An Aries Knows (this site is more fun when people read and comment)
Current Photo Friday theme: Minimalism
I won’t be able to scurry around town snapping photos today, but if you want one of 14,000 things to be happy about from this book:
just comment with a page number from 1 to 612 and another number between 1 and 30.
While you’re waiting for me to consult the book, you might enjoy some more New Orleans photos.
Last year, David and Shannon were walking through the Quarter when David noticed the Place d’Armes Hotel. David thought it looked like a promising place to stay. When everyone got back home, Shannon called and got information about the hotel and arranged a block of rooms with special rates. Although it ended up that Shannon wasn’t able to go to Saints and Sinners this year, David, ‘Nathan, and Lisa booked rooms at the Place d’Armes. Since all their rooms are non-smoking, Mark, Timothy, Rob, and I figured we’d stay in smoking rooms at the festival’s host hotel, the Bourbon Orleans. Unfortunately for the smokers among us, without warning, the Bourbon Orleans went all non-smoking on May 1.
Both places have plenty of features to recommend them. Both are in great locations. The Bourbon Orleans is convenient for the festival, has nice rooms, and has a gorgeous courtyard with a sparkling pool. I only saw Lisa’s room at the Place d’Armes, but it was spacious and charming. The Place d’Armes pool didn’t seem as clean, but the courtyards are lush. Especially good for us was that the courtyards didn’t close at ten p.m. as the courtyard does at the Bourbon Orleans. So Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, after meetings and parties and meals, a few of us gathered around the pool area at the Place d’Armes and talked (and smoked, because that’s okay outside), and enjoyed our sport of the weekend: Tormenting David Puterbaugh.
On the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, Lynne came over and worked herself, Tom, and Tim to exhaustion on The Compound grounds. In addition to photographing dogs in Lynne’s gardening wagon (which I like so much that I put it in A COVENTRY WEDDING), I baked a couple of cakes that Lynne needed to decorate for some graduates, visited my mother, and dashed into Michael’s for paper to cover Lynne’s cake boards. (In other words, I shirked anything that would make me get dirty, sweat, or strain my back.)
Whenever I’m in the Wilton cake decorating section, I can’t resist looking at cake pans. This time, I spotted one that I knew I had to have for Edward Ladybughands. This is what the cake looked like after I finished it.
The Saints and Sinners kickoff party was at the W Hotel courtyard on Friday evening. That afternoon, I had to run some errands, including buying a hairbrush or two at Wal-Mart, since that was something I forgot to pack. Thanks to Greg’s excellent directions, I got to Wal-Mart with no problem. I think ALL cities should have roads that dead-end into the parking lots of mega stores like Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. It’s very handy. Cities, take note: My personal preferences would be Target, the Container Store, and Michael’s. Oh, and Walgreen’s, since I spend half my life there anyway.
But back to New Orleans. Since gallivanting through the city on foot wasn’t in the cards this trip, I decided to drive to the W Hotel from Wal-Mart. Of course, I’d failed to get directions back, but Mark G. Harris led me to the hotel by cell phone. Or he tried. I was being very stressed out and uncooperative. Yet he managed not to click his phone shut and blow me off. See why I say the G is for Galahad?
Once in the courtyard, I flopped down on a comfy bench and did very little mingling. Between MGH and FARB, liquid refreshment was kept in front of me (Coca Cola, because I was high enough on pain meds all weekend–‘Nathan, did I really meet you, or just hallucinate it?).
I didn’t get a swag bag, but I did get some photos, and I offer them to you now.
Since it’s going to be a scorching three-day weekend, I’ll be inside dividing my Saints and Sinners/New Orleans photos into several posts, just in case you’re not out spending your tax incentive checks or whatever they’re called, or cooking over a grill, or sharing time with friends, or otherwise living it up on the holiday.
Lynne has promised me that she’s going to spend much of her weekend here figuring out what my yard needs. I think it needs Tommy Clyde, myself.
Somewhere on I-10 East on the way to New Orleans,
I think the phrase “safe as houses” may be more familiar to my British friends. I’d never heard it until I read Alex Jeffers’ novel Safe As Houses in 1995.
Jeffers is allegedly the grandson of one of America’s (often underrated and overlooked) great poets, Robinson Jeffers, who himself was the builder and inhabitant of one of the places I’d most like to visit in the U.S., Tor House and Hawk Tower. I came so close to it on my trip up the California coast in 1998, but my fear is that if I ever visit it, I might not leave. My grasping of rocks with fingers of steel might be a problem for the Foundation and the Jeffers family.
One reason I enjoy reading about Robinson Jeffers and his wife and contemporaries is because, as is so often the case, a group of gifted and intelligent individuals–poets, painters, photographers, writers, musicians, teachers–befriended, nurtured, and inspired one another. I think these groups are best when they’re organic, unforced… That’s really all I want to say about that.
I do want to publish the entire set of photos I took for Lindsey in West U yesterday–because she knows, as I do, that our friends are “safe as houses.”
hoping the spirit of Robinson Jeffers forgives me for the urban view
It’s hard to say what was more fun Wednesday. Going out to shoot photos for my Hump Day Happy post or when Tim came over and asked me to photograph his crotch.
Made you look.
In a little while, Mark G. Harris will be departing The Compound. Even though he’ll be blindfolded and driven in an indirect route to the airport, I have a sneaking suspicion he’ll be smuggling out some photos on his cell phone.
It’s been such a good visit, with a lot of conversation about writing and a lot of not doing much of anything, which is what he wanted. We’ve watched a ton of movies while eating Puterbaugh Popcorn–for some reason, all mushy romantic stuff, including Falling in Love, Heartburn, Crossing Delancey, Baby Boom, and Juno. One night we watched Across the Universe, which I thoroughly enjoyed because of the Beatles music and its look back at the tumultuous Sixties, but it made me miss Riley very much.
Last night, it was All Mark Request Night. Since he wanted to eat corn on the cob before he left, we had that with steak and this fabulous salad:
baby bella mushrooms and red bell pepper on a bed of baby spinach, with walnuts, crumbled bacon, and a choice of crumbled feta or blue cheese.
After a farewell visit from Rhonda, Lindsey, and Sugar, we watched Mark’s movie choice: Working Girl. I don’t think I’d ever seen the beginning, but I always relish Sigourney Weaver’s character (much the way I like Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada). I also appreciate all the views of the World Trade Center. Seeing it makes me happy and sad, which I guess is nostalgia. In fact, it feels like the theme of Mark’s visit has been nostalgia (even though I learned the shocking fact that MGH has never seen The Way We Were!).
Now I know what’s on the movie list for his next visit.
1. In my kitchen, I have these two small, framed pieces of needlework that my mother did for me ten thousand years ago. EVERY time I see them, I think of Lindsey. Why? Because one is constantly askew, and I adjust it, knowing that if Lindsey were in my kitchen, it would drive her crazy. Here’s Lindsey getting a little R&R in the kitchen dog bed.
Edit: On second thought, maybe Lindsey is curled up in the fetal position because she noticed the crooked pictures.
2. This is a really low-quality photo shot with my cell phone of Lynne holding Lila.
I include it here so I can talk about Maggiano’s. I’d been trying to get a lot of errands done in a short period of time, and one of them included picking up something from Lynne. Rather than let me just dash in and out of the restaurant, she bought my lunch and made me sit and relax with her, Laura, and Lila. Sometimes a friend knows what you need better than you do. But here’s the thing about Maggiano’s. They have these columns covered with signed photos of various celebrities, sports figures, and such, many of them Houston locals. I’ve long threatened to send in a framed cover of A Coventry Christmas and write some gushing remark on it like “Thank you for hosting us after my signing!” (never happened) just to see if I can make the wall–even though I’m about as far from a local celebrity as there could be.
3. This is Mark G. Harris’s last full day at The Compound this trip. I’m already missing the idea of movie-and-popcorn nights. But I know my loss will be the Internet’s gain, because no matter how I’ve implored, he has refused to post in his LiveJournal until his return home. He’s a stubborn man. But a good dishwasher.
4. It’s one week until Lenny Kravitz’s and Stevie Nicks’s birthdays. If you don’t know what that means, you haven’t been paying attention. For quite some time, Rex has been daydreaming about what kind of cake I might bake.
Saturday, Mark G. Harris asked if I had some fingernail clippers he could use. That led to a discussion of manicures and pedicures. I never get manicures because I began keeping my nails cut as short as possible back when I was still seeing clients. Even though that’s not a concern anymore since I “retired” (Lindsey’s word), I’ve found that letting my fingernails grow even a little creeps me out.
Pedicures, however, are a treat I allow myself whenever I’m feeling stressed, when I’m traveling, or when we have a booksigning. However, MGH wouldn’t even consider a pedicure (he apparently has foot-esteem issues), so I offered to take him for a manicure. The place I usually go has no bells and whistles–it’s very basic–but MGH said that would be fine with him.