It hardly seems possible, but my niece and nephew turn three years old today. I still remember the slightly rainy and overcast day they came into the world, knowing that they would change our lives in the best possible ways, turning this previously-child-unfriendly chap into a doting Uncle. They continue to be a bright spot for all of us – two little points of light that enthrall my parents in ways I never could. Happy Birthday Emi and Noah!!
A disconnected moment.
A silence in the middle of the day.
A gaze of both longing and being exactly where one wants to be.
Looking out at the world is the first step in becoming brave.
A curtain.
Hanging in the window.
Disguising and hiding nothing in the light.
When what you cannot see can still be seen, what you think they cannot see still can be seen.
A watcher.
Observed observer.
Peering from a kitchen window.
Before going back to the morning, back to the start of the day, back to where it all began.
When planning the dining options for our weekend in Boston, it quickly and easily pared down to a trio of recommendations made by a number of friends – none of which we have had the pleasure of trying yet. For dinner, we’ll be checking out Cinquecento and Boston Chops, and for a brunch we’re trying the OAK Long Bar + Kitchen.
One of my greatest joys in life is going out to dinner with my husband, especially when it involves a new restaurant in Boston. I’ve heard great things about Cinquecento, and we greatly enjoyed its predecessor Rocca, so have high hopes for some continued Italian deliciousness at #500.
Cinquecento ~ Boston, MA
Andy loves a proper steakhouse, so he’ll likely be more impressed with Boston Chops. After a quick perusal of their cocktail menu I will probably be equally entertained, and as it’s created by the same powerhouse peeps behind Deuxave it’s bound to be good.
Finally, we haven’t eaten at the OAK Long Bar + Kitchen – only did one of their double martinis on a birthday years ago – and it’s since been re-done anyway so we’re due. All in all, it looks to be a weekend of fine food and fun company – just the two of us.
This year will mark the first time I’m not spending Easter with my family since 1993 I believe (Suzie will correct me if I’m wrong). Back then, she and I were spending spring break week in Disneyworld (having traveled there by train). That’s about as nightmarish as it gets for a teenager in high school, but we actually had quite a good time. (It’s where the terms ‘Red as a lobster’ and ’30-60-90′ entered our lexicon of immaturity.) I remember one of the conditions of the trip was that I attend Easter Mass, which I did, in some makeshift hotel church.
This time around, Andy and I are spending the weekend in Boston, brunching on the celebratory holiday, and dining out for a few nights prior. Sometimes it’s good to shake things up and start new traditions, or simply do something different every few years. It’s also the time of the year when Andy and I were wedding-planning a few years ago, so it’s always nice to be back in the place where it happened, making new memories together.
With Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter on deck, the triumvirate of Catholic holidays is about to begin. If you were raised as a Catholic, where attendance at church (and often service as an altar boy) was required on all these days, Easter was never a very fun weekend. In fact, with all the extensive long-winded masses, I dreaded this time of the year, especially when forced to serve complicated and different routines. How my heart wrenched at the thought of walking in front of all those people, trying to remember every new instruction the priests half-heartedly gave us, if they remembered to instruct us at all. Coupled with the rather upsetting notion of crucifixion (how strange that the violent stuff of R-rated films should be so easily and flippantly impressed upon us at such a young age), and the heady perfume of a hundred Easter lilies dancing behind the altar, it was a wonder I never passed out in the incense fumes. For a kid, however, especially a kid with a penchant for theatrics, that incense was the best and most exciting part of the proceedings.
I remember watching the priest pour the woody mixture over the lit charcoals, and the instant cloud of smoke that was conjured. He lifted the censer (or thurible), swung it before himself, and let it strike against its own chain three times. The smoke rose high into the cavernous church, stretching out over the pews. When I used to sit in the back on those lucky few times I didn’t have to serve, I would count how long it would take the scent to reach us, imagining some sacred pebble tossed into a still body of holy water, the ripples spreading ever outward before doubling back on themselves from the edge.
As much as I hated it, the church became a sanctuary at this time of year. The long stretch from the start of Lent to its culmination on Easter, and all those Fridays at the Stations of the Cross, somehow eased the transition from winter to spring. The new season slipped in during those nights, as our winter moon boots gave way to regular shoes, the snow finally melting mostly away before the arrival of Easter. On those dark evenings, the light of the church was a beacon of safety and warmth, the incense embraced us, and the candlelight glowed in our hands. There was something to the ceremony after all, some spiritual alchemy that occurred, even to a kid who somehow knew he wasn’t truly welcome there, and in that space I forged my own relationship with God. It didn’t involve smoke and lilies and Odes to Joy, it only required my two hands – folded in prayer – and my inner voice – raised in supplication, and hope, and love.
To be honest, it makes me wonder whether their parents are just trying to sabotage them. Why else would you go out of your way to teach your kids to hate like this? The photos here were taken from this rather upsetting post, where Matt Stopera asked the youngsters demonstrating against marriage equality to write down why they thought marriage should only be between one woman and one man. First things first: a little humor to lighten the situation, because that’s the best way to deal with the sort of anger I feel about this. (All captions are solely the inappropriate ramblings of my own mind.)
“One man and one women” – I think you are a little confused over the use of the singular versus the use of the plural. Get it straight – you should be good at that.
Aside from the unfortunate eye-make-up (ewww indeed – and we will never help you out with that if you don’t change your hateful ways) here is another instance of that tricky woman/women confusion. One would think that, being so staunchly against being with another woman, she would be less confused.
You know he’s on FaceBook angering everyone with this sort of misplaced-apostrophe madness.
Wait, marriage unites parents to their children? Umm, no. “Marriage is a child-centered institution, not an adult-centered one…”? Okay, that’s gross, and you are dumb.
Bitch, please. (What? She can call her Dad a ‘Queen’ but I can’t call her a bitch?)
YOLO? In your case, here’s hoping…
Oh you poor thing, it’s spelled “marriage”. And “believe” – look, you even got it right the first time!
Everyone makes mistakes.
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Now onto some slightly more serious commentary on these photos. They’re sad, disturbing, infuriating, and insulting on a number of levels. First and foremost, if you’re teaching your kids to hate like this, they’re going to have pretty miserable lives. I don’t care how much they’re smiling now, they’re in for a rough ride. Along those lines, if this is how you prepare your kids for the real world, they’re going to be in even deeper trouble. (Unless you’re going to work in a church, reciting Bible verses will get you nowhere.) But more troubling than that, an attitude of exclusion and narrow-minded thinking will set you even further back. We’re already starting to lag behind the rest of the world on this issue.
Finally, in what may be most damaging for the children here, consenting to have your picture taken with such signs will have lasting effects. These pictures are going to be their legacy. It will be a legacy of intolerance and ignorance. It will be a legacy of hate. These smiling portraits of active suppression will be their lasting contribution to the world. From this moment forward these photos will live on – in posts like this, on people’s hard drives, on FaceBook – and they will never be completely eradicated. They have cemented their status of being on the wrong side of history. Their own children may one day look with shame upon these pictures, wondering at how the mother or father they loved so much could put forth such hateful words against innocent people they never even met.
As upset as this makes me, as wrong and ignorant as it is, it won’t change my love or affect my future. It’s only going to affect theirs. That’s the saddest thing of all.
The best rebuttal ever, by the pro-marriage-equality side, when asked to write a message to those who oppose marriage equality. (I don’t even need to correct – or add – anything, and it was much classier than mine.)
Foot-loose and fancy-free.
You know who you are.
And we love you for it.
Since we don’t have any forsythia on our property, I usually force a few branches of the flowering cherry from our backyard. As it needed some major pruning this year, it proved doubly fortuitous. There’s no difficult science involved in forcing spring blooms. Once the buds swell in late winter, I trim a few, put them in a large bucket filled with water, store them in a garage overnight to slowly acclimate them to warmer temps, then bring them in and let nature take its quick-forced course. Some people advise submerging the branches entirely in water for a few hours to re-hydrate them as much as possible, but since we don’t have a bathtub that’s not an option, nor has not doing it ever impeded the blooms from opening.
It is just the thing for a late-showing spring, and since the weather remains so cold and gray, it’s a boon to the spirit. This particular cherry is a single flowered species – a much-simpler version of the flashier hot pink Kwanzan cherries that are everywhere. It is also one of the first to open, bursting into bloom as if in a race with its own fine foliage, and usually beating it. Towards the end of the blooming period, the petals take on the slightest tinge of pink, edged delicately with a darker border ~ an elegant send-off before fluttering to the ground.
This is witch hazel, one of the earliest-blooming spring shrubs. It has a delightfully sweet fragrance, and blooms on bare wood, the effect of which has always struck me as somewhat unfortunate – the blooms having to share space with brown, dead leaves, and the blossoms (already naturally shriveled on their own)Â always leaving one to wonder whether they’re still alive. Over the years, such an unforgiving stance has softened, and I’ve come to appreciate and admire the stalwart shrub, bravely putting out its perfume when there is still snow on the ground. Seen against a backdrop of blue sky, such a luxury in these earliest of spring days, the blooms are more vivid that I’ve given them credit for, and the entire impression is more effective in the sea of brown that presages the green revolution.
Armed with a new set of Marimekko bedding from Crate & Barrel, I set about to do some serious spring cleaning, starting with the hardwood floors. It’s not enough to simply sweep or Swiffer the place – that only gets the lightweight dust-balls and the top layer of dirt. You’ve got to go deep and scrub, and it takes a lot of elbow grease and, had I been wiser, knee pads. In a curious concoction that I’ve found leaves the floors both shiny and clean, I use a combination of Pine Sol and wood furniture polish, greatly diluted in a bucket of hot water. The astringent harshness of the Pine Sol seems to be balanced by the oils of the furniture polish, and the hot water makes removing stubborn stains easier (and more pleasant to use on a cold day). It’s something I devised after throwing a party or two where the kitchen floor was sticky with spilled drinks, and it works better than any other pre-fabricated cleaner I’ve found.
Starting in the bedroom, I got on my hands and knees, wiping the entire floor down, slowly making my way along the hardwood, scrubbing out what in some places seemed like years of dust and debris. A few lucky pennies were my only pay-off, until I paused and looked back over the work. The sun poured in through the bay window, and the floor was awash in the glow and shine of it all. It’s amazing what a difference it made, how much brighter the whole space appeared, and I was reminded of the movie crews that spray down the streets with water before shooting an outdoor scene. With the floors all shiny and new, I set to work on putting the new bedding on. This is a Marimekko design, “Lumimarja Celery.” The color of the branches in it works well with the wall-mounted headboard (and thank God – I made that headboard, and I do not want to make another). Luckily, there was a pair of curtains I found that continued the branch theme, so I installed those as well. When the wind whips by, that bay window is revealed to be less than air-tight, so the curtains act as a more-formidable-than-expected buffer. They also look pretty.
It is one of my favorite places to be, at one of the best times of the day, and, in the city I adore, sometimes it is enough simply to be. To stand still. To lie down. To let the first sun of spring enter and enlighten. It makes me smile.
A rollicking weekend in Boston was an incongruent blend of cleaning and partying with a couple of my favorite ladies in the world. It started off with a night at the Mandarin Oriental, and the ASID Awards Gala, where I got to mingle with some interior designers and re-connect with JoAnn and Danielle, and meet a few of their co-workers. The food was to-die-for (truffle mac-and-cheese, yes please) and with an open bar, well, I was feeling no pain.
A colorful collection of Boston-monikered trinkets called to me on the way back to the condo – a whimsical group of mugs and animals that seemed just as anxious for spring to arrive as me.
Alas, the weather would not rise above the high thirties, but the night was still pretty, and this was a weekend of preparation and spring cleaning. After a winter of salty, muddy sidewalks, the condo gets stuffed up with dust and dirt, the floors dulled by spills and who knows what else, so this was a good time to begin the clean-up. A new set of bedding was enough of an inspiration (those pics coming up a bit later.)
PS – Judging from below, apparently my brother now takes bubble baths – the thought of which I will also try to cleanse from my mind.
In spirit only, not literally. Just an image to get us through this Monday of Holy Week. Happiness is a cocktail at the Mandarin Oriental Boston. It’s also the hand soap in their bathroom.
A more detailed description of my recent weekend in Boston (with two of my favorite ladies) will have to wait, as I’ve just returned home and am a bit exhausted. I’m no longer at an age where it all bounces back quickly and easily, there is more needed to start this engine on a cold morning. For now, a quick look back at the past week on www.ALANILAGAN.com, and I’m going to have to check the Archives because I honestly can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning, much less what went on here…
It’s probably not whom I would think at first. If it was a question of a Speedo, hands down the safe money would be on Tom Daley. But if it came to underwear, I’d bet on David Beckham. This is a pleasant switch-around, with Daley donning his Calvins, and Beckham in a pair of tight trousers. I’m not sure who wears what better, so we’ll call it a British draw. It’a Sunday. I’m tired. Do the math.
