got you covered

Camilla helps with an upholstery project and displays the finished project. Note to KK: Do you recognize this chair?

oh oh!

. . .own toys, own bed, own home! As for me, now there's the shopping before getting to own other homes on Block Island. Must make ferry reservations.

home again

It seems that we miss the flavor of Mexico already, so we stopped at an awesome taco truck in New Haven (you can read about it on Yelp) to stock up and ate in the Ikea parking lot while I ran in to buy four $10 duvet covers. Passed up the Swedish meatballs: The multicultural USA. Gotta love it. And we got giants.

back in nyc

When you're out on the street, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!

Got your passport?

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in the garden

Today is for last minute purchases, more quesedillas and a last hit of sunshine. Manana is for an hour-long taxi ride, two flights, another taxi ride and home. . .

la noche

Despite the musica and the chimes and the firecrackers that enliven the night (all night!) in San Miguel de Allende, my dreams are of Block Island and all that needs to be done there. In my dreams I have another house in a different part of the island that I keep forgetting to pay taxes on and book. What a relief to wake up and remember I only have two . . .

traveling shoes

As long as Mama's close by and there's plenty of hot sauce, avocado and vegetable matter available, travel is just fine with the younger set. At the hotel (above) or a sidewalk cafe, she finds plenty to amuse her—birds, dogs, babies and sometimes, in desperation, electronic devices.

la gruta

About 15 minutes out of town there are hot springs, with several pools, the hottest of which is in a beautiful grotto inside a hill. The cave is the kind of place that, if I were a little more woo-woo, I could imagine having some kind of rebirthing or yogic experience. But I'm not, so it was just kind of solemn and womblike, being, fortunately, too early in the day for the tourist bus posses.

At the nursery

Actually, the above is the picture I was making when our party wandered through.


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and, oh, the food!

The Tuesday mercado was a sore temptation for gringo digestive tracts with Mexican tastes. We are being extra careful because of la pequena, but the market food was calling to us—not to mention the vendors. One vendor called to us because, after we had despairingly given up on a missing (and expensive) baby sandal, she had found it. Muchisimas gracias, senora.

not bad for 85

Getting old is scary, as we know, not only for ourselves, but for our younger relations.  It is shocking for me to realize that when I drove my mother and her household goods to Mexico from Maine 20-odd years ago she was the age I am now. It may be even worse for Hannah, who sees what's coming for me—though likely not for herself yet. She has had to do tech support for aging minds during the whole trip. But time marches on: In 20 years, Camilla will be doing tech for her!

el globo

Internet challenged

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on mesones

I like the looks of this bar. Perhaps because I can't speak Spanish and I translate it as "quitting the pain." Maybe it isn't even a bar. Quien sabe? Also there's the fact that in general females can't go into cantinas in Mexico, so I know that if it is indeed a bar I will never see the inside of it. 

up on the roof

Probably my favorite place in San Miguel de Allende—on my mother's roof. Word: the jacaranda is coming into bloom, with the most divinely purple flowers you can imagine.
I would go on at length, but after having gotten up on the Upper White Side at 4:15 this ayem, I am too beat to do so. Lights out.

Ready for takeoff

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my apologies

Didn't post yesterday on account of there was the Weegee show I had to see before leaving town as I have to do a little story about him, then it was midtown ladies' lunch and home for the reuniting of Hannah's family of origin (ie Douglas and Hannah showed up at 98, Camilla in tow). Then there was the playground and what with one thing and another the day slipped away. As will tomorrow on the plane. Fair warning.
    If anyone has anything to say about Weegee, now's the time.

purim puss

This girl clearly did not want me taking her picture in her Queen Esther finery. I guess I'm fortunate she did not hit me with that stick.  Meanwhile, that holiday is over. Next: the green vomit holiday. Oh, bummer, I'm going to be out of town.
       However, I will be sure to reread one of my favorite personal accounts of The Real Story of St. Patrick's Day from a safe distance, and in case you're going to miss it as well, you might like to read along. Be forewarned. Some people don't find it as amusing as I do.

bloom in the spring

in the zone

At a certain age, many women discover that they are putting on unconscionable amounts of weight while eating no differently than before. That has certainly happened around this place. The only cure is to eat differently than before, and to this end Kathleen is measuring and weighing and cooking and packaging up tiny snacks. She gave up chocolate. And yes, she even cut up a pineapple. OMG!

collateral damage

Photograph by F. L. Martin

Um. Some of you may recollect the fact that a tornado touched down in Puxico, Mo., in the Bootheel. This is not a pic of tornado damage, but of the flooding damage that also occurred, when the dam at Wappapello Lake overflowed. Pix and info courtesy of Crow's Nest.

sins of the mothers

"Thank goodness my kid isn't doing what I was doing when I was 20!"
    In our early twenties, before we met, CBA was Killer Kate, dancing in a topless bar and working on a fishing boat in Alaska, and I was working in Dottie's Bar and living nude on a beach in Hawaii, taking LSD every full moon—both of us as far away from our homes as we could get and still be in the U.S. (It annoys people in Hawaii when you say, "Back in the States." Maybe in Alaska, too. I wouldn't know as it's the only one of the 50 states I've never visited.) And let's not even talk about the inappropriate boyfriends readily available in the 49th and 50th states. . .
    Then we both had daughters who, so far, have gone nowhere near as close to the edge as we did, thank fortune. And, for Camilla's sake (here with her greatgreatgreatgreat, I think, aunt Claudia Glenn), let's hope bad behavior doesn't skip generations.

unseasonably warm

The tigers were out at the zoo, and so were the snowdrops. And the daffodils. Hoping that it doesn't get too cold again as I'm planning to open Block Island early this year.
     Meanwhile,  the temps have been just as unpredictable in the Ozarks. Herewith a report:
    "Yesterday it was 65 and sunny. I got some welding done. I was repairing a four-foot harrow that had been lying around in the junk pile. So I'm cutting with a wheel on my grinder and start smelling something burning.  First it was my welding glove, then I saw my pants were on fire over my left pocket where the sparks had been hitting. I couldn't get my pants off over my boots, so I doused my pants with water!  What a hoot!
  "Today the wind is blowing from the north, and it's 35 but feels like ZERO! It's too windy and cold to mess much outside other than feed the cows, water the greenhouse and see what plants are peeking out of the ground."

snake pit

Many years ago, when my father was the boss of the reptile house, I used to run free at the Bronx Zoo, with tickets to all the rides and free meals. The zoo seemed much smaller when I went there with the grandbaby—like a college campus after graduation. Maybe it was the adult knowledge that it is bounded by the city. And, of course, most of the exhibits have changed. No bars, just glass. An emphasis on ecosystems. I don't know about the reptile house, though: It was closed. Looks the same from the outside.

weekly roundup

. . . and then the site crashed. Metallica strings were a hit—well, lots of hits—until the heavy traffic pushed by Facebook and such sites as this heavy metal one brought down the Wear Your  Music website.
      In other Woonsocket news, how about http://providence.craigslist.org/reb/2881055507.html    for 145K?
      From Taiwan, a review of Chien-Chi's show.
      And from the web a mostly accurate account of my secondary career as Elaine's guest speaker at Lehman College. . .
       Oh, and I made reservations to get four generations of females in one place: Mexico.

tenses

It's best to have no regrets—you can't make alterations in the past. But you still got options! Ready for a change?

news from all over

Photograph by Christopher Garrison

Perhaps you've already seen this, but it's too good not to share again. In other Woonsocket news, Hannah appears in this month's Providence Monthly, and Woonsocket stars as Home of Derelicts on Oprah.
      Meanwhile, in Missouri, a tornado blew through with damage to Branson and a dead tree uprooted at Frank and Dianne's place.  "We did have a big blow (even went to the basement), but no tornado, reports Dianne.  "Branson got clobbered as did Puxico, Mo.  I talked to our trainer who lives near Puxico, and she said they found one man in a field a couple of miles from his home.  Remarkably, he was alive."  Meanwhile, Frank was on Journalist Alert. "I sat with my three radios, three flashlights, two sets of car keys, two cameras and two packages of peanut butter crackers. I was preparing to cover my part of a tornado." He had the classic journalists' response to the local false alarm: "Bummer."