Category Archives: General

“It’s so much friendlier with two.” ~ A.A. Milne

#TinyThreads

At first glance I thought these blooms were from a plum tree – the dark red foliage bordering on violet, and the small white bursts of petals – but then I thought about this tree in the fall. It has tiny little fruits that most closely resemble a cherry, so I’m thinking it’s a cherry after all. However, the title of the post is too fun to change now. We are all a little plum crazy at this time of the year. 

Located near the downtown Albany post office, this flowering fruit tree (whatever pit fruit it may be) is a happy sight after such a long drawn-out winter. It makes walking the downtown area so much more joyful. Say what you will, Albany has its pockets of beauty if you know where to look, and when. Spring is one of those whens. Downtown can be too. After living in this area for most of my adult life, I find happiness in embracing beauty where I find it.

I also love sending letters in the real mail, and that’s what a post office is for. (They’re also good for keeping cool in the summer. Post offices and banks have the best air conditioning anywhere. Keep it in mind when the days get unbearable come July.)

All these tangents… like some impossible algebra problem. See, I knew the title of this post would work. Even if it had to be forced. Even if I should have stopped writing long ago.

Enjoy the flowers.

Enjoy the fun.

Enjoy the crazy, whether it be plum or cherry.

I warned you.

No one wanted to believe.

Now it’s too late.

{Shout-out to Carl for the heads-up on this one.}

This dumb-ass meme has been making the rounds for the last fucking week. Second perhaps only to the ‘May the Fourth be with you’ bullshit thatâ’s right around the fucking corner as far as annoyance and ubiquity goes, it stands as testament to ‘NSync and a young Justin Timberlake before he grew into naked hunkdom. I’m just over the whole meme thing, but any reason to post a link to a nude Justin Timberlake can’t be all bad.

These glorious magnolia blooms come from a species I’ve long admired. The neighbors down the street had an immense magnolia tree in their shaded backyard. If you followed the woods behind our house far enough, you would come to a bank which led up to the back of their yard. In the spring, through curtains of chartreuse foliage on yews and similar landscaping shrubs, one could spy the glorious, if brief, flowering of the magnolia. It took center stage for just a few days. The warmer it was, the sooner the show would be over. Some years I missed it completely.

Their sweet scent carried on the wind, though I cannot say that is what drew me to the yard. Mostly I happened there by chance, and out of the corner of my eye I caught their show. Keeping careful watch on the windows of the house, I’d steal across the year, quickly pick up one or two fallen blooms, and scoot away holding the delicious blossom up to my nose while inhaling the delicate perfume.

Their one major drawback is their messiness ~ the blooms drop and quickly decay, leaving a mushy mess that must be dealt with, usually right after the initial clean-up of a yard takes place. Their thick leaves are also the kind that don’t degrade with any efficiency. Better to admire these from a distance, and I do.

There are varieties that bloom in shades of yellow during the summer ~ the tulip magnolia is one I believe~ and I’ve thought of finding a place for one of these. They seem more exotic, the blooms coming so far after the initial flush of blossoms. One of these grows in Boston, and I seek out its flowers in the high heat of summer, pretending I’m a Southern lady gasping for a mint julep or a charged adult glass of sweet tea.

We’ve been back from Savannah for a few weeks now, but the recollections of that fabulous trip were just posted, so this post rides on those Southern coattails until some of that sun works its way back north. On with the recap…

It began with politics. My apologies. 

Boston bloomed, and will again. 

Approaching April showers.

Our Easter family dinner. 

Our Savannah chronicles in one recap. 

These Tiny Threads…

The shirtless men in black & white.

Hunks of the Day included Janjep Carlos, Anthony Joshua, Pete Buttigieg, Nick Viall, Tommy Hatto, 

This says it all. 

[Find my incendiary political side on Twitter.]

#Resist 

The high Catholic holidays are now behind us, which can only mean the happy transition from spring to summer is well in progress. The temps have finally agreed to go along with our mind-set, and yesterday Andy and I put away the pool cover for the summer season. A happy moment indeed. On with the recap for the past week – photos from our family Easter Sunday gathering coming in a few days, along with a Savannah recap, so come on back soon…

For once, let’s begin with the Hunks of the Day, which included Zachary Levi, Dan Carter, Maluma, Matthew Noszka, Lil Dicky, and Francisco Alvarado.

Let’s follow that line-up with the #TinyThreads feature.

Madame X will see you now.

A gin fit for the summer season.

The new Madonna song (and surprise, I love it). 

The boy I never wanted to be.

Might Louis Vuitton be the scent of the summer?

Don’t joke about Good Friday, they said.

Or Holy Saturday.

Or Easter Fucking Sunday.

Easter libations to carry you through the whole of spring. 

I will never understand the unabashed joy that comes from seeing my unabashed terror in this childhood Easter Bunny photo, but it runs deep and wide, and this is a perennial favorite at Easter time.

As young as I was, I distinctly remember waiting in line at Mohawk Mall to see this horrifying creature. I remember being scared out of my mind. Hopefully I had a diaper on too. For many years thereafter, I steered clear from the bunnies that began appearing in malls every spring. I’ve conquered that fear, but such residual terror always runs the risk of being resurrected when one least expects it. I found myself coming down the escalator at Crossgates Mall a couple of weeks ago, deposited right in the sightline of a friendly rabbit. I dodged and swerved and kept a wide berth. No sense in tempting fate to repeat such terror. Even if this one had a friendly face and was totally lacking in a tulle tutu around his neck.

Happy Easter y’all.

The purgatorial period between Good Friday and Easter was always one of suspense and tension in my childhood home. The kids among us were usually just thrilled to be on Easter recess, but in the oppressively-Catholic atmosphere of our house, the apparent death of Jesus and the impending resurrection left us in a state of limbo. Even when our favorite Uncle would visit, there was a halting aspect to our celebration, the way death hangs over everything when it touches us.

The weather being so volatile and variable at this time of the year, and the date of Easter always switching from early to late to everything in-between, also wreaked havoc with one set of scenes or circumstances. We’d vacillate between days outside in mud and rain, to days inside with snow and sleet, to days outside in sun and splendor, to days inside in peaceful slumber. Sometimes there would be violets already in bloom, other times there would be snow on the ravaged tips of barely-rising daffodils. Everything seemed to be in a suspended state of indecision.

So it is on this Saturday, as we wait in joyful hope of His coming, an eternal reminder and symbol of returning hope, the way spring always comes back, the way summer follows suit. Amen and Halleluh!

Come on. 

It’s funny.

Happy Nailing!

Happy Good Friday!!!

“He wanted, as did I, to become something he’d neither yet seen nor dreamed of, something he’d recognize the moment he saw it: himself. Yet he was constantly confounded, for no matter how much he adorned himself with scarves and jewelry, he could not understand that this was himself, as was also and at the same time the boy in overalls and Keds. He was split in two pieces – as who was not?- the blond wave cresting rigidly about his close cropped- hair.” ~ Richard McCann, ‘Mother of Sorrows’

Engaging with a recent bout of nostalgia, and embracing all that we were, I find myself taking a brief sojourn back in time to when we were young. Writers such as Richard McCann, who wrote the featured quote above, are much more adept at evoking such memories. I can only approximate what it was like, what I was feeling, and mostly it only resonates with me. Still, most of our memories convey similar wistfulness and longing, and perhaps you can relate to reaching an age where you have just as much to look back on as you do to look forward to. I hate ending a sentence with a preposition, but sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. Like looking back. Now I’ve gone and muddled the day before it’s even begun. That’s what revisiting the past can do.

Parting the palms: it’s the day after Palm Sunday and high Holy Week is upon us. May this one be higher than the Empire State. It’s also a rainy Monday, which makes moving into this week extra fun. On with the recap…

Cody Christian went shirtless.

The thread of threads continued.

Tom Ford to the extreme.

The staggering beauty of Diana Vreeland.

Mad Men Zen.

From a writer who knows Dick.

Our Broadway Weekend with Mother has been finalized. 

Recalling the vintage (and my old goatee).

Returning to the scene of my crime. 

Shirtless miscellany.

Hunks of the Day included Garðar Thór Cortes, Toby Levins, and Gideon Glick.