The men wore kilts, toasted with cider, and spoke in limericks. The groom serenaded Kim with The Magnetic Fields, and my cheeks hurt from smiling. We ate tacos from a truck, the ceremony lasted a brief two and a half minutes and I could not. stop. dancing.
Related: THIS is my favorite song about Portland.
I have little knowledge of, or affection for, horses (I have been kicked by them, bitten by them, stepped on by them, and thrown from the tops of them), and I would just as soon see the one hundred and thirteenth swimming of the Dugong Derby as see the Belmont, but I do like events, and I have to take what is available or stay home. (The events offered in this area on Saturday were a crafts expo, an energy fair, and a skate-a-thon.) What I learned from Larousse [“Encyclopedia of Animal Life”] was: “Horses, asses, zebras … are monodactyl, the functional digit being the middle one…. The different parts of a horse’s limbs must be clearly understood. The upper parts … down to the elbow or knee, are enclosed within the outline of the body…. The visible parts of the legs begin with what correspond to our forearms and shins. Thus, what is commonly called the knee in a horse is really the wrist, and the equivalent posterior joint, the hock, is really an ankle.”…
This means, I realized, that if a man were to race against a horse—in a fair race—he would have to “race” lying down, balanced on one knuckle of each hand and foot; that is, “running” with his wrists, forearms, shins, and ankles only. (Illustration A.) The horse would have a clear advantage in such a contest, but you have got to give the horse a lot of respect for running like that in the first place.
—James Stevenson, “Belmont Stakes,” June 22, 1981
The best New Yorker of the year should be in all of your mailboxes by now, with that awesome cover of what looks to be a Miami interior. Makes my mouth water.I learned what my fictional companions ate and wore, learned how they spoke, learned about the toys scattered in their rooms, how they sat by the fire on a cold day drinking hot chocolate. I learned about the vacations they took, the blueberries they picked, the jams their mothers stirred on the stove. For me, the act of reading was one of discovery in the most basic sense.
Yes, we did listen to that song while we were there, thanks to HILARY and her rad beach mix. We also tried the suddenly famous Rockaway Tacos, sampled ruby grapefruit icies, and I took a mini-nap and had a dream about airplanes. It's still too cold to swim, but maybe next week.
The dogs are named Betty and Meatloaf, the last photo is my favorite, and yes, I made that pie.
