Sometimes a Picture is Worth About $200, Unless You Have a Warranty

We are going upstate New York this afternoon, to my parents' house, to retrieve our kids, who have been vacationing up there this whole week. But with school starting next week, we thought that we might as well get them.

This morning, I walked through the Union Square Greenmarket which is so obscenely beautiful that I am still shocked that Giuliani didn't try to shut it down when he was mayor. Farmers from the NY area, upstate and Long Island, and New Jersey, come and offer their produce. It's fresh, it's gorgeous and it's great to buy from people who are so involved. And plus, Bernard Goetz (remember him?) is around Union Square a lot, training squirrels or something. Seriously, what else could you want in a green market?

Today, I saw this display of flowers, and it was so breathtaking that I decided to photograph it. And while I was trying to get a good shot, while telling the flower selling man that I am not a gifted photographer and he reassured me that my camera is great, so basically how badly could I fuck it up, I dropped my cell phone on the concrete and it made this shattering noise that completely ruined the serenity of the floral appreciation moment and bonding with the flower farmer or whoever he is and I almost had a stroke on the spot.



But aren't the flowers lovely? And I like the broom in the corner so much I almost asked if I could borrow it for my commute.

And now for awkward transition: When we were upstate last weekend, dropping the kids off at my parents (is it me, or is anyone else thinking that my kids should learn to drive and stop depending on us as their personal chauffeurs, or parents, or something?), we saw a tree in the forest that had been hit by lightning a few weeks before. Eerie. And yet while taking this picture, I managed not to drop my cell phone. Because if a cell phone falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear me complain about it...