stories

"My wife's Vietnamese, but I love her anyway," he said, so seriously that I couldn't tell if he was joking. The old guy had jogged up to my new house in gymshorts, Nikes and a tank top, skinny as a rail with a shock of white hair that flew anywhere but down. I'd seen him before. "Let me be the first to welcome you to our neighborhood!" he bellowed, so loud that the movers stopped to watch. He said he was an ex-Navy officer--I think an admiral but (as my military relatives will confirm) I can't distinguish admirals from airmen so who knows? He'd retired into a couple of successful businesses, and he and his wife had been two of the original settlers in the neighborhood. He was friendly...but the Vietnamese crack bothered me, even when I saw the twinkle in his eye.

Strolling the Pearl (a favorite occupation I hardly ever get to do these days), I spied a big cast glass sculpture in the window and stopped in to see who made it. "He's from Israel, really talented artist," said the clerk. "Ahh...and that one?" I pointed to a big blown dinosaur-like piece, reminiscent of Tagliapietra. "Celotto, from Italy." Hmmm. "How about that one?" and I indicated a series of flat, fused (ooops, sorry, Lani) kilnformed panels on the usual powder-coated steel stands. Swedish.

There's one kitten nibbling my calf as I write this--apparently Savannahs are into lovebites, tiny, soft nibbles that aren't all THAT soft and certainly get your attention--and the other is threatening the bluejays at the back door. Savannah cats are supposed to be as trainable as dogs, i.e., you can persuade them to obey YOUR taboos, such staying out of the glass display cases. Or refraining from climbing into a 4-foot urn to eat the pussywillows. I've accordingly invested in a small bag of the smelliest dried shrimp in the world, and a book, "Train Your Cat in 10 Minutes." It's day 3 of our training regimen. The 10-minute bit is a lie. Trust me on this.

Did the Ikea thing this weekend. Translation: I trudged through an endless, footsore maze of primary colors, particle board and bewildering, actually serious names. I bought weird but uselessly nifty stuff that will be worn out by 2013, and ate Swedish meatballs. Swedish meatballs are the reason you go to Ikea, right? (Besides the fact that you can buy a cheap-but-nifty desk to completely re-engineer into a glass sculpture) Ikea meatballs aren't as good as the ones I used to make when I was a kid, but at some point in an Ikea shopping marathon I will gratefully GRATEFULLY trudge into the Ikea cafeteria and plop a few on my plate. Then I'll sit in the window, munching meatballs and trying to figure out which incomprehensible Ikea components will form the piece of furniture I need.

There's a game I play on summery Saturdays, called "breakfast." It's where I race early to the farmer's markets, pick up the ingredients for the morning meal, then cook, consume and clean everything up by 10. It's a challenge because most of the markets don't open until 8:30, so the only way it really works is if I forsake my beloved BIG farmers' markets for the little neighborhood enclave, closer to home.