One jade plant, thriving just to spite me. Last watered 29 days ago. She bought it at one of those corner store florists on Fraser Street, because the owner said it would bring prosperity. I don’t know if it worked or not. Her money always seemed to turn into stationery or pussy willows or pointless knick-knacks. The jade plant is okay, though. I think she was going to get one of those trendy copper pots for it, but obviously she didn’t. So it’s stuck with plastic.
Three weird metal bowl things that she found at Value Village and fell in love with (for whatever reason). I don’t know if they’re supposed to be for food or candles or what. They kind of look like dishes that would be on some babushka’s coffee table, filled with candies of dubious origin that no one ever eats. I think she was planning to use the bowls in tea parties somehow? She used to throw tea parties every so often. She always got all stressed out about them, and everything was late, and people didn’t wear the right thing. But the food was always really good. I wonder if those girls ever have tea parties now. Probably not.
One framed illustration of an owl and her babies in a nest, kind of Scandinavian looking. She told me it always hung by her bed when she was little. It was from her Oma, from a story she used to read. She told me the story, once, but I don’t remember it now. Something about a forest… it’s funny thinking about her being a little girl. Getting skinned knees, playing games, dreaming about the future. I wonder if she was happy then. I think she must have been.
One lamp, a gift from her mother’s godmother. That woman was always bringing around gift bags of stuff to her mom’s house. A lot of paper napkins, spare bits of fabric, videocassettes of ballets she’d recorded. Once she brought a can of goose fat. I don’t know what she thought they’d do with it. And once, this lamp. Nothing wrong with it, but it didn’t match the decor at the house. Doesn’t match mine either, come to that. But anyway, she saved it from the “to donate” pile and brought it with her when we moved here.
One half-dead succulent in a pot she made at pottery class. I think it was supposed to be a friend for the jade plant.
And me. One web designer, 28 years old, 5’10”. Assets include a 2001 Nissan Sentra (black), a large collection of DVDs (now basically useless), and an apartment full of stuff that’s not mine. I don’t want to get into the story of how she got me. I’m sad enough as it is.
