Suddeness Happens

I love a typo.

Heck, I love a misprint.

But I really love translations that get us to a whole new level.

I also love a bit of childish humor.

And I love when I have things in common with someone around the world:   My sister and I used to have a sign in our shop window that my dad printed up for us:  We Are Open Unless We Are Closed.

Say no more my friends.  Say. No. More.

morning sunshine by any other name

Today I cracked open an egg that had  two yolks inside.

And I didn't break either one.

RK and I stood there and stared as the eggs cooked in the pan, two perfect little orbs of yellow. 
It felt a little amazing.

"I almost don't believe it."
 And he didn't actually see it happen, so I could tell what he meant.

I saw them emerge and I almost didn't believe it.


For some reason, I took it as a really good sign.
.

A Return

Awww, it was good to come back to work. 
A.  Because I only have about 3 more weeks
and, B.  Because the kids really mist me:  Big hugs, lots of smiles, stories and handmade drawings.

The one above is of D. thinking of me.  I like my windswept hair.

j'adore le clic

One of my favorite new shops in the Big Apple was Clic Bookshop & Gallery.  The presence, attitude and fantastic conversation with the very French, Gilou, made the experience all the better!

Art books galore.  The unusual, the oversized, the out-of-print.  Every photography book you can imagine.  All the while, you're surrounded by this gallery of huge prints that ask you to walk right inside them (and Gilou doesn't dissuade you one bit, au contraire!, she encourages it!).  I'm a big photo fanatic (believing once upon a time that RK and I would be photographers for a living, the love of film still hangs on) and I enjoy talking with others who are, as well.

In this "new" New York, you encounter quite a few "precious" shops that believe their own hype and can't say 'hello' or 'hows it going?' over a pair of those $1,000 jeans.  You're asking to much of them, stop expecting it!

So, to walk into Clic--placed in the hot new extended-Soho neighborhood, housed in a regal looking restored warehouse-- and encounter, not only beauty, but kindness, as well... j'adore clic!

****

And, on the other end of the spectrum, from the world of old-school:  After 34 years of serving NYC, Empire Diner, on 10th Ave, served their last meal on May 15th and they were moving what was left out to the curb.

Cruising down the street to hop on the Highline, my friend Sherief and I passed by the now-closed Empire Diner as they were clearing out the rest of their goods.  We stood around and talked to one of the owners and the original piano player, who played there the night it opened.  As we were standing there, we noticed a table of silver cake stands and ironstone platters.  They seemed strangely out of place and we wondered what they were doing with them.

Ah, take em, the owner said to us, you missed all the really good stuff.

To us, this stuff seemed plenty good.  We could own a piece of history. 
And now I own three:  A cake stand, an ironstone platter, and before we walked away, the piano player called after us,
hey, take this tile too.  it was the original Empire Diner tile.
and a little square black tile.

Stationery Show

Ahhh, the National Stationery Show.
Good times in Booth 1655.
It's always great to catch up with everyone and meet a bunch of new people.   And it really helps to make the time fly when you've got your sister to crack jokes with and friends galore who all stop by.

What really made the show great was getting into some cool new shops:  Pulp in DC and MA, Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, Laywines in Toronto, and Watson Kennedy in Seattle, just to name a few.

And then the introduction of 8mm buttons.  Hello!  Kaari sent out her button making machine and we went button mad.  Happily so.  Everyone that stopped in the booth either made a button, had a button made especially for them, or chose from the varied buttons we'd made to walk out with, being buttoned by 8mm.

And the show also made me think it might be time to get back into business on Etsy.  Many fantabulous, non-wholesale buyers were interested in the work... and I'm about to have the time to do it all, so I may as well!

 here we go!

for the love of animals

Oh, Miss Melissa.

         You never cease to amaze me.

               Your talent is endless.

(and, dang man,)  You get me.

full

Alot of the time was spent staring, I mean, really looking up into the sky at steel and glass buildings where once was the old Auto shop, Untitled, the little Italian restaurant where RK and i went on a date, Grand Street Art Supplies shop, M&R, Evergreen Video, and a billion other old places with memories that existed in those brick walls, tin ceilings and old wood floors you just tore out of there.  At one point, as I was strolling down some seemingly soulless block, large plate glass and silver frames,  I thought to myself  oh my god, if i hadn't moved away, this never would have happened!   {When I recount this feeling to a friend she laughs, totally relating to a similarly lofty action/re-action scenario, which makes me feel all the better for this completely irrational thought process...}

But I also decide to spend my time,  really quite determined, not just in looking for, but actually finding the NYC I remember, even if I have to break thru the steel and glass facades and tear back the wallpaper, maybe scratch a little sheet-rock, just to confirm that old new york I fell so madly in love with (and never really got over) is still there. 

And I totally do.

I found the old shop keepers I knew, in the shops still standing, all with a good bit of time to talk.  I found new shop keepers, with such engaging warmth,  it felt like they'd been here a long time.

I looked for my old city, my old friend. I looked for the familiar, while recognizing some really beautiful new.

Lucky me, I found so much.


I end up feeling like I never left in the first place.  I stay in my old neighborhood, I go to my old shops.  I even stop in the old post office and see my postman, David.  We reminisce about the past and talk about how much has changed.  I end up having this conversation, almost verbatim,  with everyone I bump into or newly befriend:  the elderly woman getting a manicure next to us, the Jamaican cab driver who's off duty, the librarian.  Turns out, it's nice to know you're not the only one.

And still, each one of us could find something we still truly loved about this great city.  Something that hadn't left here yet.  Something that had stayed the course of time.

And some even could fight the good fight for the 'good side of change', the positive change in the city, like The Highline.  It's a new twist on New York's motto for growth: no room?  just keep building upwards.

Something built on top of something else?
There's beauty in even that chaos.

for more new york scenes

it's time...

 another inch grown

 time for a reunion

 xmas

whatever the reason, send a real card.

8mm ideas 

lonely

first prize

 just got married

whatever the reason, send a real card.

8mm ideas

**  We're revving up for the NSS starting this Sunday, but first, on Saturday, my sister , Marcia, and I will be hosting an event all are invited to at Tinsel Trading.  If you're in NYC, come by for a drink! **

 

new job

finally, the leader of the band

in love

whatever the reason, send a real card.

8mm ideas

first dive

thanks for dog-sitting

just got engaged

whatever the reason, send a real card.

8mm ideas

birthday

big catch

best friends

whatever the reason, send a real card.

8mm ideas

My Lifeline

Mere words cannot express how much I love my mom.

Digestive Systems are funny

Note To Self:  Don't eat lettuce without washing it first. 

Sure, it's totally stupid to eat any veggies, or anything else that gets pulled from the ground or a tree, without washing it first but... I was in a rush; I just wanted to eat; I didn't think I could get hurt by something organic; I knew where it was grown; Hell, I ignored my best instincts. 
And now, I'm paying for it dearly. 

Three days without food, or the food I did try, my system quickly let me know was a no-go, and mere sips of water.  Three days, when I wasn't sleeping, I was alternately getting sick at the thought of food and dying for something, anything that looked like food. 

Day three, it's all water and ritz crackers. 

And while I'm currently craving a Pat La Freida specialty hamburger (the kind I hope my system is ready to enjoy by this time next week when I'm in NYC), RK tells me I have to take it slow.   Tonight for dinner? One boiled potato, no butter, no nuthin.

It's been a week of some weird and some wonderful.
Strange things have crossed my path lately and I've found that this is what holds my interest.
Strange and Weird and sometimes Wonderful.  I love those things.

When these pictures were first emailed to me, they were attached to the cutest, albeit sad, little story about a mother piggie who passed on after giving birth to these babies and a tiger mom who lost her little kids, too, was depressed and needed to bond.

I fell in love with the the total implausibility of it all!
It seemed so incredible:   They wrapped these little piglets in tiger skins and presented them to the Tiger mom as her own.  And she took to them.  She didn't want to eat them, but to love them.  Too beautiful to be true!  But, here was picture proof!

Well, turns out, it was too good to be true.
The photos are real, but the story is not exactly.

As it happens, this sort of intermingling of species is not at all unusual at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo, where "creating successful relationships with animals of different species" is something of a guiding principle. The facility, more accurately described as part zoo and part circus, boasts offbeat attractions like basketball-playing elephants, "lady crocodile wrestlers," and a petting zoo where customers can bottle-feed baby tigers with their own bare hands. Visitors have reported seeing tigers, pigs, and dogs all housed together within the same enclosure, with sows nursing tiger cubs and tigresses nursing piglets "adorned in tiger-print costumes."
The costumes are strictly for show, by the way. The mother tiger pictured above, who has been photographed on other occasions suckling piglets au naturel, was herself nursed by a pig in infancy and apparently regards the other species as family, not prey.

Ah well, it's still a beautiful thought.