Gin & Tonic...Pasta With Fresh Peas!
So here is what I think…not that you asked! This has been one hot summer. Everything is wilted including yours truly. My tomato plants are clinging to their stakes and producing nothing…my zucchini plants have given me blossoms, which I have happily stuffed with fresh ricotta and then happily stuffed into my mouth…but even they are giving up. So I say, invite someone over to dinner…sit under the twirling fan, eat well of what is fresh at the Farmers Market…maybe throw in a gin & tonic…now, tell me, is it possible to have a better evening?
Boston's North End
One hot day in early July, I went off to my favorite neighborhood in all of Boston! I get my hair cut at a barber shop in the North End (Johnnie & Geno on Hanover Street)…I then wander the neighborhood, freshly shorn, pick up my olive oil at the Salumeria Italiana, maybe a bit of that aforementioned pasta, and lastly over to Volle Nolle for the best ever sandwiches and salty chocolate chip cookies in the whole of the city! Who cares if it is ninety degrees in the shade!
Another Sunday at Rowley
Sunday mornings in the winter are never this good…sure, there is the NY Times and the big pot of coffee and maybe a little snow and maybe the heat would be cranked up and maybe the auto parked at the curb out front is covered in snow and the sidewalk is in need of attention and the stairs are iced over…there is no Rowley and no roaming around in an open field and no green flies and no portable potties! I’ll take summer any day!
Old Bike...Butt Not Included
The Wonders of Retail in an Open Field!
One reason I adore this place so much is for just this sort of thing…now, mind you, I didn’t buy bagfulls of the stuff for my own little store though it was tempting! Just the fact that one can wander over to a table with such “good taste” items makes me smile!
Chic Footwear for Rowley's Open Fields
Rita Rose Does an Afternoon Nap
I have been just plain lazy about this blog this summer. Forgive me! Don’t forget…the store will be closed all of August and one week into September (I know just what you’re thinking…is she entitled or what!). I will be off on a road trip antiquing in upstate New York for a few days, then five days in New York City at the dreaded Javits Center for the Gift Show sussing out goods for you all to give others for the holidays, and then a little knee repair with a snip of some cranky knee part. At this point, August will be nearly over, and I will wonder where it all went! There will be books to read waiting for me next to the chaise lounge. A couple pugs to snuggle with and BINGO…there goes time off! One thing I did want to leave you with is something a client said yesterday…she is a poet and an artist…she said she believes we are all made up of water, sunlight and dreams. I agree!
Lulu Wanders the Beach in Provincetown
Dino and Lulu in the Best Possible Late-Day Light
OK so I might cheat just a little bit here…getting you hooked thinking there could be something sage that is about to be said about “dogs.” I admit I cheat…it is pugs I want to talk about and those of you who own pugs know they are not mere dogs! And the specific pug in question is that dear Lulu. I owned her or rather she owned me for ten years. Her fur was like a bunny rabbit, and when she was young, I thought she looked just like Bette Davis! She wore pearls and a leopard-print pillbox hat with a scarf to match…for the holiday season from Thanksgiving on, we dropped the leopard in favor of Christmas red…hat and scarf, of course! For all that Wally was a thug…Lulu was a lady. It is easy to understand why they became so bonded to one another. I like to believe Wally needed her for the table manners part, and she needed to realize, as only Wally knew, it was OK for a pug to jump the queue when waiting a cab in Paris. The two are off together again: she a healthy sighted pug with all her teeth and Wally has full use of all four legs and no grey muzzle. I think they must be curled up in some heavenly doughnut bed or maybe they are running free with other pugs, tails out flat, as they chase one another and somewhere in all this are bowls of water and hidden dog treats and grass to lie in and trees to water. And may it be so for all our dogs (pugs or otherwise) who have shed their lives here and are having the best ever romp in this delicious imagined world.
The Magic Above My Store!
Nine years ago, when I thought about opening a store, I met my future and present landlords. I met also the magic of men who love trains…these “boys” are dedicated, let me assure you of that! They have the whole of the second floor of the building that houses 6 Birch…I understand it is some four thousand square feet up there (my store is a tiny little 450 sq. ft.). Well, on that second floor are miles (or so it seems) of model train tracks…all constructed on waist-high tables. You can stare into villages created with minature people and town squares and trees all hand-made by the train men. There is a swimming scene with folks on teeny tiny beach chairs, and I believe a nude diver about to take a plunge off the tressel into the water below. The cars in the town squares appear vintage and are no bigger than a man’s thumb! There are hills and train smoke and sounds of the passing engines as they move through the mountain tunnels. I can tell you it is pure fantasy….open to the public twice a year. If you are in the neighborhood the first weekend in December or the first weekend in March, head on up the narrow wooden stairs for a delightful awe-inspiring adventure!
The early and mid-fifties of my own childhood was spent with weekend visits to my Zio (uncle) and Zia (aunt) who lived in the Southern Pacific Yard in Sparks, Nevada. Zio was a Section Foreman for the SP, and he lived in a “grand” wooden house painted the color of an egg’s yoke, a bright hard-to-miss mustard yellow. On Saturday, just after lunch, we would gather in the living room, all would be silent while opera was broadcast on the radio. I remember it to be the Met Opera Series; my uncle would close his eyes and swoon while the sounds of Tosca filled the room. My cousin and I would slip out into the garden and wander towards the Round House…a huge wooden structure built entirely of wood with a tin roof and completely round with two giant openings. The wood was black with the soot of the engines that were turned around in this round house. It felt adventurous to a couple of kids wandering through an “off limits” area over train tracks, snooping around for the hobos who would jump onto the next slow moving train for another world far from our own. Is it any wonder I love the train men who are my landlords and the world they inhabit!
Christmas Eve by Candlelight
What a night! I had so hoped to capture this evening but all photos were pathetic! You must believe me when I tell you that, for a bit over an hour, I was surrounded by magic in this truly amazing sanctuary on Bedford Road in Lincoln, MA. In this exquisite little church, lit only by candlelight, with its twelve over twelve windows, its creamy white walls, graceful altar, and pews which had small gates at each end, no center isle, and side ‘boxes’ with seats and these too had wee gates…the snow covering all but the walkways, the sky pitch black with the half wedge of a moon and the night filled with stars! For a non church goer, this alone could convert me! Add to that a choir and grand music and some readings that were relevant to the madness of this world…this was a perfect Christmas Eve!
The store ended its Holiday season nearly nude of goods and for that I am grateful! For each of you who stopped by for the Port or some chocolates or a cookie or to visit or, lastly, to shop…to you I am grateful! These weeks of December are long and delicious with visits and wrapping and chatter…I won’t even mention the pounds of cookies or bottles of Port we went through. Tonight’s Candle Light service had a line in one of the opening hymns….’joy’s a gift you cannot buy.’ What I sell to you is the product. What you give back to me is joy. Thank you!
May you have a happy, healthy 2010
