lotte from zero to 12

Check out this time lapse film showing Frans Hofmeester's daughter, Lotte, grow from zero to 12 in a matter of minutes. He filmed her once a week for twelve years. I so enjoyed watching her expressions change, her hair grown, and her face morph into that of a 12-year-old girl. 

[via Kottke]

the twee party

"But if the Masts are Luddite chocolate-makers, they're also figures in a very contemporary caricature. More than anyone else in the New Brooklyn artisan movement, they exemplify to an almost implausible degree the daguerreotype stereotype of the bristly hipster, in newsboy cap and tweed britches, pedaling his penny-farthing to a north Brooklyn industrial space to make handcrafted nano-batch sweetmeats. If you've ever wondered what a Christopher Guest documentary about Brooklyn artisans might look like, Google 'Mast Brothers YouTube.'" Benjamin Wallace, "The Twee Party," New York Magazine

I found Wallace's whole article about artisinal Brooklyn foodstuff et al amusing in an I would totally buy all those pickles and jams and baked goods and chocolates  kind of way. And I'm the first to admit that I think Mast Brother chocolates taste pretty darned great...

happy weekend

It has been a long, hot day, complete with homemade blueberry pancakes, a delicious iced coffee from Boot & Shoe (where Stella ran the length of the cafe greeting everyone and moving the bar stools to and fro), a trip to Fairyland, a successful lunch of leftover spinach and mushroom lasagna (Stella now "feeds herself" with miniature spoon and fork), a meager 45 minute nap, some backyard water-play (Stells) and weeding and watering (me), lots of stories and stickers and dancing and block building (and tearing down) and marching around the dining room table playing the harmonica, and an hour-long goodnight (I seriously have a new appreciation for this book). 

As I write this I'm savoring a Lagunitas Little Sumpin' and hoping Jordan makes his plane home from Seattle...

Happy weekend!

shishi yamazaki

Yes.

[via halcyon days]

jenilee marigomen

I love the quietness of these photographs by Vancouver-based photographer Jenilee Marigomen. They say so much with so little.

[via design conundrum]

the caravan mailbag

Contrast Caravan Mailbag in pumice

Caravan Mailbag in dried seaweed

I'm in the market for a cute and functional bag with a cross-body shoulder strap. I'm seriously coveting these Madewell mailbags right now...

"ishes"

 

My mom and I took Stella to see the "ishes" at the Academy of Sciences this morning for the first time. The "ishes" were a big hit...

Happy Friday!

zou bisou bisou

I received an email from my friend Aralena this morning that confirmed that I'm not the only one singing zou bisou bisou over and over and over ever since watching the season 5 premiere of Mad Men. I don't know about you, but I loved it. Hot damn. Zou bisou bisou!

[image: AMC]

maui photos

Remember my swimsuit conundrum? This one was my fave.

More photos here.

stella at 16 months (a few days late)

 

Stella is all about testing boundaries these days. She knows what she isn't supposed to do (stand on the couch, eat computer cords, bite Mommy's phone) but does it (again and again) to get a reaction. For things I really don't want her to do I try not to overreact so that the thing, whatever it is she's doing, doesn't seem so alluring. She has a tendency to laugh and scrunch up her face when I put on the I'm not kidding face and I am very serious voice. It makes being stern hard when I just want to respond with tickles and a million kisses.

Stella is very opinionated. She does NOT want to be held or strolled. She wants to walk. And by walk I mean dawdle and examine every crack in the sidewalk. And, no, she does not want to hold hands unless holding hands means getting swung between us while walking. Getting places and running errands can be a monumental task.

I love seeing Stella form opinions and test boundaries. I love her strong little self. It can be exasperating, but I love her for those opinions and those tests. It's interesting how it changes our dynamic. I am no longer just the adoring Mom. I am the keeper of time, the setter or limits, the bed-time negotiator. She looks to us to structure her world, and sometimes it's hard to know where to draw those lines. We are making it up as we go and trusting instincts.

Right now Stella loves citrus, especially oranges, taking her sweet time, Anthony Browne's Gorilla and Piggybook, grilled fish, playing hide and seek and being surprised, her stuffed animal friends (Guinea, Tiger, Elephant, Owl, and Hedgehog), Jordan's morning bowl of Joe's O's, saying "ball!" when she sees one, and Sandra Boynton's The Going to Bed Book.

riding for the feeling

   

{Bill Callahan, Riding for the Feeling}

Andie, you are my music guru. Thanks for another fave.

adrienne rich, 1929-2012

One of my favorites and one of the best, poet Adrienne Rich died while we were in Hawaii. A sad day indeed.
 
One of my favorite poems:


Diving Into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

maui wowie

Jordan and Stella taking a dip in the amazingly clear, electric blue Maui water

We're home from Maui! We had a lovely trip. Lots of sun. Lots of sand. Lots of fish. Lots of good times with my parents. Lots of gazing out at the ocean. Lots of whale sightings. And a few mai tais.

Jordan joined us a few days late and then we stayed on a few days after my parents left. Stella isn't so sure about being in the water (pool + ocean) which makes me inclined to sign her up for swim classes this summer. I got a hot stone massage, really the best kind of massage if you ask me. I gave snorkeling another chance (after vowing to never do it again after hyperventilating in my snorkel tube the last time I was in Hawaii) and actually liked it (thanks to my Dad). We went on a date (thanks to my parents, especially my Mom who can always manage to get Stella back to sleep). And we took Stella to her first Luau. I know, kind of cheesy. But she LOVED it: loved the music, loved the hula, loved the kalua pig. More pictures to come!