very simple

Our town in the Berkshires is one of the smallest and, as a consequence, our memorial day parade is quite small. There’s the veterans (including my dad), the village improvement society, the boy scouts and the 4H club. Plus lots of random townspeople. The 4H club is the only one that has its act together enough to have a float. Everyone’s welcome to march, but I feel I’m doing my part by actually watching the thing. Which lasts approximately 20 minutes, including speeches.

There’s not a lot of actual color in my parents’ garden yet, but things have started to bloom. Including the apple trees. We haven’t had apples in a few years because there seems to be an unpleasantly timed frost every year that kills everything off, but this year…no frost.

Baby apples:

bonus purple flower:

My friend Scott, from up in the Berkshires, has run a local favorite establishment for many, many years. Recently though, he closed caffe Pomo d’Oro in west Stockbridge in order to buy, restore and reopen the Monterey General Store. MGS is the oldest general store in the United States and, except for the months it was closed between when it shut down and when Scott bought it with the intent of reopening it, was open continuously for over 200 years.

…and bonus. Scott’s words when he saw me in the doorway of the kitchen with my camera were something along the lines of “I better not end up on that blog of yours!”

Came up to the Berkshires on Friday, and my stepmom and I immediately headed out to the Memorial Day sample sales. Which are always in tents, and which it always seems to be raining for.

We headed up to pine cone hill in Pittsfield (after an accidental detour to their old location in Lenox), which is now located in this fabulous old factory.

Got my key fob for citibike today. It starts Monday for areas theoretically south of central park (just far enough away to make this not yet a viable commuting option), but I signed up anyway because it was really cheap ($95/year) and there are some advantages to having a yearly membership, like the ability to keep bikes out for 45 minutes at a time instead of 30, and, well, the key fob (which lets you release a bike directly from its station instead of having to go to the screen at the end). I say it’s for areas theoretically south of central park, because the official citibike rack map on my iPhone still only shows racks in lower manhattan. Let’s see how much more they get done in a week!

random photo holder on my desk, run through a lithograph filter.

Sadie being cozy in her tiny little house.

Just another normal Saturday in New York City, when going to get a pedicure means randomly running into a latin dance parade. This is actually not the first year I’ve had this happen.

Hand-me-down necklace from my stepmom. One of my favorites.

muji guggenheim. Rescued from the cat.