It’s summertime and it is already Africa Hot here in New Orleans. But there are a few things that I love about this time of year here – it quiets down. The festivals are fewer, the crowds thin, and the natives are more laid back than usual. Also, there is summer white – I brought Tin a pair of white aprés beach sweats to wear while we are in Spain. He looks so handsome I…
I was walking through City Park this morning with the dogs and thinking about the park, and thinking about the plein aire painters who have vanished with the breeze. I wish I had other talents – to sing, to paint, to sculpt. But I don’t. I sincerely don’t. I’m not sure I could even do calligraphy because I have a shaky hand and I move in such fast motion that pauses are challenging. I guess…
One of the most fascinating things about aging is watching how nonlinear life is. I keep coming around to people, things, places with a different perspective. Sort of reminds me of Flower’s Russian theory that life is a spiral and it starts narrow and widens (life is short, but wide) and we come back to the same places but if we are evolving we are higher up on the rung and it takes longer to…
I love the poetry of Mark Strand because it speaks to me in ways that other poetry cannot. I came across Mary Louise Parker reading Lines for Winter and had to listen several times. Lines for Winter BY MARK STRAND for Ros Krauss Tell yourself as it gets cold and gray falls from the air that you will go on walking, hearing the same tune no matter where you find yourself— inside the dome of…
I don’t know how we will get our news when the Times Picayune goes to three days a week. Who the hell wants to read nola.com – it’s so bad. They need a dose of aquatization – the term Steve Jobs coined about how to make the computer like aquarium viewing – just pure pleasure. Nola.com is very far from a pleasurable experience, as a matter of fact it is closer to an annoying one.…
We have been avidly catching up on Mad Men and still so impressed with the show. Peggy is possibly the best female character ever written for television. I knew she was channeling Mary Wells Lawrence, who I always associate with Plop Plop Fizz Fizz but there was an article in the New York Times this past Sunday confirming it. Lawrence is a Media Icon having invented some of the most classic ditties known in advertising.…
A long time ago someone gave me this poem: The Problem in Describing Color If I said––remembering, in summer The cardinal’s sudden smudge of red In the bare gray winter woods–– If I said, red ribbon on the cocked straw hat Of the girl with the pooched-out lips Dangling the wiry, black-nosed lapdog In the painting by Renoir–– If I said fire, if I said blood welling from a cut–– Or flecks of poppy in…
I met with my life coach and on my recent travels heard and saw some good advice to follow. These are a few that I noted down and have put firmly on my radar. The first might be the encapsulation of all of them – it’s someone else’s refrigerator mantra but I’m borrowing it: Decide how you want to live and who you want to be then begin to align your thoughts with the self…
I came to my desk this morning and almost ran the other way. Horoscope – right on target. Yikes! June 12, 2012 Taurus (4/20-5/20) You won’t have a full understanding of the true amount of work you have to do today until later in the afternoon, when social time is over and you’re back to spending some time by yourself. This sudden realization of the size of the pile of work in front of you…
Every day is another chance to get it right. Perhaps I ate more than I should have and exercised less than I could have, and we all know that it is diet AND exercise that helps you lose weight, but today is a good day to start again. I’m sitting in Boston airport on my way home from Nantucket and my annual girl’s trip. Four days – the perfect amount of time – and the…