What Possessed Me

Wanderlust: The Garden of Earthly Delights

2012-02-08T18:21:37-05:00

This weekend I stepped out onto the balcony for the first time in months to take a peek at how my roses are getting on. After clearing out the dead leaves, empty beer cans, dryer lint (?) and random pieces of paper towel (??), I started seeing tentative signs of life. I got so excited I couldn't keep my paws off the thorny little bastards - and consequently retreated scratched and bloodied like a tom cat from his first fight. May is coming! May is coming! May is coming!

OK, so May isn't really coming anytime soon, but a girl can dream, can't she? A girl can dream about a whole vacation planned around roses, can't she? How about a trip to a rose festival, where the world's most fragrant roses are produced? Or a journey through the most beautiful rose gardens on earth? On this dark, gray February day, the thought of rose-filled adventures lifts me from the gloom.

Other earthly delights getting me through the day:

Persian love cake with rosewater (my mom would really dig this)

Rosewater facial tonic (on my desk at work)

Lovely rosewater hand cream (in my desk drawer)

A beautiful rosy blush (in my makeup bag)

A classic rose fragrance (made for the wife of an American president)

My favorite rose lip balm (and one without petroleum)

A sweet nothing in the palest blush (not until I lose ten pounds)

Image credits: Mark Byrne via This is Glamorous, Nico Alari, Frolic, Infobarrel via Bohemian Hellhole.

One Super Bowl, three generations

2012-02-06T21:17:29-05:00

Wait - the white uniforms are the Giants, right?

OMG IS THAT TIM RIGGINS?

Spike Lee and other rich people attending the Super Bowl

My father is a man of many interests, among them Middle English literature, tap dancing, translating the Vulgate Bible, decorative paint techniques, and spending quality time in the crawl space under the house. Of his obsessions, the one I find most perplexing is his abiding love of the New York Giants - mostly because I don't share it, can't understand it, and would do anything to avoid indulging it. This is one of my father's greatest sorrows - spawning three children who are largely indifferent to football. Marrying an actress who has zero interest in televised sports is something he can comprehend, but three children? Who don't love the Giants? How could this have possibly happened? It's a mystery, a cruel joke, a genetic mutation of epic proportions.

I don't know how it happened, but we all found ourselves - the entire family - sitting together in a small room watching the game last night. (Look how I said it - "the game" - all casual-like. That's because the three weeks I spent plowing through 72 episodes of Friday Night Lights, living and breathing high school football hotties, qualifies me as someone who can bandy about phrases like "that's a superlative tight end" with the rakish, devil-may-care attitude of a true sports afficionado.) In theory, it was my dad's fantasy: three generations eating lentils and rice with chorizo and drinking Sam Adams while the Giants trounce the Patriots. In theory, one's children should know the rules of football, and in theory, their tiny offspring should sit quietly, stupefied by the amazing feats of athleticism splashed across the screen in alarming HD.

In theory.

But let us review the cast of characters, some of whom have not appeared on the blog for some time:

Yia-Yia and Papi: Matriarch and patriarch.
Good Child and Bad Child: My two older brothers.
Noodle (10) and Pinwheel (12): Bad Child's daughters.
Muffin (5), Zucchini (5), and Pudding Pop (16 months): Good Child's offspring.

Scene: Entire family gathered around television screen in mock harmony.

Pudding Pop: (Waving pair of scissors in front of TV) Gabble, gabble. Jibber, jabber. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Good Child's Wife: (Enters room and quickly confiscates scissors) She has a pin. In her mouth. A pin.

Good Child: (Non-committal) Huh. I think she pooped up her back.

Noodle: (Wiggling her long, skinny fingers in front of the TV) I CAN SPELL CHICKEN IN SIGN LANGUAGE! I CAN SPELL CHICKEN IN SIGN LANGUAGE! GUYS! GUYS! I CAN SPELL CHICK--

Bad Child: For God's sake, if you don't keep quiet, I don't know what--

P: Is there any more of that wine?

Pinwheel: (Standing directly in front of TV, gesticulating wildly) VALENTINE'S DAY IS COMING! I BOUGHT VALENTINE'S DAY DECORATIONS WITH MY ALLOWANCE AND--

Bad Child: Sit! Down! You're blocking the screen!

P: Where is Gisele? I can't see Gisele.

Yia-Yia: Who is Gisele?

Muffin: (Standing in front of the screen) YIA-YIA, THIS IS BOR-RING AND I CAN'T WATCH MY SHOW. WHY CAN'T I WATCH MY SHOW?

Good Child, Bad Child and Papi: Stop blocking the screen!

Yia-Yia: (To Muffin) Here, honey, have a stuffed animal.

Muffin: I ALREADY HAVE THAT ONE!

Yia-Yia: OK, give it to your brother.

Zucchini: (Ignoring stuffed animal) I DON'T WANT TO EAT THIS FOOD, YIA-YIA! THIS FOOD IS TERRIBLE!

Noodle: (Bouncing across screen) DANNY WOODHEAD! WOOD! HEAD! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! WOODHEAD! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Bad Child: (Approaching nervous breakdown) Out of the way! Out! Oh my God!

P: Wait - you guys, which one is Tim Riggins?

Photos by Rob Tringali, via.

A weekend in three parts

2012-01-24T00:09:44-05:00

It is the first real snow of the winter (if you can call two inches that turned to slush "real") and I hop the R train to Bay Ridge to see a girl about a baby. Swaddled against his mother - the friend I met when I was only a few months older than this wee babe - he sleeps. And sleeps. And sleeps.

"Listen," I say, poking him. "I need to see some action here."

"He's sleeping - you can hold him when he wakes up."

Two minutes of slumber later.

"This baby is broken!" I complain. "How do I get a refund?"

Finally, finally, I get my snuggle. A tiny beastie as hot as a furnace against my cold hands. Such a pleasing weight in the crook of my arms. I watch him drift off, dreaming the shadowy dreams of infants.

* * *

Back at home, there is coffee and a handful of anemonies someone should paint. I experience a complete revelation: pot roast. Earthy and savory and laughably easy.

Dinner with friends, the girls watch Sophia Grace and her hype girl do Nicki Minaj as feelings of awe and horror duke it out. The boys hack away at the Christmas tree, feeding the fireplace with dry pine boughs. It feels vaguely disturbing, like something a serial killer might do if he left his Christmas tree too long and couldn't be bothered to take it down five flights of stairs. Staring at the sad empty space where the tree once was, I console myself with an orchid strung with lights. It's Hawaiian Christmas, everybody!!!!

* * *

Morning again. At Cafe Luxumbourg, the girls make eyes at Jon Hamm in the corner but he doesn't know he's in love with us yet. We're not wearing our Mac #7s after all, so what can we expect? We talk about dreams and aspirations and I demonstrate my superior restaurant crying skills with an unexpected outburst that casts a dark pall over the afternoon.

Walking out into a gray, uninspiring day, I call my dad. "Come over," he offers, and I realize it's really the only thing I want to do.

When I arrive, he is shivering on the chaise longue. "I seem to have caught a chill," he chatters, as I quickly fix a tray of tea, Tylenol and baklava. Swaddled in blankets, he is as hot as a furnace against my cold hands.

We chat about Paris after the war, his dinners on Rue du Dragon, whether the Giants will win the playoffs. Sick as he feels, his mere presence cheers me, and I know mine cheers him.

Then, apropos of nothing, he changes the tune.

"I come from a line of diffident underachievers," he says, counting the ways. "If there is something you want to do, you must do it. There are always countless reasons why you can't. But you must."

It is the kind of conversation we never have. His directness fills me with countless questions. So many I can't think of a single one.

"Are you warmer now, Dad?"

"Yes," he says. "I think I am."

Tucking the blankets tighter, I watch him drift off, sleeping the sleep of the just.