sitelanguage

Sounds I miss when I wear my ipod

I've read stories where someone snores like a buzzsaw, but I'd never actually heard it until yesterday on the subway. Though come to think of it he really sounded more like a Harley.

And now the mawkishness sets in

This is the last time I'll watch the sudden blooming, over a couple of days in late spring, of our misbegotten crab apple tree. The tree pokes out of a two-foot-diameter hole in the concrete in front of the building next to ours. Ten months of the year it's the unprettiest tree you ever did see. Its stunted trunk evinces past prunings like a series of permanent bad haircuts. Twiggy little growths stick out all along the trunk's length until finally it branches out into a few limbs, a couple of which appear dead and none of which reach higher than eight feet or so. Having no idea what kind it was when we moved in in '96, I couldn't have been more surprised the first time I saw those pink flowers—they were just so garish and improbable. They lasted a few weeks, longer than the cherry blossoms across the street, and by the time they were gone the live limbs had grown a respectable covering of reddish-green leaves. Needless to say, since then I have thought of it as our tree, especially since it's our stoop that benefits from its fractured shade. Of all the signs of spring in New York this is the closest and the best. (First in what may be a series of posts that begin "This is the last time I'll..." I warn you, if sentimentality makes you cringe you'd best stop reading this blog until our cross-country move is over and done with.)

Pink shadow

The cherry blossoms are falling on my block this week, a sad reminder that I had to be out of town during this year's Sakura Matsuri at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Still, I love shuffling through these pink piles and sifting the soft little petals through my hands like confetti. Resolved: I will not totally miss the lilacs.