What you do first thing in the morning can influence your whole day. If the first thing you do is stump to the computer in your pajamas to check your email, blinking and plucking your proverbs, you’re going to be in a hungry electronic funk all morning. So don’t do it. If you read the paper first thing you’re going to be full of puns and grievances – put that off.
- A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker, page 91
I have President’s day off, and it kind of feels like a snow day used to feel when I was a kid. Except that this year there’s no snow and it’s unseasonably warm and sunny.
So let’s time travel back to Michigan Snow Days with Etsy.
I’m guessing that one of the strongest memories of winter for any kid growing up in Michigan was taking all their snow gear on and off, over and over again. On normal school days you would do this at least 4 times a day – once in the morning to go to school, twice for recesses, and once more at the end of the school day to go home. Full snow outfits included a hat, gloves, scarf, coat, snow boots, and – most important and inconvenient to bladders – snow pants! All of it should be as brightly colored as possible, and also have a large number of different colors on each item. I think my coat had at least 5 colors of nylon arranged in geometric color blocking. On snow days I would usually gear up shortly after sleeping in and eating breakfast to check out the feet of snow that had magnificently accumulated and cancelled school. In Michigan school didn’t get cancelled for anything less than a full foot of snow, and sometimes not even then, if the plows had time to make their routes.
Snow Pants on Etsy – $23
After playing outside in the snow for a while, I would come in for lunch to get warm again. Usually I would curl up with a book, and more than likely it was a Baby Sitter’s Club book.
Baby Sitter’s Club boxed set on Etsy – $7
Or, I might have been reading an American Girl Doll book. Molly’s books were my favorites.
American Girl Molly – Complete Book Set on Etsy – $18
I would also lounge about on the couch and watch TV. When you were home from school at times that you shouldn’t have been, you had to watch shows that were meant for younger kids. There was no Clarissa Explains It All or Pete and Pete on during the daytime. However (this being 90s Nickelodeon), all the shows were great, even for younger kids. I remember watching a lot of Eureeka’s Castle:
Eureeka’s Castle Hand Puppets on Etsy – $20
And that, with the addition of Campbell’s soup and a snow fort, was a Michigan Snow Day. Simple, but divine.
I’m off to enjoy the rest of my grown up day off, which includes reading Charles Dickens, going to see a movie, and cooking tacos for dinner. Also simple and divine.
My typical Saturday morning and early afternoon usually looks like this (abridged):
Wake up. Make coffee. Make breakfast. Read. Get dressed. Drop off laundry. Go to Brooklyn Flea. Browse all vendors. Head to BK Flea food court. Eat 2 pulled pork sliders from Asia Dog. Eat 1 chocolate with cocoa nibs donut from Dough. Browse (ok, buy) books at BookCourt or Greenlight Books. Get a Stumptown cappuccino from Cafe Peddler. Pick up laundry, now washed and folded for me, on the way home.
Have I mentioned that I absolutely adore living in Brooklyn?
I don’t always get to do this routine (traveling is the main thing that interferes), but it is my very favorite way to spend my Saturdays. Saturday nights are always different, but the day is a perfect routine of my favorite places and things to do.
I usually buy 1 vintage thing at the Flea each week. This week it was a small blue vintage pyrex casserole dish that I found for $10:
It looks perfect for stashing leftovers in the fridge, doesn’t it?
As far as the food at the Flea goes, this is a Dough donut:
It tastes like heaven would taste, if heaven were a donut.
And that’s what Saturday afternoons are like. I figure I’ll start posting photos of vintage things I buy (sometimes from the Flea, sometimes from Etsy) because finding something old that still has use and value is so much fun, and I love giving things a new appreciative home.
Lovely evening at a Billy Collins reading at Strand.
On whether or not he’ll ever write prose:
“No.”
…
“No one asks prose writers if they’ll ever write poetry.”
…
“Poetry is a bird, prose is a potato.”
PS – My blog is back up, after a several month struggle/confusion with hosting.