Home At Last!

We’re Home!  We got home Friday night. I woke up this morning to an almost-full snow moon peeking through the bare branches of the tree outside our bedroom window.  The house is quiet, the streets are deserted, I’m back to my morning routine of ball throwing for Jack, tummy rubbing for Girl, and tea with stretching exercises.  Mrs. Miniver was on TV this morning (giving good reason to cry hysterically, one of my favorite things to do any time of day, as long as it’s only a movie!); tea kettle is steaming, heater’s humming. I think the house is happy to have us back, but probably not as happy as we are!  Going away is wonderful, but coming home is even better!

Especially when your house has critters in it.  I couldn’t wait to get in the door!  Hugs and a belly rub for Girl Kitty; her curiosity forced her to stick around and watch us for a while, but then, because she’s eleven years old and set in her ways, up the stairs she goes, back to her spot on our bed.  My little beloved Jackie Boy, now almost six months old, follows me everywhere I go.  He is here right now, in my studio as I’m typing, curled up under the lamp on my art table. I can’t keep my hands off him; I pick him up, roll him around, all furry and soft; he stretches full length, arching his back and putting his front paws above his head, purring the whole time, trusting me.  Such a little doll.  Isn’t that mustache amazing?  He still picks up the ball in his mouth and brings it back to me when I throw it!  He somersaults across the floor at least three times when he pounces on the ball; you can always tell where he is because there’s a bell in the ball.  I don’t get much done; I write one sentence; I hear the jingle of the ball drop at my feet; I stop, throw it; it bounces off the back of the sofa, he jumps four feet in the air to catch it; he drops and rolls with it, because he is a drama king.  I type another half of a sentence, he is back, the ball rolls at my feet, jingling.  Ask not for whom the bell tolls . . . I get nothing done.  I take Joe his tea at 7 am and I also take him Jack!  I wrap his strong little kitten body around my neck like a fox fur and up the stairs we go.

I’ve been unpacking, doing our travel laundry — is there anything better than being buried in warm laundry on a chilly Saturday afternoon while watching an old movie?  I’ll ask Joe.  He says, “no there’s not!”  He was so cozy in there, I had to go get the camera.

Joe had gone downtown to the PO earlier, to collect the mail — in the pile was my December Friends of Gladys Taber Newsletter — late because it was forwarded to me by Kellee from my Studio in California; but anytime it comes is OK with me!  I just love this newsletter; I made a cup of tea and sat down to read it, while Joe wallowed on the sofa in the clean laundry.  The perfect couple camaraderie for people celebrating their 25th anniversary (the real day is tomorrow)! 

This might be the best issue of all from the Friends of Gladys Taber!  Full of Gladys’ Butternut Wisdom and comfort-food recipes from her kitchen: old-fashioned baked beans and ham pie. I knew they were including my recipe for Butternut Bisque in one of their newsletters, but I didn’t know which one; plus I’d forgotten all about it, so it was a thrill and a surprise when I turned the page and there it was! In case you’re new to my blog and haven’t heard about one of my favorite authors, Gladys Taber, you can click on her name and read more about her (and get her Newsletter for yourself!).  And in case you’d like the recipe for Butternut Bisque, which is delicious and nutritious and a very good place to use some of that fabulous Chicken Stock you’ve been making, here it is:

BTW, this recipe came from my first book, Heart of the Home, which was written before I’d heard of immersion hand blenders!  These hand-held blenders go right into the pan and make things so much easier; no more “pureeing the soup in batches!”

Here are a few more New York pictures — from our last day . . . with some Breakfast at Tiffany’s MUSICA . . .

Because, I thought I would take you window shopping on Madison Avenue.

Without it, our trip wouldn’t be complete!  It was our last morning in the city, we went for coffee at a wonderful French bakery, Le Pain Quotidien, on Lexington and 64th; we had big bowls of Café Au Lait–I had oatmeal with berries and Joe had poached eggs on toast; then we walked a couple of blocks over to Madison Avenue to take photos.  I couldn’t bring you to New York without showing you some fashion!  That just wouldn’t right!

I simply HAD to have those yellow shoes!  Ha ha.  Did you believe me?  No, I know, you’re way too smart for that! 🙂

Walking down Madison Avenue is like walking through the pages of Vogue Magazine.  There are reflections from the street in all of these windows; some of the photos almost look like double exposures!

I actually like this outfit quite a lot.

Pretty.  But not my color.  You have to be a winter to really wear pure white well!

Lots of this bright green, in fact, lots of color!  These stores have names like Michael Kors, Jil Sander, Yves St. Laurent, Ralph Lauren, Valentino, Georgio Armani, and Chanel. I don’t shop here, it’s really not my lifestyle, I’m more of the jammies all day long type of person, but I LOVE to look!

Here’s another pair of shoes I’m sure mean nothing but comfort for the foot! The color specialists at Pantone say this orange is THE color of the season.  It’s on everything.  The good news is that when we see more color introduced in fashion it’s traditionally meant that the economy is on its way UP!  So this is good, no matter how we feel about Tangerine!

Pretty frock.

Purses, scarves, perfume and jewelry.

I think Cleopatra wore shoes just like this!

Cutie bow in the back of this dress.  (BTW, Those are windows from across the street reflected in the fur stole, not a pattern!) What real people in the street were wearing was even more interesting to me!  New York street style, at least this week, was leggings and boots, some with dresses, some with tunics, all with coats and scarves.  Such cute boots: short, furry, and buckled; tall or mid-calf; heels or flat; dressy or casual. For young and old.

The neighborhood is just beautiful; these are two churches next to each other.

Lots of brownstones, change of paint and door style, and voila, it’s a different house.

New York is a big city, but it has a human scale, too; lots of wonderful little neighborhoods, even pigeons feel at home making their mark in New York.

So we packed the car, took one last trip through SoHo . . . and drove back the way we came, through Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, in time to have clam chowder in front of the fire at one of our favorite places in Falmouth (the Nimrod) and catch the 7 pm boat back to Martha’s Vineyard and home.

As we were coming in, Joe took this picture standing on the front of the boat on the freight deck; the ferry is moving into the slip where it will dock so the vehicles can drive off onto the island.

From a block away, down our dark street, we could see the twinkle lights in the upstairs window of our house; we still have a little tree there.  It was our Kitty Babysitter’s way of saying welcome home. 

It’s lovely to go out and run around in the world for a while; wonderful to see the sights!  I love to travel, but I especially love to come home to purring kitties, warm laundry with an old movie, a dinner of blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, our very own bed, and a cup of tea to drink with a snail mail letter.  Throw in a little armchair window shopping and/or Superbowl watching, and you have it all; the simple joys of home. ♥  Have a wonderful day girlfriends!  Hope you enjoyed New York!!!

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From Someone Else’s House in New York!

Good morning, girls!  You know how it is when you are staying in someone else’s house and it’s 3 o’clock in the morning and you’re dying for a cup of tea?  Maybe you turn on your computer and put on some good wake-up music first . . .

We are staying with friends in their beautiful five-story brownstone on the upper east side of New York City.  I’m not familiar with the inside of many Manhattan brownstones, but from the outside you can see they are all rather vertically designed. In our friend’s house, the kitchen and dining room are on the ground floor; up one steep flight of stairs is a long living room with tall windows at both ends.  The guest room, where we’re staying, is up the next narrow, curving, highly polished set of stairs (slippery to the person carrying a cup of tea!) — our room (I’m never leaving) is a little suite that takes up the whole third floor. Separated from the sleeping area by a large closet,  is a small, cozy sitting room (where I am now). It’s all dark wood, with a mooshey brown velvetish sofa (perfect for a person to read on, has a soft blanket on the back of it), wood floors, a wall of wonderful floor-to-ceiling book shelves filled with books, a beautiful old Oriental rug in faded colors of soft green, camel, and burgundy, a giant TV, and a comfortable armchair.  It is like a cocoon in here.  You wear this room like your favorite sweater; put it on and never want to take it off, perfect to wear over your jammies.

 I took a shower yesterday, in the bathroom off this little snuggy room; came out wrapped in thick white terry towels, my wet hair wrapped up in a towel turban; Joe came up from the kitchen bringing me a plate with thick, crunchy, seedy New York bread with raisins in it, toasted and buttered, along with slices of warm roasted chicken and a cold tangerine.  I sat on the brown velvet sofa, clean from the shower, put the plate on my toweled lap and ate; peeled my tangerine which sent spritzes of juice off into the air. So that’s how the day began.  Deep happy citrus breath.  So quiet here, you would never know you are in the middle of the city that never sleeps.

This was last night.  Yes, we are the kind of tourists who like to stop in the middle of Park Avenue to take pictures with mouth agape, a bit of drool at corners, because it’s just so BEAUTIFUL.  Because of Ellis Island, New York is called “America’s Hometown” — so many of us got our start right here there is historical DNA everywhere you look. We are crossing Park Avenue on our way home; it is positively balmy weather, and we’ve just had an amazing dinner at an amazing restaurant called Tao.

Here’s a photo of Tao from our table . . . it’s in what used to be the stable for the Vanderbilt family in the 1800’s (every building in NY is filled with history) — the photo is a bit out of focus, didn’t want to have anyone looking at me so I didn’t use a flash!  See the huge Buddha at the back?  We are on the second floor, overlooking the first floor dining room.

The food was SO good; we had salty edamame beans to snack on with cocktails; I had a delicious Pad Thai, with rice noodles, chili peppers, lime, garlic, bean sprouts and grilled shrimp; we had coconut ice cream and pineapple sorbet for dessert, and chocolate fortune cookies.  But my favorite (besides people watching and the gorgeous clothes) was the bathroom. First I had to find it . . . down a long stairway, in the middle of a narrow hall; there were two doors to choose from, one on your right, one on your left, across from one another, exactly alike except one door said YIN and the other said YANG. Which door would you go in?  Think about it for a moment.  I was alone, had no one to mull this over with . . . personally, at the time, I felt more like a Yin than a Yang, but I wasn’t about to just go with it. We don’t get out much on the Vineyard, our doors always have SOMETHING to tell you which door is yours.  So I waited in the empty brown hallway, poised to go in, facing the YIN door, waiting for the next woman to come out.  The door opened, I took a small step forward, then quickly stepped back, coming eye to eye with a man who was trying to squeeze past me into the hallway.  “Uh, huh,” I said, “Just what I thought.”  The man laughed and said, “I did the same thing!”  So funny. Nice thing for him to say.  I felt like less of an idiot as I turned and ran into the YANG door!  You can take the girl out of the country . . . I could set my clock by what I think . . . If I think, “go right,” that automatically means I should “go left.”  I’m rather unfailing that way.  I should depend on it more.

I was a whole lot less out of my element here at Tea and Sympathy in Greenwich Village.  So many of you mentioned that we should go here, we had to take your advice . . . whipping through the city streets down to the Village in our cab . . . you were right and it was delicious!  We loved it!  We also loved English bacon when we were in England and haven’t been able to get it since . . . so the bacon sandwich was irresistible to me; Joe had sausage roll, mash, and beans, and the waitress asked him if he was English.  He beamed.  Joe went to school in England for a year when he was twelve, so he is kind of English is what he thinks.  We shared this tender little treacle cake in a puddle of vanilla custard.  The people who worked here were charming and British and sweet, and it felt like home. It’s a tiny little spot, perfect place to take your book or your British Country Living (heavenly magazine which you can get at Barnes and Noble, by the way!) and sit at a table in the window to while away a rainy afternoon.  The gift shop next door was filled with English food and lots of English China, tea pots and cups.  Such a good thing to do in the middle of a busy day!  We highly recommend it!

From there we grabbed a cab down to the Javits Center where we’ve been attending the New York Gift Show the last couple of days. . . looking for new products for my art, things we would love for ourselves, and hope you will like to have too!  Rows and rows of gorgeous things . . .

Thinking, wouldn’t my art look pretty on sheets like this?  We could have them in our web store!

Or on a nice big cup like this?  We found all sorts of fun things . . . from printed aprons and dish towels, to bird feeders they would make to match the arbor in my back yard, to heavy decorated ribbon boxes and packaged herb seeds.

On our way home, we stopped at the New York Public Library because of the rumor that we might be able to see the original toys, the Pooh Bear (Winnie), Tigger, Kanga, Piglet, Eeyore, that A. A. Milne gave his little two year old boy, Christopher Robin.  I wanted to take pictures of them for you.  But they wouldn’t let me.  So I found this one in Google images.  Where there’s a will, there’s a way.  My mother always says that, and sometimes, it’s true!  They were in a large rectangular glass box, all together, close to each other just like this.  The sweet old toys are a bit worn, but they look loved; definitely loved by me . . .  I have to say, Piglet was my favorite.  You will know which one he is by process of elimination.

This beautiful library is free, open to the public; Virginia Woolf’s handwritten diary was there too, right near Pooh and friends.  See the girls on the steps?  Those are French girls visiting New York . . . I know because they asked Joe to take their picture.  The New York Public Library is just one more reason to be proud of this beautiful city.

He really did love those girls! 🙂

I have to show you a couple of photos of the library!  It’s just too beautiful!

This is the Main Reading Room, computers, books, and researchers . . . all very quiet!

The Gift Shop!  (We brake for gift shops!) I picked up a book called Dancing with Mrs. Dalloway, a book full of stories of the inspirations behind the great works of literature; opened it right to the page about Beatrix Potter where she is illustrating a letter to a child; took it as a sign and now it’s my book!

OK, I have to get going.  Joe just came upstairs, herding me out of the cocoon, toward the shower, bringing me breakfast again . . . I’m pushing my luck, two days in a row!  This time it was that same delicious buttered toast, with a cut-up apple, white cheddar cheese, a tangerine and a slice of ham!  And another cup of tea!  Very lucky girl.  Someday I should tell you about the Princess syndrome the boys were talking about at dinner last night, I think I am seeing it in action…they think it’s smart to treat women like Princesses, and I must say, I could not agree with them more! 

 

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