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
ARTSHOT:This is Ryan and I outside one of the more curious of the galleries in Tremont: Doubting Thomas.
FARMER’S MARKET: Winter isn’t done with us, but we’re done with winter. So, despite the fact that it’s been in the 30s for most of spring break, we’ve been bundling up and heading outside. The Tremont Farmer’s Market opened this week. Ryan picked up some jerk spice, and I bought $7 worth of cheddar cheese from this guy who told us all about his cows that only eat the most pristine of grasses and live to be 115 in cow years. I’m kind of a sucker for a good salesman. It might be cold, but at least we got a little blue-sky time. It’ll be better in the summer, but if you’re interested, it’s open every Tuesday night in Lincoln Park. In the summer there are usually food trucks, bands, dogs, and a few extra hippies.
BACK TO THE ZOO: Ryan’s been working most of the week, so this is what Nora and I have been up to: hanging out in the living room and checking out the rainforest at the zoo. We.are.regulars. Since we have a zoo pass, it’s free to go, so I basically treat it like our neighborhood park while it’s still cold outside. We literally go about once a week. But I figure otters, orangutans, giant palm fronds, and 80-degree heat is better than watching more Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. Also, it makes me want to move to a rainforest.
GOOD MORNING, EASTER: The Snore is a little under the weather, but she did like her Easter basket this morning. I’ve been into word histories lately, and apparently “Easter” comes from the goddess Austron, who was in charge of the sunrise, fertility, and spring, among other things. What’s up, Austron?
WE DIDN’T GO TO CHURCH: But we did walk by this cool little Mary statue in somebody’s yard! I like your blue cape, Mary! It was a pretty good walk — 50 degrees, a little overcast. Nora was having some trouble taking a nap, and this completely did the trick. And then Ryan and I split a Reuben to go from Lucky’s, and everyone was happy.
NORA’S ADORABLE BUNNY HAT: I think we got this as a hand-me-down from my pal Julie.
GREEN THINGS: I take this picture just about every spring, which is pretty uncreative of me. But I really like seeing green things popping out of the ground. We’re getting really close to Farmer’s Market (Tremont’s opens on Tuesday if you want to join us) and hiking weather. So psyched!
LOOKING DOWN: I noticed this on our walk on Professor today.
SUNSHINE: It’s sunny, and we’ve got the heat set at 78. It might as well be summer, right?
WORDS AND PICTURES BY MO WILLEMS: Ryan always says Mo Williams. I like to think the former Cavs player had something to do with one of Nora’s all-time faves: The Pigeon Wants a Puppy.
TALKS TO STRANGERS: Nora likes to wave at the neighbors while she’s checking out the goings-on. She’s still getting the hang of the timing: about 50 percent of the time, she waves once people have walked by. She’ll catch on. Hi, Nora!
NORA IS 11 MONTHS OLD: Nora is trying to walk, but mostly just sitting down slowly from a standing position. She likes her pink car, Goodnight Gorilla, blueberries, trying to turn on the radio, getting in the cupboards, That’s Not My Mermaid, and her dad’s Appalachian Trail hat. She does not like when people take away the Boogie Wipes.
10 MARVELOUS THINGS: I wish there was a web site or an app or a one million foot tall blackboard on which people could make a list of the 10 things they’re most in love with about life right now ( besides their friends and family, of course). Maybe this does already exist? I feel like the things we find totally enchanting are often floating around us in the intangible space of thought, conversation and daydreams, and buying gifts is an attempt to grasp at those intangible ideas. But if I knew how much you secretly love Oprah, I could buy you a subscription to her magazine. If I knew you were obsessed with Fudge Rounds, I could buy you a year supply. We all know they wouldn’t go bad. Make me your list of 10 things. Here are mine right now.
- Thinking about hiking on the Appalachian Trail (which I’ve been on) and the Banana Pancake Trail (which I haven’t). And Nora in a baby backpack.
- Toni Morrison
- Coffee
- Foxes; I know, this makes me sound like an 8-year-old
- The Tallest Man on Earth (again, he’s just so poetic)
- Personal thank you notes; a really good one is better than a gift
- “The Fault in Our Stars” — the author of this book is my current YA obsession; he’s especially good on audio
- Rivers (in books, under roads, along hiking trails)
- Baking cakes (or the idea of baking cakes, especially looking at pictures in “The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook”, thanks Ann Marie!)
- When people I know (or even only sort of know, or strangers, really) are pregnant or have a new baby. I never cared about babies before. Now I love babies. And I especially love hearing new baby names. Congratulations to Lana (who I’m sure doesn’t have time to read this), my most recent friend to have a baby. Elliot is so beautiful!
IF I MADE A REALITY SHOW IT WOULD BE CALLED “WALKING”: It would be on all the time, like “House Hunters” or “Diners” (yes, Erin, it is always on); maybe it would even have its own channel. And it would just be a guy or a girl hiking. They wouldn’t necessarily be experienced, but they’d just walk around and talk about what they were seeing and thinking. I think there would probably be a rotating cast of regulars and some new people every once in a while. Maybe they’d spend like 40 minutes trying to make a fire with a piece of flint and fail. Or they’d make mac and cheese on a camp stove. Maybe they’d sing Christmas songs for three hours straight to scare away bears while … walking. Maybe they’d see a fox. I’d have it on whenever I’m home. Nora, Ryan and I go hiking all the time when it’s nice out, but now that it’s December our outdoor time is mostly at the Rainforst exhibit at the zoo. Can someone make this for me? Check out Ryan chilling out on a trail in North Carolina.
CLEMENTINES: She has a whole blog of her own, but she still gets her own section here because she goes everywhere I go, and she is my favorite little human. She loves eating her socks, looking at fish in aquariums, reading books, saying da-da-da-da-da, when people hide and she finds them, and eating bananas. She does not like peas, putting on her coat, or when the dog walks away.
AUGUST LOVE: I’ve always been a pretty big fan of August. On the surface, I might tend to have territorial love of August because it’s my birth month. But there’s something else about it too. It’s a middle place in which we’re looking forward to the next thing (college, school, fall, apple cider, sharpened pencils) but still ensconced in the loveliness of summer, and we’re still holding onto it as tightly as we can. Pretty things tend to happen in August like the Feast of the Assumption. Faulkner even named a book after its light. I. love. August. This morning was the perfect August morning. We went for a walk in our neighborhood, which I completely missed while we were on vacation. We took The Snore to Civilization for some outdoor coffee, and headed home for waffles, windows open, and the breezes of an oncoming storm.
DO I LIKE FOLK MUSIC?: I just found this whimsical song by Woody Guthrie and Jeff Tweedy with Nora’s namesake, so we’ve been dancing to it all morning in the living room. I’ve been looking for a good Nora song, and I think I’ve found it. Also, Pandora says I might like folk music. “I’ll kiss you for each leaf on every tree…If you’ll quit your hesitating, Nora Lee.”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8UaJTk8Ybw
THE SEA: We took a road trip last week to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, which I’ve been going to with my parents and brother for about 20 years. We just go every few years now, but it’s one of the few places Ryan and I can go where we’ll sit still all week. We’ll get crab legs for dinner then sit on our deck on the beach while Kyle plays us music. It’s the kind of place where there’s sand on everything. I love it there. We finally figured out that the sound of the waves put Nora to sleep, so we’d just take her out on the beach in her pajamas at night, and she’d fall asleep in about 10 seconds.
ONE MORE REASON TO LOVE LILLY: The chocolate shop across the street is magical for so many reasons including its fabulous owners, but now that I can’t eat dairy, there is one more. Thank you, Amanda and Jos
h, for making nondairy chocolate. I also found dairy free yellow cake mix, so my life is pretty complete at this point. Check out these cupcakes I just made. I ate three in one afternoon.
THE GREAT CONFLICT: Do we stay in Cleveland? We’ve been looking at houses in Bay Village. Well, Ryan is anyway. There are a lot of things I like about living there. We can go to the beach, walk in the woods. We can stroll up to the grocery store and Java Bay. My parents live 
there. Bay is a pretty beautiful place, and we did really like living there. I can see Nora and I doing all of those things together in the summer. But every time we walk around our neighborhood or go sit on a bench in Lincoln Park, I change my mind. I love all of our festivals and people walking and sitting around on patios on Sunday morning. I like how quiet it is in the mornings and how busy it gets when everyone finally wakes up around 5 p.m. It’s a tough call: pretty city or leafy suburb?
WHERE I’VE BEEN: It’s been a long time, dear friends! I took a bit of a break from regular blogging because my sweet new daughter Nora Clementine made her entrance through the marvelous door called Cleveland, Ohio. I’ll try to get back to things now, though, as you’d imagine, life is a little different these days. We’re definitely cooking more, eating out less, and going for about 10x more walks than we used to. We’ve been taking our girl all kinds of places, which works out most of the time (but not always, of course), so she’s been to the Tow Path, the Westside Market, Bac, the zoo, and about 100 trips to Target. You can check out our adventures here where I’m taking a photo a day of our growing girl. Here are a few other things we’ve been into lately:
I STILL LOVE THE HEAD AND THE HEART — We saw this band by accident with the Decemberists last summer with Erin and Pete, and we listened to them while we drove all over the south last August (Memphis, Asheville, Appalachian Trail). So they remind me of cheese grits, Gus’s fried chicken, hiking trails, and, of course, rivers. I recently pulled out my record and started listening to them again. They’re still good. Check out this one, which starts out slow and serene and works its way up to gorgeousness: Rivers and Roads.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8yLwuDi2mA
THE MOVIE I’D SEE IF I COULD GO TO THE MOVIES: I think I’m done with movies for a few years, but I do have Netflix. So here’s my see-you-later movie for this week. It looks whimsical and beautiful. Bill Murray and whimsy? Well, I have to check that out.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX_BQwa7680
TONI MORRISON — If there was a divine goddess of literature, she would look like Toni Morrison who is so amazing and forceful she doesn’t even seem human. Th
ere should be statues of her. I would buy one. I just finished her new book “Home,” another short one following “A Mercy,” about a troubled former soldier searching for the sister he left behind. It felt a little rushed — I was left wanting more about the characters and the setting — a piece Morrison is usually a master of illustrating. But, as always, there are moments of great beauty. It’s short enough that it’s worth checking out for those alone. But if this is your first foray into Morrison, start with “Sula” or “Beloved.”
TASTE OF TREMONT — Dying to come visit me, Nora, and/or Ryan? Longing for some steaming hot pasta in steaming hot weather? It might not sound appealing, but Taste of Tremont is always fantastic. Professor Street is shut down, and you can get some of the best food in the city for about $5. Worth. It. See you there.
BEING BUSY — Thanks to my ever-philosophical friend Ann Marie for sharing this stellar and Thoreau-like column in the NYT about being busy. If you liv
e in America, this probably applies to your life in some way. Check out this fantastic passage: “The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done. ‘Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do,’ wrote Thomas Pynchon in his essay on sloth.” I wish I had a picture of a sloth to post here.
NORA C: My little Clementine’s latest hobby is giantsmiling. Huge. Toothless. Superendearing. Especially first thing in the morning.
TREMONT FARMER’S MARKET— For some reason we’ve never been into going to this wee market in the past, but this year we’ve headed up to Lincoln Park every Tuesday to grab some arugula and some food truck food for dinner. Tremont feels a little more like Athens when it gets about 20 percent more hippie on Tuesday nights. Plus we can stop by Churned, the supertasty new ice cream shop on the north (I think) side of the park run by the Cookie and a Cupcake people.