[es-pree de less-ka/-iay] (idiom) A witty remark that occurs to you too late, literally on the way down the stairs. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations defines esprit de l'escalier as, "An untranslatable phrase, the meaning of which is that one only thinks on one's way downstairs of the smart retort one might have made in the drawing room."
Happy Friday everyone! My brother is in town, seen pictured above with me and our aunt's visiting poodle. I convinced him to take part in my weekly self-portrait project. It turns out he's taking his own photo once a day with his laptop.
Our Dad leaves for a long trip abroad this afternoon. He's off to Taiwan, which he's excited for as he worked there for a year about a dozen years ago, and back to Kuwait, which he's less excited for. We had a lovely dinner last night, a bit of an early Father's Day dinner. I made lemon bars, which I hadn't done so in oh, approximately forever. The recipe in Joy of Cooking is very easy and very tasty.
Hope you all have a good weekend! It's supposed to be beastly hot here.
I did it again. I have a very bad habit of forgetting my blog's birthday. This is the third year in a row that I have forgotten the day. I made a brief mental note about a week ago, but I didn't write it down and clearly that did nothing to help me remember.
Anyway, it's funny to think I've been at this for five years. The last couple years have seen a decline in the regularity of me posting, as well as the increase of photos posted. My habits online have shifted as well. This is partially due to technology and my time availability changing (ie: my use of an rss reader, my expanded use of various social media online, as well as me going to grad school and working). Really, this blog is badly in need of a cosmetic makeover, as well as an update in links. I haven't touched the design in at least three years, which is more than ridiculous. With all of this, though, my reasons for blogging and for keeping this space alive have not changed. Here's what I said five years ago:
I'm hoping this blog to be a place for me to write about the world
around me. I'm very interested in politics, but I'm not interested in
making this a politics-only space. Lots of things move me, and I am
hoping this space is full of all of the things I hear, see and think
about. I also hope that friends stop by and read me from time to time
and that we can carry on cyber conversations. I like discussion in any
form.
Where I go and who I interact with online has shifted slightly, but really it's just widened. I've made a lot of friends via this space, as well as Flickr. My online friends enrich my life, and this space continues to be a place to share experiences and things I love. I count myself lucky for so many reasons.
As I seem to do every year, thank you especially to the three bloggers who have been there from the beginning - Lance Mannion, Blue Girl, and Jennifer. Thank you guys for being inspirational and supportive. And thanks to Kathleen too. You guys are the best.
I think this is my first photo of Sir Frank in his favorite summer spot - the catmint. It's also been far too long since I've shared his cute mug here.
I know that the summer solstice is still about a week away, but it's truly summer in my mind. This is not because of the high humidity and temperatures in the upper 80s, no. It's because of the itchy welts scattered across my knees and ankles. Oh mosquitoes. Thank you for making me scratch. (Also, you pesky things, please note the sarcasm.)
These were the first round of strawberries from the farmer's market a couple of weekends ago. Today I drove over to Kenyon to visit with my friend Mark from college. He's getting a PhD in education at Michigan State. We always have meandering conversations that hit many topics and shared enthusiasms. It's always fun to meet up with him. It was the perfect summer day for a mini road trip. Blue skies, fluffy clouds, good tunes.
I'm housesitting in Columbus this weekend. The house is on a busy street in a cool neighborhood. I was watering their plants this evening and thinking about how on display I felt. My parents' house is tucked back and it feels very secluded and private. I'm a little out of touch with urban living. I'm looking forward to spending some time on their front porch, so I can people watch.
My book club finally met to discuss Cannery Row this weekend. Discussing it only reminded me of excellent descriptive passages I had forgotten. Last month, one of our members decided to be inspired by the following passage:
While he ate his sandwich and sipped his beer, a bit of conversation
came back to him. Blaisedell, the poet, had said to him, "You love beer
so much, I'll bet some day you'll go in and order a beer milk shake." It
was a simple piece of foolery but it had bothered Doc ever since. He
wondered what a beer milk shake would taste like. The idea gagged him
but he couldn't let it alone. It cropped up every time he had a glass of
beer. Would it curdle the milk? Would you add sugar? It was like a
shrimp ice cream. Once the thing got into your head you couldn't forget
it. He finished his sandwich and paid Herman. He purposely didn't look
at the milk shake machines lined up so shiny against the back wall. If a
man ordered a beer milk shake, he thought, he'd better do it in a town
where he wasn't known. But then, a man with a beard, ordering a beer
milk shake in a town where he wasn't known - they might call the police.
We made beer floats with Guinness, ice cream and espresso vodka. They were so much better than the lager-based beer milkshakes I imagined when I read the above passage the first time. Be inspired, read the book and cook up some silly, but tasty, drinks.
I finally got a roll of film back from my quick visit to Chicago in mid May. My tardiness with its development had something to do with the fact that I forgot it was a 36 exposure roll and didn't take enough photos on my trip. The roll kicked around in my Pentax K1000 for several weeks and therefore acquired shots from disparate times and places. In some ways this makes getting the roll back that much more fun - the surprise factor is a little higher.
I have yet to upload all of the photos to Flickr, but I thought I'd leave you with this photo of waffles, in hopes that you are inspired for your brunches this weekend. My caption for this photo on Flickr is: "This is one of my favorite spots: sitting at this table at my friends' house for breakfast. It means I've had a restorative visit with some people I dearly love." Which is true. It's a simple table, but I've sat around it many times and love it for those moments.
I also just wanted to take a moment to say how much I love this camera. On my way out of town, I went on a little photo walk around Chinatown with my friend Sharon. We stopped for lunch at a delicious Vietnamese/Thai place (whose name I forget). While we were deciding on ordering, one of the men that worked there came up and commented on my camera. He enthused about it and the nature of film photographs. I agreed with him. This was all while I was holding Sharon's badass D300s with a gigantic, kick ass lens. I laughed to myself that my little tank of a manual film camera got the compliment. This is the friendliest camera ever. It starts conversations all the time. And takes dreamy photos.
Mr. Mannion just mentioned me in a post about cameras and photography, so I feel the need to post some new photos (thanks again Lance!). These are from last week, at various times. I've been sitting on a couple of rolls of film photos that need to be scanned, and hopefully I'll get around to doing that and posting them this week.
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