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LAX Land
I’ll be in LA from now through the weekend, visiting Joanie, seeing Shareen Vintage for the first time, eating at Son of a Gun (“smoked roe, maple cream, pumpernickel” sounds delicious!), snacking on as many food truck offerings as possible, and seeing friends.
Knowing me, the only photo I will take will be something like an off center shot of somewhat unique, though in hindsight not so great, doorway. But if anything good comes out, I promise to share.
in the meantime, some longer things I’m reading:
just why do we all want posters about Japan’s tragedy?
interview with CrewCuts design director, about her Moming-style (I like their questions, and their web design)
Lovely photo from ledansla.
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reflections on 25 Weeks
Joe made me this postcard for Valentine’s Day. Later on, he noted that she is either emanating color out into the desert world, or being attacked by a storm cloud of rainbows. Ultrasonic images have that mysterious way about them. What is she thinking? you wonder.
If I have to bend over and pick things up, I start panting, ohhing, and ahhing, like taking out the trash might be the last effort I donate to the day.
My mom told me that in her first pregnancy she started eating foods from her childhood. It might have just been those “crazy woman cravings” that society is obsessed with attributing to pregnant women, or she suggested, she was struggling with the transition of being responsible for someone and wanted to revert back to being a kid again. I can’t really think of another reason why kraft macaroni and cheese will be the food I end up associating with this pregnancy.
I have been struck by the strange fact that though every woman must map the tricky route of how she will balance her baby and her hopes for her engagement with the outside world, it is difficult for us to talk to each other about it. We each have our own notions of what the other must assume, and speak hesitatingly only for ourselves. For what has been a dynamic issue for the past forty years, it has not resolved in any useful way.
Desperately needing cheats to eat vegetables every day, I jumped on the green smoothie train. It has saved me, and probably a few red blood cells too. Banana, frozen wild blueberries, bunches of raw spinach, almond milk, blend. You don’t really taste anything beside the banana and the milk, and there is none of that flat-tongue-leaf-spinchyness texture that I lately despise. Saved.
The hormones have begun to occasionally swing away from blissful mother o’ peace to those of a cranky perturbed five year old. Not only are things wrong, things are cryably wrong. You experience things in pregnancy that make you relate to an infant—the desperate, overwhelming desire to eat right now; the frustration of not knowing or understanding where emotions well up from and deciding to just express them anyway; the fulfilling occupation of simply gazing off into space.
My trusty shirts are, one by one, waving a hand of fond farewell and retiring to the corners of my drawers, hoping I will not ask them to experience that again. I just went through all the clothes I own, and was surprised to meet a few new candidates for favorite shirt. At least for the next week.
She kicks when I do yoga, when Joe plays the guitar, when I eat peanut butter, and when I think it might be a nice time for a little peace and quiet, she practices her routine for a kicking brigade dance show. These are just the kicks I habitually note, the others are faintly scribbled on an EKG reading somewhere in my brain that I recall when I have a moment of panic, thinking she’s been silent for days.
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Dresscue Me
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/20092004]
My younger sister Joanie is the manager at an enormous vintage store tucked into a warehouse in Los Angeles called Shareen Vintage. I love to call her up and hear about how crazy her day was, but none of her stories will really make sense until the reality show they’ve been filming about the place premiers in April. I can’t wait, if only to see all the beautiful dresses.
It’s going to be called “Dresscue me” and will be on Planet Green (I guess Planet Green is being secretive because I can’t link to them about it. Here’s a NY Times article about Shareen & the show). Until then, I loved this video done by Keith Paugh, commissioned by Launderette.
As you’ll see, Shareen is a fashion philosopher who has a vision for her customers (girls only!), which is why I think the show will be genuinely unique to watch. (You see Joanie a few times in the video, she has long brown hair and is wearing a strapless blue floral dress. Can’t wait to see more of you on the screen, Joan!) You can also visit Shareen Vintage on Facebook, where previous customers literally gush their love for her clothes.
Are you looking to contact Joanie Cusack directly? You can do that right here!
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Earnest Additions
Greetings loyal readers!
There are two new page additions to the E&D site. A very simple addition, entitled Books!, is where I will be listing my reading this year. So far it has been a great year of books, and I have already gotten around to reading a few that I’ve been meaning to read for years. Since I don’t usually finish books I don’t enjoy, you can pretty much guarantee that I am recommending anything on the list.
The second is my humble guide to registering for your wedding. I know many of you don’t need this anymore. But I needed it when I was getting married, and it wasn’t out there. So I’ve put together a list of kitchen essentials for that preciously short time when people are begging you to tell them how they can spend money on you. You can see the guide right here, or my blog’s page about it here. Savvy chefs! Tell me if you disagree with my choices, or can’t believe something is not on there.
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Back from Colorado
Hi everyone! Joe and I had the opportunity to go skiing with my family for a week, sorry for the lack of notice around here! As usual I took no photos of any useful nostalgic value, but I did like this serve-yourself hot chocolate station at the top of one of the mountains. Two cans of whipped cream means don’t you dare pester us and ask for extra whip cream.
And then this photo, at another mountaintop eatery, of some chili that I could not have eaten faster. It was one of those meals where you’re like, “uh, chili? Sounds ok, kinda gross” and then you were so hungry and cold and it was warm and tasted like the most delicious recipe you’ve ever encountered, even though you watched as they dumped it out of a food service bag and heated it up.
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Snowpants
Remember when snowpants were an essential part of your winter wardrobe?
Sledding was terrifying–would you hit a ledge, land on your tailbone, knock the breath out of your lungs, miss the mattress and skid into the wire fence, or worse, the deleafed raspberry branches full of thorns–but in the moment of hesitation at the top, sled pointing straight ahead, debating your destiny, the slight push it took to begin hurtling down the hill was irresistible.
An injury-free finish at the bottom meant choosing to wipe out or an all-out-mayday-fling into the snow to avoid one of the menacing endings. Snow crept into every breach in your uniform–between your ear and your hat, the exposed sliver of wrist, melting its way down into your boots. You dusted off, grabbed your trusty plastic partner, only to begin the long hike back up. And somehow at the top, out of breath and sore, you couldn’t resist another go.
Looking back, I can’t think of many other times–aside from swinging as high as possible, flinging up and off flying toward the ground at the last minute–when you genuinely felt as if you chose your own adventure. The risks were yours to select and embrace, you decided how ambitious you would be this year–one year older, savvier, and seasoned–than that seemingly endless time ago last year.
Photos from our neighborhood today! We made it to Starbucks and were thoroughly soaked by the time we got back to the apartment.
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Things I Talked about Over Christmas
Mark Madoff’s suicide: so sad. And: did he really not know? And: did we take the generational-sin-blame thing to far?
The scoundrels at J.Crew who sell lesser-quality replicas at their Factory Store. Who knew, until you fell for it and realized it was not the shirt you thought it was?! Very sneaky of them to subvert the ol’ just-last-season’s paradigm that we’ve come to expect from outlet stores.
Aluminium in deodorant: is this still a concern or just a rumor? Yes, no, respectively. Is the Deodorant Stone a possible solution? Some say yes, but it’s hard to get over how weird that website is.
I like this new Sugar in the Raw ad/recipe by Mother Design:
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Favorites of 2010
My favorite five E & D posts, of the 150 that managed to come about this year.
Ruminating on my friend making a perfect homemade cappuccino.
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Coming this summer
my dear loyal erstwhile* readers,
the time has come for that predictable post in which I tell you that I am pregnant, and have been pregnant, for some time–nearly three months–without your knowledge. What a foreign thing to want to whisper in everyone’s ear immediately, this thing that is completely occupying your attention and has made you feel quite sick actually, but you have to keep it hush hush because otherwise you might have to tell everyone the good news, and then tell everyone the bad news, should something terrible happen. Personally, I think it would be better to tell everyone both. But when it’s your first, as I keep reminding myself, you are in not much of a position to argue with tradition. Now, when it’s my third, that’s when I’ll be telling tradition who’s who around here.
So yes, I went from a merry oyster slurping, sushi munching, afternoon espresso and sommelier-aspiring food monger to a curious creature who preferred to keep a sack of saltines on hand and cringed at the idea of walking within ten feet of what used to be my favorite hot dog stand. So it is that you begin nine months of blissful occupation being brought to your knees and wondering what the hell you were thinking voluntarily signing up for this and finally understanding why people looked aghast when you said you have six siblings.
And now those three months have passed and mostly I’m just hungry all the time now, and I can move on to wondering where we will stuff the little monkey when he/she arrives–a file drawer? a basket lined with cushions? And how funny it is that we try our best to prepare for everything, but really our whole life is going to completely completely change in ways we don’t have a clue about.
But isn’t that stork magnificent?
*a contrary phrase, yes.
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Aging Grace
Here’s hoping we look like one of these ladies when we age.
Julie Christie
Iris Apfel
Vera, the scarf designer.
Nan Kempner
My favorite old lady accessory is the scarf snuggly wrapped around the hair look. For rain and wind prevention.
Anyone you aspire to?