not locusts but rather chinese scholar trees

the locusts are blooming. we have a bunch of them on our block, and i've been looking forward to it since june, watching the buds come out, and then the first few petals. now there are seafoam green carpets of flowers all over the city, making it seem, for about a week, a little tiny bit like a fragrant forest.






correction: i think these are actually chinese scholar trees (sophora japonica). locusts make big dark brown pods, and these make strings of bead-like fruits.

union square greenmarket

i'm going to a ladies' luncheon tonight (i realize that at night you have dinner, not lunch, but no word for dinner really conveys the vibe of these gatherings as well as "luncheon") so i schlepped over to the union square greenmarket because i had heard that they now have corn! fresh, local, sweet, sweet corn. the perfect thing to arrive with, i should think.

i love the market for tons of reasons--it seems kind of french to me to walk over to your neighborhood outdoor market for produce grown by passionate people, i love to track the seasons by what is blooming or bearing fruit, and i love to take pictures of strangers, and because people are concentrating on the food, i feel less shy about it because they mostly don't notice me. also, it probably seems like i'm just taking pictures of the food. which i am, too.



this is "the beet lady". isn't she gorgeous? i love her handbag, too.

i can't even eat grocery store tomatoes anymore. and, really, very few tomatoes even at the market turn out to be any good. these are greenhouse tomatoes anyway, which really don't even count. but they were pretty good. maybe my fiance will grow some for me next year....

i was surprised to find peaches! i thought it was way too early for them.

peach ripeness is about as controversial a topic as abortion, i find.

two got bruised on the walk home, so i had to eat them right away.

dowel quality products (aka dual specialty products)

one of the things that makes the east village worth living in is dowel quality products. it's indian.



you've got your spices. you've got your ghee.

and you've even got stuff that's not indian. like african pride. and chyavanprash. i don't know what that is. but it's got honey in it. hell, it might even be indian.


not pictured here, because someone neglected to photograph it, is a selection of a hundred, or so, kinds of beer.

here we have three kinds of rose water.

and psyllium husk! whose logo inexplicably is an old-timey telephone.

and finally gripe water, which i probably need. "rapid cure of wind and gripe!"

update: now called "dual quality products"
additional update: now called "dual specialty products"

aaahhh

i am really to blame for all of my bad haircuts. as yet, i have not had the wherewithal to cut out pictures of haircuts i like, keep track of them, nor manage to have them on me when i go in for the haircut. i have relied, for the most part, on describing what i want with words. i don't think i am being too immodest when i say that, as a rule, hairdressers tend to be somewhat overwhelmed at how precise i am in these conversations. perhaps some of my mullets have been not so accidental?

i am just now going to print out a picture of maria schneider in antonioni's the passenger and laminate it and keep it in my wallet always. gazing upon it last night, i discovered the holy grail of haircuts.





her outfits were splendid too.

recent movies i enjoyed, and not just because of the hair.

the passenger
junebug
the constant gardener

coincidentally, i had just gotten my hair cut the day before, and it somehow looks quite similar to the grailcut. i guess i am a little articulate. i will post a picture of it just as soon as someone takes one of me without a double chin. and believe me i've been trying hard to get one, thrusting the camera at everyone all weekend.