No, no, NO.
Andy shouted as I looked up from my laptop.
“A duck just landed in the pool!” he exclaimed. “Two ducks!”
Flashes to Our First Year of COVID skidded through my mind.
Other duck memories quickly followed.
This is their third visit to our pool in an apparent attempt to find a safe nesting ground.
We will deal with them accordingly. Humanely, but accordingly.
It will get done and we will not speak of it again.
Nothing beats an impromptu stop for a milkshake with your fourteeen-year-old niece, which is just what transpired on my last visit to Amsterdam. We’d both already had dinner, so when I proposed ice cream we drove around for a bit before realizing none of the little ice cream places took American Express before settling on a chain that made milkshakes (according to Emi, Five Guys did a decent job, so I was game – and Route 30 has come a long way since the days when Dunkin Donuts was the shining star of stops in Amsterdam).
We sat in the window of the shop, each of us reminiscing about Polar Freeze – an ice cream memory we both shared from our respective childhoods – and I realized we fluently spoke the same language: the frivolous, heartbreaking, all-important and all-too-nonsensical language of a teenage girl. My tongue was a bit rusty, but I quickly found the rhythm, the gravitas and the drama of it all, punctuated by a few squeals and the occasional giggle.
This was my homeland, and it was good to be back.
The tulip is not a flower or bulb for the control freak at heart. Aside from a few truly perennial varieties, the bulbs are unreliable for the long-term, often sporting off and becoming something wholly different than their original incarnation, defying those gardeners who plan and plot their colors and bloom times with precision. Happily, I have never been one those gardeners. The garden is one of the only places I allow for a certain element of chaos and unpredictability. It’s a requirement if you want to truly enjoy the lessons that a garden has to impart.
Akin to their garden performance, the tulip flower is a bit unpredictable as well, particularly in an arrangement, where their stems will bend and twist according to what feels very much like wish and whim (they don’t necessarily follow the source of light). That makes for interesting effects, especially if you are willing to go with the flow and embrace some changeability.
Personally, I love the unknowable actions of a tulip. They’ve been causing amusing trouble for centuries, and their prettiness is part of why they get away with it.
It’s not right, but it’s ok.
If all goes according to plan – and when Mercury is in retrograde motion that’s a lot to ask – this weekend may mark the meeting of new and old friends, and there’s nothing more soul-nourishing than that. Spring hasn’t been all that we wanted it to be, but we are trudging through the rainy overcast days, hoping for those promised May flowers. To make up for it, I’m sprinkling a purple theme throughout the weekend’s festivities, grounded in 80’s music featuring Prince and Madonna – with lots of lavender to bring peace and calm.
On a Friday night in April, this is how we party these days, and it’s good. A set of purple candleholders in purple glass – from my Grandmother – sets the scene, and we will drink out of matching purple glasses when the guests arrive – the past now being given a new spin to make memories for the future.
Happy Friday!
“No shaking. Shaking is just for when you finish in the men’s room.”
It may not sound like it at first reading, but that quote is actually about how to properly eat sushi. In this specific reference, it’s regarding shaking off a little bit of soy sauce from the fish: lesson learned is that you don’t shake it. But try telling that to my booty.
My friends Ann and JoAnn are due to visit us this weekend, and throughout the decades I’ve known them they have fueled whatever fabulousness I’ve ever been able to conjure. They inspire and support me in ways that have been life-saving on certain days, and life-affirming every day. Lately, they’ve forged their own friendship, and this will mark their first in-person meeting. No stranger to loss, they seem to have found comfort in being such kindred spirits, and I’m so happy to host them. It’s enough to get me (back) into black lace and a fedora, and nothing much does that these days.
Raised in the 80’s, we are taking our dearly beloved Prince and making this a Purple Reign weekend, with all the 80’s bops one would expect from the likes of Madonna, Whitney, Belinda Carlisle, Boy George, Bon Jovi, et. al. Hats and black lace are my visual nod to that formative time period, when Ann and Josie would gaze upon their Debbie Gibson posters and all felt right with the world.
We will get a little deeper on friendship and the passing of years, but for now let’s just celebrate and inhabit the joy that a promising weekend beholds. Everybody’s worked toward the weekend, and it’s finally here! Everything will work out just fine!
More than any other segment in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ – more than the sassy quips of Glinda or the wonderful Wicked Witch of the West’s glorious cackle, even more than those fabulous ruby slippers – it was the transition from the sepia world of Kansas to the color-saturated world of Oz that always thrilled me the most. It was that magical space of a doorway or portal to another place, the way every exit, and entrance, marked a moment to manifest a new beginning, that spoke to me even as a child. Starting over again is one of the hard-learned lessons of life, one that I’m still struggling to fully understand. Years ago, that used to scare me – now it gives me a little thrill, the same sort of excitement that I feel when Dorothy opens that drab door and reveals a world of vibrant color.
It’s the feeling when winter shifts incontrovertibly to spring, or when the sun, dampened by an eclipse, reappears in rekindled splendor.
Defying the challenging weather we’ve had this spring, Andy practically willed the pool open this week. We both needed to see the pretty blue water instead of an algae-coated pool cover; our summer pool season is short enough – whatever it takes to elongate that is a good thing. While no one is going swimming anytime soon (at last check water was a crisp 50 degrees Fahrenheit) it’s a happy visage now that the cover is off. Echoing the elusive blue sky that this season has only deigned to show us in short, quick bursts, the water shimmers and promises us sunnier summer days ahead. For now, we wait and watch, and slowly bring the gardens and the backyard back to life.
He’s got a body made for far more than a podcast, but thankfully there’s instagram to round out the views of John Arthur Hill, our Dazzler of the Day. Hill has made the rounds of several musicals over the years, recorded more than a few songs, and currently has his own SiriusXM show ‘The News with John Hill’. He also co-hosts ‘Andy Cohen Live‘ and has been seen behind the bar (and behind the scenes in a more professional capacity) at ‘Watch What Happens Live’. Check out his link tree here for all that’s on his horizon, including some legendary live performances coming up.
How do pencil erasers work? Such simple magic has always thrilled me.
It’s been a while since we’ve had a blue sky. All these days of gray overcast skies have left me restless and agitated, especially with so much outside work still be done. Mercury is in retrograde motion and nothing feels quite right. My mind is all over the place… difficult to focus. Wednesday posts are like that.
Who new that Leroy Anderson wrote more than Christmas music? Listen below:
The one constant is a daily meditation that grounds me for twenty minutes, quite literally, as I sink into the floor of the living room. Feeling the points where my body touches, anything to find a focus and stop the mind from spinning its destructive yarns. Outside, the sky spins too, the clouds moving like thoughts.
A sunny Tuesday afternoon, unremarkable for all but its simply spring beauty, just like these guys, passes like a swiftly-moving cloud. Prettiness is too often transitory, but pictures are forever. Here are a few gents who have been featured here before – a little spring collection of shirtless male celebrities to tickle your visual fancy.
We begin with Ricky Martin, bereft of tattoos for his acting role in ‘Palm Royale’, and here again in black briefs. What’s simple is true. Mr. Martin has been here before in dazzling, almost-naked form.
Any man with the confidence to pull off nail polish in any collegiate sport scene deserves all the accolades, and that’s why Jared McCain was featured in this post.
International football has brought Son Heung-Min to the world stage, and Suzie brought him to my attention during an ice storm, with a detour through Calvin Klein territory.
Ronan Farrow recently made a splash here in a sheer suit, earning him a Dazzler of the Day crowning – and here he is out of the jacket.
Last guy of the day, here’s Luke Evans, who just celebrated his birthday this week. He’s getting closer to his birthday suit here, and totally starkers in this post.
Sometimes the thought is enough when faced with the prospect of the aftermath.
Tom Ford, in a rare failure, once tried to capture the elusive enchantment of the almost-tangy delicate perfume of the jonquil in one of the fragrances from his garden collection, ‘Jonquille de Nuit’. I didn’t very much like any of that ill-fated line, not even ‘Cafe Rose’ which is the sole survivor of the original effort, but I admired the attempt at conjuring the essence of Narcissus. (Ford would rebound gloriously in the floral realm with his Rose Garden collection, right on the cusp of when roses were everywhere.)
This week, the real-life jonquils have come into bloom, defying the wind and rain we’ve had of late and bravely putting on their little show. As much as I’ve been gardening over the last forty years, Narcissus have not fared as well under my hands as other more difficult-to-grow specimens have. Is there irony or poetic justice in that? Or maybe just a cruel trick of the universe, a dig at my vanity – always more perceived than real – a prettiness just out of reach. Tom Ford failed at capturing the magic of their perfume; I fail at their cultivation, easy though it is rumored to be.
Leaning down, near the ground and beside the brilliant orange trumpet, I breathe in its faint perfume – and it is perhaps the freshest thing the garden will bring us this season. It would be impossible to capture or replicate such a fragrance. Maybe Ford knew that, and there’s something heartbreaking in his making the attempt. In the same way I will plant more Narcissus bulbs in the fall. We all endeavor to make more beauty.
