Mind, Body & Soul for sale

The long awaited River Valley Market opened here in Northampton yesterday. I'm psyched - we needed our own coop badly! No more trudging over the river to Whole Foods or making do with Stop & Shop. I became a member of the coop when they first started doing outreach 6 or 7 years ago. They struggled for years to find a location and finally settled on an old quarry just outside of town. The building is green certified and is pretty impressive. Traci and I stopped in last night and gave it four thumbs up. They aren't fully operational yet (the beer and wine section isn't done...), but the place seems well stocked.

On the way out I picked up the May sales flyer and saw this:
Organic Mind Body & Soul for just $6.99 a pound! I have a few questions though...

1. What if I'm only running low on Mind and don't need Body and Soul? Can I buy them separately?

2. Can I get some Heart to go with my Soul?

3. What if I don't believe in the Soul? Is there an atheist version where I can get just Mind and Body?

Valuable lessons from Pottery Barn

I've learned a lot from the Pottery Barn catalogs over the years. Important lessons like: pick one color of book that matches your decor and only read books in that color. Black books and white books are ok, but be sure to pile them artfully in different locations in the room. Also, if you have a huge, lovely window with a really great view, it's best to put a bed with an oversized headboard directly in front of said window.

In the latest catalog though I learned something new. My lawn needs a throw rug.
Seriously. It says in the product description that it can be used to 'define a grassy backyard seating area'. Who knew? I bet the gardener will love it.

More signs of spring

This morning there were tulips in my yard.


And buds on the trees.


And a Tomten.
And there were these.

Tickets to Monday's Patriots' Day Game at Fenway.

For those of you outside of New England, Patriots' Day is a holiday (now only recognized by Massachusetts and Maine) which celebrates the anniversary of the beginning of the Revolutionary War - the battles at Lexington and Concord and "the shot heard round the world". It's a big day in Boston - 11am baseball and the Marathon.

A coworker and his wife are coming with me (and my Dad is meeting us there). We're toying with the idea of going in really early and stopping in Concord to see some of the reenactments which start at dawn. It could be my second war reenactment this spring!

We could go the night before and try to catch Paul Revere on his midnight ride. But I think not.

Really? Do y'all agree with this?

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Mojitos and Spring

My neighbor Pete and I were making mojitos the other day to celebrate the coming spring (and fresh mint at the winter farmer's market). Pete and I disagree a bit on the making of the yummy rum drinks. I like to have full mint springs, a bit crushed, floating around in my drink. It should look like you dipped your glass into a pretty pond and added ice. Pete likes to crush the mint into an almost paste making the drinks a shocking all over green. Either way they are tasty.

Since making these drinks properly takes a little bit of time, and we are planning a party where we would like to serve them, we wondered if we could infuse the rum with mint ahead of time and then just garnish the drinks with a sprig or two.
Since we disagree on the mint crushing, we have tried both ways in our infusions.

These bottles have been sitting for almost a week now and will be strained tonight and tested by our panel of experts. We'll be watching Sweeney Todd from Netflix, so it will be an evening of bloody, musical, rummy, mintyness with a little Johnny Depp thrown in for good measure.

Speaking of spring and time with friends, I had lunch with Melissa yesterday at the Green Bean. We sat OUTSIDE. It was in the 70s and they have set up two small tables just outside the door. I think that if I lived somewhere in the South where the seasons are not so extreme I would not value so much that first really warm day where you can sit outside, without a coat on, and enjoy a BLT (with Avocado), an iced coffee and good conversation.

Today is cooler and rainy, but there are more signs of spring in the yard.
My apologies to my family members in Vermont (where yesterday my dad shoveled 3 feet of snow off the deck in a patch big enough for mom to sit in a chair in the sun) and in Maine (where they may not see bare ground until sometime in July from the sounds of things).
Just in time for spring I finished this wool and alpaca sweater....

Boomerangs & Seesaws

My old friend Jamie was in town last night. His girlfriend - Shannon Curtis - was supposed to play at the Iron Horse. I'm not going to bore you with all the details, but there was a mix-up and she didn't get to play in the end. Despite that disappointment, it was fabulous to see Jamie, catch up and share some gossip about our other high school friends.

Shannon is absolutely charming and talented. I'm listening to her CD "Boomerangs & Seesaws" as I type this. She has a new CD coming out today "Paris Can't Have You". You can hear the title track on her MySpace page. It's the loveliest thing I've heard in a long time. Also check out the tour schedule on the MySpace page. Those of you who read this who live in Burlington, Chicago, Boulder, Portland, etc. should go out and see her.

In knitting news I finished this:

Elizabeth Zimmerman's Feburary Baby Sweater in

Berroco Pure Merino Nuance.
(sidewalk artwork by Audrey)
Nora Noodle watch your mailbox.....

And started this:

Lace Ribbon Scarf from Knitty in
Great Adirondack Bamboo Cotton.

Finally, there was evidence this morning that spring may have finally come to the Pioneer Valley. I love how tulips look like hungry baby birds when they first come up.

Roar Your Terrible Roars!

I've just been reading, in Publisher's Weekly, about the movie version of Where the Wild Things Are due out (according to IMDB) in October 2009. Apparently Maurice Sendak has been in talks with studios for 15 years about making a movie and the end result is that he started his own production company and hired Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers of McSweeney's fame (and you know how I feel about McSweeney's....) to write the screenplay (Jonze will also direct). Jim Henson's Creature Shop is making the monster suits.

I love Dave Eggers! The best part of it (in my mind) is that Eggers is also writing a novel version of Sendak's story to be titled Wild Things. This is being done with Sendak's blessing and I suspect this might be HUGE. Who doesn't love the Wild Things? My 6th Grade class turned it into a play ourselves and put it on for the rest of the school (I played the dog...don't ask...). Every adult who grew up loving the story of Max taking off to a magic world full of monsters in the night is going to jump all over this novel.

According to IMDB the movie has some pretty big names in it, including Forest Whitaker as the voice of one of the beasts.

Unfortunately, there are some stories out there that say that the studio is not happy with the film and may be reshooting the entire thing and possibly firing Spike Jonze. This could explain the 2009 release date (apparently it was previously set for fall 2008). The PW article says the screenplay focuses largely on Max's relationship with the Wild Things and his journey back home.

I just wonder who's playing the dog?