About Time

Spring took its damn time.

It's finally nice enough to hang around outside, but it looks like we're going to go straight from frigid winter to sweltering summer without much spring in between. Shame. I like the low- to mid-60 degree weather: silk scarves, little leather jackets, French novels in translation.

Does weather affect what you want to read? I like English novels in the winter, French in the spring, Japanese or Latin American in the summer, and local New York literature in the fall. Comic books I just read year round, cuz there's no seasonal limits on asskicking.

I just finished reading Patti Smith's memoir "Just Kids," which isn't French, but she spent time in France and was heavily inspired by French poets, so it sort of counts. I've reviewed it on the other blog. But don't read it. Instead, go outside and view the dogwood blossoms if you have any.

http://bigislandrachelsbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/just-kids-patti-smith.html

Curious Trees

What kind of tree is this? They're all over the city and right now, they're all blooming big puffy white blossoms that give me gullahs in my throat, especially in the mornings.

Trees in Hawaii don't really go through any blooming. They have leaves, seeds, and flowers pretty much all year round, never altering their wardrobe for the changing seasons. The major exception is coffee. Coffee trees are related to gardenias, so their white blossoms smell sweet as--well, gardenias. There's always one day, and only one day, when every coffee tree in Kona, from Kaloko to Captain Cook, just explodes with these sweet blossoms. It's like a snowfall. You never know when it's coming, you just wake up one morning to the smell and the buzzing of innumerable honeybees. By the next morning, the petals have withered slightly and turned brown at the edges, and they smell somewhat fermented. The day after that, they've shrunken up completely. One day, that's all you get.

But I digress. The trees on the mainland bloom in the spring, and what a sight! Magnolias on the lawn of the Frick, dogwoods at Pratt, cherry blossoms in Central Park, and everywhere these mystery trees, blooming away like coffee. They were naked for so long in the winter, and soon their branches will be modestly clad in the thickest of summer foliage, but right now, flower lingerie. Oh, those naughty trees!

Speaking of which, I put up my shear summer curtains and pulled out all of my summer clothes. It's like saying hello to warm weather Alterna-Rachel. Of course, it'll take a few weeks to adjust. Just yesterday, at an Easter party in South Brooklyn, the BF's grandmother commented on the extreme whiteness of my legs, revealed for the first time since September. I probably glow in the dark.

Tomorrow, going to see Alice Waters speak at Book Court, and the day after that, friends from SoCal are in town for the weekend.

I'll leave you with this spelling mistake, on the marquis of the Union Square Cinema. Who knew there was more than one Titian, and that at some point they clashed in a mighty battle of paintbrushes and small-titted Renaissance women?