Holding on to summer

(photo taken by me, at Misquamicut State Beach, Rhode Island)

Dear, dear summer, why must you go? I am not ready! I need another trip to the beach, more melty ice cream cones, a long bike ride in the dappled shade, garden tomatoes, damp bathing suits drying in the sun, new sandals and a fresh pedicure…

More summer lovin’ here and here. And here.

Recipe for a Perfect Summer Weekend in NYC

{The Flatiron Building, Askew. It was the only way I could frame the whole thing with my little camera}

Pre-heat the calendar to the last weekend before school starts. Take one hard-working marketing director (me) and one high school music teacher (The BF) with a pending birthday, and add:

 

A cheap bus from Hartford to Midtown, a camera shop that is the mecca of photographers and technophiles everywhere, a French bistro that serves late lunches of moules frites and wine with Lillet. ABC Carpet & Home on Lower Broadway, an ice cream truck that you heard about on NPR, a shady bench in Union Square Park.

{The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck parked at Union Square}

A wonderful hotel in Murray Hill, a subway map, an iPhone app for Zagat that tells you where the locals go for Italian in Greenwich Village. Pasta made in a cellar, wine made in Piedmont, panna cotta made in heaven.

 

 

{Porca Miseria Chandelier by Ingo Maurer}

Picasso, Magritte and Ingo Maurer's "Porca Miseria! Chandelier" at MoMA, a street fair on Sixth Avenue, fantastic sandwiches crafted by a Top Chef, a wedding in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Used books at The Strand, an unbelievable birthday dinner at the Union Square Cafe, sitting next to a movie star, hoping to flag down the Cash Cab, drinks at a swanky nightclub.

{The Round Table, at the Algonquin Hotel, Where Mrs. Parker and The Vicious Circle dined and dished}

Another street fair on the Ave where the Men are Mad, finding Dorothy Parker's seat at the Algonquin Round Table, breakfast (and another wedding!) in Bryant Park, trying to figure out where they used to put the Fashion Week tents, dashing through Midtown to catch the bus back from Penn Station. Home.

 

All photos by me. More on my Flickr page.

Today I'm also participating in Hooked on Houses "Hooked on Fridays" link party, so scoot on over there and see what everyone else is hooked on.

Summer, don’t go! Is it something I said?

{Misquamicut Seagull No. 4, originally uploaded by robinsegg0523}

Oh Summer, why must you be over? You came so late this year, and went by too quickly. I feel I had only a few weeks to enjoy your sunny skies, your pleasant breezes, your sweltering days that make me appreciate your cool nights all the more…

This Saturday The BF and I enjoyed what is likely the last* “beach day” of the summer. Under blue skies and with a soundtrack of crashing waves, we sunned ourselves, read magazines, swam in the ocean, sat under an umbrella and enjoyed lunch and cold beers with an old friend of mine. I grew up on Long Island Sound, but there is nothing like a real ocean beach, with big waves and soft sand, a thousand colorful umbrellas scattered like Easter eggs on the shore. Yes, I have a bathing suit full of sand and seaweed, I got stung by a jellyfish and there is a line at the bathhouse, but I like to walk to the water’s edge and look out at the sea and appreciate that I am standing on the edge of a continent.

For more on what I love about summer click here.

*the last for us that is, ‘cause we don’t play no hooky once school starts.