The Woman in the Mirror

In a not-so-sudden fit of desiring visual clarity, Michael and I decided to take advantage of our Vision Insurance and get new eyewear. I decided to go back to contacts this time for several reasons, including:

1) I wanted to

2) so I can wear reading glasses when my eyes are bothering me (I hate bifocals and grad school = massive amounts of reading)

3) so I can wear sunglasses outside (because I live in Hawaii, where it's sunny sometimes) (see above where today's weather is reported with up-to-the-minute accuracy)

and 4) because I felt like it

But the thing is, I have bad vision, right? Like, pretty bad vision. I knew in some intellectual way that I would look different going back to glasses. I have, of course, gone between glasses and contacts before. But I have not ever gone quite so long between glasses and contacts during a time when my vision what quite this bad.

It's going on two and a half years since I last wore contacts, which for all intents and purposes means that I have not seen myself without glasses for two and a half years. At all. Because when I didn't have my glasses on, I couldn't see myself in the mirror.

And then I put in my shiny new contacts yesterday.

I really, honestly, don't recognize myself anymore when I look in the mirror. I don't simply look like Kati Without Glasses. I don't know who I look like, but it's not the face I had two days ago, or any other day previous since mid-2005. It's really disconcerting, actually. It's like I had plastic surgery and... I don't know... part of my face was amputated. And the strangest part is that I'm not even exaggerating. That is actually what I feel like when I look in the mirror.

I just don't know what to make of it. I'm sure it'll pass in a couple more days. So no worries, ya? Just... odd.

Anyway, on to far more important matters.

I am now the proud owner of "Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cookbook", published in 1961 and sold to me by the Moili'ili Community Center Thrift Store for three dollars just two days ago. Amy Vanderbilt is, of course, the author of such greats as "Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette" and "Amy Vanderbilt's Everday Etiquette". So, in case you were wondering who this Amy Vanderbilt person was, it's her. One thing I'm not entirely sure about is that the title page credits the drawings in the book to "Andrew Warhol". Could it possibly be THAT Andrew Warhol? Of that, I have no friggin' clue, and for the following reasons:

1) The introduction says, and I quote,
"I believe that the ability to prepare and serve good and attractive meals is a delightful feminine virtue. The importance of this and of being a good housekeeper were drilled into me from the time I could walk."

2) The introduction also says, and I quote,
"On one hand, I had the influence of my mother, a third generation American of English and Irish descent, who strongly needed around her all of the aspects of gracious living but who found them difficult to achieve without servants."

(I'm not sure what 'strongly needing gracious living' means, but, well, I think the point is made regardless)

3) The introduction further says, and I quote,
"On the other hand, in our household, almost from the time that I was born, was my aunt, brought up in the New York-Dutch-American tradition wherein a woman must know all of the household arts whether or not she has servants to instruct."

(which I'm assuming is about as close as this woman ever got to women's liberation)

4) The introduction goes on to say, and I quote,
"The men in our family were all quite sure of their roles as men, which in my opinion is the way it should be. My father and my grandfather were never to be found in the kitchen mixing a cake. They did, however, consider it their proper prerogative to purchase and carry home from the Washington Market every bit of meat the household consumed. The buying of meat, they held, was not a woman's business, any more than was the carving of it. I still think the art of carving belongs to the male, but I am willing to agree that women have had to learn how to buy meat, just as many of us have had to learn how to carve, either because the men in the family won't or because there are no men in the family."

Oh, whew! I guess she got the point of women's lib after all. And it's a good thing, too. Because Amy Vanderbilt seemed to be pretty busy putting together books about etiquette and cooking and it made me worry that she would have difficulty balancing her feminine virtues with book writing (book writing is apparently not a traditional female virtue). But don't you all fret about what recording knowledge might mean for her ability to take care of her family. She says,

"My children and I, despite my career, have a warm and loving relationship."

How is that possible, you may be wondering to yourself. And that's a damn good question. I mean... a career AND a relationship with your kids? Surely not. But Amy Vanderbilt manages, because she's all about some feminine virtue.

Anyway, we bought this cookbook even before discovering that true gem of an introduction, because it's huge and old and beige and looks and smells like an old cookbook that might have been in my grandmother's kitchen. Either grandmother, now that I think about it, although I was originally thinking about Mimi. Anyway, it's 800 pages of cookbook with little notches on the side like a bible with gold markers proclaiming such things as "desserts", "poultry", "herbs", and "chafing dish".

So far all I've made from the book are cornbread cakes, although I made them into muffins because we don't have a griddle and I used a bit of bacon fat instead of just butter because I'm southern. And oh lordy, they were not bad.

Which made me realize that even despite her career, that woman could cook.