This ‘Inside Amy Schumer’ sketch. Watch it.
As Pete Holmes would say, “laser accuracy.”
What I love about my friends and what I think sets us apart from other groups of friends I’ve occasionally been around … we are the “thank you” type. Life is too short to sit around criticizing yourself with your friends (that’s what 3 am insomnia is for, sigh).
Friend time is wine time is positive time and that is that.
(via comedycentral, thegreg)
Garance Dore: “Yesterday, we were talking about friendship at the Studio and we came to the following conclusions…”
1 - You don’t need to have a plan when you get together with a friend.You don’t need to have a party, an activity, or brunch you’re supposed to go to together. You can see a friend with nothing on the agenda, just wanting to get together and decide what you’ll do after….
It’s a sweet little list.
I believe I found this through my friend Rachel. :)
When I was down in Sarasota last month, it was just me. It was supposed to be my mom and dad, too, but after her shoulder surgery, Shelley couldn’t make it down. I was sad to miss them — my parents are kind of the best — but it did present a very rare treat: my grandma and great-aunt all to myself for a long weekend (which, grandma being grandma, was not long enough in her book, nope not at all).
When I went with them to their Unitarian church service on Sunday the sweetest thing happened.
“This is my grand-niece, Nora,” Mira would say as introduction.
“Well — this is my grand-daughter, Nora,” Grandma interjected, maybe a little louder than necessary.
What is it about big sisters? Always gotta one-up. ;)
Joking aside, it made me really proud that they were both proud to introduce me to their friends — maybe even show me off a little??
Here’s another thing about these two.
Over the past several years, they have suffered the deaths of their husbands and the deaths of friends. Their health is not what it used to be; they don’t enjoy the beach as much as they used to; they get tired in the afternoons and yet have a hard time sleeping at night (“everyone does,” they say).
But — they have each other. They live just a mile or so apart and see each other nearly every day, and I cannot imagine a better way to retire than that.
If I have my sisters — my biological sister and, hopefully, the sisters in my familia putativa (our dream is to retire to New Orleans’ Garden District) — nearby, if I have grandkids to come visit, even if it’s just for a long weekend, I will know I am still living the good life.
Aches and pains and all.
Fund It: Heterodyne by Fiona Hallinan (Fund It is the Kickstarter of Ireland, fyi)
I’ve told you about my friend Fiona. She is an artist, a partner in crime, and a woman who faces tragedy with the sort of quiet yet probing bravery that begets profound wisdom.
When I was in Dublin last, Fiona told me about a project she was beginning work on.
It blew away.
It was one of those straightforward, instantly appealing ideas that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of before.
Her idea is to commission original music for roads.
Imagine: pushing play, driving on a Sunday afternoon, getting completely immersed in the experience.
I can imagine it vividly.
In the video above Fiona describes Heterodyne over footage of what will be the project’s first road — Ireland’s Military Road, a nineteenth century defense route built by the British army that passes through the Wicklow mountains, surrounded by a desolate, changing landscape.
If all goes well (and knowing Fiona, it will), this will just be the beginning. She’ll add more roads in Ireland and internationally — and this is what really excites me.
Of course I want her to come to America. It’s a perfect fit.
America is a country of roads.
We’re obsessed with our roads.
There are countless songs about roads, but none (that I know of) that are composed for roads.
How incredible would it be to experience Highway 1 in Big Sur with music composed for the landscape? Or the single-lane drive across the sparkling keys to Key West? Or Route 66? Or any nameless ribbon of highway under any nameless endless skyway (with thanks to dear ol’ Woody)?
I just love this idea. I’m thrilled to support it.
If you’d like to join me, all the details are here.
And if nothing else, do watch the video. Between the winding, sun-dappled road and Fiona’s soothing voice — it’s better than Xanax.
Dear Tank,
You are the coolest dog I have ever met and it was so much fun hanging out with you all weekend. Thank you for sharing your water with me and teaching me to climb stairs. I love stairs! And thank you for taking me to your favorite park. I’m not sure why you like the river so much but that’s ok, I’ll just watch you from the rock and help you with your branches when you get to shore.
I can’t wait to play with you again! I miss you sooooooo much.
Love,
Your friend (and Assistant Branch Manager),
Zoe
PS: Thank you for giving me back my lobster but seriously, you can have it if you want it. Just wait for meeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
Yesterday was a day of firsts for little Z. First flight of stairs and (drumroll please)… first swim! It lasted all of 5 seconds & wasn’t repeated — I think she lost her confidence when she had trouble getting out. But I’m sure she’ll try again this summer. Can’t wait to take her to the North Fork…!!
Z’s has always been too scared to try stairs before… But when she was saw her new best friend Tank do it, she knew she could too. So proud of you, ZoZo!
Julie* has a dream that someday we will get all our friends’ dogs together — there are four of them now — to frolic in some fantasy field in the sky. Considering they live in four different states, this is no small feat — but don’t you ever give up on your dreams, Jules.
However! Next Saturday we’re getting the two black Labs** together for a weekend of Branch Management in Chestnut Hill, PA. It’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about all month. (Photo pick-me-up via Lila.)
* She has a tumblr! But she never uses it. So everyone go follow her — we’ll FORCE her to be start sharing that hilarious sass with the world.
** Tank’s a purebred. Z? Eh, close enough. (Though she IS starting to get a little brindled. Guess we can’t hide those redneck roots for long.)
Kelp is the new kale, yo
A couple weekends ago, Bren had us out to the Thimble Island Oyster Co. farm in the Long Island Sound. When we visited in September, the focus was on oysters. This time it was on his spring crop: kelp and seaweed.
Bren’s idea in planting kelp and seaweed is to make the most of his ocean acreage. Why just grow oysters on the sea bed when he can grow nutrient-rich edible greens in the water column above them? He calls it “3D farming” and the fact that it’s local and hyper-sustainable — unlike land farming, ocean farms don’t require water or fertilizer, and kelp, like oysters, actively cleans the water its in — has made it very intriguing to journalists and policymakers alike. (Remember the recent WSJ article about him? and the current Lucky Peach has an article about him, too, though I’ve yet to get my hands on it.)
However … it’s all well and good to talk about seaweed. People need to eat it too. Clearly, we eat dried seaweed of many varieties. It’s the fresh stuff — which only Bren can provide to the NYC market — that is so foreign to our palates.
The challenge Bren has set for himself is no small thing. He needs to create demand for the stuff. And that’s what this tour was all about.
In addition to me and M., we had Chef Dave of Louro and a food writer and truffle dealer named Helen (who happened to go to my college and oh! we have so much in common, it was a real treat to meet her).
We tasted kelp straight from the sea. We tasted a kelp butter that a friend of Bren’s is making. And (perhaps most exciting) we tasted a cocktail that M. concocted with kelp-infused spirit, aquavit, verjus, and carrot juice.
It was good!
Actually good.
The infused spirit is delightfully briny and chock-full of umami — M. says he gets hints of black tea. Ummmmm ok, supertaster. I’ll take your word for it.
Point is, kelp brings something new to the flavor table/kitchen/cocktail bar, and it’s really thrilling to be a part of it.
For example, at Dave’s next Monday night supper club meal at Louro, he’s starting with a seaweed salad inspired by his trip to the Thimble Islands. And we can all readily imagine the new Scandinavian chefs being all over this ingredient (several are already experimenting with Bren’s kelp as I write this).
M. is thinking about developing an umami shrub, starring kelp and other unctuous flavors — which I think would be a hella baller cocktail ingredient.
And I’m sure he’ll feature kelp spirits in special cocktails on Sunday nights at Dram.
There are kelp noodles in the works.
And we should definitely make kelp chips!
So basically, watch this space.
We’re not stopping ‘til kelp is the new kale.
We had SO much fun planning Julie’s bachelorette weekend in New Orleans.
It was, after all, the city where it all began.
Freshman year: me and Liz in a suite in the Urban Village (thanks to our similarly smart/gently meddling parents), Andrea and “the girls” in considerably less sweet digs in New Doris (a dorm that has since been condemned and torn down, may she rest in peace).
Liz and Andrea have been friends since second grade so they were the bridge that (gradually) united us with said girls — Katie, Kate, Lila, and Julie, who all lived together on the third floor, smoking butts and causing trouble.
Here’s a little secret about our two mini-groups: we didn’t really like each other at first.
Liz and me — we were snobby, just gonna come out and say it. We met these junior Kappa Sig boys right at the start of freshman year and they had cars and brought us to the Red Room and we thought we were the actual shit.
Spoiler alert: we were not the actual shit.
One time — and this fills me with shame to this day — Andrea’s busybody roommate overheard us talking shit about “the girls.” Something-something about how they weren’t sophisticated ‘cause they didn’t go to the Red Room.
Ol’ Busybody repeated what we said to them.
That did not help our relationship.
But time went on. In February of freshman year, most of us ended up joining the same sorority — Pi Phi. We all found ourselves on this pledge retreat from hell in the Louisiana backwoods (they didn’t even have booze). Some of our fellow pledges didn’t hate it. Actually, most of our fellow pledges didn’t hate it.
We hated it.
We knew we were kindred spirits.
One by one, we quit Pi Phi (some of us more memorably than others — ask me to tell you about that time with the mushrooms and the entire Pi Phi brass…).
By sophomore year, they were all living in a house on Magnolia, and we were fast friends (“fallen angels”), our earlier shit-talking long behind us.
The thing is, though, it’s taken the fullness of time — more than twelve years — for us to become the group we are.
Shane transferred from Berkeley and met Liz — and later me, Julie, and Katie — at the Arcade, the school magazine.
Andrea brought her awesome friend Jane from Architecture into the fold sometime around senior year.
We moved to New York, most of us, and made the typical mistakes with men, money, tube tops, you name it.
Three of us are married — two soon to be — and now four of us have dogs.
One of us is pregnant! (And we’ll always tell the little girl that she was down with us, too, in New Orleans, for Aunt Julie’s bachelorette.)
I can say honestly that I had no idea that those women (those girls) I found so intimidating-yet-intriguing would turn out to be what they are:
Sisters.
When we led Julie on a surprise scavenger hunt around all our old stomping grounds — Magnolia, Tulane’s changed-yet-totally-the-same campus, the Pi Phi house, the Boot store (where the ladies behind the counter actually recognized us!), Jacque-Imo’s, St. Joe’s, Guy’s Po-Boys, the Where Y’at office, the levee, and, of course, Ms. Mae’s to play “Honky-Tonk Woman” on the jukebox and dance on chairs — we weren’t just indulging in a little tipsy nostalgia.
We were marking the places where our foundation was formed.
We may not agree on everything — we don’t necessarily vote for the same people or make the same life-choices — but we agree on what matters.
I love you girls with all my heart, and Julie, I cannot wait to continue the celebration in the North Fork!
(Despite what you might have thought, I suspect your wedding WILL top your bachelorette. Barely.)
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