Shake Your Booty

This beautiful Saturday morning, Howard and I

are preparing to hit the road to eastern Long Island,

to our family's beach house in Southold.

It's about a 2-1/2 hour drive, and it's worth it.

View across the cove, from our lawn.

Best of all, we are hosting guests for the weekend.

That's our favorite thing to do -- share this wonderful part of the world with friends.

But there's no Internet out at the beach house,

so I'm leaving you with a 2009 post about salt shakers I brought from the beach house

to That Old House, where they now happily squat in our dining room.

**********************************************************

Despite having scads of dishes and other table-setting accoutrements (hey, I spelled that right!), I've never had much in the way of interesting salt and pepper shakers. My mother, on the other hand, was the S & P Queen.

(The little horridly tarnished sterling set is there to show sizes; it is 2-inches tall.)

I have a few of Mom's favorites.

************************************

Now these look a little the worse for wear, don't they?

They are pewter, in a classic Georgian style.
They have not fared well, living in the salt air of a waterside house.
One of them also seems to be listing to starboard . . .

I brought them home from the Southold house,
as clearly the atmosphere out there didn't agree with them.

I can probably clean them up but I can't straighten the Leaning Shaker of Pepper.
Off to the jeweler for these little lovelies.

(And which is for the pepper anyway?  The shaker with the bigger or the smaller holes?)

Next up . . . Martha and George!

I have no idea how old these two china shakers are,
but I remember them on the breakfast table when I was a very small child,
and I am well over a hundred years old, so they are indeed vintage.

George is looking rather grim:

And Martha seems a tad suspicious of all the attention:

Wouldn't you love to see them on a breakfast tray?
First thing in the morning?
Wear a robe! Martha shocks easily, and George can be a bit of a rogue.

And finally, for all the milk glass fans out there
(you know who you are!), this set:

My mother loved milk glass. It was all over her house. She put milk glass in her daughters' shared bedroom, when those daughters weren't school age yet. Even our bedside lamps were milk glass, and they are still at the Southold house, where they lit the nightstands in the little room my own daughters slept in
when visiting "Muttie and Pop Pop."

My sister and I thought these lamps looked like little ladies holding onto big hats (look at the one on the right, see the arms reaching up?) and it's amazing they survived with only one tiny chip in one of the shades.
I am pretty sure my sister Peggy is responsible for that, not I. . . .

I am happy to have these little reminders of the lovely table my Mother set for family dinners. There was always a centerpiece, even if it was just a squat, pillar candle on a pottery or -- yes, milk glass -- plate, and there was always a first course, even if it was just tomato juice in a pretty glass.

I miss my mother very much; she left us in January 2010, but Alzheimer's had taken her away from us long before that.  I am grateful to have so many of her things, for she was a gifted homemaker and still inspires me.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Howard's getting impatient and it's time for us to hit the road.. 

Destination: the perfect weekend getaway -- Cass