Back and Gone to Seed

I got back to New York last night, cruising back up the Eastern Shore in the wake of an epic thunderstorm that left thousands without power, delayed my introduction to my P.N.F.B.* Miss Annabelle Mooney, and garnered the real-time headline: INCH LARGE HAIL BALL FOUND IN CHUCKATUCK. Man, oh, man. Upon my return the internet is out and the cilantro has bolted (see above), but— the flowers are lovely and small and delicate and make a perfect little cilantro-y nosegay. If she were here I’d give it to Miss Meags to celebrate her engagement! Lovelovelove.

Coming up this week I’ll have an all-you-can-eat buffet of American-ness for your reading pleasure: baseball, camping, adventures, fireworks, and, of course, a dog on a ferris wheel.

 

*potential new favorite baby

Campout!

Tonight we’re heading out to (my favorite) Floyd Bennett Field (which is actually part of Gateway National Park and contains areas of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge) for an urban camping adventure in honor of Sweetheart’s birthday. Among the rich swaths of wooded paradise covered in honeysuckle and queen anne’s lace you can catch glimpses of the Marine Park Bridge, and as the breezes blow the wheeling seabirds, you can see the Empire State Building in the far distance. Oh adventure! In the mean time, I hope everyone has a weekend of unexpected beauty.

Tall Ships

After glimpsing them in New York harbor during fleet week, and seeing them streaming sails across the mouth of the Chesapeake, Daddy and I cruised down to Harborfest to see the stunning tall ships in all their furled glory. I told you I love ships. Gilded figureheads in the golden hour, fireworks amidst the riggings at sundown, all the ships in the harbor sounding their horns at once, a rude and glorious symphony—as from Whitman:

Chant on, sail on, bear o’er the boundless blue from me to every sea,
This song for mariners and all their ships.

ps. and a very happy birthday to Sweetheart… I can’t wait to share the celebration!

Bless my Heyerdahl: Easter Island Heads have Bodies!

Maybe it was Daddy’s worn copy of Kon Tiki that got me, the one that he loved when he was a boy, with its slick blue and adventure tan illustrations, its grainy black and white photographs of bearded, devastatingly handsome Thor Heyerdahl catching a shark with his bare hands on his way in his reed boat to prove possible trans-continental contact by ancient Polynesian navigators. Sigh. Ever since I was little I’ve loved that thought of far flung adventure, the possibility of discovery, of ancient people, of quipus and carved paddles, of petroglyphs and monoliths, and of the sea: of celestial navigation and of lodestones, the way ships grow from the horizon as the earth curves, the green flash, the dog star, and the southern cross. These mysteries somehow greater than humanity, and maybe almost older than it too. Here is Thor perched atop one of his principal pieces of evidence as to the seaworthiness of balsa rafts, the mysterious and giant Moai Easter Island Heads.Ahhh the mystery! Who built them? How did they get there? Why were they put there? Why did they have stonework dopplegangers in the Peruvian rainforest? Some questions have only suppositions as answers and some answers lead only to more questions. The most recent answer: OH MY GOODNESS THEY HAVE BODIES NOT JUST HEADS! Leads to the next question: Why??

It’s all there: the ancient wonder, the human spark, the surprise and delight of revelation, and the Catch 22 bittersweetness that with each discovery there is one less thing to be discovered.

Images from here, here, and here.

Baseball+Wanderlust

This Just In. The official theme of this summer is WANDERLUST+BASEBALL. But, really, is this anything new? Ever since my guilty twinges at not having seen a ballgame by June reached a frenzy, I’ve thrown myself into the American Pastime (more on the New York Gotham’s later this week). Last night on a wild hair, Sweetheart and I sped on the wings of the new G>7 in-station transfer out to CitiField. The Mets were taking on similar-perennial-underdogs-in-a-pretty-tough-division Orioles, and tickets were $5.70 (it was a No-Han special- in honor of Johan’s- #57- no hitter). It was, in essence, a perfect night. Bewhiskered cartoon-hounddog knuckleballer R.A. Dickey pitched a one hitter complete game (back to back on his other one hitter complete game), Sweet Ike Davis broke his epic dry-spell with his first-ever grand slam- we gave him a much deserved curtain call-, and it was 65 degrees and breezy. Also of note: Dickey’s “come to the plate” music is the Game of Thrones theme song. I don’t think I could love him more. If you build it, we will come.Images via instagram here and here.

Play Ball!

Oh, New York Metropolitans, I apologize. Summer’s been here for about a month it seems and I’ve yet to go to a baseball game. This feels especially derelict given how far the sweet underdog Mets have come since last year’s walk-off-balk (and may I remind you that that was back when they had Jose Reyes? I say good riddance.): Johan’s no-no, Dickey’s almost no-no, and the thorough drubbing of the Rays this week. Well, Mets, I’m going to get my baseball fix tomorrow, but it’s not going to be at Citi Field (and gawd knows it’s not going to be at Yankee Stadium). Meags is in town and we’re taking the free ferry out to Governor’s Island to see the Gotham Baseball Club of New York take on Eckford of Brooklyn. Vintage baseball for modern times. Since the original New York Gothams of 1864 were heated rivals of the Metropolitans (and went on to become the New York Giants which in turn became the San Francisco Giants, oof), AND since Eckford’s original ballfield was just a crow-hop away from where I live, I’ll be rooting for Brooklyn as means of absolution. I’ll let you know how it goes. Let’s go Mets, Let’s go Ecks, and Let’s go summer.

 

1882 Metropolitan Nine image and Brooklyn Bridegrooms Image from the Library of Congress. Which is, of course, totally amazing.

Kitten Caboodle

Seriously considering getting Mr. Nipsey Russell this New York Apartment friendly under-the-chair cat hammock. On my pros list: small, doesn’t take up extra space, would fit perfectly on the Danish modern. Cons: could it possibly live up to the majesty/warmth of perching atop the record player receiver? could it replace the fortress of the cardboard box? We shall put it to a vote and see. In the meantime, a girl can dream.

Thanks to Smills for keeping her eyes peeled for me.

Off The Map

When Sweetheart and I went down to Puerto Rico for his dear friend’s wedding to a native Puertorriqueña, we made the good choice to hang around for a few days after. Fortified with strange savory pastries dusted with powdered sugar and strong dark coffee on our way out of San Juan, we headed to the interior. Trekking into El Yunque rainforest to spend the night off the grid in a cabin perched atop a mile high mountain that used to be a tropical fruit farm=good plan. Upon our arrival, we each got a crooked walking stick and hiked up the jungle switchbacks, stopping along the way to pick camandula seeds (which the native Taina ladies used to string as necklaces) arriving at our cabin—tin roofed and on stilts—as the sun was setting. Our host- a sort of Apocalypse-Now-Roger-Sterling- showed us the machete (labeled “guest machete”), gave us this map, and melted into the underbrush. We made fire, cooked meat, peppers and rice, drank rum, played backgammon by candlelight, slept in hammocks, took rainforest rainwater showers and, when the nighttime thunderstorms broke into dawn, we followed the map to the Cubuy River falls. Not all those who wander are lost, but it helps if you have a map.