I've Moved!

I'll now be blogging from DoehleBread.wordpress.com

See you over there!

Friends in Town

I love it when friends visit New York. It's always fun to explore the city through a newbie's eyes, but given my current state of adventuredom, where I'm basically playing high-level tourist every day, it means I have at least one companion for what I normally do alone AND I get to share all my secret tidbits and hidden trails. Yes!

My friends Sean and Erin (pictured with me above) were in town from Indiana last week as part of an epic east coast roadtrip, and we lazed our way through Central Park, bought cookies, wandered the Met... It really was a perfect day.

Spring in New York

Upper West Side. The gentle rain is gone and soft beams of sunlight illuminate green leaves. Somewhere a woman is singing opera. She stops and starts, circling the same phrase to get it right. A bird calls. An air conditioner hums to life. The breeze smells like wet cement and freesia.

Jump(suit)

I bought a jumpsuit last week. I don't know what came over me, but I'm just letting it happen.

It's made of silky crepe, fits like a dream, and makes me feel like the type of person who hosts large, relaxed dinner parties at her sprawling Hamptons home. It also makes me feel like I'm wearing pajamas in public which is the only reason I wear anything, really. The only downside is its, uh, restroom functionality. (Pro-tip: Pee pre-jumpsuit. It's the only way.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some canapés to prepare!

The Peach

Swish, swish, swish, swish...

My blue checkered button-down was cinched at my waist, and I could feel the soft knit of my orange skirt brushing around my knees as I sauntered across Union Square in the fading, golden and glowy sun, searching for dinner. I tossed my hair, giving my neck a breezy reprieve from its tousled, wavy platinum blanket, feeling the balmy spring air whispering against my collar... and suddenly caught eyes with him.

He seemed about my age and was looking directly at me and smiling, pulling the earbuds out of his ears while coasting quickly through my field of vision. I was startled, but smiled back. And then he was gone. I hadn't broken my stride, but he had broken my concentration, so I fixed my gaze back on the long black shadow leading me across the square. Then I heard it. The whir of small rubber wheels against pavement, and a low voice from back right. He was beside me now. On a skateboard, which explained his previous sudden departure from view.

"Has anyone ever told you..."

Oh, here we go. Men in public like to compare me to famous women a lot. Marilyn? That one isn't so bad. Too easy, but not bad. Anna Nicole? I had been getting that one a lot lately. Bad. I braced myself for what this skater boy with inch-thick ear gauges would say to me.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like a Georgia peach?"

A big, sweet, easy grin had spread itself across his face as he glided away from me, and I felt something like warm honey spill over my insides. A Georgia peach? No one had ever compared me to a Georgia peach. It felt soft, and sweet, and tender and romantic. Somehow exactly how I always wanted to be, but never realized. No one had ever compared me to a Georgia peach...

"You're the first!" I laughed, "But I'll take it!"

I was so pleased with myself for coming up with anything at all to say, let alone fairly coherent and witty, but now looking back I wish I had stopped in my place and dragged him down off his skateboard for a kiss on the cheek. Or invited him to dinner. Or done something more romantic than acting fairly glib about the whole thing.

Because I couldn't stop smiling for the next three blocks.

Mother's Day

Today I am thankful for my mom. She who taught me to be gracious and graceful under pressure, noble, think freely and for myself, and the importance and value of true wisdom. She remains the wisest, strongest, kindest woman I've ever known. Truly beautiful.

But today I am also thankful for the garden of mothers that have sprung up in her absence. I am thankful for them making a place for me at their table, for their soft hands and encouraging words and answering of "mommy questions". They have been the hands and feet of my mother's heart, and I would not be the woman I am today without them.

So today I honor my mom. I miss her and so badly wish she were here to cuddle and kiss. But I am also thankful for all that has grown in the void she left. I was blessed by her life, and have been blessed in her death. I love you, Momma.

Baseball

If I'm honest, I have never liked baseball. I grew up in a household obsessed with it: my brother could correctly identify every player on the A's according to jersey number by the time he was two, and my mom would listen to games on the radio in the car, out in the garden, in the kitchen (she purchased a special radio exactly for this purpose)... When we had cable, we watched games on TV.

My dad enjoyed it, I suppose, and certainly went along willingly with our imposed household A's fan-dom, but Mom was the ringleader, and my brother her protégé. Occasionally Mom would drag me along for a game and I'd be forced to sit in the hot California sun eating Baked Lays chips on the bleachers, bored out of my mind. I didn't get it. Didn't like it. And certainly wasn't going to let on that despite all my protestations I was starting to understand the rules, because I Still. Didn't. Care. Thankfully she caught on that bringing me along was a bad idea, so the live games petered out.

So you can understand what a total triumph of the human experience it is that I have not only gone to a total of THREE baseball games since living in New York, but I have gone WILLINGLY and OF MY OWN IMPETUS. Truly a testament to... I don't know, something. Tonight was one such triumph.

With spring in the air, I (now, if you somehow learn how to time travel and go back to tell pre-adolescent Jessica this, she will be just SHOCKED) have been itching to go to a Yankees game. While researching, I discovered that the A's were in town for a few days, so I knew it was fate. I found two willing accomplices and we trekked to the Bronx to watch the boys do their thing. Now, obviously by "watch" I mean talk, notice the A's hit a homerun on the opening pitch, talk, eat garlic fries, talk, dance, sing "God Bless America", talk... But I'm telling you: between the garlic fries and all this fun stuff, I think I could really get into baseball.

Oh, and the A's won! Somewhere, my mother is very, very happy about this.