Slant of Light

I looked for light all day, but the sun stubbornly hid, the sky was gray. It drizzled and drazzled. I picked Isaac up early at The Learning Shack and we went book shopping--and it was at Yes Books that I finally spotted it.

After, there was a doctor's appointment (the pediatrician's waiting room is...funny when your very youngest baby is going on 18 years old), falafel, and a lovely chat with my boy before I dropped him off at Blunt for tonight's show.

My Thrifty Friends

I am a thrift shop enthusiast in theory, but I tend to have bad luck and/or am so horribly indecisive that I run, screaming (in my head) from the shop, with nothing to show for my careful shopping.

Observe, however, what some friends have found in their recent travels through church sales, grocery store book bins, and thrift shops.

The Greengage Summer, found by Emily in the aforementioned "grocery store book bin." Who knew there was such a thing? She loaned me this book, and it was wonderful.

Emily is the best thrift shopper I know, by the way. She has a knack for finding really, really good stuff. If she's wearing an adorable cashmere sweater, for example, she undoubtedly found it at Goodwill.

David M, who has lavished so many beautiful antique/weird books on us over the years, is another ace finder. And usually, he just finds things in random places (the basement of his building, for example). This vintage Parcheesi game, however, he purchased at a church sale in Lovell, Maine.

And my very own Mark found these paintings, below, at our local Goodwill store. And not only did he find them, he actually purchased them. And hung them upon the wall. And they are sad clowns, friends. If you come and have a sleepover at our house, you will most likely get to fall asleep with these guys being sad right beside you. Lucky, lucky you!

Holly's House

I had the best weekend. A while back, I basically invited Emily and myself to Holly's house--I said, "whatever weekend works for you!" And my sweet sweet Holly welcomed us into her home, fed us, drove us around Connecticut, shared her family with us, told good stories, listened to our stories.

The drive was so quick. Emily and I talked the whole time, fueled by iced coffee and salty snacks. Above, please admire Emily's travel skirt. Although it has a pleated bustle in the back, and although I did actually take a picture of her butt without her permission, I hesitate to share it here. See what a good friend I am?

Holly cooked delicious food for us. She likes to disparage her own cooking, but I love to be fed by her. The cherry tomato and mozzarella salad above also had roasted Brussels sprouts in it. And below, behold her homemade granola, all fruited and yogurted, which was sublime.

Holly's kids are two of my very favorite people in the world. Here's Maia demonstrating how alarmingly large their kittens have grown. These cats are enormous (not fat, just large), and so loving and sweet. Also, they kind of look like they were drawn by Edward Gorey.

The three of us started our Saturday at Ikea, shopping and snacking, moving at exactly the same pace--ideal Ikea companions. I bought some perfect-colored bowls. By perfect-colored, I mean Melissa Crowe blue.

After filling Holly's trunk with Ikea loot, we walked around New Haven, browsing in bookstores and shops, drinking coffee, talking and talking. We stayed for dinner at Red Lentil, which was pretty great despite our waitress, who awkwardly made disparaging comments about meat eaters to my two meat eating friends. For example, "Are your kids probably at home eating pizza rolls?" Also, she called us "girls" about seven hundred times, and after neglecting us for a long time and seeing our water glasses empty, said, "Are you dehydrated? OH, I SUCK!" But the food more than made up for it.

Besides our outing on Saturday, we spent hours sitting right here at Holly's kitchen table. Emily crocheted (see above to be really amazed and a little jealous), the cats wrestled. I didn't ever want to leave.

seven

i saw this yesterday at target: camouflaged among the bottles of mouthwash was this method brand refreshing body wash. mint flavor. which caused me to speculate thusly:

*organizing things by scent
*organizing things by color
*deliberate prank by a mutinous target employee
*deliberate prank by a jocular customer
*accidental placement by an overworked, underpaid, red polo shirt-wearing target employee

it rained and then the sun came out

last night i picked the boy up from his boat in the pouring rain, and then i bought him a couple of slices of otto pizza (he was starving), and then he and mark and i walked the wettest art walk i've ever participated in.

megan had a show at whitney art works, where i snapped these marlowe-isaac photos. isaac looks pretty good for a kid who hasn't taken a shower in a week.

completely unrelated to the above, zoë and i scored five of these rooster glasses at goodwill. drinking glasses are something i have no need of, as i have an extensive collection of pickle and jam jars filling my cabinets. but roosters!

you, me

my very favorite form of virtual winter window shopping is browsing etsy for wonderful things and marking them as favorites. then i like to procrastinate by browsing again through the amazing things in my list (though i have to admit i am not much of an actual money-spending-type shopper). looking at my favorites, it's clear that i'm a sucker for certain bears, birds, rabbits, dogs, and deer. also gorgeous photographs of summery scenes (now, anyway -- let's see what happens in the summertime). also maps, silver, people with animal heads, and lovely pieces of art and jewelry made by people i know.

today, i am liking this letterpress card, a bold and unsentimental valentine's day message. actually, everything bread + butter makes is pretty cool.

please please please

how cute are these cross stitched smiths lyrics?

decembery

trying to make the house a little christmassy without making myself crazy. mama d gave me these three wooden german trees last year, and they are still my favorite thing in the christmas box. this year, they're on the mantle in front of a young boo, adjacent to m's collection of beach stones with stripes of quartz. which reminds me, look at these -- beautiful, right?

Nine

*i am still doing this.

*i am also still doing this, but i have fallen thousands of words behind.

*thanks to the awesome shopping skillz of my friend mama d, who found me free shipping and discount codes, the red boots have been ordered and are on their way!

*i like marvin gaye and all, but don't you agree that this is the least sexy song of all time? what would you do if someone leaned into your sleeping ear and said, "wake up wake up wake up wake up because you do it right"?

*did i tell you that the dog ban didn't pass? m and i took minnow to willard beach yesterday to celebrate!

*in other minnow news, he and i now have an official song. which means i sing it to him, and he wags his tail. also, plans are in the works to have that thingy removed from his eye and his teeth cleaned.

four legs good, two legs bad

i am strongly attracted to this orwellian screenprinted card from whigby (they make a poster, too!). but who would i send it to? one of my four-legged friends, most definitely.

homemade trader joe's commercial

this video perfectly captures the essence of trader joe's. i think lisa will particularly enjoy this. by the way, it came from my bruddy, who found it on boingboing.

whirlwind trip to new york

m, boo, and i got to take a day trip to new york with my dad on saturday. it was so fun!

the windows at macy's were curiously disappointing -- the small ones had kind of a lame sparkly-red-star theme, and the big ones had moving scary-faced dolls acting out tableaux from miracle on 34th street. what's wrong with the picture below?



















COMIC SANS, THAT'S WHAT!

we did a very modest amount of christmas shopping, but the focus was on noshing. we had frites at pommes frites, and then we of course needed a really good cup of coffee, which we obtained at mud:

























they only have one size, a milky sixteen ounces:
























we saw two cats on leashes, one of which was riding upon his owner's head:
























after a long, entertaining and terrifying walk through chinatown (only momentarily -- because of the ENORMOUS fish flopping desperately in a big white bucket, and some unidentified food product that boo was sure was "elephant trunk"), we had dumplings at dumpling man, boo's favorite:
























my dad and i also had dosas at hampton chutney company (i had a really delicious chai with mine).

we shopped a bit at muji, searched in vain for trousers for boo, browsed in a good book store, peeked into kid robot and a few other places, and then took a quick tour of grand central station, which i hadn't realized that boo had never seen before:
















































this was followed by a mad dash past the (not-yet-illuminated) christmas tree at rockefeller center and then back to port authority, where we waited in line to board our bus back to boston. the ride was bumpy and uncomfortable, made interesting mostly by the fight between my seatmate and the bus driver (it involved my seatmate's cellphone), which included lots of smart-mouthed backtalk from the cellphone user, the bus driver's threat that he would "turn this bus around and take (her) back to the station," and which eventually resulted in his pulling the bus over on the shoulder and relocating the offender to the way, way back of the bus (by then she'd become somewhat meek). result=i got a seat to myself.

also interesting was the route taken by both bolt (to ny) and greyhound (to boston), which involved forays into rhode island, a drive through the bronx, and a sidetrip on the new jersey turnpike (plus voyages both across the george washington bridge and through the lincoln tunnel).

hannaford adventures

today's exciting outing to hannaford included many highs and lows. for example, in the "pro" column was the fact that i only had about six items to purchase, while in the "con" column was the fact that it is the day before thanksgiving. but the highest high was running several times into my friend lisa and two of her kids -- each time, she was laughing hysterically (good-hysterically, not crazy-hysterically). the lowest low was overhearing an elderly couple dithering over salad dressing:

woman: "it might be good..."
man: "you never even had it before, don't get it."
woman: "but..."
man: "it's too expensive, carla!"
woman: "it looks kind of good..."
man: "damn it, carla, you won't even let me save a f-ing dime!"

h&m update

to be fair, as i got closer (i did not get scared away after all, but instead i joined the line three minutes before the store opened and was rewarded with an h&m tote bag, umbrella, deck of cards, and a scratch card which won me $25 off my first purchase), it became clear that the screaming was mostly coming from the youthful h&m employees. it was packed inside. it was an h&m; smaller than an average h&m, but entirely appropriate for south portland, maine. i found the sweater i was looking for (a charcoal gray version of one i already own in navy blue), and with my scratch card i got it for a mere five dollars!

p.s. i saw several hooky-playing casco bay high students there...

squirrelly

you can buy a gentleman squirrel figurine on etsy if you want to.



















and you know what would go really nicely with that? a lady squirrel!