bigger than my britches
This was one of my father's favorite sayings, and he employed it in a variety of ways. For example, if he thought I was talking back: too big for your britches!; if he thought I was assuming too much: too big for your britches!; if he thought I was hinting for something out of our budget, especially. Then i was way too big for my britches.
Which is one of the reasons I never keep wish lists, because I'm sure my phone would ring and my father would be on the other end, telling me, in case I forgot, just how big my britches really are. He does call from the after life on occasion, usually in my dreams. We have funny conversations.
When we got married and had to do a registry, I was only really half hearted about it. You've got to be reasonable and put down a range of things to suit the people you love who aren't made of gold, and that is: all of them. So stainless steel bowls and salad servers go on the list. Boring, eh? But one person at least who came to the wedding and brought a gift really knew me. The mathematician's godfather. The gift they brought was a big box of perfectly laundred and ironed antique table linens, with lace and embroidery. Really first quality stuff. I was absolutely floored, just speechless. Of course I was glad to get the salad servers too. She said earnestly.
I learned something important from that experience: it's a good thing to go outside the wish list. I have never consulted one when buying a wedding or baby gift for a friend, and I think that usually I'm able to come up with something unusual but on target.
To be perfectly honest, We did get other unusual stuff as wedding gifts, too, but not necessary on target. Not on target: the second cousin who brought us a signed copy of her non-fiction book on Pope Pius, self published. On target: another cousin brought a small carved wooden spoon, really beautiful, with a piece of antique lace tied around it, and a note attached: my mother bought this lace from a peddler who came to our door in 1932. The spoon hangs on the wall, with lace and note still attached. I have no idea where Pope Pius has got to.
So small, thoughtful gifts are wonderful things, but I'm here to confess that on my not for public consumption wish list I've got a lot of really expensive rare books.
For example, I lust after Wondrous Strange: the Wyeth Tradition, which is a hard cover edition of the museum exhibition catalog featuring the illustration work of the Wyeths, who I adore. But really what I want is the limited edition that the museum put together, in a slip case. That costs just about two thousand dollars more than the standard edition.
This is what I'm wondering about, this yearning I have for books that are not so much books as monuments to a book. A three dimensional artwork created out of a book. If I owned the slip case version of Wondrous Strange, I'd never open it. I'd be sure to have the cheap version too as a reading copy. I've got maybe fifty books in my collection that are collectible -- a lot of them first editions/first printings signed by the author. I've never handled those books more than I needed to to make sure I was getting what I paid for. In each case I have a crappy paperback copy too, for reading.
I'm not sure why I am so moony on this topic. I've never been able to figure it out, and I know how weird it is. If I said to the mathematician husband, sweetie, I want this $500 edition of [insert title] for my present, yes, I do have three other copies of it... yes, okay, I would just leave it on the shelf and look at it...
I would talk myself out of asking for it. In fact, by posting this I am sort of innoculating myself against spending money on rare first editions, signed or unsigned, slipcovers or not. Really. No urge at all to go looking, not even a twinge. I know exactly how big my britches are.