So I bought a crop top and high-waisted jean shorts. I'm sorry. (For future outings, methinks that crop top will be planted firmly underneath a pair of overalls, but hey, every once in awhile you've got to let out your inner Miley.)
If you're going to snoop, snoop like a pro. (10 Mistakes To Avoid When You're Crashing With Friends, via Refinery29.)
Perfect white button-down at a GREAT price (it's from the junior's department, though, so size up.)
This weekend, we drove down to Pasadena (just outside of LA) to visit my parents, who were there for the weekend for my dad's work. At one point, my mom and I were standing in the hallway, waiting for Kendrick to come upstairs with the stroller, and she turned to me and said, "So. Do you like it here?"
Part of me wants to say I don't. Especially to my mom, because I miss her and my dad so much, every single day. And there's also a big part of me that feels like...you know, being a New Yorker is such a huge part of my identity, of my upbringing. I haven't technically lived in the city for a few years now, but I still felt like if I was raising my children just a few minutes outside its borders I'd...I don't know, I'd somehow be able to wrap my mind more easily around what their childhood would look like. I'd know what museums to take them to, what restaurants they'd like, be able to tell them stories about the things I did when I was their age when I walked down this street or that one.
At this point we've obviously committed to a life out here, but still:
Some of my favorite memories from when I was growing up are of the times we drove upstate to visit my parents' friends at the 1950s-style family resort they owned. All day (and night) long the grownups hung out in the common room and drank wine and played chess and talked and laughed while the kids played a board game, or searched for Tiny Toon Adventures on the old TV by the bar, or hid under dining room tables telling secrets, and it was all just so...communal. Not just family units in threes and fours braving the waters in rickety little boats; an actual village full of parents and children and grandchildren and babies, everyone doing their own thing, but together just the same.
I remember the sound of it, you know? The sort of grownup buzzing that's the soundtrack of so much of your childhood; those conversations about politics that you can't even begin to make sense of, those jokes that make your parents laugh until they turn red and that you don't understand but laugh at anyway, just because they're happy and so you're happy, too. It's the same sound that you hear late at night when you're in the backseat of the car driving home from somewhere, and your parents start talking about work or something else your kid self doesn't care about, and you fall asleep to the sound of their office frustrations and traffic reports on the radio, and feel warm and peaceful and safe.
It's cool, seeing how happy our kids are when we have friends over. Not because anyone's doting on them, especially, but just because I get the sense it's exciting, getting to be a part of what Grownup Life is like. The other day we had a few friends over for lunch and swimming, and when the sun started to set we decided to take a mini-picnic out to the trellis-covered tables by the playground down the block. We swung on swings and climbed hills and ran around with the dogs and just sat and talked, and the kids stayed up late and ended the night watching cartoons on the bed while we ordered Thai food and talked some more, and it reminded me of those weekends at the hotel way back when.
Our son's room when we first moved in (the floors and paint had already been done by a Thumbtack pro; more info on those here).
There's something so special about the room you have when you're a kid. No matter what it looks like - whether it's bare-bones, whether it's fancy, whether it's neat or messy or whatever - you love it, because it's yours. You know every single corner of it; lay awake at night wrapped up in elaborate fantasies about the picture hanging on that wall or the stuffed animals sitting on the chair in the corner.
It's alive in a way that I don't know any room later in life ever is.
I don't even know how to describe the Big Daddy's showroom in San Francisco, other than to say that it's paradise. Francesca works with the company and introduced me to them when we drove through LA (there's a showroom there, too), and now I'm basically a superfan and would like to decorate our entire house from top to bottom with their pieces, please. I was in the city for a meeting yesterday morning, so I swung by to check out potential dining room tables (because ours is just way too small for our weirdly large dining room), and then oops: it was two hours later, and they had fed me cookies while I had elaborate fantasies involving pendant lights and leather-wrapped benches.
In theory, Big Daddy's is an antique and custom furniture store...but that's sort of like describing an animal-style In 'N' Out burger as "a hamburger": it doesn't even scratch the surface. What Big Daddy's really is: an Alice in Wonderland-style maze filled (literally filled to the rafters) with one-of-a-kind pieces, spectacular reproductions, and custom creations of the in-house team of welders and wood-workers. Clients can also work with staff designers to customize pieces, adding, say, fold-out stools made from reclaimed prison table bases to a dining table made from old bowling alley lanes (really; I saw both of these things while I was there).
Also: there are bird cages the size of studio apartments hanging from the ceiling, and next to them is an actual airplane suspended over a wall of buckets, and over there in the corner is a Lucite egg chair hanging from a massive iron wrench-type base, and oh hey, I just tripped over a tiger-print couch, just sitting there all tiger-printed and perfect.
Photo by Indy
So I think it's safe to say we're more or less settled in now. I know where the closest Trader Joe's is; our son is happily enrolled in summer camp; we have an account at the dry cleaner. There are still a bunch of boxes left to be unpacked, but that's mostly because I have to wait for the renovations we're in the middle of to be finished before I have anywhere to put the rest of our things. We even have a couple of playdates with potential new friends on the horizon (always scary, this making-of-new-friends-in-a-new-town thing, but I did it once before, and it turned out pretty great, so).
And so I thought I'd just share a few snapshots that we've taken over the past couple of weeks; just some bits and pieces of what we've been up to.
Photo by Indy
Wearing: 1.State Midi Skirt & Crop Top; Steve Madden Heels
Our dining room was a surprise to me. It's about six times larger than any dining room I've had ever before in my life - almost strangely large, given that the house itself is not especially massive - and when we first loaded our furniture in I had no idea what to do with it, because our dining room table, as much as I love it, looked like doll furniture. We have a massive dining room table in our near future, but in the meantime I decided to make the dining room feel a little less cavernous and empty by creating a sidebar area next to the table.
Oh, man, this is a dirty drink. Or, rather...not the drink itself, but the name I came up with for it. I totally did not mean it to mean what it means, but then someone at our Fourth of July party asked me what the drink I was serving was called, and this just seemed like the obvious answer, and then it was out of my mouth and there was no taking it back.
"Oh, this?" I said. "It's called a Salty Squirt."
Ew, I know. Go yell at the people who named the most delicious soda in the world "Squirt."
| Carmel, California |
You know how there are certain things in your closet that you really love, but just never wear for whatever reason? For me, it was always hats: I would find one, and love it, and buy it, and then never wear it because every time I put it on I felt like I was wearing a big sign saying HELLO I AM THAT GIRL WEARING THE HAT.
And then one day I realized: I totally don't care if I'm that girl wearing the hat.
