Thursday: a day of extremes

Today, in the post I received the following:

1) My fancy-pants, long-overdue triathlon shorts. Complete with genteel padding, sufficient to cushion and yet not wreck my silhouette.

2) My package from Papyrus featuring a bulk order of birthday and wedding cards. I hate the choice in Duane Reade (my friends deserve better) and yet seem to be buying one or the other every week, so a bulk order was timely.

3) THE most beautiful box of teeny, tiny cards from a beloved fashion girl in London. The gorgeousness of the box makes me feel giddy, the cards are perfectly exquisite. I will document and display.

I also saw and walked along with Alexa Chung and her boyfriend at the corner of Lafayette and Spring. She too, like my dreamy cards, is teeny tiny and has a beautiful face. She is less scary in real life than on TV, where she seems wonderfully cool but rather arch.

In the Catskills...

I MET A CHILD CALLED DIESEL.

That is all I can say on this subject. He was running amok in a car park and his mother was howling at him.

In other news, I am taking part in the New York triathlon this weekend. I fear both sharks and jellyfish during the swim, perhaps one group could sting the other? I'm also a little apprehensive about swimming the Hudson river, hardly a beauty spot. I may perish. Had to share.

But back even with these considerable trials weighing me down, I am forever grateful that I was, nor ever will be, named Diesel. I am also pleased that I am not a Tatiana.

Possibly the most romantic proposition ever...

Driving upstate a few weekends back, I was listening to a local station, one that favoured jangly guitars and light rhythms with the balladeurs singing of how their man done them wrong. One song in particular stood out:


Every time you take a sip
In this smoky atmosphere
You press that bottle to your lips
And I wish I was your beer
In the small there of your back
Your jeans are playing peekaboo
I'd like to see the other half of your butterfly tattoo.

Hey that gives me an idea
Let's get out of this bar
Drive out into the country
And find a place to park.

'Cause I'd like to see you out in the moonlight
I'd like to kiss you way back in the sticks
I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers
And I'd like to check you for ticks.

I know the perfect little path
Out in these woods I used to hunt
Don't worry babe I've got your back
And I've also got your front
I'd hate to waste a night like this

I'll keep you safe you wait and see
The only thing allowed to crawl all over you when we get there is me.

You know every guy in here tonight
Would like to take you home
But I've got way more class than them
Babe that ain't what I want.

'Cause I'd like to see you out in the moonlight
I'd like to kiss you way back in the sticks
I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers
And I'd like to check you for ticks.

You never know where one might be
There's lots of places that are hard to reach
I gotcha.

I'd like to see you out in the moonlight
I'd like to kiss you baby way back in the sticks
I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers
And I'd like to check you for ticks.

I'd sure like to check you for ticks...

_________________________________________

You tube: LIVE PERFORMANCE (of the song, not the act of checking for ticks..)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KvHB4zpNX4&feature=fvst

Thank Brad Paisely for the music and the images and, well, for the romance.

Here's to Brad and his ticks.

Sights in the city

Riddle me this...

Three girls of indeterminate age board the subway. They are clearly travelling as a trio and share a similar sartorial sensibility, jersey dresses, flip-flops and wafty appendages draped over them in an artful manner. They are not dressed for business yet nor are they tourists. I decided that they must be visiting students for a summer program.

But this is not the quandry, for each of these girls, grouped together and chatting about the day gone by, each one of these girls was brandishing a coffee cup, here's the clincher, from a different shop. One had a Starbucks cup, another the classic 'have a nice day' cup of popular legend and the third clutched a cup from Pret a Manger.

How did that happen?

Is this what freedom feels like?

Source: Gallerycrawl.

Holiday Weekend

“Life is nothing but high school … you get into real life and that turns out to be high school again—class officers, cheerleaders, and all.” Kurt Vonnegut


So, going with this idea that everything comes down to high school, I am tickled to witness collective excitement growing in this here city about the upcoming holiday weekend. Yes, everyone has end-of-term fever, work attire is looking increasingly beachy, the subway is emptier as the week progresses. By tomorrow I shall be the only soul left.

Given that the 4th of July is a celebration of independence from the tea-pushing, slave-pedalling Brits, Manflesh and I are heading out of town to avoid a dunk in the Hudson. Keeping to the educational theme of this post, we are staying in the Catskills, in a small former school room where guests are known as pupils and quadrupeds abound. I have been promised horses and goats but also bears. Two of those three I shall endeavour to stroke.