Basin Street Blues by Kid Koala, here.

Mouse's little happy dream for this Friday: I want to go to County Donegal in Ireland and stay in a hundred-year-old cottage with a thatched roof. I will sleep a lot, wear wool sweaters, eat a lot of food, drink a lot of tea, and write some things. I will putter, look at the view, take long walks. Hopefully it will rain a lot. And did I mention that this cottage is heated by a solid fuel stove? You burn bricks of peat to stay warm. It also has a clothesline. And a beach.

You can pick your own dream cottage in Donegal. Tip from here.

“Over a period of years Doc dug himself into Cannery Row to an extent that not even he suspected. He became the fountain of philosophy and science and art … Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you to a kind of wisdom. His mind had no horizon—and his sympathy had no warp. He could talk to children, telling them very profound things so that they understood. He lived in a world of wonders, of excitement. He was concupiscent as a rabbit and gentle as hell. Everyone who knew him was indebted to him.”

For remembering the person Mouse lost, I am going to the Museum of Contemporary Art, baking a carrot cake, eating some sushi, listening to his music. His memory is a blessing.

(Thanks, M.)

A game of tag! Mouse got tagged by lovely P. over at What Possessed Me. Rules: post the fourth photo from your fourth folder of pictures, and then explain it. Well, this is clearly karma for Mouse never deleting blurry and bad photos, because photo number four (above) was not such a great one. I had just gotten my new camera a few months earlier, and zooming in on something far away was tricky. But this something far away was worth zooming.Mouse and Mouse's mom were on vacation in San Diego, doing some mourning and some sitting in the sun. It was March, and effing cold--the sort of day where you can wear a bathing suit in defiance of the cold, if you're out of the wind, but sooner or later you wind up covered in goosebumps. There is no way I was going to swim. I put one toe in and got incredibly cold. And usually Mouse swims despite the conditions.*

So mom and I were hanging out in La Jolla, sunning, and here comes the Orange Woman. Orange bathing cap, orange flippers, orange skin. She meant business, man. She made a beeline through all the tourists and went right for the water, and then breast-stroked a straight line out from the beach. There was no adjusting to the water, no shiver, nothing. Dove right in. So I took a picture of her as she got in, and then I tried to get a picture of her swimming. She swam for a really long time--at least an hour, and we left before she got back. So that's the bad fourth photo of my fourth folder. Go, Orange Woman!

Um, now I guess I'm supposed to tag people. If it will be fun, YOU ARE IT:

Fairy Blogmother over at First Milk

lovely M. at Practical Wedding

dear R. at Heart of Light

and fab G. over at Tell You (Today) 

* When you come from a state with so little water that they name the puddles, you get really excited about the ocean.

Okay, this is damn brilliant. Last week Mouse sliced her thumb open on the broken, rusty, sharp edge of our kitchen sink drain. Boyfriend freaked out (there was a lot of blood) and Mouse felt 1. relieved that she has had her tetanus shots and 2. mad at the drain. After all, the drain was already icky and unsightly and now it had also made her angry. So it's fired. Instead, I want one of these beautiful drains from Joana Meroz. Where was this drain last week?

Nice find, Design Crush.

Mouse has an embarrassingly intense crush on this rug. If you've been around awhile, you already know that I really want everything in my living room to look and feel like a nice, fuzzy sweater, especially when it's cold outside. This rug is like one giant cable-knit sweater. If you don't believe me, just click the link and zoom in. My heart rate increases every time I click. Sigh.

For a fun time, check out the new (free!) Life photo archive. As you know, Mouse is all about bikini shopping these days for her eventual beach vacation, so I typed in "bikini," and it was a doozy. Besides the photos of the atomic bomb we set off in the Bikini atoll, there are several excellent images of the history of the bikini. Here are two bikinis from 1945, modeled by either the same risque French woman or two very similar-looking risque French women. The captions are pretty great (L: "French man and woman (in bikini) sun bathing at poolside," Paris, 1945; R: "A French woman wearing a very revealing bikini while sun bathing at poolside," Paris, 1945)

Then the bikini makes its way across the ocean, and in America becomes much less cool and all about the sex, therefore requiring, for some reason, giant hats and hair and also very high heels. (L: "A woman in an itsy-bitsy bikini," U.S., 1960; R: "Show-girl modeling bikini for customers at lunch," Los Angeles, 1964)

Then we chill out (1970).

Note: also in the Life photo archive, Mouse noticed a bunch of photos of people getting "recession pony rides." Are we doing pony rides this time around? Where do I sign up?

Boyfriend's sweet little granny sent us a box in the mail today, full of grapefruits which she grew herself on her tree in her backyard. Seriously, how sweet is that? We love her. 

Now. What shall I do with all of these grapefruits?

This is a difficult week for Mouse and the Mouse family. So I open to all of you a question about memory: do any of you have good ideas for marking the anniversary of a death? It should be noted, that much is clear. It should feel like a celebration of life. What I want is to be with Mouse's mom and Country Mouse*, but they are far away. What do you think?

* New name for sister who lives in the snowy West, which she thought of herself. Like the Country Mouse and the City Mouse, except I am much less mean than the City Mouse was.

Happy Birthday, Jackson Pollock. One of these days I will make the trip I have been putting off and visit your studio.

Mouse hearts air plants. It isn't that Mouse does not like regular plants (my obsession with succulents is out of control)--I just think there is a good possibility for cool display with air plants. Since they only need sunlight, air circulation and occasional water, the only potting requirement is being able to get water to their roots. They could live on a ledge, or inside a bottle...I am scouting for air plant ideas.

The images above are from Greenware Design in Savannah, via Design*Sponge.

This day has a long-slog-through-hardening-cement feeling, have you noticed? Here is a link to a quick giggle.

Have you seen the February Dwell? They've done a whole issue about prefab (but fab) modern homes. I like this idea. Pick a spot, bring your house to your spot, put your house together with allen wrench (ha ha). You can see bunches of cool prefab houses here.

Mouse and Boyfriend will never find a coffee table like this on craigslist. Look at it, sitting there, hulking. It says, "check out my raw wood, oooh," and just waits there for me to stub my toe on its massive beautiful legs. Oh, sigh. 

(A bajillion dollars, here, via Dwell)

Know what? It doesn't even matter that Mouse's beach vacation with her mom is months away. It is the carrot at the end of the stick, the light at the end of the tunnel, and any other expressions available which have to do with getting through this cold winter.* Now, Mouse feels hopeful excitement when she thinks about bathing suits, rather than seething resentment. And then, of course, I picked up the January J. Crew catalogue (above) and sank into a dreamy fog of wanting to be on the beach--or at least somewhere warm with a turquoise pool--right now.

Anyway, the hunt for bikinis is always a long process for Mouse. I love the one on the left (which would match my sneakers), but it's a lot of money. If it goes on sale, I will wear it with those cute seersucker shorts. The second bikini is on sale right now ($14!) and also comes in teal (Mouse and teal are best friends). And that beach cover-up on the right is damn genius: it's convertible (dress, skirt, swing-top) and made of soft jersey which doesn't wrinkle (so I can wad it up in my beach bag, if I am so inclined, and then wear it to dinner [which will be some sort of fish]). Brilliant.

* There is a hunk of ice which has been stuck behind the left wheel of Mouse's car for, seriously, three weeks without ever melting off. Rattle rattle rattle.

Mouse wants to live in an old rail car. Oh, sigh, yearn. Look at the floor. Look at the ceiling. Look at the windows, the bed, the table, the butter yellow color, the little garden outside. If I lived there, I could have tranquility and grace and be a nice Mouse all of the time. And if I ever got fidgety, I could just hook my bedroom up to the nearest locomotive and get on down the line. (From here.)

Mmmmmm, weekend, how nice you were. Here is what Mouse and Boyfriend did:

1. Ate this whole plate of lemon bars, with some help from friends.

2. Watched film noir movies and giggled with friends.

3. Slept.

4. Cleaned the house and did all the laundry.

5. Saw a movie in the theater and ate popcorn. If you haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire, I think you should drop whatever you are doing and go see it right this minute.

6. Talked on the phone.

7. Did one productive errand.

And that's it! It was lovely. How was your weekend?

Have you heard that The Impossible Project is going to start making film for vintage Polaroid cameras in 2010? They bought the Polaroid factory and all the old equipment. Shake it shake it, shake it shake it woo-hoo.

(Details here, images and news via Apartment Therapy Chicago.)