy driver. I still feel guilty about driving with the parking break on and losing the original gas cap. So much so that I let Jiffy Lube snooker me into getting the "power steering fluid exchange" with my oil change. It's only $60 extra!

As much as I love the Red Car, it might be time for a new one. Say, a 1998 Corolla that actually has air bags, power door locks, and anti-lock brakes. I did some shopping around over break, and will keep checking Autotrader.com.

My Dad jokes that cars can tell when you are thinking of replacing them. My Poor Little Car seems to be doing that. Just before I drove back to school, Dad and I found a gash in one of the front tires. There went my afternoon and $200 to buy new treads. Hey Little Car, I still love you! Didn't I wax you lovingly before you came to school with me? Didn't I decorate you with window decals from the finest Virginia public college? Heck, I even bought you a new starter in September! Even if we go our seperate ways, I'll still be loyal to your family.

Material Culture Alert: Hairdressers

Yesterday I got lost in the frozen tundra of suburban sprawl aka Ashburn, VA. I was on my way to get my hair cut, and all those McMansion neighborhoods started to look the same. They helped assuage some of my "white person guilt," though. "At least I don't live here," I (smugly?) muttered to myself as I made a u-turn at the entrance to a gated community.

Once I finally figured out that Google Maps had lied and arrived at the salon, there was some fun material culture trivia in store. Did you know that professional hair shears cost hundreds to thousands of dollars? All I knew was the $40 Wahl hair clippers my Mom uses on my little brothers.

When I sat down, my stylist announced that she was testing out a $1200 pair of shears, and was dying to try them on curly hair. Apparently it's the tempered steel that makes them so expensive. The best ones are made in Japan, forged like samurai swords.

Here's another fun fact: the culinary and cosmetology worlds can overlap. My stylist has a culinary degree, and switched to hair when she got sick of restaurant chauvinism. The chain-smoking salesman who had visited her salon with a case of shears to "test drive" was also a former restaurant worker. To these two, high quality hair shears are just as fun as a new set of kitchen knives.

Do I smell a Top Chef/Shear Genius crossover? You can thank me later, Bravo.

Happy New Year!

It's hard to believe we're in a new decade now. The Aughts are over, moving us one step closer to the Mayan apocalypse/disaster/absolutely nothing that will happen in 2012. 2009 was a pretty big year for me, so I'm going to borrow a friend's blog idea and list the Top 10 memories of 2009.

10. Frolicking in the snow in St. Louis
9. Seeing Jenny Lewis in concert with my two favorite California girls
8. Playing in the bell choir for Archbishop Carlson's installation, and making my friend meet him while wearing sweatpants.
7. The final VSC renewal weekend in Dittmer, full of relaxation in the sun and some epic pool jumping.
6. Helping the Nurses for Newborns Foundation win a major, multi-year grant for new programming.
5. Hanging out in San Antonio for week spending your tax dollars while I waited to testify in court.
4. Finally visiting New York City and seeing what all the fuss is about.
3. Seeing my family finally move back in to our renovated house.
2. Potlucks with my grad school classmates, and finding that I could fit into another community of 8 people.
1. Bringing my beau home to meet the family for Thanksgiving.

2009 brought me admission to grad school, a new apartment, a new state of residence, and many new people in my life. I'm excited to see what 2010 has in store!