Alaska Air, Flight 30, Seat 25F

It's with a heavy heart that I'm posting back in the Colonies.  Sigh.

Portland was amazing as usual, and my panging desire to live there burns ever stronger! (Can you tell I've been reading Gothic novels?)

Maybe if I make a list everything will be easier.  A sampling of what went down:

-Made eye contact with friendly people on the street. (We don't do that in "America.")

-Referred to back east as "America"

-Scarce purchases: two used books as Powells (actually four but they were gifts) and a marcell hair iron, for finger waves (if anyone wants me to do their hair and talk about their problems come on over! I promise to make you look like Mae West and pretend to listen!)

-Spent five hours at Powells

-ate Voodoo Donuts

-Went to the movies to watch a film noir for 3 clams!

-Talked in hushed tones at the Japanese Garden with Jenna (the Prime Minister of Japan says it's the most beautiful Japanese garden in the world outside of Japan).  I may be so bold as to say most beautiful in the world.

"A story like mine, should never be told...."

- And saving the best for last, cried all day long at my friends most beautiful wedding.  Hotmess of a groomsman!  Preview to come: "Wedding. In manor house. In Ravine. In mossy  rainforest." Here I go again...

(First two pictures were from last year, and even though I packed like I was crossing on the Mauritania, I forgot my camera, so picture of garden is from phone.  Hope that's not cheating.)

On the Oregon Trail...

Dear Friends, Lovers, Murderers and Felons,

I'm about to leave for Portland, Oregon and will be there all next week.  I'll be spending my days reading, getting more material, riding my bike and singing, drinking rain from a tea cup, rubbing myself down with ferns and moss, trying to taste every coffee PDX has to offer, asking the grinning bobcat why he grins, tasting the sun sweet berries of the earth, among other things.

With the violence of my affections,

D-H O'B M

Shushing Sheep

The weekend last, I took my little niece for a day on an 18th-century farm in Jamestown.  Marina Grace's role models are Anne Shirley, Liesel from 'Sound of Music' and Fern from 'Charlotte's Web,' so I figured a day spent watching sheep being sheared, feeding chickens, and petting newborn lamps would be a dream!

The actual shearing was rather terrifying.  She was clutching my neck and I was trying not to do the same thing to her. "It's like when I get a haircut, painless," I half-heartedly told her.

The whole day was a dream, especially on this farm, laden in fog with the sound of the ocean just feet away.

Risotto allo Zafferano

Looking for some inspiration amongst the tumultuous seas of the internet, I found this post on the 1930's villa used for that new movie, Io Sono Amore, where Tilda Swinton will no doubt amaze us again spicken de ruski enda italiano.  The villa is found in Milano, the city everyone (at least every American) loves to hate. 

But I love it!  I love how it can be so brooding and melancholic one night when it's raining,

and still dreamy and romantic the next morning when it's sunny.

Grab an espresso, try on some Martin Margiela, read a book, find a picture of the train station tre minuti from your homestead at the Gallery, or ask the editor of Vogue Italia if she knows where your glove is - all at 10 Corso Como.

The first time I went, I was taking a train up from Rome and it got stuck in a snowdrift somewhere after Florence (picture Murder on the Orient Express). We all had to get out and trudge through two feet of snow to climb onto another train. Imagine 200 Milanese women in stilettos and furs going through thigh-high snow as train conductors liberally use whistles to herd us.  Never has my Italian been better. When we got to Milano the city was gorgeous with it's blanket of snow.  The Duomo looked like something from Narnia!

Now for the pictures of the villa, that started this reminiscence (hope I didn't loose you) at Man Make Home:

Thoughts of Peace in An Air Raid

By the "land girl," Evelyn Dunbar.

"The Germans were over this house last night and the night before that. Here they are again. It is a queer experience, lying in the dark and listening to the zoom of a hornet which may at any moment sting you to death. It is a sound that interrupts cool and consecutive thinking about peace."

-Virginia Woolf

Bingefield Report

Everyone dresses like this at the Brimfield Fair. 

My significant purchase of the day was this Art Deco floorlamp that will look great in whatever Craftsman Bungalow, Georgian Estate or Seventies coke den I end up in...

That and a pair of sunglasses I fished from a cardboard box that fit me perfectly and whose perscription was obviously meant for me.  It's so nice to see those green tiny things on trees!

Andrew Bird-Fitz and the Dizzyspells

Full to the Brim

By time your reading this, I'll be up to my elbows in dusty, moldy, gorgeous, stunning antiques.  Tears will be shed, either from joy or said dust.  Where you ask?  The Brimfield fair!  The greatest show on earth! 

If you're looking for me, I'll be in the tent with all the Maxfield Parrish paintings and Art Deco delights, drunk on beauty, trying to get something for 1/12th it's price!