More like loves. More like obsessed with! I mean, how can you not? I always assumed my love of collecting kitchen chotchkies and vintage cookbooks came from my dad, whose military patch collection and bibliophilia is beyond reason. However, as I looked around my mother's kitchen cupboards and noticed her collection of vintage salt and pepper shakers, and flipped through her early 80s editions of Australian Women's Weekly cookbooks, it dawned on me: I am the product of both of my parents. My dad and I share the nerd gene, so I always saw the avid collection of stuff correlated to the avid collection of knowledge. The difference is that everything my mom collects is put on display, perfectly coordinating with it's surroundings. Her collecting is graceful and fluid, not like dad's three ring binders of patches or my flat file filled with vintage postcards, so its presence is almost imperceptible. Take for instance these John and Jackie wine stoppers, displayed on top of a wine rack in the living room. Completely outrageous and fantastic. They might even swerve into the "tacky" category, but even in ceramic bottle stopper form Jackie Kennedy makes it work. If it was any other icon, Marilyn, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, it might smack of blatant kitsch, but for some reason these two heads work. Though they do look pretty silly when actually sticking out of a wine bottle. Enjoy!
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