Denver, Things They Have in

1. Sunshine all the time
2. Air that smells nice when it rains
3. Parks I know every inch of
4. My Mommy
5. Cars that do not feel like honking everysingleminute
6. A distinct lack of jack-hammers
7. Space

I'm on a little journey this week and next, so posting is likely to be spotty.
Kisses, A.

Love Letter, Boats

If I was there or you were here I would say "let's build a fort" and then we would build one and lay beneath it and color with crayons and make paper boats and hats and maybe read Stuart Little because it is a rainy day sort of book. And then we would say "let's roast a chicken," but it would be too wet to go outside so instead we would make grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. But later we would go for a walk in the rain after all and maybe float small boats down curb streams.

And I would be happy to see you and you would be happy to see me.

{flickr, boat}

From the Library: Radishes, Spies

From the library this week and last:
For yumming, weep:

For orphans, spies:

For fun:

Melchizedek, Scrabble

I met my two first live NYC rats this week--a couple of kingly fellows nibbling in a park not long after dusk. And I'm glad to know they've seen me too; seen me nodding politely before going my way, like Sara Crewe in her attic, like Jo March in hers.

What I *Really* Want

{Louis Vuitton for The Darjeeling Limited, of course}

Travels, Bags

I have begun to focus my attention on traveling a bit more. To this end, I have appointed a Traveling Godmother for showing me ropes. I have made lists. I have started scanning airfare in earnest.

Here is the trouble: I am having luggage issues. I am not partial to rolling bags, friends, no matter how handy they be (Is Audrey sporting a rolling bag in this sexful Chanel ad? No she is NOT). I like bags I can carry (this means shoulder straps, people). I like bags that are not too pattern-y (sorry, Orla). I am not partial to backpacks, however much I would like to be. And I like bags small enough to remind me to pack only. so. much. Because I like things, but I also like having to remember only to bring those things I need.

So here is what I would like to know, you travelers, you: What luggage do you use when you head out? What luggage--patterned, rolling, or otherwise--do you wish you used for trains, planes and automobiles--for going out into the world and leaving your baggage behind?

{Image, flickr}

Chickens, Stove

This week I am missing last year's CSA. I am missing last year's CSA and I am missing the kitchen in my little Denver carriage house, which was full and charming and nothing less than wonderful even if it DID have ugly green linoleum.

And all I want to do today and the next day and the next is can jam and make ratatouille and a big bowl of quinoa and Zuni Cafe's roast chicken and bread salad. And then I would feast on it all week long. And while I was cooking I would eat cheese and sliced tomatoes and crusty bread and probably melon with basil and prosciutto and drink prosecco and slice watermelons and rinse bowls of cherries for putting on oatmeal and make french-press coffee and pots of peppermint tea and PIE and that is how I would know that it is nearly late summer or fall and that I am home, home, home.

{Pictures of my kitchen, by me}

Weekender: Dolphins, Shore

When I was a child I was always thinking how tiresome it was that people would say "Look how BIG you are! Look how you've grown!" "Yes," I would think, "It is what children do." But here I am, grown, and saying such nonsense to children to whom I know better than to say such things. The trouble with loving children very much is that when you see them again and have to leave them again and they have already grown much more than you might have expected them to grow after just a few months, it is like this: "Miss Amanda, your face is very red and you are trying not to cry." "Yes." "It is because you love us." "Yesss."

But before the train home and my head up against the window, hood up (and isn't that how it should be on the train?), there were several very perfect hours spent with very perfect littles at the shore, in which I got to do almost all of the things that are really important in this world. And there were dolphins, spotted by a little in my lap. A little in my lap wrapped in a sweater and warmed by the sun.

{Image via flickr}

Balance, Eggs

A few weeks back this woman in my building said she'd finally found a good diner in our neighborhood, one where she can go with a friend late at night and grab, of all things, a plate of eggs. No bacon, no potatoes or toast, evidently. Just "a plate of eggs." I'd been brooding over the phrase, writing poems about it for two weeks when another friend mentioned that he has this diner in his neighborhood where he likes to go for a plate of eggs.

Part of me wants to introduce them to one another, but in a way I'm rather glad they aren't friends--it means each of them is having plates of eggs with more people that they would if they only had them with one another. Mostly I just want to be walking down the street and pop into a diner--you know the kind--and sit down, no matter what the time of day or night, and order a plate of eggs, though of course I would muck it up by adding toast at the very least because I love those little strawberry jams in plastic tubs. And a vice of some sort must be involved in this equation--black coffee at the very, very least--anything to balance out piles of New Yorkers ordering plates of eggs in diners all over the city and reading their papers and unfurling their napkins and leaning back, contented.

I wish you a lovely, eggful weekend indeed.

{flickr, eggs}

Minders, Madame

On the docket over the past couple of weeks:
Heaps (and heaps) about American children's lit, from puritans to Potter.

Silly old Emma.

This recommendation from sweet Laura caused me to stay up all night reading under the covers with a flashlight. It's like The Most Dangerous Game. With teens.*


*A good idea: Maybe New York could instate its own version of the Hunger Games, giving its youth something to DO besides be disgusting on subways?**
**I do not think you would think I was mean if you saw the things they are doing to one another down there.

Weekender: Magic, Dust

Maybe it was on account of finally finding summer clothes to wear in NYC that are not too cumbersome and not too nakie, or because of the sun being out for reals, or because of the new parasol. Maybe it was having a day off and getting to Do Whatever I Wanted or maybe it was just being in a new place for the fourth of July, but I will tell you that I felt free, free, free.

There was a trip to my favorite book store, where I found a used copy of Peter Pan. There was a colorful and crowded beach, and a nap. There were the bright things: fireworks over the Hudson--fireworks which are my favorite thing in all the world, made of fireflies and magic and dust. And there was getting up at dawn to wait in line for Twelfth Night tickets with good coffee and Madame Bovary and getting the tickets after being wriggly with hope, and wearing a lovely dress and drinking prosecco and falling out of hate and into love with Anne Hathaway. And there were fireflies everywhere, dusting everything with light.

{Shimmers, flickr.}

Ice Cream, 'Splosions

I wish you the kind of lovely that can only be found on a long weekend around the fourth of July. I wish you lemonade, ice cream, barbeque and pie, and the kind of 'splosions that fill you, full you with awe.


{Ice cream images from Sweet Paul. Via Say Yes to Hoboken.}