after party

Did you watch the Oscars last night? 

If you did, are you in it for the red carpet? The teary acceptance speeches? The old-fashioned tinsletown celebration or the cynical how-long-can-this-go-on spectacle of it?

I, myself, am partial to the gowns and the glamor. I get drawn in to the sweeping musical numbers and get a little weepy with all of the emotional thank-yous. And it's worth the hours of settling in for all of that when you catch a quick glimpse of (my favorite) Doris Kearns Goodwin walking the post-show red carpet arm in arm with a victorious Daniel Day-Lewis and Rebecca Miller, off to celebrate, the chumiest of chums. 

Ah, Hollywood.

Faye Dunaway's breakfast with Oscar at the Beverly Hills Hotel, 1977.

Be Mine

happy hearts.

Amelia at 115

Fierce & fearless. Cool & courageous.

Memorials

  

Remembered on the Boston Common

A picnic a day in Boston parks: Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Pond & the Esplanade

Hot day, cool fountain... walking along the Rose Kennedy Greenway en route to Haymarket for picnic supplies!

 

Highway Romance

I'm certain that it's not just me... don't we all have a bit of romantic attachment to our first car? It's just such a significant teenage time of life anyway and then you add to the mix all that freedom of being able to get yourself from here to there and... the heart soars, the mind reels. The possibilities are endless even if, as in my case, you were just driving around in circles on an smallish Big Island! The proof is in the little bit of lightness and footloose freedom that I feel just seeing pictures of the roadway romances of my past...

Something like my mom's 1968 Ghia... she drove it all over California and Washington and cared for it so lovingly that I was driving it around the Big Island in the early 90s. So low and so sporty... and so loud with the top down and the radio up!

Nearly just like my 'first car'... and a perfect Hawaii vehicle. I drove it across lava fields and into taro valleys with black sand beaches for overnight camping trips. Well used when purchased, but tricked out with pipe bumpers, a fancy stereo system and a huge custom sub-woofer in the back!

Boxy but good: my college-in-New England transportation was bought off a small used car lot near Providence. It came with the extra way-back seat, which meant that I could pack 6 friends and myself into the thing for trips to amusement parks and ski mountains. I covered the back bumpers and windows with typical college-y bumper stickers ('mean people suck', 'visualize whirled peas' and, for a reason that escapes me now, the UC San Diego logo). A very happy Happy Valley vehicle.

To keep the car romance fires burning, Chance has a few covet-able cars in their blog archives ... my heart is all a-flutter over that Mercedes 190SL from their October post!

Brimfield

Well, I made it out to the final Brimfield weekend of the year and it couldn't have been a more beautiful day for it! After a rainy week, the sky was clear as a bell and the sun was shining... perfect. And I didn't buy a single thing, which was fine by me. It's just so much fun (and then, eventually, sort of exhausting) to stroll through the stalls just looking. And getting inspired for all of the projects that you could do if you would do them... someday. But when you do, you know that you can find the right bits & pieces at Brimfield! And it was such a nice way to spend a day with friends, the youngest of which, at only 2 months old, is already a natural at this sort of thing.

Tomorrow is the very last day for the season and the forecast is sunny & cool. Take a little drive out there for a lot of inspiration.

We used to wait

I know that this is going to sound all so nostalgic, and it probably is, but I really miss getting letters in the mail. And even sending real letters, because I don't do much of that either. I used to... all the time... with little scraps of images and drawings and bits of whatever taped to the pages. It was like being with the person you were sending it to, really thinking of them reading it... a connecting thread along a time line. Now I spend quite a lot of time g-chatting with far away friends, and that's great too: immediate and spontaneous and totally informal. But an actual letter: the weight of the paper, the sender's handwriting and pen choice, even the indentations of typewriter keys... it's like a touch, like something to hold on to in a way that you never would or could, even if you printed and bound all of your most lovely emails.

Just knowing how excited I always am to see a letter in my mailbox, slipped in between the coupon fliers and the magazines, makes me want sit down and write a few myself, for old times' sake...


Fruity embossed rhymes

Joe ♡s Jane
Someone found this in a book. A (non-digital) happy accident.

Some other Sunday...

About a month ago (nearly goodbye to August already?) a friend was in town and a few of us made a little pilgrimage to Neptune Oyster in the North End. About the same time last year, on a very hot day, we'd wandered over for a birthday celebration and I am all for making this an (at the very least) annual tradition of feasting and friend-gathering.

It's a tiny & very popular spot, not great for tables of more than 4 or 6, and even if you go at odd hours (say, 3 pm, for example) there is still typically quite a wait on the weekend. But with it's food, great wine selection and white-tiled bistro decor, it's really worth it. And there are plenty of shops and scenic streets to stroll while you wait.

I always order the hot lobster roll: always delicious. If you go, taste test both and have your own debate over the merits of the hot or cold options. We ordered about a dozen oysters, bellinis all around, and settled in to our marble-topped table for a couple of hours of good laughs over good food.

Neptune Oyster
63 Salem Street
Boston, Massachusetts
617.742.3474

'As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.'

- Hemingway

In search of lost summers: Modernist Memories

For me, nothing says 'dreams of summertime' like a beach house. Preferably a simple little house, with large sliding doors that allow for indoor life to become out door life & vice versa... a very precious seasonal opportunity for us in New England!

Obviously and unsurprisingly this is not my own unique dream... the Northeast coast has a long history of seasonal beach towns and nostalgic summer settlements. But the airy, treading-lightly qualities of modernist architecture seem to result in a perfect romance when it meets the coast. Look for these simple retreats from summers past (still full of life in the present) on Long Island, Rhode Island and Cape Cod, where the Cape Cod Modern House Trust works to document and preserve the houses and their history.*

These beach house dreams have really got me in a
summer-state-of-mind...
Here's to a season of sun-filled days, sandy feet & salty sea air.

Happy Memorial Day!

*For more on Cape Cod modernist summers past & how they've survived into the present: a recent article on the Wellfleet Colony from the New York Times Magazine.

Hatch Cottage
Wellfleet Massachusetts, 1960

(Maybe a precedent for Steven Holl's Whale House on Martha's Vineyard?)

Images at top & bottom are from the book Weekend Utopia,
a dreamy ode to mid-century modern summer life in the Hamptons.

Happy New Year

Joanne Woodward & Paul Newman share a New Year's eve kiss.

A Day at the Races

This morning I made my way over to Cambridge and the banks of the river to settle in and watch a few of the Head of the Charles races. I brought coffee and scones and met up with a few friends to watch the alumni teams glide by. It was an absolutely gorgeous day for it... quintessentially fall in Cambridge.

Most years, my aunt & uncle come into town to compete and we get together to catch up over lunch... a lovely annual tradition. This year we also made a visit to the new Community Rowing Boathouse for a quick architectural tour and to take a break from the hub-bub down river. But not for too long, and pretty soon it was back to the festival-like atmosphere that is Harvard Square this weekend. The races and festivities continue tomorrow... plenty of time to head on over to watch a race and reunite with a few friends on the riverbanks.

At the alumni Reunion Village tents on the banks of the Charles

The Larz Anderson Bridge, Harvard's Weld Boathouse, and an endless row of food tents along the shore...

So long, sweet summer!

Reading a few of the really lovely summer send-offs that friends and favorite bloggers have posted lately, I was inspired to do a little of my own remembering of things {in the not so distant} past. This summer flew by faster than many in recent history, but only because it was so full, filled to the brim with wonderful people, places... and food! It was truly a time to savor the little big things in life.


Just a few of the summer moments that I'd like to remember to remember...

Took my first trip to Lake Winnipesaukee and stayed in a cottage perched on the lake shore and built by a friend's grandparents in the 1930s when lake cottages were just what they should be... charming retreats for friends and family to gather & really spend time together... which we did, over good meals and good news.

Traveled with a very creative and talented friend to Nantucket to visit other creative and talented {and industrious!} friends who spend each summer out there running a picture perfect market by the shore. Ate more than my fair share of lobster, learned how to shuck an oyster, sang along during after dinner sing-alongs, and swam in the Atlantic under a nearly full moon.

Went to the first concert that I've been to in ages and was reminded of that feeling of instant communitas that can happen when a whole crowd of people are together, so absorbed and in the moment, dancing and singing their hearts out.

Spent many afternoons on boat trips and ferry rides from Maine to Martha's Vineyard and was invigorated by the restorative powers of salty sea air and the New England seashore. Boating out to explore little island summer communities in mid-coast Maine reminded me that there is a slower, more summer-y way of summertime living.

Celebrated my birthday by throwing a mid-week pizza cook-off party attended by thoughtful and caring friends... an outpouring of friendship and love that made me actually feel pretty wonderful about turning a year older!

Ate many beautiful and delicious meals al fresco, including this gorgeous salad niçoise. Eating outdoors, especially in a region of real seasons, is such a simple summer pleasure that it seems to make the food taste that much better.


Spent some real quality time with my mom during her visit from the west coast and was reminded by the too-soon-passing of a family friend of just how precious that kind of time together, just being, is and of how important it is to treasure those moments.

Celebrated the marriage of beautiful, wonderful friends in the mountains of Virginia where we feasted {oh, how we feasted!} and swam and danced into the wee hours to send the lovely couple off into a happy and full life together.


With such an optimistic note to end the summer on, how could one not look forward to the fall? It only gets us nearer to next summer!

Brimfield

The Brimfield flea market wrapped up for the season this weekend and I (along with a few friends and Murray the dog) headed west for the final day. Not necessarily a novice, I went for the first time last year, and yet still the sheer amount of objects and things and never-before-seen-collections (hundreds of ornate walking canes!) can be a bit overwhelming. This typically results in my not wanting to actually buy anything, but to just look. And to think of an empty house or beach cottage to fill with eclectic finds.

I did purchase a few small things: like last year, I found the bead dealers and bought several strands to use in new jewelry creations. At a booth filled with all sorts of amazing laboratory glass, I bought two small pyrex bottles with glass stoppers. These are just the thing I've been looking for to contain a mix of perfume oils that I bought in Abu Dhabi last year.

The booths of architectural salvage materials and pieces were my favorite... full of fantastic steel tables, repurposed industrial lamps, and large wooden cabinets, like the one pictured below with multi-colored numbered drawers. Next year I'll bring a truck!

Hey there, Cupcake

I know, I know, this whole cupcake trend has been around for ages... but there is still something so valid, so perfectly proportioned & autonomous about the cupcake. And, I shouldn't neglect to mention, these years of cupcake craze have certainly raised the bar. No more dry and bland cake topped with overly sweet and slightly crumbly frosting for us.... we've become a pretty picky bunch.

After getting briefly caught up in Magnolia Bakery fandom (and, I admit, I still love strolling through the West Village on a summer evening to grab an after dinner dessert when in NYC) my current favorite cupcake recipes are by my dear friend and former classmate Ming Thompson of mingmakescupcakes fame. The flavor combinations are well-balanced and innovative... never too sweet... and are easier than they look to recreate at home. Ming is surely destined for stardom, both culinary and design-wise, so take a peek at her latest confections and say you knew her when.

ming makes cupcakes

Simply messing about in boats...

Rowing out to view the Tall Ships in Boston Harbor

`This has been a wonderful day!' said he, as the Rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. `Do you know, I`ve never been in a boat before in all my life.' `What?' cried the Rat, open-mouthed: `Never been in a--you never--well I--what have you been doing, then?' `Is it so nice as all that?' asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him. `Nice? It's the ONLY thing,' said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. `Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING--absolute nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,' he went on dreamily: `messing--about--in--boats; messing----' `Look ahead, Rat!' cried the Mole suddenly. It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.

The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame

Grandma Jane & Grandpa Bill, sailing on Green Lake

Heading back into the pretty little harbor at Five Islands, Maine


HAPPY LABOR DAY, BOATERS!

Pomp & Circumstance. And LEGOs.

Graduation took place at Harvard this week and, though I technically graduated in March, going through all of the ceremonies made it feel quite a bit more official... putting on a cap and gown will do that! There are so few rituals and ceremonies in modern life beyond marrying and burying. Taking part in commencement suddenly linked this rite of passage to something bigger, more collective. And the LEGO buildings on mortar boards... that was our own twist on a (relatively recent) graduate school tradition!