Inventing Beauty

The day is sodden, in the best sort of way, with steady drips on the terrace right now, and no more rain. It's very '50's-glamour to walk home from work with sandals in hand, dress clinging to legs, standing in streams in the gutter. It's another story on the way in to work, steady downpour, where no dry clothes wait, no glass of wine (or bowl of coffee for that matter), and wet feet stay wet. In vain I tried to interest people in onion soup (or a boiled egg, for that matter) at Balty's. There's no romance anymore.

But home to a drooping terrace (yes, not dripping) where everything is bowed with water, and the very small things have to be beautiful because the big things aren't, very. Great. I've been typing for a minute and it's disappeared. I can't repeat it, it was ART! Fuck. Nevermind, it was all about chives and vichyssoise and Mexican lime soup. And steak! Whatever. It's gone. So, onto the next one....


Filligreed fennel, not a very good picture, but it really is lovely with the water. I'm glad I planted it. It lightens everything no matter where its fronds pop up -

The tarragon I've been thinking about taking out. But I'll be sorry, I know. It's the very first thing to make little downy shoots in March, sometimes even February. In its little frozen pot it seems miraculous, and is, and I eat it the way we should eat: with gratitude and some wonder.

The last lilies. I've given up trying to know which ones they are. Clearly I bought too many that look like this. They should have flowered in August but no one told them. They're not very me. Next year I'll get more Formosas. Except these are about the only Thing happening right now. Maybe phlox. I should find phlox.

Appropos of bad smells, see earlier post. THIS is St Albray cheese. No, I don't know what the two little black things are on the front right. I bought this at the Deathstar today, and it ponged all the way home on the subway, but did not deter the crazy man from slamming down next to me, prompting me to get up uncharacteristically quickly. It's actually factory-made, not artisinal. Something this smelly should be handmade. It tastes wonderful and quite innocent.

After the dishwasher went on the fritz over the weekend the blender gave up the ghost just when the vichyssoise needed whizzing. WD40, a screwdriver and one whack with a hammer and we were on our way. I'm on a mechanical roll. Of course that was two so three was me standing on my head too long in a fit of I-must-stay-very-supple-via-Yoga (it was the Absinthe roller skater's fault), and recrunching the nerve the cabdriver did in a couple of years ago when he challenged a pothole to a one-on-one. And then today I locked myself out, but that's another story. I climbed across (because our fire exit is sealed shut...hm) two sets of rooves in a little black dress in the rain. Quite fun. And my saviour, the old guy who lives next door and who let me into their building to climb out onto their roof (no WAY I'm paying for a locksmith: $150, easy) refused my jar of apricot jam as thanks! He must be an axe murderer. I've never seen his wife.