Help the Parks Department

If you want to have a say in the future of New York City parks, click on this link and fill out the survey form the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation.

California Dreaming

My alter-ego lives in Los Angeles. She drives an old Jeep with a soft top. She has a mutt named Lashka who walks with her on the beach in Santa Monica early in the morning. The thought of sitting in a cube all day is foreign, instead my alter-ego does set dressing for films. And, oh yeah, she lives in a cool L.A. loft just like this one posted on Design*Sponge's sneak peaks section. Go ahead, click the link and drool a little. Le sigh.

Gone to Tennessee!

I am off to Tennessee for four days for a visit with friends and family. While I am there, I aim to take advantage of southern junk shops. I also plan to makes stops at the Loveless Cafe, The Bluebird Cafe and the home of the late, great Elvis Presley, Graceland. Should be a great trip. Back on Tuesday!

Image courtesy of the Tennessee Preservation Trust.

Product Update: Oxo LiquiSeal Mug

I wrote about Oxo's amazing LiquiSeal Travel Mugs when I first started this blog. At one point, I must have had a half a dozen of them. But I'd lost all but of them to ex-boyfriends, roadtrips and the cleaning lady at my office who likes to throw out coffee mugs if I leave them by the sink. So, I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond (aka the fifth circle of hell) the other day to pick up another mug. I was thrilled to discover that Oxo now offers the mug in stainless steel. It's much easier to keep clean than the older plastic version, and recent news reports about the possible dangers of drinking out of plastic make me feel a little better about stowing my coffee in steel. $20 may seem like a lot for a travel mug, but trust me, it's worth it.

Deep Thought: $10 vs. $245

Restoration Hardware's Lugarno Extension Mirror is $245.
IKEA's Frack mirror is $9.99? Which would you choose?

Three To Read

Celerie Kemble: To Your Taste, $45 (and yes, I love to hate her too)

Domino: The Book of Decorating, $32

Brooklyn Modern, $45

Bedford Smart Recharge Station

I'm thinking about buying this recharging station from Pottery Barn. Part of me thinks it is insane to pay $80 for a box to hide cords in, but I haven't been able to find anything similar at a lower price point. (I also happen to have a $95 credit at Pottery Barn, which makes the decision a little easier.) On the flip side, I absolutely loathe the site of a tangle of cords, and the value of hiding the usual cord clutter in my bedroom seems priceless to me. Unfortunately, it's only available online, so I can't go to a store to check it out in person.

Banner

I have a new banner. I drew it. What do you think?

Plastic Bag Tax for NYC?

Today The New York Times has an article about a proposal to tax NYC residents 6 cents for each plastic bag needed at the register. I think this would be a great way to reduce New Yorkers use of plastic bags. I try to use cloth bags as often as possible. In fact, I've gotten so good at avoiding plastic bags the my deli guys know not to give me one and I have to make a conscious decision to get more bags to line my kitchen trash can when I run low. My question is, what are you supposed to do to hold your trash? I always figured that re-using plastic bags was a more earth-friendly option that buying trash liners.

Last night in Brooklyn.

All those cheers of Yes We Can, turned into emphatic cries of Yes We Did last night. I am so proud of this country and so hopeful for its future.

Last night I watched the election returns come in at a friend’s apartment uptown. I saw people filling the streets and cheering as I headed downtown towards Brooklyn. What I saw in Manhattan filled me with happiness, but what I found in Fort Greene made me laugh out loud. I can’t describe how happy everyone was, but if you want to take a look, click here, a friend was kind enough to share some video with me. People were literally dancing in the streets. They were spilling out of bars onto sidewalks and sitting on brownstone stoops. The crowd watching Obama’s acceptance speech at Rope was so thick that I couldn’t even make my way through it to reach my friends. The bar actually ran out of beer it was so busy.

Come three in the morning people were still in the streets yelling their heads off. As my friends and I walked across Washington Street, we would cheer at everyone whose path we crossed and then they would cheer right back. Then the shouts would ripple up the street--a constant wave of ‘Wooo Hoos’ and ‘Yes We Dids.’ As I walked down Lafayette, I could hear a roar of voices coming from further down the street. Outside of Moe’s people were still crowding the sidewalks. Down on DeKalb people were singing, drumming and dancing at Madiba. My friend Jackie tells me that after she left she was riding the back of a garbage truck at four in the morning.

It was glorious, and I loved my neighborhood even more than ever. I loved it for its enthusiasm, for its almost reckless hope and most of all, for its unrestrained joy. There is no place I would have rather been as I finally fell asleep last night than in Fort Greene listening to the sounds of conga drums and my neighbors cheering.

Happy Birthday Neighbor

Happy birthday to my neighbor. Happy birthday to my neighbor, Happy birthday, dear Seana. Happy birthday to you! You got the best birthday present ever.

D.I.Y. Runner Idea

Here's a great idea from Remodelista: A kilim stair runner! I love the way this looks, especially against the dark colored stairs. However, I am not sure how easy it would be to execute. How would you get the runner to lay flat on the steps? I think I'd steal this idea and create a runner for a hallway, where it could simply lie flat.