Mini-projects

skirt:


adapted from c's old cords:

front

back

new pocket covers terrible gymboree applique.

after

before

before

reading list?

I stopped turning to the New York Times for substantive news a long time ago. I now read only home/garden, dining/wine, real estate (particularly "Havens" and the national perspective. "The Hunt" has become too repetitive.) and styles. I try to avoid the crap on the most emailed list, stuff like that hipster librarian article of a few weeks ago and now the sob story about how hard it is to be a silicon valley millionaire, but they can be tempting.

They used to feature a sort of regional theme article in with the real news, something with great appeal for a geographer, generally an obit. for a small town, complete with tales economic plight and migration of the youngsters, but again these were great geographic fodder, pieces like this by Timothy Egan or this by Patricia Limerick. Lately it feels like this article "type" has been supplanted by one that reduces all geography to real estate. It generally takes this form: urban/new york couple/single woman artist/chef/designer goes looking for a place in the country and "discovers" a town/hamlet/exurb that is still cheap (or undervalued). It has a delapidated but promising downtown, beautiful old housing stock in the surrounding area (complete with barns for a studio!) as well as a classic main street storefront for their antique business/slow food restaurant/gallery, always within 200 miles of Manhattan. One week it's in the Hudson River Valley, the next it's northeastern Pennsylvania and then it's Sullivan County or as far as the Catskills. There's often a back-to-land element, like orchards or lavender (just like Provence!) or locally grown food at a reenvisaged vintage diner.

The thing is: I actually find the tales kind of inspiring and in these cases, the Times' representation of the NY metropole is generally positive. No place is shitty and unlike the town obits., these are stories of promise, resurrection, and instead of dashing your hopes in a Bay Area "too bad you weren't here before the dot-com boom" way (as in look what you could have bought in Bayview if you were here in 2002), these worlds are made to seem attainable for the nature seeker or the urban refugee without much backing. It's kind of astonishing that in a megalopolis like the northeast, you can still drive a few hours and be in the wilderness in your country cabin, but it seems to be the case. I mock these articles, but I like them, and more than that, I long for a California version but there isn't one. Isn't there any inspirational shelter-themed reading around these parts, something other than Dwell or Sunset, something new for the Small Town file?

of metaphors and thermostats

The day I graduated from college, a wart appeared on my finger. Despite many noble efforts at treatment, the thing would not, did not, disappear until I moved out of my parents' house six months later. I read way too much into the wart's symbolism--in this case the blemish became the physical manifestation of all my stress and uncertainty about the future--and I still tend to fall prey to this style of metaphor (if there is a name for it, it escapes me now), the small glitch representing the larger, fatal flaw.

The latest instance comes in the form of our beautiful stove. This stove was one of the reasons we wanted to move into our apartment. I can't remember how we learned about its failings initially, if it was the landlord who said it was in the process of being fixed or if we discovered it ourselves, but then there was a warning not to turn on the gas as well as the offer of cash if we handled the repair ourselves (we learned months later that he meant cash for our time as well as the repair itself). Anyway, with uncharacteristic exuberance we contacted people, the local stove shop called "reliable" (a serious misnomer) as well as various e-parts dealers. We took photos, sent them around:

I even found myself using language like "the connector we need is 7/16" (unthreaded) on one end and 5/8" fine-threaded on the other." Our persistence paid off about six months later when we finally managed to secure said connector, but that's when our landlord stopped paying and so we were left with a stove that "worked" yet it still had no working thermostat. This was also around the time when our landlord first implied that he was about to sell the place.

Time marched on. I got pregnant, T. was born, she had her first birthday and throughout it all anytime we wanted to bake something (not often due to the effort involved), we had to turn on the oven, open the door to monitor the little oven thermometer we had bought, turn it off when it reached the key temperature, turn it back on when it began to cool. In 2.5 years, I've baked twice--pies for Thanksgiving last year--and in all that time, the freaking thermostat has come to represent all that is inefficient about our operation. This thing has languished on our collective to-do list, but as irksome as it was, it compelled me to complete other tasks lest they displace the albatross-ish stove.

Right, so in May, just after T.'s birthday, a new landlord stepped in. I asked for our fix-it list, and this was #1, described in terms of safety and babies with undertones of serious liability in his future. He sent the thermostat away for 2 weeks while we were traveling and like I said, 2.5 years after moving in, we have a working oven. I am so pleased that I might go bake cookies or something, but of course I can't help but read too much into the problem's resolution. It can only mean one thing: a move is imminent.

complete satisfaction courtesy of bon marche

Originally uploaded by geobrarian

Not thinking much about the girl's level of interest, we made our way over to Bon Marche, looking for the fruits of the legendary Paris sales and hoping to take in the Eiffel designed facade. We made our way through the marketplace, laughed at the "american" aisle which featured products like Qwik, Hershey's Syrup and marshmallows, really depressing alongside classic English teas and French chocolates.

We went downstairs to the toy section, took in the Babar, the incredible selection of mini-kitchen accessories and before we new it, T. set her sights on the stroller, the doll stroller of her dreams, pictured at right, but really, we didn't fly 12 hours or so to pick up what could be purchased on Mission Street for $10. We tried to pry her lose, but we couldn't, and when we finally succeeded, she lay down on the floor and let her feelings be known. We tried to turn her on to something like this, but at the same time we were glad she'd chosen the umbrella stroller over the more plane unfriendly baby doll travel system.

And so we caved, like I imagine we'll cave many times in the future, but the problem with a 15 month old is that she doesn't understand you're caving. She still needed to release her death grip on the floor model so we could buy one off the shelf and she needed to handle herself during the whole transaction during which even with my very limited French I could still understand that the salesperson was offering to take all of the tags off so T. could walk right out the store and onto the boulevard pushing her pink dream.

The stroller made it home in our luggage, but she still can barely handle herself around it so it's hiding in the closet for a while. I think it was worth it, if only to see her strutting through the Luxembourg Gardens looking incredibly pleased. I wore a similar expression after we left the vintage-French-school-supply-cum-kitchen-accessory-store so I understand.

travels

some preliminary photos.

how t. learned the word duck:

castle #1:
castle #2: