The
Guest
Refrigerator Door
These aren't exactly magnets, but they were off of a
wonderful wall at my friend diane's house in England...and there are a bazillion of them.
* Discussion *
Talk about it here.
WHAT I'M READING...
Finished Sarum
by Edward Rutherfurd
Finished Shattered
by Dick Francis
Looking for a new book
WHAT I'M WATCHING...
Scrubs
ER
(my night for doctor shows!)
NEW
Samples of two of the
slide shows I've been making
can be downloaded from
this ZDNet page
and three more are posted at Beechbrook
Cottage
Pictures from our The England and Orkney trip are on my
own Club Photo page.
Not to be missed: Steve has uploaded some of his new songs to the web. Check 'em
out
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
That's it for today!
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FLUFTY WUFTY
5 October 2001
A friend of mine is getting ready to move into a new apartment, after living with
relatives for the past few years. He is very excited about furnishing the new apartment
and is running around buying rugs, television, vcr, etc. It's been fun watching his enthusiasm
for each of his new purchases.
One thing he's been talking about getting for a long time is a new comforter. The one he's
been using for years belonged to his mother. He says, "I tried to have it cleaned
once, about two years ago, and the dry cleaner called me in a panic because there were
feathers all over his shop."
I had to laugh because it brought back memories of "flufty wufty."
That was the name my sister and I gave to a satin feather quilt that was on our parents'
bed for years. If I recall correctly, it was gold on one side and blue on the other--I may
be mistaken.
When we were young, Karen and I used to like getting into the big bed, after our parents
got up, and before the bed was made. We'd make a tent out of the comforter, or we'd wrap
ourselves up in it to make various costumes. Sometimes it just felt good to snuggle down.
Funny, but I don't have a lot of memories of childhood. But I very clearly--and fondly--
remember "flufty wufty."
The years passed and we got too big to play in Mommy and Daddy's bed any more. I went off
to college and then found a job and moved into my own apartment. By now my mother had long
since changed the bedding for their bed and she asked me if I wanted flufty wufty.
It was like going back to those safe, comfortable days of my childhood. I had a one- room
studio apartment with a Murphy bed.
[Aside: As I was writing this I wondered if they still called beds that folded down from
the wall "Murphy Beds" and how it got that name in the first place. Good old
Google. I found out that a guy named William Murphy, who was born in Stockton,
California--right next door to here, practically--moved to San Francisco at the turn of
the century and lived in a one room apartment which had a standard bed taking up most of
the floor space. Because he wanted to entertain, he began experimenting with a folding bed
and applied for his first patent in 1900. The "Murphy Door Bed Company" started
that year, and, since it is still in operation today, it makes it one of the oldest
companies in the US. Now see how educational journals can be?]
But I digress. Back to flufty wufty.
I took the quilt and put it on my new bed and enjoyed snuggling down underneath the
familiar satiny feeling of my old friend.
I remember the first time I came down with the flu in that apartment. My mother had always
made being sick something that was sorta fun. She was great at TLC and would always make
sure we had crisp fresh sheets, a bag for used kleenex or a pot at the bed in case we were
in danger of vomiting. She would bring us comic books, read us stories or go to the
library and bring home armloads of books for us to read. You almost hated to get well.
But the first time I got sick, I was alone. There was no chicken soup. No
"butter-milk" (that's warm milk with melted butter floating on the top). No milk
toast (buttered toast in a bowl with warm milk poured over it.
There were no comic books, no cool mother's hand on my forehead to check for a fever.
It was just me. Me and flufty wufty. It was not quite the same, but at least it was the
familiar comfort of home.
But it didn't last. I still remember the day vividly. I woke up and found myself sitting
in a sea of feathers. Flufty had finally given up the ghost. That decades-old material
which had given love and comfort and warmth finally could no longer hold together and the
whole quilt had split apart as I slept in the night.
It was like having to say good bye to an old friend.
We have a quilt now. A duvet, actually (we started using the Irish term when we were in
Ireland). It's wonderful. It's soft and fluffy and it's actually quilted in large squares,
so it isn't going to split like my old friend flufty did. But somehow it's just not quite
the same.
You can never go home again, not even with a new quilt.
One Year Ago:
There's No Place
Like Home |
