Finns; how do you translate "Varo Sanojasi"??
Or more to the point, how would one say "Just another glamorous day in the Saipua kitchen?"

The first dahlias of the season...

Mornings with Ms. P

There is a cherry wind* ablowin' through red hook this morning as I sit down by the window to get some work done and eat breakfast.


Ms. Poops joins me. She's started begging for food like a dog, and I'm a sucker. Ms. P is 15 and has recently svelted down to little old lady status...a polite way of saying the cat is busted. But we love her (if one can love an animal whose mess you clean off the floor before you have coffee every morning, thus, her name).


I'm writing a lengthy email I'd rather not be and so I turn to photobooth as a means to waste time and capture some of our last precious moments together. Ms. P and me. Sharing breakfast.

*Our neighborhood is home to one of the largest maraschino cherry processing plants in the country.** You would never eat a maraschino cherry again if you saw what they do to these things...bleach, dye, packed in garbage bags, etc...the point here is the smell. Think about it and trust me when I say that the smell of maraschino cherries is exactly the same as a (albeit, clean) porto-potty. Exactly the same friends.

**Not a proven fact.

Here is the blue wedding from this past weekend. Bouquet above has sedum, tweedia, roses*, eucalyptus, scabiosa pods, nigella, "You & Me" hydrangea...and I think that's it. Boutonnieres are below. The wedding was at the picnic house in Prospect Park.

*I had the pleasure of working with an expert floral designer on this job...she came in on Saturday to help me finish the job. Having help=revelation. Having help that knows the name of roses=cat's pajamas.. I said "White roses." She said "Vendela's."

our visit to Terrain

Terrain at Styers is a wonderland of plants, garden supplies, home decor and just beautiful things in general. Their cafe is also a gem - we had a heirloom tomato sampler with black basil.

lunch break; day at the beach with Jon, Milli, Chris and Rex

I warn you that some of these videos will make you cry with embarrassment..

This here is a sample table arrangement for a wedding coming up in a few weeks. When I make them I think I will use roses instead of the dahlias...I'm not crazy about how the dahlia shape mimics the succulent.

I'm listening to Nina Simone's cover of Suzanne. Click here, scroll down and try it for yourself.

Yesterday we opening the shop for the first time in a few weeks and it was nice. I left early to go to the UN with Aaron who wanted to take some pictures. There is no place stranger than the UN on a Sunday evening around 7pm. There is no one around. There is a dead bird on the sidewalk.

Back in Brooklyn we saw a rainbow. And then the B61 came right away.

Then in Red Hook we saw a cat on a roof. Cat on a roof! Cat on a roof! we cried. This morning I'm catching up on wedding bids and scouring the internet for Milli Vanilli videos.