Bell is a lot of fun.


Rose is a little grumpy, frowning and grrrring. Now she knows there is a kitten in the house. Hopefully she'll come around...

Happy Labor Day. Everybody works hard, and this is a day to rest and relax (except bloggers...).

I love summer, and I don't like to see it go. I love the sun, the light, the warmth, the clean, crisp cotton clothes. Being outdoors constantly. There is a lightness and a joy to summer. We had a great summer with a family reunion upstate, a beach vacation and a new kitten. I had a dream about taking pictures in the winter and all the pictures were grey. I need a lot of color and light. 

Today is

our anniversary. Twenty-three years. Holy moly.

Ted and I met on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend on Fire Island in 1985. Actually, it was the second time we met... Earlier that summer in June we had been introduced at a party after the Gay Pride Run which we both raced in. Ted and I talked, but then he left to have dinner with friends. I said to myself, "I will see you again Ted Dawson."

And I did. On Labor Day weekend I was visiting my friend John Kelly in the Pines. We went to see some of his friends in a house on the ocean and up from the beach came one of the housemates, Ted. 

That time, it stuck. 

After that Ted and I went out to Fire Island together. One summer not long after he won a competition to design the Fire Island Pines flag. It is a joyful, simple Matissey design of stars, sun, pine trees, and ocean in swaths of bright colors. This was probably 1987, and you don't see the flag waving as much as you used to in the Pines but it is hoisted in the harbor. 

The house where we met on the beach was later destroyed in a storm and a new house was built in its place. On that site where we met twenty-three years ago, they still wave Ted's flag, seen on the right. 

That is so cool. I love to see it. I wrote about Ted in my first post on this blog. Over the last twenty-three years he has been a constant joy to me, and I hope I to him. It is something that I am profoundly grateful for in my life. Happy Anniversary TD. 

Before we went to get Bell this morning we ran over to the Farmers Market. 

There were beautiful big hydrangeas.

I got this little posey of zinnias. I love the combination of colors. They are in a white ironstone pitcher which I bought many years ago at an antique sale in Guilford, Ct., where my parents have lived since 1981. 

Bell Arrives

I'm happy to report that we are in possession of our kitten Bell. We took the train to Tuckahoe, Yonkers, to retrieve her from Judith and Deidre Beck who had so kindly driven her down from Herkimer. The kitten comes from Herkimer and the Bellinger Rose b and b, formerly our O'Donnell family home, where she lived recently. We named her Bell after the Bellinger Rose.

All of the literature is very specific that when you bring a new kitten in the house with a resident cat, you keep them separated at first, so Bell is now ensconced in the bathroom and Rose is snooping about, but not upset. Yet. She doesn't know there is a kitten in the house.

Ted got Rose a new little toy for the occasion, a grey mouse. This is like when my sister Cynthia was born, and Thom and I returned home from my grandparent's house in Haddonfield, New Jersey, where we had gone while my mother was in the hospital. Cynthia was born July 7th, and it was hot in Haddonfield. When we got home, Cynthia was swaddled and perched on an armchair in the living room. Thom and I were like, "Cool." But the really good news was that our sister had brought a gift with her, a jungle gym in the backyard! Yay! We ran outside and thought the infant had excellent taste. The following winter when I put my mouth on the frozen metal jungle gym, my father had to come out and rip me off. Ouch.

Before my brother Eric was born on December 6th, Santa's Christmas elves came to the house and delivered a miniature artificial Christmas tree decorated with colored lights and little toys. It was a school day, and when Thom and I came down to the living room it was not yet daylight. The little tree twinkled in the dark. I was enchanted. The Christmas elves pulled off something magical. I'm telling you people, my parents were on top of this stuff!

Here is our trip today:

At the Tuckahoe train station, picking up Bell from Judith Beck and daughter Deirdre with Mr. Beck who kindly shuttled the kitten down from Herkimer. Judith told us she works, in fundraising. She looks no where near 81. No where near. We brought her a bouquet of flowers.

All aboard the Kitten Express. On the train heading back to Grand Central.

Home at last.

Many many thanks again to Chris and Leon Frost and Judith and Deidre Beck for making this happen. It's been quite a project (read below). It feels like a big accomplishment.

I just opened a bag of food for the kitten and Rose came running, but it's not for her. Busted! I'll go distract her with the grey mouse...

We're leaving to go to Grand Central to pick up Bell in Yonkers. 

Wish us luck. 

Kitten reprieve. 

I was ready to drive upstate and pick up Bell but Leon Frost called at the eleventh hour and said I wouldn't have to do that; a guest at his Bellinger Rose b and b was driving home to Yonkers, and she would bring the kitten down from Herkimer. We could pick her up in Yonkers. Judith Beck, 81, and her daughter Deirdre had volunteered for kitten duty. 

Isn't that nice of them?! 

I was relieved not to have to drive up and back. And Rose, above, won a day's reprieve before Bell arrives and the kitty litter hits the fan... 

Fashion, the Last Week of August

I went into some stores in midtown to see what was happening. Dear reader, I'm sorry to tell you, there was not a lot to report, and I'm talking here about women's fashion. The summer sales are over so the stores are stocked with fall but it was quite glum - a lot of black, not much ornamentation or decoration, austere shapes. The stores were empty, which can be expected because many people are away at the end of August. (Except for Abercrombie & Fitch which now has a velvet rope on Fifth Avenue to control the crowds.) Shoes are even plain, except for the fact that they're on high platforms. I'm telling you, it did not dazzle the eye, like a trip through midtown often can. Cathy Horyn says in The New York Times that the really good stuff from the designer fall collections comes into stores in September. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/fashion/21FALL.html?_r=1&scp=8&sq=horyn%20gucci&st=cse&oref=slogin I don't doubt that she's right, but I thought fall was delivered into stores in July and August. These days, they're practically putting up Christmas decorations in September.

And then I thought that with the stinking economy, a disastrous war abroad, and an uncertain election ahead, perhaps the designers and stores are reflecting the times with somber presentations and also playing it safe. One happy, optimistic exception is J. Crew, pictured above. The stores, the catalogues, the windows, and the web site (jcrew.com) now feature clothes in bright, cheerful colors like yellow, gold and orange. These seem like typically spring colors to me but I love seeing them now in an otherwise dark season. J. Crew is also expanding its accessories collection with glossy jewelry and decorated shoes. You walk into a J. Crew store in the middle of winter and it's like a joyful candy store -- pink, green, yellow, orange. You can't help but feel better. It lifts you up. And that's what clothes are for, no?

"Life itself might be a work of art. Art can be the way people live."
Artist Joseph Beuys

The Farmers Market

Ted and I go to the Farmers Market at Union Square on Saturday mornings; its one of our favorite things now about our location is our proximity to the Farmers Market. These last two weeks in August are the high point for the market; everything is glorious -- tomatoes, flowers, peaches, vegetables. 

Miles of peaches

So many plants--

Red and yellow peppers

Sunflowers

Jewel-like tomatoes 

Flower stand

At the market I got the flowers below, if you can call them flowers. Ted wasn't so crazy about them but I think they're great. They look like thistles, but the man said they are some kind of bean. I like their bristly, weed-like texture and dusty pink color. They are in our radicchio vase from Tiffany's, given to us our by friends Margaret and Dick Holman on the occasion of our union ceremony in 2000; it is one of my very favorite possessions.