Babies, Babies Everywhere!

Hello there Kittens and happy last day of July!

How did we get here?  I'm not quite sure, but what I am sure of is that I'm finding myself surrounded by babies lately.  Tante Melinda in full effect!

With my travels this month and an unexpected, yet incredibly welcomed, house guest this weekend, I find myself with a growing list of things to cover.  Which is a nicer way of saying I'm behind in posting...

At the beginning of the month, I attended the baby shower of my favorite cousin.  Unfortunately, my camera did not, so while I have no photos of that day, here is one of us having Brunch in December.

It may very well have been on this day that the twinkle in Becky's eye later became my nephew...

And it was up to Tante Melinda to help Becky stock up on bath supplies and books!  Natch...

Seriously, how cute is this bath wrap?!?!?!?  Unfortunately, they do not carry these in adult sizes at Pottery Barn Kids...

Since I had very little notice for this shower, the gifts were limited.  It makes me feel like a bad Tante and will be rectified...

While the items for bath time fun were on the registry, I went rogue as soon as I hit the bookstore.  But really, what little boy does not require a little Curious George?

When I was working on Avabella's library for Stephanie, Barnes & Noble was sold out of one of the most important story collections ever published, so I picked up two copies of The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh.  One for my new niece and one for my eagerly awaited nephew!

"If ever there is a tomorrow when we're not together...there is something you must always remember.  You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.  But the most important thing is, even if we're apart...I'll always be with you."

The lessons of friendship, love, loyalty, and self-worth are so beautifully taught in this book.

I wrapped everything up and headed out to spend a beautiful, but HOT, day with a fabulous girl I rarely see because she lives in New York.  It was also wonderful to visit with my other cousins - all scattered across the country.

Port is an exceptional helper.

A few weeks later, I headed down to Stephanie's.  Since Avabella is only 6 weeks old, Stephanie is not yet able to venture out for Brunch.  Since she could not come to Brunch, I brought Brunch to her.  I took the opportunity to wrap up a few things for our new little lady.

While in Mexico, I found the most adorable dress in the gift shop of our hotel and simply could not pass it up.

So, I packed up the dress and the second copy of Winnie-the-Pooh into a shiny, happy present and headed out for Avabella's first Brunch!

Granted most of my Tante duties up until this point have consisted of buying presents, I think I'm going to be VERY happy being a full-fledged Tante!  I have no doubt that both these wonderful couples are going to make spectacular little people and become absolutely wonderful parents.

XOXO!

Let's Bring Back

Good Morning Kittens!

'When was the last time you wore a cape to the opera? Or white gloves to lunch? Why did we ever do away with bed curtains or cuckoo clocks? Whatever happened to parlor games, calling cards, double features, duels, monocles, riddles, turbans and parasols? Well, let's bring them back!'

Since starting The Vintage Project, I have been on a book-buying frenzy!  In addition to finding books for the monthly book club selections, I'm finding so much supplemental reading material that looks fantastic!  I learned about this particular book from a friend of mine and Let's Bring Back looks PERFECT for The Vintage Project!  Lesley M. M. Blume is an author, journalist, and cultural observer based in New York City.  She has written many things, but her Huffington Post column of the same name inspired this little encyclopedia of fabulosity!  Blume has also penned a Let's Bring Back cocktail edition and a language edition which should also be fun to read...but let's just start with this one, shall we?

Pick up your copy here

As soon as I received this little treasure, I quickly flipped through it and I'm very much looking forward to sitting down with it and a nice cup of coffee on Saturday mornings!  I have no doubt this will inspire some truly fabulous blog material!  Until then, here is a little teaser of things that we should bring back...

Hats on men and manners!

Until I report back Kittens!
XOXO

Let's Get Literary - The Velveteen Rabbit

The Velveteen Rabbit

Margery Williams, 1922

Hello Bunnies!

I feel like I've strayed a little bit from blogging responsibilities, and while I'm STILL working on Oil! for March's Book Club Meeting, I'm going to share a few other things with you before that post is completed.

From my last post, you now know that the eternally fabulous Stephanie is going to bring another Little Lady into the mix.  While I proceeded to go out of my mind in shopping for clothes, because, really, how could I not?  I also found myself at Barnes and Noble.  I LOVE books and I think that growing up with a big library is essential for children.  So, I have taken it upon myself to build one for this Little Lady.

Enter The Velveteen Rabbit.

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I never read this children's classic before purchasing it for the baby shower.  One of my best friends got married a few years back and her brother read an excerpt from this book during the ceremony and, without knowing the exact context, I cried.  Hard.  So, once I brought this home, I decided to read it before signing and wrapping it.  This little book is only 40 pages, but the emotion and intensity that is packed into those 40 pages of this children's book is really quite spectacular!

If you've never read it before, keep in mind that you will absolutely need to sit down with a box of tissue to get through it.  I bawled like a baby...it was to the point that I had to set the book down, sob for a minute, attempt to pull myself together, scold myself for being affected THIS deeply, read a few more pages, and repeat the process.  It's not that the story is tragic, but it's told so beautifully and really drills down to the core of what life is all about - loving and being loved in return.

'For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand it all.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day...
"Real isn't how you are made, " said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
'Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up, " he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen at all once," said the Skin Horse, "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily...Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.'

One of the most profound lessons for a little girl to learn is that, no matter what she looks like, she is beautiful and that those who truly love her, do not do so because of her physical appearance.  It's such a powerful thing to have instilled within you growing up in this image-obsessed culture!  '...the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that that little Rabbit cared about. He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter.'

Not only does the Rabbit become Real because of how deeply the Boy loves him, but the Rabbit loves the Boy in return.  He loves him enough to sacrifice of himself for what the Boy needs.  'And then, one day, the Boy was ill. His face grew very flushed, and he talked in his sleep, and his little body was so hot that it burned the Rabbit when he held him close. Strange people came and went in the nursery, and a light burned all night and through it all the little Velveteen Rabbit lay there, hidden from sight under the bedclothes, and he never stirred, for he was afraid that if they found him some one might take him away, and he knew that the Boy needed him.'

Once I finished reading, I knew that I also needed to gift a Velveteen Rabbit - so that's also been added to the 'next time' category of shopping for the baby.  It's not that I don't have oodles of time...she hasn't even arrived!  So, with that in mind, my book purchases for the baby shower started small, but I already have quite a long list of books for her library.  The other two that I bought were Grimm's Fairy Tales because everyone should know the classics and The Very Hungry Caterpillar because I remember this from when I was a kid - and also because a very visual book about becoming a butterfly is appealing to every little girl!

 

So yes, I just reviewed a children's book.  But really, if you've never read this, you must do so immediately.  And if this one doesn't make you feel something, perhaps you, yourself, are not Real.

Happy Reading (and sobbing), Bunnies!

Let's Get Literary - Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's

Hello Kittens!

Since my LBD posting, I've been experiencing a mini Breakfast at Tiffany's obsession.  I started thinking, though I haven't seen the movie in a while, I have seen it a few times...but I've never actually read Truman Capote's 1958 novella.  Because there aren't enough titles on my Book Club list, I decided to remedy that and give it a read.

First edition cover. Pick up a copy here

The novella is a story told in retrospect, set on the Upper East Side of New York in the autumn of 1943.  It is completely told from the viewpoint of an unnamed man who we know only as Fred - a name given to him by his eccentric neighbor, Holly Golightly.  Holly is referred to as a Café Society Girl, one who does not have a job, but lives on the generosity of wealthy men and the benefits of running in the right circles.  One of the misconceptions is that she is a prostitute, but Capote had gone on the record to say that while she was a party girl and was paid by men to hang on their arm, she was NOT, in fact, a hooker.  Holly herself addresses the issue - "Not that I've warmed the multitudes some people say: I don't blame the bastards for saying it, I've always thrown out such a jazzy line."

Holly is unconventional.  Her driving force is her quest to find herself, find a place where she truly belongs.  I get the feeling that she feels that as she hasn't attained that sense of belonging, her actions have no consequence.  To her, everything is temporary, because everything has always been so.  It can be seen in her attitude toward her cat.  "Poor slob...poor slob without a name.  It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name.  But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll just have to wait until he belongs to somebody.  We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I.  I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place when me and my things belong together...It's like Tiffany's...not that I give a hoot about jewelry.  Diamonds, yes.  But it's tacky to wear diamonds before you're forty; and even that's risky.  They only look right on really old girls...wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds: I can't wait.  But that's not why I'm mad about Tiffany's...You know those days when you've got the mean reds?"  "Same as the blues?"  "No, the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long.  You're sad, that's all.  But the mean reds are horrible.  You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of.  Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is...what I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's.  It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing bad could happen to you there, not with those men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets.  If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name."

Despite her lack of convention, you cannot help but fall in love with Holly.  When you see the world through her eyes, there is something magical, something captivating.  She represents a freedom, living for the moment without regard for much of anything aside from having a good time and embracing who you are.  She is described as "a crazy.  A phony.  But a real phony." because she truly believes in what she says.  She embraces the fact that she is 'a lopsided romantic.'  As she sees it, she's simply being true to herself - "Good things only happen to you if you're good.  Good?  Honest is more what I mean.  Not law-type honest - I'd rob a grave, I'd steal two bits off a dead man's eyes if I thought it would contribute to the day's enjoyment - but unto thyself-type honest.  Be anything, but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart."  Holly loves passionately and freely, accepting people as they are and is very much ahead of her time with her views on love and equal rights "I'd settle for Garbo any day.  Why not?  A person ought to be able to marry men or women...love should be allowed.  I'm all for it."

Holly has a very laissez-faire attitude about most things, but there is a sadness to it all, to her.  She doesn't allow you to glimpse it often, but when she does, it's heartbreaking.  "Never love a wild thing...you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get.  Until they're strong enough to run into the woods.  Or fly into a tree.  Then a taller tree.  Then the sky.  That's how you'll end up...if you let yourself love a wild thing.  You'll end up looking at the sky."  I get the feeling Holly wants to be all things to all people, genuinely wanting to make them happy, but doesn't quite know how to do that while making herself happy.  "I do feel guilty, I guess it's because I let him go on dreaming when I wasn't dreaming a bit.  I was just vamping for a time to make a few self-improvements.  I knew damn well I'd never be a movie star.  It's too hard and if you're intelligent, it's too embarrassing...I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous.  That's very much on my schedule, and someday I'll try to get around to it; but if it happens, I'd like to have my ego tagging along.  I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's." 

For those that have both read the novella and seen the movie adaptation, I think it's easy to forget the sadness of the novella once we see the movie and see Holly flitting around.  The feeling we are left with from the movie is the ease with which she moves...the aesthetic that we've come to associate with the film and the character.  'One could see that Holly had a laundry problem, the room was strewn, like a girls' gymnasium...she was on her knees poking under the bed.  After she found what she was looking for, a pair of lizard shoes, she had to search for a blouse, a belt, and it was a subject to ponder, how from such wreckage, she evolved the eventual effect: pampered, calmly immaculate, as though she'd been attended by Cleopatra's maids.'  What stays with me is the sadness of the character.  Someone who is so desperate to love herself and find a place to belong, that everything essentially becomes collateral damage.  I've tried to keep the plot out of this posting, so I won't tell you how this ends, but I can tell you, it ends differently from the movie.  And since I'm a little like Holly, a lopsided romantic, I have to say that I missed the Hollywood ending with this one.  Good thing we have the film.

Her quest to find her own personal Tiffany's is one that is universal.  I'm still looking for that brand of magic.  Have any of you found it?  If you have, what is it?  And if not...bonne chance, chatons!