the busy heart

At the mall, before she realized I was taking her picture. The first time I put Henrietta's car seat in the back of our Toyota, I understood minivans. It felt like an epiphany: Oh, that's why. So the dang car seat fits. I had the same feeling today, when I went to the mall for something. I put the baby in her stroller, passed the profoundly-out-of-my-pricerange shoes in Macy's, and realized, oh, this is what malls are for. Malls are for moms. It's pleasant. You can walk and walk, no matter the weather. You can look at pretty things. When Henrietta is older we can hang at the playground. And here's the kicker: if you need stuff from multiple stores, you don't have to get the kid in and out of the car seat 87,000 times. And heaven knows that limits my activity in the outside world. But at the mall, you just stroll on over, and bam! Whatever you'd like is right there. This mall even has a Target attached. I don't see that I need anything else ...

Dear Target; I'm considering the very real possibility that you're evil. Or, in any case, that you and I can't be friends. I love you too much; that's the problem. Today it was the little dolly you see above. She called to me as I walked by, and I picked her up and thought about Valentine's Day, and how I'd been thinking about getting a gift for Henrietta, but I told myself this was silly, since she's four months old, and will not know a gift from a burp cloth. So I hung her back in place, and carried on toward the humidifiers, which I actually meant to purchase. But I kept thinking about the dolly, and how Henrietta doesn't have a single baby doll yet. She has several bunnies and kitties and a stuffed broccoli with an orange bow-tie I made while I was bed resting, but no baby doll. And don't little girls need baby dolls? I put her back in my cart. I didn't end up getting the humidifier, since I looked up the one you carry on my phone...

We had leftover flex-spending money, so we got eye exams and glasses. Sam was skeptical until the man told him these glasses made him look like he was "driving down the autobahn," which he does. He's long been against the dark frames, but it was time to join the nerdy-chic crowd, which, as Sam points out, is no longer really nerdy -chic, just plain chic. It took him a few months to truly be converted to these glasses, but I think he's converted now. Sam's glasses + Tadzio the Cat, who loves him fiercely In the last year or so, Sam has shifted his style to a darker (and slightly more fitted) wash of jeans, button-up (and usually untucked) dress shirts, brown boots that are so lovely they make me silly, lovely blazers that used to be his father's, and these glasses. Listen friends, he used to wear very light (and rather baggy) jeans, tennis shoes, and t-shirts. And folks, I would have loved him forever and ever in those clothes, cross my heart. But I can...

One morning I went out into the living room and near the table I stood very still and gasped.  There was an enormous bug on the inside bridge of my nose.  I reached up before I could think too hard, plucked it off, and threw it violently to the ground.  Then I realized it wasn't a bug.  It was the nosepad to my glasses.  I got down on my hands and knees and searched for it, but it wasn't to be found. Later, standing in the only eyeglass store that was willing to help me that day , I tried on these glasses.  By the time I realized the techs in back could fix my previous ones, I was already smitten with these.  What could I do?  I was in a swank glasses shop in Cambridge, a man with artfully disheveled hair was telling me how cool they looked, and I was simply putty in his salesman hands.  

I've been fighting off writing this, even though I knew as soon as it happened that I would. It's scary to write it, more personal than I would care to be. But I can't stop thinking I have something so say, and so I must say it. I'm in Utah visiting my parents for 30 seconds or so (Saturday-Monday). While here, I usually hit up Ross, as there ain't no Ross in Boston. So there I was on Saturday, at Ross, waiting in line to purchase several cozy, well-priced sweaters, when two little girls came up behind me, pointed at my butt, and said, "Big butt! Big butt!" Oh, the things I wish I could/would have said. I turned around, said, "That's very rude." Her mother heard me say it, asked the kid what she had said, and a minute later a very embarrassed seven-year-old came up and told me, "I'm sorry." I didn't know what to say there either, as my smart sister (Kira) has pointed out that telling kids "That's okay" whe...

I went to Dollar Tree the other day for frames. Dollar store frames are my favorite. I put several of our Europe trip postcards in them. I also couldn't help picking up a cat toy for a buck. I got a little fake bird--styrofoam covered with feathers--thinking it might remind them of days at my parents' house when they were allowed outside. They'd catch big dirty birds, murder them, then drag them into the living room to show my parents. Much to my parents' delight, I can assure you. Apparently vacuuming up feathers is annoying. Who knew? Now, from the way they sit in open windows, noses pressed longingly to the screens, I think they miss those days. So I bought the bird. Meatsock immediately commenced murdering it. Until it is, after a day, as you see it here. Poor thing. Here is Kitty, giving Bird a big friendly kiss. And here he is again, just after he'd knocked it to the ground and gnawed its styrofoam jugular a little more. They're the best of fr...

I'm way behind, yo. We've been to Cinque Terre, now we're in Rome. We fly back to Paris tomorrow and then home to Boston the day after that. I've gotta say, we've had a lovely lovely trip, but we're SO glad to be heading home. Here's my advice: if you make it to Italy, the place to go is Cinque Terre. It was probably our favorite place throughout the whole trip. It's an area along the Northern coast, a series of five colorful little fishing villages. We went swimming in the Ligurian sea (which is very very salty, it seems to me), ate the best food of the trip (bruschetta, foccacia, pesto, pine nut gelato, chili pepper herb tea, etc), took a boat to a few other towns, lounged on the beach in fancy beach chairs and read books. A man walked down the beach carrying a big basket full of huge tropical leaves and chunks of fresh coconut shouting, "Coco, bella coco!" Oh how I loved that man. And each little town had a few friendly kitties lou...