Last night I sat on the floor of Lavina’s bedroom with her, with cookbooks piled around us. I was helping her look for new pastries and dishes she could sift out and put into her journal.
New cookbooks are fine, but the ones she really likes are those from long ago. She buys them in antique stores and at garage sales. She likes the notes the owners wrote in small, often perfect cursive, which i personally find is a lost art.
Many of those old recipes she uses when she cooks for us. One we all love is the caribbean black cake with a cherry brandy. I probably eat everything she makes, and the black cake is my favorite because of the buzz you’ll receive after eating it.
I enjoy being in Lovi’s bedroom. Its a bit messy but in a comfortable way. She has an antique bed with a white cast iron frame, and my mother gave her one of my lace throws to put over the quilt-patterned bedsheets. they have a pale beige color and dusty roses with green embroidered into them. Theres some fine bisque porcelain figurines around with soft pastel colors she bought from thrift stores, and my favorite one is a brown skinned girl with curly hair and angel wings, holding a young lamb close to her chest affectionately. I always tell her it looks like her when I stare at it.
She owns a dresser that belonged to her grandmother, and on it is a small clock, an intricate glass dish rimmed with gold and filled with jewelry, and flowers. Theres also a picture of a young, pale looking boy with black curls wearing a melancholy expression, and a few beautiful handmade journals beside it. All of this is held under a white lace tablecloth.. a lot of lace in her room, i found.
There is also a tray full of interesting perfume bottles on a stand beside the dresser, though Lavina doesn't wear all of them because it interferes with her allergies, but she likes the evocative shapes of the bottles.
I've already decided that for her birthday, which is the twenty-third of june, I'm going to get her the most elegant atomizer I can find.
