The latest...

Vanderbilt Mansion
Originally uploaded by Meesy

So, its Thursday night. Jus is making cool lamps, as you do when you don't have a telly. He's so handy. We're listening to Beck's Midnight Vultures. I've been doing the clothes washing and had a difficult ethical choice to make: do you toss someone else's clothes out of the machine if its done and no other machines are available? I did, and I felt guilty. What's the right thing to do? Do tell.

Yesterday I was in Detroit for work. Well, to be precise we drove down the freeway from the airport to Ford Road, and then to Mercury Drive, past Fairlane Town, and went to Ford global HQ. Rather beige. I gave a presentation then got back in a car, went back to the airport and back to NY via Chicago. (yes, that is the wrong direction. Its painful. I just close my eyes, lie back and think of the freq-y flyer points.)

Justin has been rustling up furniture from cool sources and slowly, piece by piece, the apartment is taking shape. Bedside table, tick. Lamps, tick. Kettle, tick. Ironing board, tick. You forget the things you need when you're down to a couple of suitcases. Ironing board became immediately apparent and we reluctantly trekked to Bed, Bath and Beyond and walked home with one. Owning two ironing boards in the world is just annoying. I am rather excited though by my Componobili. (I only expect Designer Dan to understand what this means.)

Stevie Abbott was in town last weekend and he suggested we get out of town, so we hired a car and headed for the hills: the Catskills, Rip van Winkle country. We were all a tad anxious about driving out of New York but with, Barbara, our GPS lady, intoning the way, we all got comfortable and managed only to take three wrong turns and drive the wrong way up a highway ramp once. We listened to Barbara very closely until we got out into the small towns and winding roads though the red, orange, yellow and green leaves. Then we turned Barbara off and found Woodstock, which has a gentle New Age current flowing through it (lots of purple velvet, spirit-related stores, Hendrix posters, tie dye, howling coyotes, dream catchers) but is mostly a cute town full of tourists. They were having a film festival , so it was quite busy.

We saw two dudes for whom the party had never stopped, a store with a 'Hippies Welcome' sign, a few music studios and lots of alternative teenagers who no doubt have very free-thinking parents. It reminded me a bit of Daylesford.

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Jus and Steve were nursing serious hangovers (pints, jet lag and pseudoephedrine make a sweaty, porcelain-grabbing combo) so we made our way to the Scribner Hollow Lodge, our inn for the evening, and had naps before a massive 4-courser in the dining room. A pianist sang Latin hits and soul anthems from the bar while we had hairs of the dog (hair of the dogs?): it was like our iPod was on a 'dinner party' playlist. I thought she was excellent and sang along a bit. It was that kind of place, and I'm that kind of gal.

We saw a bear alert sign (akin to our bush fire safety signs), a nuclear power plant, a lot of red barns, where FDR was born...everywhere you turned there was a 'this happened here' plaque.

Anyway, we survived driving back into the city and now we're exhilarated because the whole countryside beckons! Within a couple of hours you can drive or train to Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massacheussets, Rhode Island, Maryland...I have no idea what you can do in all those places but it sounds exciting.

Here are some random photos of stuff.

And someone at work has started calling me Meesy! What the! How do they know?