The Room Where We Eat

I will not call it the "dining room", as that lends the place an august title to which the stained tablecloth, seemingly perpetually dirty floor, and beat up dining set do not really subscribe. It's completely functional, with the hope of being a dining room again at some point in the future (*gesticulates to the artwork hung on the walls*). I don't hold out much hope until after my kids are teenagers.

Yes, I have succumbed to the "everyday" tablecloths versus the "special" tablecloths. My KMart Martha Stewart $5 special tablecloth in particular is showing its age, with its faded stripes and now faded stains that refuse to be coaxed out of the fabric even by judicious applications of OxyClean, borax, FelsNaptha soap, and sulking, er, soaking with killer strength detergent. It is now stained, and I am living with it, in much the same way I have come to lament the permanent stains that have appeared on DD's clothes (and ALWAYS the cutest ones, of course!). I could kiss my great aunt for the stash of linens which she gave to me when she retired and moved out of her house, because one of her "everyday" tablecloths is withstanding everything my DD can throw at it and still comes out of the wash clean and good as new. Ah, the things you treasure!

DD's seat is covered with the debris from lunchtime, which I will go and sweep up with the dustpan shortly. And it's on the floor, too, naturally. And now we are starting DS on regular meals as opposed to the cereal when we felt like making it, because he expects it now. So I now have a highchair to clean up, too, with rice cereal and some 'learning to self-feed' puffs strewn about for good measure. I know worse is yet to come--we have yet to reach the "food flinging" stage with him. Oh joy.

Of course, I'm not sure what my great-grandparents would think of their formal dining set as it stands now. I inherited that from my great aunt's house as well, and sad to say it wasn't looking so hot then. It has this beautiful striped birch veneer, which has been damaged in one place on the tabletop and flaked off in another. One day I hope to be able to spend a ridiculous amount of money (single digit thousands, probably) to have it restored, but it will have to wait for a while. In the meantime it is perpetually covered with the velvet table guards (velvet on bottom, easy clean & stained vinyl on top) and has to be covered with a tablecloth at all times. It's a real gem in the rough, along with the six chairs that go with it. I keep meaning to clean them all with Murphy's Wood Oil soap, but that too is something that will probably wait for a good few years.

I never met my great-grandfathers (any of them), but I do remember this particular great-grandmother. She wore horn-rimmed glasses and liked to knit, and we used to go over to her garden when we were visiting in the summertime and help her pick her cukes and tomatoes so she could make pickles. Now that I'm older I know more about this lovely lady from my grandfather. She used to feed the tramps who came through on the railroad, and would bring a plate out to them to eat in the back garden. The train tracks ran right past their house and she never turned one away. Somehow, I think she would probably like the fact that her table is still serving urchins of one stripe or another, especially the pint-sized variety.