Tag: Paris
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Lucky Lottery
What would you do if you won the lottery? What would I do if I won the lottery? I’ve already done it! Almost 22-1/2 years ago Susan and my paths crossed, and… Bonanza! Lady Luck smiled upon us, mercurial but merciful, luring us into one adventure after another. We courted across the Atlantic for two…
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Poetics of Essex
At least part of what I was longing for after living, working, and exploring in Western Europe from 1999 to 2003 was a “connection with place“. To be honest, I’d fallen hard for Paris and Rome, and after four years based primarily in the former, untethering was bittersweet. But something was missing. I had begun…
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Connection with Place
I was recently accused, tenderly but definitively, of being obsessed with locale, and more precisely, with my connection to place. As a lifelong wanderer, this struck me as slightly ironic. And accurate. By now my fixation on hyperlocality and placeness (aka the poetics of place) have become inextricably woven into the entirety of Rosslyn Redux, the robust and…
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Poppies Aplenty
Poppies aplenty! A gardener can never grow too many poppies in my estimation. Biased? Yes, unabashedly biased when it comes to Papavers, I’m afraid. (The oriental poppies that we plant at Rosslyn are in the genus Papaver in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. No worries, you won’t be quizzed later.) So smitten am…
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ADK Oasis Highlawn
If you’ve ever wanted to visit the Adirondack Coast, I have some good news for you. Late last year we decided to purchase a new property north of Rosslyn, and as of last month we’ve launched an AirBnB that we’re calling ADK Oasis (www.adkoasis.com as well as www.airbnb.com and @adkoasis). (Updated in 2019 to ADK Oasis…
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La Vie en Rose
Je vois la vie en rose I see life through rose-colored glasses — Édith Piaf Édith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose” – usually translated as “Life Through Rose-Colored Glasses” – inevitably, joyfully came to mind when this sexy photograph was shared with me on Facebook by an Essex friend and neighbor, Janice Koenig. It turns out…
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Paris, Rome, New York City and Essex
Early in the millennium I lived in Paris and Rome for a little while. Twin hardship posts! I shuffled back and forth on a roughly two week cycle with frequent detours to New York City to visit my then-girlfriend-now-bride. I lived out of a suitcase and a briefcase. I collected frequent flyer miles and passport…
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Serene, Patinaed Fantasy
Accustomed to living out of a suitcase, I pendulumed back and forth between Manhattan where Susan was wrapping up a degree in interior design following a decade-long career in video production, and Westport, New York, where both of our parents owned homes and where we’d met a couple of years prior. Susan had recently refinished…
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Paris Renovation Bug
Starting in about 2003 I initiated an unfocused real estate hunt for a “fixer-upper” in the Adirondacks’ Champlain Valley. I’d returned from four years in Europe with enough savings to justify some idle time, a reprieve I hoped to plough into a long languishing novel while tinkering with the vestiges of a web-based business I’d…