astonished
by yesterday's reading, the first real Rock City Readings event. Teresa turned to me, somewhere between all the brilliance popping throughout the Kleinert, and said, I think we made the right decision.

We wanted to bring writers to town, but not just bring them. Fete them. Have people hear them. And yesterday was just. Yes, bowls of fruit and bottles of wine (bottles, not boxes) gleamed in the back while the writers read. Yes, all the chairs were full and we were discreetly tiptoeing other chairs off the sideroom stacks. Yes, I nearly handled assembling all parts of the P.A. myself. Nearly.

Yes, Samantha Hunt. Yes Paul LaFarge. Yes Anna Moschovakis. Yes the marvelous Nelly Reifler. What a way to kick it all off.

new old and old new

bake-a-cake sugar jar, 1930s Hall China (radiance yellow)

A few Hall canisters have come into my life over the years. This is the latest. It's so bright it's unsettling, some kind of timewarp, the 1930s suddenly in your face.

1980s hand thrown kitchen window stoneware crock

This crock, though, this one's so open-ended, like a prose poem.  For a moment, it held all the wooden spoons. Then I put the spoons back in the drawer and brought the crock over the luncheonette. Put it on the menu.

K's cookie jar, which Carla the amazing baker returned to him, and therefore us, after years of keeping it safe.

Inside the horizontally laid old wood paneling in the kitchen were these very proper, sturdy beams.

And the thing about a new kitchen: you can lay out an old tablecloth until the wrinkles calm down and not want to apologize to it for the mess. More on that soon.