Do Re Mi, Fa So La Ti

Sh*t like this kills me. Seriously. Some days I am so happy to live in this world. Even when it is hard to live in this world. Happy Friday, all.

Whispers, Slips

Here is what I would like to know: How are we all dealing with breezy summer dresses that have no lining so that when you wear them the sun shines through and shows everything off?Also, all of those adorable, unlined jersey-knit dresses that stick to your undies. What of those?

I know the obvious answer is "wear a slip." But really? Are we actually wearing slips? Isn't the point of donning a breezy, whispery summer gown the antitheses of everything the wearing-under-clothes slip stands for? Isn't the point feeling like taking over the world? ISN'T IT? And do YOU feel like taking over the world when you're worried about your slip showing or wishing the icky poly-blend would stop making you sweaty? I thought not.

So HOW are all of you wearing these flowy little summer-affair dresses? Because I see you every day on the street wearing them. I SEE you in your unlined cotton, in your jersey knit, and you look fabulous. Please spill. And please do not mention leggings.

{And I'm sorry about no pictures. Pictures are pretty. I will be a better picture-finder next week.}

Green Mind, White Milk

For when nothing is left except light on your fur, Wallace Stevens' A Rabbit As King of the Ghosts:

The difficulty to think at the end of day,
When the shapeless shadow covers the sun
And nothing is left except light on your fur—

There was the cat slopping its milk all day,
Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk
And August the most peaceful month.

To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time,
Without that monument of cat,
The cat forgotten on the moon;

And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light
In which everything is meant for you
And nothing need be explained;

Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of it-
self;
And east rushes west and west rushes down,
No matter. The grass is full

And full of yourself. The trees around are for you,
The whole of the wideness of night is for you,
A self that touches all edges,

You become a self that fills the four corners of
night.
The red cat hides away in the fur-light
And there you are humped high, humped up,

You are humped higher and higher, black as
stone—
You sit with your head like a carving in space
And the little green cat is a bug in the grass.

Weekender: Coaster, Free

Sunsets make me sad. Sunsets and three-day weekends. Because after the sun slips down one day there are only two left and then only one and then we have to go back to doing those things we would have to have done anyhow if it hadn't been for those quick days that are over and done, over and done.

But this time was different, somehow. There was a street fair. The kind with lemonade. And small children on scooters who are somehow not as annoying as all of the children on scooters on streets with no fairs on them. There was visiting shops, and there were new summer tennis shoes and ice cream from a truck. There was a roller coaster. A big one. Next to a beach. There were corn dogs and more lemonade, and there was sand. There was laughter. There were amusing companions. And at the end of it all, there was watching the sun set and not being sad, for once, about the end of a day because the day had been such a full one. And because I had just been sitting on a breezy hill and thinking how nice it is to do the things I want to do. How nice it is to be free.

{coaster, flickr}

Breezes, Sing

I wish you a three-day weekend like those three-day weekends from when we were 18. Those three-day weekends where anything seemed possible, when it was just warm enough to swing barefoot on a playground in the cool of the evening and listen to the bugs sing. I do not even know if bugs sing during three-day weekends in this new land. But I hear there are fireflies. And I can already smell a bit of possibility blowing in off the Hudson.

Bus, Love

And then there are the buses.

People are nice to each other on buses in NYC in a way they aren't in parks or on streets or subways, and in a way that people are not nice to one another on buses in other places I have been. I have been reticent to speak to it for fear it would disappear. But the bus love is strong here. People stand up and let grandmothers sit down on the bus. People pay for other people to ride on the bus. There is a distinct lack of hollering on the bus. It is as though the buses have large hearts floating on top of them like in this sign; hearts that somehow withstand the insistent honking all day long. I do not know why it is this way, but it is wonderful.

{flickr, bus}

Paper, Plastic

Found at Matter Brooklyn, Paper straws, by Kikkerland, in green, red, blue and grey. For B., of course, and anyone who's ever read Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine:

But later, when I gave the subject more thought, I decided that, though the straw engineers were probably blameworthy for failing to foresee the straw's buoyancy, the problem was more complex than I had first imagined ... What they had forgotten to take into account, perhaps, was that the bubbles of carbonation attach themselves to invisible asperities on the straw's surface, and are even possibly generated by turbulence at the leading edge of the straw as you plunge it into the drink; thus clad with bubbles, the once marginally heavier straw reascends until its remaining submerged surface area lacks the bubbles to lift it further. Though the earlier paper straw, with its spiral seam, was much rougher than plastic, and more likely to attract bubbles, it was porous: it soaked up a little of the Coke as a ballast and stayed put. ... In this way the quality of life, through nobody's fault, went down an eighth of a notch, until just last year, I think, when one day I noticed that a plastic straw, made of some subtler polymer, with a colored stripe in it, stood anchored to the bottom of my can!

First Milk, Maid

We have a new domain, lovelies! From now on, First Milk will be found at www.firstmilkmaid.com. I can promise blue and yellow, heavy cream, pitchers, calves and crustful bread. So update and visit, if you please. I should like to have tea with you, with you. I should like to have tea with you.

(Blogger's mysterious workings say it may take a bit for everything to move on over, so please be patient while it does its magical work. Thanks, sweets! See you on the other side.)

(Milkmaid, Vermeer}

Weekender: Cordial, Toast

There were short films on a roof, and there was wine on a sidewalk, and dumplings. There were friends in town for meeting in the rain with, and smelling through the park with, friends in town for gobbling breakfasty toasts and talking about fences, bunnies with. I'm not exactly sure when it happened that I looked up to find such an abundance of creative, beautiful kindred spirits, but there they are. Kindred spirits who bring presents of post-its, and friends whose laugh clings heavy, lets me almost brush against the bursting skin of this life--that skin which hangs purple on vines and drips with honey, raspberry cordial, dew.

This Week, Things That Have Happened

1. Was pooped upon by a pigeon (a large one, evidently).
2. Got locked in my apartment. Had to call the super, who believed it was me, and not the lock, that was broken.
3. Realized I had been pooped upon by a pigeon when I saw myself in a mirror two hours later.
4. Bought three packs of Twizzlers. Cursed ever-present Twizzlers-bearing newsstands.
5. Got locked in my apartment again. Had to call the super, who now concedes that it is the lock, and not me, that is broken.
6. Bout #1 of angry NYC street banter, complete with furious arm-throwing.
7. Bout #2 of angry NYC street banter, complete with furious arm-throwing.
8. Weeping.
9. Twizzlers eating.
10. The feeling of Having Gotten Much Accomplished.

Dollars, Clouds

I am not allowed to buy these Frye shoes, because they are too many dollars. But wouldn't wearing them be like walking on little grey rain clouds? Maybe it would be worth it to have no dollars left if you were walking around on little grey rain clouds. Then again, rain cloud shoes could very possibly disappear beneath your toes without notice, leaving only a puddle for splashing in.

Then you would have no more dollars AND no more shoes.

{I saw these shoes on someone's blog, but I don't remember whose. I am sorry.}

Weekender: Sorrel, Seek

Saturday morning brought coffee and the Domino tag sale, where many sought, not only items, but a kind of energy as well, a kind of Phoenix, and a glimpse of a fabulous townhouse. After, I sought a hat for keeping the sun off my nose, and found without seek the first cherries of summer, the first blushing peonies, the first floating balloons. Sunday, an early morning walk, coffee, news. Later, found Lauren at the W. 72nd St. entrance to Central Park, where we kept our eyes out for fellow foragers, who were not difficult to locate once we found their leader, "Wildman" Steve Brill. We came away with knowledge of several lethal mushrooms, one non-lethal pixie of a fungus, and a healthy aversion toward People Who Pick up Turtles and Try to Pick Leeches Off Them (or I did, anyhow--I cannot speak for Lauren on this one). We also picked more than one kind of sorrel, which, taking the form of hearts and lamby heads and tasting of pink lemonade, probably fraternizes with fairies and gnomes. I chose not to seek anything Steve listed as Poisonous Without A Great Deal of Cooking, but many did, and many came away gleeful with armloads Things That Must Be Boiled. After, a long walk, and quiet moments with pink peonies, gnome-friendly leaves, dreams.

Hide, Seek

I am off to play hide-and-seek with that teasy tease the sun.

I think this will involve hiding under plants.

Hopefully there will also be hiding snails under the plants, but not any very scary hiding spiders. You spiders can go play somewhere else.

Happy weekend, all!

Audrey! Trains!

And a bit of eye candy via Concrete and Honey today, which I found via P.'s blog stalkery. I've watched the short only three times so far, and only tried to lick/climb inside/make out with my computer screen once each. This shows great restraint, I think.

Feathers, Soup

Perhaps you are tired of hearing about the notion of soup. "WHAT IS WITH ALL THE SOUP?!" says you. "Soup is not a notion," says you. "It is a food."

A food it may be. But here is the thing about soup: Between the shopping, and the chopping, and the sniffing, and the sipping, soup is hope. If soup = hope, then soup is really the thing with feathers. If you do not think you would like to eat feathery soup, perhaps you should start thinking about soup as a notion. For you like feathery notions, do you not?

I thought so.

Here is my favorite hopeful soup recipe. It comes from my friend M. Do not be cross about no measurements. I cannot measure hope:

Hopeful Soup for Rainy Days

Garlic
Chicken Stock
Coconut Milk
Lemongrass, tied with twine
Ginger, cut into medallions, wrapped in cheesecloth
Chicken
Lime
Something Sweet
Something Spicy
Straw Mushrooms
Green Onions
Rice Noodles
Cilantro

Cook minced garlic in oil. Add liquids.
Let the stock and coconut milk spend simmery time with the lemongrass and ginger.
Add spicy things, sweet things, lime juice, to taste.
Add chicken. Cook.
Add delicate things when the soup is nearly finished.
Stir with a wooden spoon.
Hope.

{Notiony feathers for hoping with, here.}

Flirty, Sweet

A glimpse of Saturday's found dress: It's a sweet sheath, and I'm antsy for the rain to abate so I can don it, short hair and all, and run about town. Like Mia. But without any of that nasty devil's kin business.

Weekender: Lilac, Mint

And then, one weekend, I felt like me again.

First, there was a Grocery Store Tour of the fair island, which, in addition to making me fall hard for Trader Joe's, eventually yielded morels and fiddlehead ferns for eating with a spoon. There was shopping in galoshes. There was dropping off dry cleaning in the rain, after which New York kindly handed me a bouquet of cotton candy for carrying home. There were gracious and charming new friends who invited me to come, invited me to stay. There was a perfect yellow dress with sweet embroidery, and a Kentucky Derby party with mint juleps and hats. There was square dancing. There was ice cream that tasted like cream that had unrequited love for a dimpled strawberry might taste; cream blushing with the memory of a single, berry-red kiss. There was knitting in bed. There was soup. And then there were the first lilacs, falling all over themselves as first lilacs so often do.

May Day, Tea

I spend a lot of time trying not to buy tea cups. Like these, for example, and these and even these ones for littles. Most days, it is all I can do to physically wrest myself from their delicate glory.

But today I have a reason for buying up cups and cups. If I were not working this afternoon, I would buy the lot, and throw a May Day tea party for all of you and any lovely littles you might know. We would all wear hats and bows and descend upon the Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park, which is the best place for tea parties, mad and otherwise. And then we would eat cake and stick flowers behind Alice's little stony ears, and drink tea, pinkies up, up, up. There would be ribbons and sugar tongs. There would be saucers. There would be Jabberwocky and songs and grass stains. And then I could pack up my basket of tea cups and walk them home with glee, having had a good reason for buying them in the first place.

{Martha, Cups}