nueva casa

I think I found my first new home purchase:



It's the 'Before Dawn curtain' by Tord Boontje. It's actually been around for a couple of years, so it's not exactly cutting edge design. But...we will have a living room window that looks right out onto the sidewalk. I'd like to have this as sort of a first line of window defense - both to help keep people from seeing in quite as well if other curtains are open, and to help keep the exterior looking nice by diffusing the look of the 'other side' of whatever curtains we go with. (Does that make any sense?)

Dayna's comment on my cherry blossom pie picture has inspired me to wax poetic about something near and dear to my heart...

the porte-couteau.




Simply translated as 'knife rest', it's an idea whose time has...well, never left, really. An outrageously simple little device that is placed traditionally by the upper right hand quadrant of the plate until it is called into service during your meal.



And then - you rest your knife on it. That's all. But it works beautifully. No soiling the tablecloth. No precarious teetering of knife on edge of plate.



One more functional, yet decorative element. One more thing to love.

As an aside: they're not the easiest things to find. You can look for them under knife/chopstick rests, too. Ebay France seems like a good place to find antique versions, usually of the cut glass or animal-shaped variety.

bowl of cherries

I thought my cherry blossom bowl was a fitting vessel for said cherry DDP.

a most dangerous pie.

First cherry pie of the season.

It's a beautiful thing. And by beautiful, I mean tasty.

Totally worth the traffic-battling drive to Federal Hill.

Phd comics....hits a little close to home.

I sent off my Father's Day package Priority Mail, with plenty of time to get to its destination.

It contained:

One card, carefully selected. It's hard to find ones that have just the right sentiment - respectful without the 'you're the best dad ever!' fawning - because he wasn't. Fifties-style fathering - grades, chores, done.

And two pairs of SmartWool socks (Standard Hiking variety, muted gray color preferred), because I know he likes them. And he doesn't like too many things. Especially if they're things I'm interested in. We don't seem to have too much to talk about. The overlapping bits of our particular Venn diagram contain very little right now, save high quality socks.

This is what I can tell you.

My father has blue-gray eyes. Summers growing up were spent with his grandmother, who had a vegetable garden that was the stuff of legend. He had a pet raven and a pet rat. The rat's name was Squeaky. He was very handsome when he was younger - a Harrison Ford lookalike. He signed up to fight in a war. He bought his parents a house, even though he was a mere construction engineer to everyone else's loftier careers. He won a lot of sharpshooting contests. He sold his motorcycle when my mom got pregnant. He saved every one of the handmade cards I made him as a kid. He has cried only a few times: when his father died, when his brother died, and when our German Shepherds died. When he worked on the Big Dig, he saved all the old bottles from Bostons past, instead of just letting them get crushed beneath the heavy equipment. He enjoys building things. So far there is a complex irrigation system to keep the basement from flooding, a brick-floored sunroom, an inground pool, and now a giant garage to house all of his many toys. He is more outgoing to and forgiving of strangers than his family. We haven't spoken in months.

Who is my father, and how can I not really know much more than this, after 26 years?

Well, there's one more thing...

he likes good socks.

t minus 31 days

Looked at a seemingly endless rainbow of paints (Ben Moore) today.

There is something about those paint chips that conveys limitless possibility.

Left the paint store with samples of: November Rain, Revere Pewter, Driftwood, Kingsport Gray, Dusk to Dawn and Buxton Blue. They may not all work, I realize. It's just a start.

I also fell hard for Iced Marble, Smoke Embers, and surprisingly, Galapagos Turquoise.

My current place is full of bright, warm colors....deep gold, tomato red, apple green. They've served their purpose well - gave a cheerful, lived in air that comforted a distressed Boston transplant. I remember the first time I walked into this house, I instantly knew I wasnted to live here. It felt like home then, and I wish it still did. But extenuating circumstances have interfered with that. Given the situation, it's most definitely time for a change.

I'd like to switch to dark, sophisticated shades. A new palette, for a new phase in my life.

To my Valentine

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,
That's how you're loved by me.

-Ogden Nash

Happy Birthday, Mr. D.

I recently took D. to DiPasquales, where he enjoyed a meatball sub that came with a warning...."BE PREPARED."




Italians. More than a little insane about their food.

conversational snippet

"Is your tatoo in Times New Roman?"

The answer was yes.

This is stunning - 500 years of women in western art.

Thank you, S.

May 2007 - the books.

An Italian Affair, L. Fraser
The Virgin Suicides, J. Eugenides
Auntie Mame, P. Dennis
Until I Find You, J. Irving
The Things They Carried, T. O'Brien
Wild Thoughts from Wild Places, D. Quammen*

Did not originally care for it, but I finally picked the Irving book back up. It gets somewhat better after the protagonist's uh, formative years. Still, I'm glad to be done with it.

I liked The Things They Carried. I don't know much about Vietnam, except for my dad's experience, and he was an outlier. (He SIGNED UP for it, then got shipped off to Europe, and hunted rabbits destined for dinners as a way to get in some target practice. Not the same.) I felt that I would have gone through similar emotions, had I been in O'Brien's shoes. And he does put you right there in the action. The other things I read were on the fluffier side, so this brought some gravity to the month's reading.

My favorite book this month was the Quammen book - it's more like a collection of essays a la Stephen Jay Gould. I had already read Monster of God, so I knew his style. It appeals to the hidden National Geographic photographer inside me.