Blue Clouds

Everywhere you turn these days in and around Los Angeles, there are Jacaranda trees covered with purple-blue flowers...



The plumes, balanced on poetically gnarled trunks, look like blue clouds in the late afternoon light....



Lovely blooms -- always as many on the tress as on the ground -- mark the city's colorful transition from spring to summer...



In honor of the Summer Solstice this week, I took these pictures of the two old Jacaranda trees shading the lawn in front of our flat.

Hope you're having a lovely week so far.

My friend Elaine is returning to LA from Paris tomorrow. I'm picking her up from LAX in the afternoon. Can't wait!

UPDATE: My orange shoes are on sale here!

Hot Milk Cake

The cake was a hit at our dinner yesterday! I wanted to share the recipe with you. It belonged to my grandmother on my dad's side.

Ingredients:

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup milk
1 stick butter
Pinch of salt
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat eggs well, then add sugar a little at a time. Heat milk and butter until butter is dissolved. Cool, then add to egg/sugar mixture alternately with flour. Mix well. Add salt and vanilla. Mix. Then add baking powder slowly until blended.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes in two 9-inch cake pans (greased & floured.)


Icing:

1/2 cup butter
1 pound confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

add milk one tablespoon at a time to preferred consistency.

Then eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snack...:)


(Props to Bella for taking the picture)

Happy Father's Day Weekend

Father's Day is on Sunday and it will be my first without my dad. I'm sort of dreading it, actually. I told my mom I would cook. I haven't decided on the menu yet, but I would like to honor my dad's memory by making his favorite dessert: hot milk cake. I think he'd like that!

I'm also, finally, starting a container garden on our balcony. I'm determined to grow roses in pots!

Every milestone holiday marks a chance for a new beginning, I think.

Wishing you a lovely, lovely weekend, my dears. Thank you.

PS: The photo above is of my dad and me on my wedding day.

Which Books Changed Your World?

I guess it's officially books week on the English Muse...


There's a major trending topic sweeping Twitter at the moment: #booksthatchangedmyworld.
It made me stop and think. The book that most changed my world was Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast", because I finally understood that it didn't take a lot of money to live well.

What about you?


PS: Check out the twitter stream on the subject. The answers range from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to the Great Gatsby!


Also, the above photo is from here.

Have a lovely Wednesday and HAPPY BLOOMSDAY!

UPDATE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON: Susan Orlean, one of my favorite New Yorker writers, is the one who started the Twitter hashtag! More about it on the New Yorker's website.

More peonies...

...from the grocery store...


I love the white ones with the yellow fringe, like ribbon...

Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.

We've swooned over clips of Ms. Hepburn singing Moon River, combed through the Internet for pictures of actress with her pet fawn and donned black dresses with four-strand pearls.

Now there's something new to add to the Audrey lure. Author Sam Wasson is out this week with a new book that presents the woman behind the little black dress. His book, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M., gives a behind-the-scenes account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's.

For example:
Truman Capote desperately wanted Marilyn Monroe, but Marilyn's people thought the role was too saucy for the actress. (Afterall, Holly Golightly was a "lady of the evening.")
Director Blake Edwards filmed multiple endings;
And Hepburn felt very conflicted about balancing her role as mother and movie star.

"Mr. Wasson approaches his subject from many angles," Janet Maslin writes in today's New York Times. "His book winds up as well-tailored as the kind of little black dress that 'Breakfast at Tiffany’s' made famous. And, yes, there’s lots to say here about that dress’s widespread influence. Audiences used to brightly costumed homebodies and Doris Day-type career girls were in for a big, chic, liberating surprise when Holly and her elegant simplicity came along."

I can't wait to read this book. I already know I'll love it. It never ceases to amaze me that -- five decades after the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's -- we all still adore Audrey,
perhaps now more than ever.

Anyone want to go with me to the bookstore?

What are you reading this summer?

Summer books are the best kind, I think. They're meant to be read simply for the some decadent pleasure. Recently when I was reading the liner notes on my dad's Fountains of Rome album, I noticed several quotes from a Bloomsbury Group writer, Elizabeth Bowen. In 1960 she published a book called "A Time in Rome." She makes the city sound magic.

A sampling:

It was April. The idle yet intense air smelled of honey; Rome shimmered below with hardly a stir, and bluer than the sky were the Alban hills....

and this:

It is impossible, in spring, to walk too often on the Appian Way,
under the cumulus piling into the blue...

I found a used copy of "A Time in Rome" on Amazon.com. It arrived yesterday, and I'm so excited to get started on it. I'm also reading another delicious book, "Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes," by Elizabeth Bard. It's very clever and funny.

Speaking of Paris, I wanted to tell you some exciting news: A high school student from Paris will be spending most of the summer with us! I'm busily fixing up our extra room for her now. She's coming to perfect her English, and we're looking forward to learning French. Her name is Emma. We can't wait to meet her in person! I will keep you posted on her arrival.

Meanwhile, back to my original question:

What are you reading this summer?

xo

PS: Above photos from here.

Liss

Lovely Liss of Daydream Lily has been nominated for the Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Female of the Year awards in the blogger category. I'm so excited for her. She's not only a talented blogger and artist, she's a kind and caring person, always willing to lend a hand to a friend in need. During my dad's illness, she helped keep my blog going and I love her so much for that...

If you get a chance, please vote for her here!

Thank you!

xoxo

The Summer Wind

I've been listening to selections from my father's record collection and can't stop playing one of his favorites, Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind." Aside from the fact that it is a small masterpiece of classic American songbook phrasing -- and no one could do that quite like Sinatra -- it's a wonderful memory of my father. It also reminds me of one of the lovely things that makes life in Los Angeles so comfortable: Even on the hottest days of summer, there are morning mists and afternoon breezes that come in from the Pacific.

Our summer winds are always cooling ones here. (In winter, of course, we get the dry wind off the desert which is named for the devil, but that's another story.)

It's the cooling wind that once made this place the citrus capitol of the world and filled our valleys with orange and lemon trees. I live in one of LA's hottest valleys, and on this morning I can smell citrus and jasmine blossoms in the cool breeze. Bliss.

Sometimes there is nothing better than sitting in front of an open window,
with Sinatra on a record player.

Happy Tuesday everyone!


PS: Photo above from Toast.

"The Yardstick of Celluloid Cool"

Jean-Luc Godard's iconic film Breathless is newly restored and back in theaters this month for a limited engagement!


Jean Seberg is the picture of 1960s Paris cool...

I love the glasses and the hat...

And, of course, the t-shirt...

It's so hot here today in Los Angeles. Two hours in a cool theatre watching a fantastic French movie is my idea of weekend bliss!

IndieWIRE poses this question: Can a multi-decades old film be successful in theatrical release? What do you think?


PS: Rodarte is supposed to release a reproduction of the NY Herald Tribune t-shirt this month, but I'm still searching for it online...sigh.

The peony or the rose?

Every spring in lovely Southern California, the Trader Joes markets sell bunches of peonies for $6.99. It's a monumental occasion for us because, otherwise, the billowy flowers are almost impossible to find here. This year, they seemed larger and more vibrant than usual.

I've always thought of myself as a rose girl, but maybe peonies are more beautiful?

A rose will always be a rose, but a peony is like the full moon in flower form,
even if they do smell like cabbage.

Sinatra and Strauss

Hello my dears, my mom on Friday gave me a box of my dad's old records, a mix of classical music, big band and jazz. We spent the holiday weekend listening to them, drinking wine and reminiscing. The music reminded me again of how capacious my dad's mind was. There were so many aspects of beauty he enjoyed -- music, art, literature. Some of the best conversations I had with him concerned all three. It gave me a deep appreciation of the different cultures of the world, especially those of Europe. Before I even set foot in Italy or Austria or France,
I was already in love.

Listening this weekend to Strauss' waltz, Vienna Woods, and Respighi's Fountains of Rome, I was taken back to my New Mexico childhood, when I first realized how big and beautiful the world really was. Music carries us places that words can't quite describe. It also evokes deep memories. I remember my father playing these records over and over on his old stereo.

As they pop and crackle now on my Crosley turntable, I've learned something about my father: With his overtures and waltzes, he had a flair for the dramatic and the romantic. There were no requiems in his collection, just grand happiness. Thinking of that now makes me happy.

I hope you're having a lovely week. I'm excited to get back to posting here more often!

My Dad

Dear Friends, as kind Liss informed you, my beloved father passed away last week after a long illness. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated not only the inimitable Daydream Lily and all the other bloggers who stepped in to keep this site going, but also all the expressions of affection and support you have left here. I feel so fortunate to be part of this wonderful community.

Before I resume regular posting next week, I want to share with all of you a few thoughts on my remarkable Dad. He was born in rolling hill country along the Kentucky-Ohio border, where his surviving sisters live still. For 35 years he worked for General Electric as an aerospace engineer. He held several important patents for his inventions, and if you've recently flown on a Boeing airliner, chances are he'd devised the engine seals that kept you airborne. He loved his family and New Mexico, where I grew up, but his private passions were painting and sculpture. My home is filled with his art and every time I look at one of his paintings or sort through his watercolor portfolios, I'm reminded of how his character combined, in equal parts, an engineer's precision and a gifted artist's sensitivity and intuitive insight.
I will miss that very much.

One of the benfits of being formally jobless during his last illness was that I enjoyed the unexpected blessing of being able to spend a great deal of time with my dad. He'd always loved our moments together and looking back at how much we both enjoyed just going out for coffee and talking,
I so wish we'd done it more.

The hours we spent together during his final year and, particularly, during this past month are something I'll treasure for as long as I live. I had that rare privilege of hearing my father assure me of his unconditional love and of his great pride in the woman I'd become. I vividly recall how my heart soared when he called my daughter Isabella, his only grandchild, "your marvelous girl." It was his last gift to me--and one of the most precious among so many.

After he died, I asked my mother for his paint brushes and I've arranged them in vases about the house, each one a flower of memory, a reminder of the gentle but skilled hand that once held it. In one of our last conversations, my father said to me, "You've always been my shining star."
I know now that, if I glitter, it is with the light he gave me.

a moment

~~

Dearest readers, Tina has asked me to let you all know her dear Dad passed away today. Please say a prayer for her and the family.

♥ Liss

White Cells & Blast Cells

Hello my dears, it's Tina here. I wanted to check in and give you an update on my dad, who is fighting leukemia in the hospital at the moment. For the past week, we've been keeping vigil at his bedside, watching helplessly as his body wages a war against a growing army of white blood cells. A week ago, his white cell count was 23,000 -- twice the normal rate. Today it topped 140,000, mixed with "blast" cancer cells. His hands and arms are covered with bruises. He stopped eating days ago, despite my mom's delivery of home-cooked food.

Yesterday, the hematologist gently asked him to open his eyes.
"Mr. Daunt, can you tell me what I look like?"
My father lifted his head, opened his blue eyes and answered: "You're a handsome man."

This horrible disease will inevitably rob him of his life but it has not yet stolen his sense of humor. And because of this I have hope...

Photo above by Dicky Jiang

Important PS: I am so grateful to the Liss, LenoreNeverMore and the other guest bloggers who have kept English Muse going. And thank you for reading. Love you. T.