I've been thinking a bit more about Queen of Hearts, because that's how far my brain will stretch at the moment, and how the items I used to think were tacky or just "there" are now sought-after antiques.

How many of you grew up with one of these?

These are glass relish bowls. But in our house they were used for serving cranberry sauce. And by cranberry sauce I mean the stuff in a can that slurps out in one cylindrical jellyish piece. My mom would then slice it, and lay the slices out prettily in one of these little dishes. It was an absolute horror when I discovered that people at it with actual whole cranberries. Gross. Anyway, I have one of these in my cabinets now, as I absconded with it and another cut-glass serving dish, that I doubt my brother has much use for.

We also had these for a while:

I think they were amber. These were always filled with iced tea. At some point they were replaced with something more modern and equally ugly. Only now they've been imbued with a certain dignity, and they're waiting to be snapped up in an antique store. Why my mother didn't have the common sense to buy the blue ones, I don't know. 

Now, if I could find replicas of the absolutely hideous lamps we had in the living room. They were awful, but I loved them. The base was a translucent green and made me think of genies living in lamps. It looked a bit like this, but a darker green and smooth:

I say "if I could find" as if Jeff would ever let these cross our threshold. We don't even have end tables, which would have baffled my mom.

Finally, a walk down memory lane wouldn't be complete without mentioning our TV trays. OF COURSE we had TV trays. Only communists didn't have them. The ones I remember best had vividly rendered paintings of autumn in New England that made me absolutely certain that I lived in the worst place on earth. Our leaves couldn't even get up the energy to change colors. They just lost hope, turned brown and fell. Actually, I suspect they were paintings of the four seasons, but fall was the most captivating. This looks very much like them - I gather the artist was named Robert Wood.

So, to wrap up this day of reminiscing I bought a bottle of Pine-Sol. It doesn't smell quite the way I remember. Maybe they got rid of some carcinogenic chemical or started using real pine essence or stopped using real pine essence. It's a bit disappointing. Hah, just found out that you can order the original formulation here. No I can only hope Silly Putty does the same.