Castles, Dreams

I don't know if you noticed but there is a cardboard castle in this house of Ann Wood's. A large and wonderful castle with bunting. WITH BUNTING. Ann Wood must have the most wonderful dreams. I mean, obviously. Now I must make myself a cardboard castle. I absolutely must or else I will most certainly perish from no castle-ness. Mine will probably be wobblier and result in only somewhat charming dreams, but what can you do?



{The land of Ann Wood from Design*Sponge, of course. More about the castle at Apartment Therapy.}

Piper, Pied

Summer has always always meant books, and that is almost all it has meant since the very moment I sat on the porch and read the word "island" aloud from my brown primer and learned how it was pronounced and was hooked. For some reason this summer feels especially Anne of Green Gables to me, and all I want to do is plop down with Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside and think about the Pied Piper and the War Effort and weep. (Except this time there will be no grown-ups around to say "You Cannot Take These Things So Seriously They Are Only Books.)

And so it is not that I am taking a break from blogging so much as that I am reading and thinking about the things I am reading and that though I am writing, I am not writing the kinds of things I like to blog and the rest of the time there aren't a lot of words. But there is distilling, and there is rain, and a few lovely plants have appeared on my windowsill, and I've been thinking a lot about boats. Books and boats. And tiny copper bells.

{Photo from Jennifer Zwick, via even*cleveland. I am sorry to be a copier, Stephanie, but it was too, too beautiful.}

Badgers, Sleeves

In response to your kind wishes (and thank you, darlings. Duvets and tea have proved themselves splendid), a bit more of Ursula Nordstrom loveliness before I try to pack madly for a weekend away. From a letter to Garth Williams:

January 28, 1960
Dear Garth:
I will write you a good letter soon.
But not today.
Today all I can say to you is why did you decide to put three sleeves on Frances' bathrobe on page 15 and again on page 18 of Bedtime for Frances......... ?????? I didn't notice the three sleeves. Neither did Russ. Or the salesmen to whom I showed the pictures at the Sales Conference. Or Susan Carr. Or Dorothy Hagen in the Manufacturing Department. But the young lady, Joan Lexau, who goes over proofs and such in our department just noticed the third sleeve. And she wrote me a note which said "Please note third sleeve. OK?" Should I kill myself? Or what?
Garth, badgers only have two arms in their bathrobes.
We realize that you are a very famous artist and if for the same price you will draw three sleeves instead of just two sleeves I guess we should be grateful. But three sleeves is one too many. It looks like something by Charles Addams. I sure as hell wouldn't go to bed and to sleep in a room with a bathrobe with three sleeves..... And I'm a very OLD badger.

Trousers, Sleep

I have not gone away forever. But I do have an almost ear infection and an achy head. And for some reason my body is taking lots of naps. Also, I bit my tongue and it hurts very muchly over on the right side near the back where I keep accidently scraping it on my teeth. And I seem to have ripped my trousers. So I am going to hide under my covers because usually it is a great idea not to blog when all you feel is achy and tongue-scrapey and weepful.

I hope your week is full of flowers and maybe a bit of sun. (If the sun still EXISTS. Which it does not in New York.)

{flickr, nap}

Neurosis, Rum

The thing is that unless a beach is involved, I am mean to men who order rum.

I can get behind Goslings. And L, your Dark and Stormy looks truly lovely. Rums that waft vanilla, herb? Rumful confections and delights? Fine by me. In my defense, I am only mean to men who order rum mixed with Coke, or who order froofy rum drinks in the dead of winter. It has been this way since the very beginning.

May it please the court, exhibits A-C, A's reactions to rum-ordering:
Exhibit A, circa 2003: Amanda mugs to the audience. Rolls eyes.
Exhibit B, circa 2005: Raises left eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be drinking BOURBON or something?"
Exhibit C, circa 2009: Raises left eyebrow. "Um. Are you actually a PIRATE?"

Maybe I am just a mean person. Maybe I don't like pirates. Maybe I *do* like pirates, but am embarrassed. Maybe I just don't like drinking bourbon when he's drinking rum. Maybe I am secretly a pirate. Other theories?

Discuss.

Cloches, Curls

Why do I not own this hat? I would be amazing in this hat. I would be the most amazing in this hat. The most amazing for reals.

Genius, Baths

Because it is summer, the reading has begun. Right now I am inhaling the best kind of book for an Amanda, and I fully intend to torment you with excerpts over the next week or two. Forgive me. Dear Genius comprises a lovely selection of the letters of Ursula Nordstrom, children's editor extraordinaire and the person credited for making children's books what they are today. The pages overflow with clever, gracious letters to the likes of E.B. White and Crockett Johnson and Maurice Sendak, and have left me trembly with joy. This one, to Margaret Wise Brown , has me in the best kind of stitches:

Ten o'clock, a.m. December 2, 1947
Dear Margaret:
The prescription from Bendel's has arrived and I am deeply touched and appreciative. The box created quite a riot in the Tot Department and now everyone wants to go home with me tonight and take baths in my apartment. I feel that this prescription will mean a great deal to me in the days ahead and that now anything can happen. I'll certainly have to meet a whole new group of people. No one I know at present is nearly elegant enough to go with this addition to my life, except you, of course, and perhaps one or two librarians. Thank you very much, dear friend and author.
I beg to remain, yours sincerely, Ursula Nordstrom who is about to smell divenely.

Weekender: Five-Foot Two, Eyes of Blue

Let me just say that the Charleston was involved on Saturday, and that I simply cannot help myself when the Charleston is involved. There were long and lovely strands of beads, lent from a sudden, surprising source. There was a flower in my short curls, and St. Germain cocktails. And a speakeasy and lovely friends and lipstick and PIE. But most of all, there was the Charleston, which I am mad about, and which bewitches me in a way that few other things ever will.

Sunday, a deeply lovely picnic with cakes and bubbly drinks and dappled shade and very nice ladies who did not even gobble me up. And there were renegade crafts, of course, and a coconut ice. And then, back home, there was the very first plum of summer. And through it all, there was the Charleston. And though it is nearly Tuesday, I am left in my little house thinking Charleston thoughts and wondering whether anyone would mind so very much if I borrowed back the pearls and traipsed down the hall, singing "Five-foot two, eyes of blue..."

{Dancing Toes, Sartorialist}

Sandals, Cling

One of my big NYC surprises was how ill-prepared my shoe wardrobe was for living here. I mean, I'd spent quite a lot of time here before I moved, and I was walking almost everywhere in Denver by the end of my time there. But somehow neither of these things prepared my feet for the walking that is living in NYC. And now that the days are turning warmer, I'm running into trouble with sandals. Because wearing flip-flops doesn't work in NYC--not for me, anyhow. They flip, they flop, they rub. And my beloved Mephistos are just quite simply too heavy. I need sandals that cling to my foots when I lift them, and that are cushy enough to cradle, to withstand heat and city and sass. One of these, mayhaps?

{Polyvore, ici}

Cat, Moon

For cats and moons, William Butler Yeats' The Cat and the Moon:

The cat went here and there
and the moon spun round like a top,
and the nearest kin of the moon,
the creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
for, wander and wail as he would,
the pure cold light in the sky
troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
what better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
tired of that courtly fashion,
a new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
from moonlit place to place,
the sacred moon overhead
has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
will pass from change to change,
and that from round to crescent,
from crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
alone, important and wise,
and lifts to the changing moon
his changing eyes.

Weekender: Putter, Up

Left to my own devices on Saturday mornings, I putter. I putter to the deli, where I sit and eat breakfast and watch families with littles. And then I putter to the used bookstore and through the poems. I putter to the park, and I putter about my tiny NYC house. I sift through the laundry, fretting over buttons and hems, making space for thought, breathe. On Saturday, I puttered. And then there was a train that went over a bridge that went over a river, and there was a lovely breeze. On Sunday, there was the most delicious cup of coffee in all the land, and there was a cat, and a poem about a cat, and a new-to-me blue dress.

And then, there was Up. Is there anything better than going to the movies alone? Is there? And wearing 3D glasses and buying popcorn and drinking soda, and sitting in the dark with your mouth open a little and remembering why it is you choose to do the things you want to do? And then walking home, warm and happy, after putter, after train, after cat, and climbing the steps to your little home, and falling asleep? I don't know if there is.

{flickr, clouds}