Where are we?

A little mystery for you.

Where was this picture taken?

And yes, there is book in it for you if you are interested in urban greening: Carrot City - Creating Places for Urban Agriculture, published by Monacelli Press. The publishers sent it to me some time ago and I wrote about it here.

Boerum Hill's fences

This looks to me like Betty Corning...a clematis I would love to own. The rose garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has a beautiful example growing over a wire bower, there, but this understated specimen was lovelier for its unexpectedness on Pacific Street in Boerum Hill. A very pretty stretch, actually. I was on my way to find a small boxwood, kindly ordered for me by the people at Dig, on Atlantic Avenue. I may also have bought some wild pink and peach agastache at GRDN, after I failed to find chives. One must find comfort, somewhere...

Mustn't one?

It is the last day of May.

Summer's coming

If you are feeling perverse and want to test your marriage, do this:

Have one spouse go onto the Internet to buy a new air conditioner. When it is delivered, install it.  It's too small. Also dented. Pack it up again and send it back to Amazon.

Once the refund clears, double check all measurements and  have the other spouse go out and buy an air conditioner in person from an appliance store. Make it the Rolls Royce of air conditioners. Have it delivered and installed when the temperature is above 90'F indoors. It is too big, by a quarter inch, not listed on the specs for the unit. The delivery men pack it back up and remove it. You tip them and apologize. You have words on the phone with the salesperson.

Now, for the ultimate test, on the very same day, have the first spouse go back out in the evening and purchase a third air conditioner, bring it home in a yellow cab, carry it up four flights of stairs, unpack it and find that it, too, is dented.  Install it anyway. This takes longer than you might anticipate. The spouse is tired and has sore arms.

If, by morning, you find yourself in the same bed with the same spouse, there is nothing more in life that can test that bond. Nothing.

Remember to mop up the blood and send gifts to the neighbors and donuts to the responding precinct.

End of May terrace

I am happy with the colour of the red Munstead Wood. I was worried that it would be a flat, electric scarlet, but it has dark black shadows within the cupped petals. My chives are mess, though. Not sure what's going on with them. Possibly too much rain. The strawberries have almost finished their first fruiting. And I think I need another boxwood. One is not enough.

And how shall it continue?

Well, Memorial Day did not kid around. Yesterday it kicked off summer with a kick in our pants, remarkably well aimed. The fan did its best. Munstead Wood, above, fared remarkably well, far better than Pat Austin (RIP), who would have keeled over, petals fried.

In a bid to escape our fourth floor level of heat hell (as we walk downstairs it cools, incrementally), we left the apartment and walked to Red Hook, two neighbourhoods south. On the way we detoured to the nearby piers to look at the beautiful ships at anchor for Fleet Week and OpSail 2012 (the latter commemorating the war of 1812). Spain and Mexico had sailing vessels. Japan a deadly grey thing. The UK a huge ship, a former tanker requisitioned as a supply and hospital ship for the Falklands War. The smart sailors, the heavy cables and fluttering flags, the lethal, loaded choppers on board, the pretty trappings of war. Bang, you're dead. Let us mop you.

On Columbia Street later, melting just a little, we passed a window that belongs to Little Pheasant (Denise), a blogging floral designer.

We passed Christina's community garden with sweet peas and poppies. 

Then comes a long, barren stretch, relieved at last by ivy and graffiti. You can bet that ivy lowers their cooling bill.

I was aiming for a garden and a mentally noted patch of milkweed. But someone had removed the lush milkweed patch of last summer. So no flowers now, redolant of milkshakes and electric with bees. Instead, the weedy patch beside the leaning house on the cobbled street is filled with wild lettuce and thistles and mugwort.

We put our names on a list for a lunch spot at Hope and Anchor and while waiting we walked some more.

At the bar of Hope and Anchor, a fixture on Van Brunt Street whose prices have not risen in years (thank you) I chewed on a Vietnamese chopped salad and Vincent on a banh mi burger. Mine was good, his disappointing. I sipped an iced G&T. Before sitting down I soused my arms beneath the very cold water in the bathroom, which was amply supplied with kitchen towels (thank you, again). I put wet towels on my hot neck.

We went home to rescue the hot, furred cat who had wedged himself between two cool pots on the hated gravel. Inside the apartment, the fan did its best.

I cleaned milkweed buds, discovered on Staten Island on Sunday, to accompany our braaied chicken.

While the chicken sizzled over the coals I drank a trashy drink. Cuba Libre. Rum and Coke. I know. I enjoyed it. A lot. I may have had another one.

With smoke spicing the air the cat roused himself and retired to the cooling rooftops.

Today, at home, the much anticipated new air conditioner arrived, not a moment too soon. A big, very heavy expensive thing.

It was too big.

It was returned.

The two kind, sweating Mexican guys who hauled it up the stairs appeared not to hold a grudge. But I feel like a fool. I did not double check with my own tape measure in the store. I am not sure you appreciate the depth of my disappointment with all things Marie at the moment.

It is summer, Stateside. Let the games begin. May the best measurer win.


Speaking of measuring: Tonight, the setting sun lines up with the Manhattan street grid. It is known as Manhattanhenge. We'll be on the roof, dancing for better days.

Greens from the roof

A salad for one: the perk and pepper of nasturtium, the  sweet crunch of fava bean leaves, the soft spots of trout lettuce. And some lamb's quarters (a.k.a. yet another 'pigweed'), thrown in. I like my forays to the roof.

Long weekend

Usually this tray, which my mother gave me a couple of years ago, is brought to me, in bed, with breakfast, on Saturdays and Sundays. During the week I have my coffee and toast in front of the computer or on the terrace, as Vince is out of the house by 6am, but at the weekend he makes breakfast and we have it together, me reading whatever I'm reading, in bed, and he reading whatever he's reading, on his computer. It's quiet, and it's nice. After breakfast we plan our day. But this weekend he is sick, and after a day-and-a-half of lying flat he had not eaten much. He felt a little better on Saturday night and I made him a small salad for Saturday supper, and this time he got the tray. He polished it off. Not the tray, the salad. Well, he had to: I grated some parmesan over the top. I know. Sneaky.

I also shopped for a new air conditioner and while we wait for it to be delivered we experience a little of what is to come. Heavy, damp air. The cat stretches on the floor, as long as he can make himself, legs and tail in opposite directions. The big fan is brought from The Hole, where it has been since...(Hm. I don't know when we put it away. Early fall?) and whirrs nonstop again. Its blades sound like the props of a small plane, beating silver air. It is time to pack away the duvet. Thunderstorms throw fat raindrops at us every day. The climbing roses have been deadheaded.

The chicken I had planned to grill on Friday must be grilled tonight, on the fire on the terrace, Frenchman or no Frenchman. So if you smell something smoky, something like rosemary, with some lemon and garlic just beneath that, that will be me: cooling off by cooking outside, waiting for the air conditioner, toasting the beautiful ships in the harbour for Fleet Week, waiting for the heliotrope to grow.