One of our favorite summerthings is to go to Cleveland’s fine festivals, but usually they don’t start until Memorial Weekend. This year we kicked things off a little earlier than usual with the Hessler Street Fair. I can’t believe we’ve never been. The fair opens up on Hessler Road, which is kind of tucked back in the University Circle area. It’s been going on since the 1960s. If you’ve never been, go. It’s might be my favorite festival right now.
We’ve never been on this beautifully bricky little road even when the festival isn’t going on. But the trees kind of arch over it, and the houses are all crumbly and viny. It’s like if Athens, Ohio, and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream had a baby.
And they have a poetry wall. And food. And art/stuff for sale. We only brought $7, so we just got some lemonade. But if we had planned a little better, I would have gotten the plate of falafel from the Algebra Tea House and this mobile made out of forks and spoons that some guy was selling for $10. Maybe next time.
The best part was the Harmony Park, which was snuggled way back on Hessler Court through a stone archway. Inside this gardeny-brickwall area, there was a veryshort but verylong tea table covered in cups and little kids playing tea. They had giant flowers everywhere, face painting, chalk drawing, and balloons. It was probably the most adorable little kid thing I’ve ever seen in Cleveland.
More teatime: We hung out here in the shade of this big, old tree for awhile. This is what I imagine baby dreams look like.
Don’t eat the chalk!
Ryan and I got to go out for a bit last night to celebrate our friend Neil’s birthday thanks to my parents who came over to watch supposedly-sleeping Nora. It was short-lived since our wee dreamer woke up and wanted to play with her grandparents, but it was a beautiful night to get out nonetheless (outdoor sitting, warm breezes). I only had time to take one picture, but it was pretty adorable, so I figured I should post it:
We love Thursdays.
One of my freshmen told me this week that he met a guy at a Quinceanera recently whose job it is to sit at a table at special events with a typewriter and write newborn poems on topics of people’s requests. And he apparently hangs out in the gazebo at Lincoln Park and does the same thing. He wasn’t there today, but we still had a good time. May your Thursdays be poetic (with or without a typewriter).
Just before dark on Friday
And one more of pretty, pretty Starkweather
…that I am the kind of person who enjoys when everyone in the family wears matching shoes.
Nora’s First Swing: Friday night walk and swinging party in Lincoln Park
Flower picking: Baby Daisy
Strolling ’round the neighborhood
Cutting through parking lots and more Mary shots (I’m not sure why I’m into these lately?)
Then we ordered some food from Crust, ran into Pete on a crosswalk, and picked up a cupcake to share (because I only had $2.50 including all the quarters at the bottom of my purse). The Crust folk were adorably kind, and the ricotta mushroom gnocchi I got for dinner exceeded my expectations entirely. This picture doesn’t really capture the truffle-oily beauty of this windows-open dinner. So jazzed it’s Friday.
Nora found her presents after breakfast 1 (blueberries and milk, of course):
Excited, Blueberry Mouth/Adorable Frog PJs
Breakfast 2: Mango and pancakes from her da-da-dy
Tea Party!
The Ladybug Labyrinth at the Botanical Gardens
Clapping for the butterflies
…and a vegan vanilla cupcake and a birthday song…
I’m so glad all of these lovely people could be here for Nora’s birthday!
Going to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History always makes me thing of two stories: The Catcher in the Rye and “Haunting Olivia.” There’s this line in “Haunting Olivia,” which is a short story by Karen Russell about these two brothers who are searching the water around their island for the ghost of their dead sister. The main character is searching for her with the “diabolical goggles” and describing all the ghost-things that he sees in the ocean when the narrator writes: “There are certain prehistoric things that swim beyond extinction.” I love that.
Nora, Ryan, and I browsed around the dino-exhibit this afternoon. We almost got in about three accidents trying to get to the museum, which always happens when Ryan tries to drive on the east side. Westside Ryan is a good driver. Eastside Ryan is an Megalodon. Haha. It was worth the risk; we had a pretty fun afternoon.
They didn’t have diaper changing tables at the history museum, even though it’s mostly children who hang out there. So we crept into a classroom, and changed Nora on a lab table. Then we took pictures with their skeleton.
When I read Catcher for the first time when I was in high school (but reading extracurricularly), the only thing I underlined (in pencil) was this part when Holden’s at the museum, and he’s talking about all the scenes in glass cases, like the fishing Eskimo, and he thinks, “Certain things they ought to stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that’s impossible, but it’s too bad anyway.” I always loved that.
Wonder Face
