Heat Up the Rowenta!

When, during one of my recent internet trawls, I spied these deliciously chic napkins and tea towels from British designer Lisa Stickley, I had instant visions of owning them. 

In my fantasy, I had already skipped over the actual tea party and fast-forwarded ahead to ironing them. (Note: It's a predicament because I admit they ache with character all rumpled like that. But ironing linen is soo satisfying.). I'd send Piero and Luca on a multitude of errands, plug in my trusty Rowenta, turn up the soundtrack to "The Hours", take out my lavender ironing spray and go to town on these babies.

I love how the talented Ms. Stickley subverts a traditional idea and makes it cheekily modern. Her designs of vintage floral crockery completely avoid tweedom by mixing a nostalgia for the past with an elegant spareness.  

And look at this napkin with its photo of a menu from a local chip shop. 

I mean, come on.  Adorable, right?

This one, made of Irish linen, comes in a set of three and features a different dinner suggestion on each.

Here's another one which lists weekly food rations during wartime England in 1940. Among the items are "4 oz. bacon or ham", "2 oz. jam spread" "1 oz. cheese" and "1 shilling's worth of meat."

It just now came back to me how I found her website. I was doing a Google search for an ironing board cover and found her version. 

I love that it's scrawled with cleaning suggestions. The wallpaper tip is particularly appropriate for my house. (Stale bread? Who knew?)

Her website is extensive and includes a range of makeup bags, totes, pillows, mugs and more. And she couldn't be cuter herself...

Click here for the link to her press page which features an interview Elle Deco UK did on her and her darling retro apartment in South London.  She's a girl after my own heart -- I love that whenever she is stuck with work, she whips up a batch of scones!

I'm Hyperventilating...

(Charleston House, Lewes, England)

(www.charleston.org.uk -- worth the click!)

Two of my favorite entities, Charleston House and Farrow and Ball, have joined forces to create a new color called "Bloomsbury Blue Gray." (How did I not know this until now?) The exclusive color has been painstakingly matched to the original woodwork and was used to restore the exterior of the house this past spring. I'll have to call the Melrose store and see if it's out yet. I feel sure I can find something in my house that desperately needs a coat of "Bloomsbury Blue Gray." 

To commemorate their collaboration, Farrow and Ball are sponsoring two public events at Charleston House that I would give my eyeteeth to attend. The first one is a Screen Painting Workshop on July 18-19th in which you use Farrow and Ball paints to make original stencils inspired by the many beautiful decorative screens in the house. Please, someone out there attend and report back!

In the second workshop (to be held on 13 October), a Farrow and Ball international color consultant is giving color tips on how to  create the interior of your dreams, use color to change the shape of a room and much more. Charleston House's curator, Dr. Wendy Hitchmough will also discuss the unique color palette of the house. 

I visited the house in 2007 and was absolutely besotted by its wayward charm. I'm sure that pale gray blue on the window frame must be the color in question, don't you think? It's almost luminous against those taupey hues of the wall.

And of course those errant lashings of green around the windows only add to its appeal.

When it comes to design and my love of sweet disorder, I hew closely to the poet Robert Herrick (1591-1674) and his insistence that a bit of carelessness and neglect and wild civility "...Do more bewitch me than when Art is too precise in every part." 

Anyone with me on that?

Buon Compleanno

(Piero, San Francisco, 1970's)

It's the Divine Italian's birthday today. We've been together 17 years, married for 13, and I can truly say that every year keeps getting better. He's a veritable force of nature, as everyone who knows him can attest. 

Whether he's cycling up the Col de la Colombiere in the Alps...

(Piero, French Alps, 2008)

...telemark skiing down a mountain of untrammelled snow...

(Piero, Mammoth, 2007)

...or whipping up boeuf bourgignon for ten on a Sunday afternoon...

(Piero, home, 2008)

...he is fully present in each moment and has been instrumental in teaching me to slow down and enjoy the Campari. He is a seeker -- always curious, always looking forward, never backwards, always planning our next adventure. He's a wonderful father, a brilliant friend and he has the best laugh in the world. Ti amo, dude.

A Peace of Green

It was just a blanket on the grass, that's all it was. Strewn with a few pillows for propping purposes, a stack of books and the latest World of Interiors. 

But to me, today, it was so much more. Yes, I know it's 2009 and I live in Hollywood, California, but when I crept out here after breakfast and laid my things down under our majestic pittisporum tree, visions of Edwardian lawn parties and fetes du champetres and pastoral scenes from a Trollope novel popped into my head. It was the reading material, it was the serene milieu and it was the mood I was in.

In my last post, I announced we were going to take a road trip up to Northern California. But after a cocktail the other night, The Divine Italian and I decided that it would be more restorative to stay put on our little patch of green.

And so today I lazed and I loafed and I read. And I listened intently to the birdsong and I sipped my coffee and I watched the dappled sunlight make patterns in the grass and I scooted over when Luca and Piero lay down beside me and I was grateful for earthly pleasures.

Just a blanket on the grass. That's all it was.

The Road(s) Paved With Good Intentions...

(Mackinac Island lighthouse, via Flickr)

First of all, let me preface this post by saying that the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island more than lived up to its name. It was gracious and elegant and The Little Prince and all his cousins were agog by its magical splendor. 

Unfortunately, a full rundown of the trip will have to wait because I dropped my Nikon in front of a fudge shop and it's gone catatonic on me. Hopefully it can be fixed.

That wasn't the only calamity during the trip -- two acts of kindness on my part went horribly awry!

Calamity The First:

The day after Luca and I arrived in Michigan, there was a glorious midday thunderstorm. The sky went black and the forces of Nature unleashed a magical sound and light show. 

(via Flickr)

Driving with my father afterwards, we came upon a downed tree in the road, just around the corner from here.

(Cranbrook Art Museum)

Another motorist was trying to lug it off the road, so I suggested we help him. We were making excellent progress when suddenly my father fell to the ground clutching his knee in pain. We rushed to the ER only to be told he had somehow snapped his quadriceps muscle. Twenty four hours later, he was having surgery to re-attach the tendons to his kneecap. He's now on crutches and out of commission for the next 10-12 weeks. Despite being 81, he's still freakishly athletic and had a busy summer planned -- a 5 day, 400-mile bike tour next month, followed by a trip to Norway to hike, fish and visit his siblings. Now those plans are out and he won't know until ski season whether his leg will be the same. 

I can't help but feel horribly responsible for his accident because I'm the one who suggested we get out and try to move the tree. It just seemed like the right thing to do -- a lark, an escapade, a little deed to feel good about later. I keep thinking if I hadn't said anything, maybe we would have turned around and gone a different way...and his knee would be fine.

Calamity The Second:

(Mackinac Island in rain, via Flickr)

The rain made intermittent appearances on Mackinac Island as well, and one afternoon my mother rented a bike to ride around the island. It looked gloomy, so I offered her a plastic bag to protect her hair in case the skies suddenly opened up. (Coif-ically speaking, my mother is a traditionalist. She has her hair professionally set every week and heroic efforts are made to maintain the sanctity of the 'do between appointments.) Well, apparently she was having a grand time until a terrific gust of wind blew the plastic bag up and out of the bicycle basket. In her attempt to grab it, she let go of the handlebars, lost control of the bicycle and crashed onto the pavement, severely spraining a finger and winding up with a continent-sized bruise on her knee (the right one, same as my father's.) On the bright side, her hair was fine.

Again, it's impossible to deny that if I hadn't given her that plastic bag, she wouldn't have crashed.

Fortunately, both of my parents have remarkable senses of humor and have instituted a running joke that all helpful suggestions I make from now on are to be ducked, dodged, sidestepped and thoroughly avoided. In fact, they have suggested that whatever I say, one should immediately do the opposite.

The Divine Italian has decided a therapeutic healing trip is in order, so I'm repacking suitcases for a short trip up the California coast. We're going to Ojai, Santa Barbara, Big Sur, San Francisco and wherever else hits our fancy. 

Happy Fourth of July to everyone. I wish you all blue skies and a safe, accident-free weekend. 

A Midwestern Prediction*

*This post was pre-written before my departure.

(Summer night, Michigan, May 2008)

I'm somewhere deep in the heartland of America right now. 

Five things I'm definitely not doing:

1. Eating deep-fried cheese.

2. Mall-walking.

3. Sitting in a speedboat.

4. Drinking beer.

5. Buying holiday decorations at Frankenmuth Christmas Village.

Four things I might be doing:

1. Visiting Greenfield Village, the Saarinen House or Meadowbrook Hall.

2. Watching Luca play with all his curly-headed cousins.

3. Browsing through 19th century tomes with my dad at John King Books.

4. Rocking on a porch swing at my mom's house and marvelling at the white nights of summer.

 

Two things I hope I've done:

1. Successfully persuaded one and all to come visit us in California.

2. Remembered that when it comes to family dynamics, I can be right or I can be happy, and being right is overrated. 

Home on Thursday.

Stories from the Heartland*

*This post was pre-written before my departure.

I am deep into my Midwestern odyssey right about now, so in my absence, I thought I'd provide you with a few of my favorite socially conscious Middle American novels. 

1.  Babbit (1922) by Sinclair Lewis

I read "Babbit" ages ago and still can't get its hapless protagonist out of my head. Everyone has a Babbit in their lives; he's that annoying combination of ignorance and optimism, the guy who always follows the herd but remains convinced he leads the pack. Funny thing is, you can't help but sympathize with the schmuck. He's an archetypal character, most recently revived (I think) by Ricky Gervais in "The Office." A midlife crisis forces Babbit to confront the pressures of provincial fervor, conformism and materialism head-on, resulting in a personal awakening...or not. 

2. The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) by Booth Tarkington

At its heart, a tale of a prominent Midwestern family in decline, it offers a perspective on the rapid industrial rise of America as seen through the eyes of George Amberson Minafer, a selfish, spoiled heir who is unable -- or unwilling -- to face progress. Yes, the movie is a masterpiece, but I think the book is just as satisfying.

3. Jennie Gerhardt (1911) by Theodore Dreiser

Jennie's life resonated with me; at the time I read this book, I had just moved to Manhattan after college and was working at an ad agency and supporting myself for the first time. I remember feeling anguished over her tragic circumstances and the unfairness of what life was like for a girl my age a mere 80 years earlier. 

4. An American Tragedy (1925) by Theodore Dreiser

So much has been written about this book and I'll just say this: it changed me. Clyde Griffiths is like every American: he wants the girl, the money and the lifestyle to go with it. Unfortunately, he lives in a society that is prejudiced, insular and unfair, making it next to impossible for him to achieve these goals. By the time he commits his great crime, you almost forgive him for it, knowing the struggles and tragedies of his life as intimately as you do. 

Note on Dreiser: 

I know some people are anti-Dreiser because they feel his prose is clunky and mechanical. He has been called "one of the worst greatest writers in America." To me, however, you don't read Dreiser for the prose, you read him because his unerring journalist's eye gives you a searing glimpse into the dark side of human nature at the turn of the 20th century.