Category Archives: General

After months (years?) of hemming and hawing, hearing persuasive arguments made by friends mostly for it, and a final inspirational shove by Madonna, I’ve succumbed to joining Instagram (because what I really need is another social media time-consumer). Luckily, while my time online may seem voluminous, it is deceptively so. I make a decent number of FaceBook posts and Tweets (and now, perhaps, Instagram shots), but they literally take a few seconds, then I’m off. An hour later I’ll check and do the same, and then I’m off again. Those who get distracted by games and a zillion other apps may find their time eaten up in such a manner, but I’ve been lucky enough to stay relatively focused and break away from the internet whenever necessary. Like when there are gardening chores to be done ~ an unruly viburnum to be pruned, a Japanese umbrella pine to be transplanted, and potted annuals to be fed. To that end, I’m heading into the yard. Pics on Instagram to follow…

It was a week largely dominated by reminiscing over Ogunquit – here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

There was a yellow raincoat.

There was music – thanks to Tori Amos and the Muppets.

And there were hunks, notably a Speedo-clad gay-playing Matt Damon, a not-from-Silver-Spoons Ricky Schroeder, and perennial favorite Tom Daley. (Oh, and I showed off my ass too, just to be fair.)

As we ease into the summer season – and the 90 degree weather – there’s not much to be done but swimming and pruning and manscaping. Follow Tom Daley’s lead.

This furry creature was found as I made my way to a secret garden path. Based on its small size, it looked like a young squirrel, not yet skittish around humans, as it posed happily and patiently for these photos. I walked along further, and found this feather – another sign that I was on the right road. The universe has always erected such sign-posts; they’re there if you pause and observe what’s around you. It’s so easily, and quickly, lost in the daily machinations of living, the distractions of everything that doesn’t really matter, and I’m the first one to follow the flash of a falling feather. In cases like this, though, that’s exactly what I should have done.

It’s not usually my style to favor function over form. Quite the opposite. (Platform shoes, corsets and capes aren’t exactly geared toward survival.) But once in a while, like on a rainy day in Maine, one must give up the fashion ghost, and don a bright yellow parka to make it through the wilderness. (Though if you ask me, I still think this rain slicker has a certain style to it. I got it from Sault last year, on an overcast day’s whim.)

It’s been a rather uneventful week on the website – most of my attention has been elsewhere (outside in the garden, and up here in Ogunquit, Maine) so I haven’t had the usual focus and clarity that the elegance and sophistication of this site normally inspires. Hey, it’s the unofficial start of summer, so don’t expect that fancy shit until September. If past history is any indication, all you’ll be getting is pool shots and party promos for the next few months. But I can still put on a show, and here are a few of the highlights from the past week:

If you want to get a sniff of sexy Renaissance man, go-go dancer, model, designer, and now fragrance guru Matthew Camp, as well as own the claim to having 8.5, here’s your chance.

Proof that most of the action happened outside this week, a pair of posts clearly shows that I can still climb a tree and scrape my knee, while simultaneously causing mischief in the pool.

Artist Paul Richmond released his updated work ‘Noah’s Gay Wedding Cruise‘ and planned to board a bus full of love, headed straight for the steps of the Supreme Court.

Absent from Albany, Andy and I made our usual trip to Ogunquit, Maine for an extra-long Memorial Day weekend.

Upon seeing ‘Star Trek: Into the Darkness’ (my first brush with Star Trek ever), I became a Cumberbitch thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch. There was also some hunky competition for my bitchdom, with the shirtless likes of male model and actor Derek Theler.

The Madonna Timeline got all personal and up in my childhood business thanks to ‘Papa Don’t Preach.’

And finally, in the night, spring gave some hints of the summer to come.

A spring night, hurtling all-too-quickly toward the start of summer. The leaves have just begun to fill in the barren branches of winter, the pots newly planted and looking a little sparse. It is always that way in the beginning. The artificial light casts an eerie glow to the surroundings, warmer than the moon, but also more sickly. It is the pallor of another world, the shading of a different brush. Tell-tale signs of the day remain: the patio furniture slightly askew, the overturned wheelbarrow, the hose running through the yard like an endless snake.

A coral bark maple tree leaves streaks of crimson across the black firmament, echoing the dull blood of a brick wall, highlighting the golden beauty of its first flush of foliage. What arrogance, what cockiness, what rightful-pride-of-place it takes in its corner location, both anchoring and softening the end of the house. Its prettiness doesn’t shout like the yapping yellow jonquils or the tweeked-out tittering tulips – it rises quietly above that, into the night sky, reaching for loftier aims, higher goals.

In its silent stance, it is elegance in tree form. In this strange light, it shines forth other-worldly beauty, reflecting its own star-shaped-leaf-light. Red limbs provide structure like bloody bones, their almost-alien form ribbed by the scars of lost branches, illuminated in the glow of such absurd light.

The night wind begins up above. The song of spring is high at hand. The rush of life-giving rain awaits its cue.

On this night, all is hope, all is possibility, all is set… for the summer.

By the time I worked up the courage to venture out on a literal limb and begin pruning the cherry tree that had gone unattended for about three years too long, I neglected to factor in where the pruned branches might fall. My initial concern was the plants below, but once I got up there I was too scared to really worry about anything other than a power line and my own precarious balance. So this is one of the end results: a little tree in our pool. Along with a single felled peony branch, and a number of scratches on my arm, I think we all turned out rather well, especially when one considers the alternative: decimated peony plants, broken bones, and torn pool liners.

As often happens only when I reach the top of a twenty-foot ladder or the upper-limbs of a cherry tree, I was reminded of my fear of falling this weekend as I pruned the bejesus out of the tree seen here. (It was much higher than it appears, I swear.) It’s actually not so much the fear of heights that bothers me, it’s the fact that while doing things like painting or pruning, there is less of an opportunity to stabilize yourself when having to reach for things, or maneuver a long pair of pruning shears. That stability, or lack-there-of, is what sets my mind into overdrive imagining scenarios of losing my footing and falling, of a ladder buckling or a branch breaking beneath my feet. At that point, my legs start shaking, a panic sets in, and I cling to whatever is closest on hand for some grip on anything that won’t topple to the ground with me.

I haven’t climbed a tree like this in about two decades, and aside from the onerous sawing and pruning involved, it was actually pretty fun. While I don’t see myself climbing trees again anytime soon, it was nice to remember how to place my feet, navigate the climb upward, all with an eye on the journey back down. I used to climb the maple trees in front of our home when I was little, as soon as I was tall enough to jump into their lower boughs, as well as a sky-high evergreen that had perfectly-placed limbs like a magical spiral staircase, waiting to bring me heavenward. The bird’s eye view was exhilarating, and I don’t remember the fear that so quickly gripped me this time around. Like so many things, that fear is one of the atrocities of growing old, but I’ll fight against it in ways that don’t involve the possibility of a thirty foot plunge to earth.

Curious thing, my feelings on rain. Initially, and upon first storm, I carry on and flail wildly against it, ranting and raving like a water-allergic maniac. I throw a fit and a tantrum and bring the world down around me. Then it’s over. And if the rain persists, I come to appreciate it, almost embracing its calming effect on the world, how it can be a source of succor in a dry, arid dustbowl of a spring or summer. Once I become accustomed to it for a few days, I can make my peace, give it a nod, and walk side by side with it, umbrella and Burberry in hand. Anyway, onto the week in review, which was largely a sunny one.

The scent of spring 2013 was found in a little orange bag on Boylston Street.

A quiet little project continues its under-the-radar flight.

The beauty of art and friendship in a single piece of pottery.

A big fat Super Why? Well, why not…

Cocktail time: The Aviation, and a lemon twist on the classic gin & tonic.

Greenery provided by the following: the ostrich fern and sweet woodruff.

I was slightly obsessed with Anne Murray. Could I have this dance? 

The lusty month of May continued to provide interesting fodder for the Hunk of the Day, with the smorgasbord-like collection of Ryan Seacrest, naked Superman Henry Cavill, and Tom Hopper, buffered by a retiring David Beckham.

This little guy or gal was caught digging in my hydrangeas outside the bedroom window. I knocked on the pane loudly to scare him/her off, to no avail. In fact, the bold beast turned around and promptly lifted its tufted butt and shook it brazenly in my direction. I opened the window and hissed, and it climbed to the top of the fence post and stared me down. Cheeky thing. My hat is tipped to any creature with the balls to defy me in my own bedroom.

That’s one saucy squirrel.

Andy makes his gin and tonics using Dorothy Parker gin, Fevertree tonic, and a slice of lemon. Personally, I’m not that picky, as long as it’s a double, but I’ve come around to his style, and the last time we were in Boston I had some Fevertree on hand, and a bottle of Plymouth (which will do in a pinch) so he whipped one up for me. It’s a refreshing change of pace to have someone else make a cocktail, and I savored this one as hints of summer started making their appearance.

It began with the cries of a hawk in the pines across the street from our home. High up in the lofty boughs, the sounds brought back the early summer of last year, and all its requisite drama. I wasn’t quite ready for it. Let’s enjoy a slow spring, I thought, even if it meant a few frost warnings past the supposed-frost-free date. Ghosts of previous sunny days also came back, seemingly out of nowhere. I was in a store studying a woman who looked familiar, trying to figure out if she was someone I once worked with, when I finally realized that she was one of the security guards at the courthouse where I had jury duty. The memories of that trial – almost a year ago – came back in disturbing fragments – things I thought I had buried long ago. Still there, still smoldering. How many memories do we carry that threaten to bring us down should they be jarred into view again?

There is a new season at hand, however. And like Mrs. Peacock I am determined to enjoy myself, threatening hawks and resurfacing memories be damned.

It was a week for the romantic at heart. Our third wedding anniversary was marked by a return to Boston. The city was in full bloom, like the cherries we left behind here, here, and here. It was also a good time to see the city at night, with some friends old and new.

Continuing the romantic theme, it was a week dominated by the film version of ‘The Great Gatsby‘ (and why I loved the book so much), also marked by a shift in perspective, in the best way that great books open up to us long after we think we know them.

Madonna once again conquered and reigned at the Met Gala.

What would FaceBook have looked like in the 1990’s? Or, more accurately, how badly would I have embarrassed myself then?

The gardens were springing into full-effect, thanks to the Judas tree, and some pretty pastels.

Hunks were in short supply, but his turn in ‘The Great Gatsby’ put Leonardo DiCaprio on the map, and a few new shirtless photos of Zac Efron made up for missing eye candy.

We closed the week with a pair of Mother’s Day posts here and here (and a tulip memory for good measure.)

Our once-pristine freezer in Boston now reeks of beer – and broken glass – thanks to a forgotten bottle of Amstel Light, courtesy of my brother’s last visit. I’m the first to admit that I can be insanely anal about things being kept neat and tidy in the condo. It’s in my Virgo nature to be so meticulous and careful and clean. In the past, perhaps I’ve been too militant about it (though not without reason – broken glass and lost keys are more dangerous than minor annoyances).

Yet even the most easy-going among us have to take issue with shit like this. We’re not in college anymore. We’re in our mid-to-late thirties. As much as I enjoy a cocktail, I don’t do this sort of nonsense. I don’t get thrown out of bars for having too much. I don’t pass out in bathtubs and almost drown. I don’t lose keys and have to call the police to break in. And yet somehow I get saddled with the bad rep.

Oh well. I’m used to it. It’s more comical at this point, and my friends can only laugh with slight incredulity when they hear of things like this over and over and over again. At this point it’s better dealt with using a shrug than a shout or other carrying-on. Sometimes it’s easier to just walk away. It’s taken me almost four decades to learn that. Maybe it’s the mark of finally growing the fuck up and letting things go.