30 May
Me o my how I love a long weekend. Here it is, Sunday, but I needn't mourn the fact that the weekend is almost over, because there's a whole 'nother day! I can do my mourning tomorrow, after I open my eyes in the morning.
Simple pleasures, darlings.
So yesterday I went out into a beautiful New York summer day and went shopping and to the movies. What else would one do on a beautiful New York summer day?
Walking up Broadway, the Empire State Building looked so spectacularly lovely with the sun shining on it and the clouds behind it that I just gaped at it like a tourist.
I went to see Notting Hill, which I adored exactly as much as I expected to. Which was plenty.
What one needs to make a great romantic comedy are lead actors whom you really believe are perfect for one another (Hugh and Julia, check!), believable machinations keeping them apart (she's the biggest movie star in the world, he's an ordinary bloke, check!), and lots of really well-drawn and well-performed supporting characters (check check and check!)
That last one is the one that most people forget, but name a great romantic comedy, Moonstruck, Four Weddings, While You Were Sleeping, When Harry Met Sally, Crossing Delancy, Groundhog Day...see what I mean? The supporting casts in all of those films really make the film.
In Notting Hill, Hugh is surrounded by a group of quirky friends, just like in Four Weddings, and amusingly enough, three of the friends have doppelgangers in the Four Weddings cast--the sister is Scarlett, the girl in the wheelchair is Fiona, and the stockbroker is Tom, the one with the castle! It was like a party game, figuring out who's who.
Basically a perfect romantic comedy.
Afterwards was the shopping, which I didn't meant to do, but I was at the Loews 19th St., which is right across the street from two of the most dangerous stores in New York, Fish's Eddy and Portico Bed and Bath.
Fish's Eddy sells dishes, old fashioned dishes, often discontinued restaurant china, and I have to keep saying over and over again to myself "You only have one little shelf for dishes and cups and glasses and bowls, and it's pretty much full!" but to no avail.
Cynthia Rowley has designed a set of dishes for Fish's Eddy, and I fell madly in love with them, but since I don't have a hundred bucks to spend on plates just now, I just bought one and hope that they will be there for awhile so that I can get one every time I'm in the nabe.
I also got an exceedingly large yellow bowl that I don't have room for, but I really wanted it because it is, well, exceedingly large, but relatively shallow, which is unusual.
I also got two tiny little individual creamers. God only knows why, as I have less than no use for them, but they were so unbearably cute that I couldn't resist. I'll use them for pancake syrup or something.
Then, after spending almost all my money at Fish's Eddy, I went to Portico to complete the job.
Portico is the most hideously expensive bed and bath store in all the land, and it is absolutely hypnotizing. It carried the Tipton Spa line, among others, and it's all so luxurious and it smells so good that I just can't help myself.
The last time I was there, I want some marvelous lemongrass bath foam, but I couldn't afford it, so I decided to go back and get it this time, but then I saw these great woven summer purses--not a cheap flimsy woven purse either, but flat-bottomed and solid, with sides that stay upright. Literally the perfect summer purse, pink and aqua like a Howard Johnson's, and I lost my heart.
Not to mention the rest of my cash. I had to pay for part of it with handfuls of change. I always feel a little beneath Portico anyway, as it's very spare and white and I'm usually a little grubby, but I really did yesterday, with my torn jeans and unwashed hair, paying for a $40 bag with quarters.
I love it.
Today's horoscope:
Hypersensitivity is emphasized today, so tread gently and kindly with yourself and those around you.
One year ago today:
I have become my own grandmother.
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Last Updated Sun 30 May 15:09:09 1999