Allstate: Those hands are mighty expensive

I'm looking at the slightly bedraggled pink peonies I picked out of the yard today. The ones that were knocked to the ground by the 5 minute tempest that blew through last night. And I'm trying to stay calm because in front of them is this year's house insurance bill from Allstate.
The insurance firm's desire to get out of property insurance in certain states has been well-documented - see here, here and here and most damningly here, and they are not writing any new policies on Long Island. If you go online to get a quote from them this is the message you receive "We cannot currently provide an online property insurance quote in the county you have indicated. For more information please contact your local Allstate Agent".
But just refusing to take on new customers isn't enough for Allstate, if you want out there are ways. NYS law doesn't allow insurance providers to cancel more than 4% of their policies in any one year so I'm convinced that they are trying to get existing policy holders to switch to another provider by pricing them out.
Existing home owners would include us. We've been customers for 8 years. Our premiums rose a little for the first four years. Then the increases started to get really big. For the coming year the policy will go up by 30%. Not 3%, which would be in line with inflation, and in other countries where policies are index linked is mandated by law, but THREE ZERO PERCENT! This means that in the four years we have lived here the premium has increased 100%. It's gone from shocking to outrageous to unaffordable.
So what happens if you contact your Allstate agent to complain? He tells you that for the last two months almost every call has been from policyholders complaining about the increase in their premiums. He looks at your deductibles and informs you that there is nothing he can do: you have taken the maximum allowed. He suggests you shop around, because he knows no-one else will take you on as a customer.
So you sadly look at the peonies, feel grateful that this was the only damage sustained yesterday, work out ways you can decrease your outgoings to pay for the insurance and, should there ever be hurricane damage to your house, the $40,000 you will have to pay upfront before Allstate will cut you one check to start rebuilding.

File it under Humor

In The Today Show's "What Were They Thinking?" segment "fashion icon" and "style guru" Isaac Mizrahi channels his inner Benny Hill to give advice to women on undergarments.


The segment is actually called Plastic Surgery without the Plastic Surgery, which must account for the bandana and stethoscope in his pocket.
Isn't it a little early in the morning for post-modern humor?

Dusk

I took this shot of the big conifer in front of the house at dusk yesterday after temperatures in the 90s set off a violent thunderstorm. It was pretty dramatic out there for a while, you can still see the humidity in the background.

Win a Light

If you like modern lighting stroll over to 2modern Design Talk where they are currently running a competition to win this Meridian Table Lamp from Lights Up!.
All you have to do is visit the 2Modern lighting shop and then leave comments about it on on the contest page. Not too complicated is it? Competition ends June 30th.

Real Estate Round-Up

Another house has gone on the market in the incorporated village. In case you are counting that makes 30. There haven't been that many houses on the market in all the time we've lived here. Most of them are just houses, nice enough but not my style. Every now and then, however, a gem comes up and here it is.
I love everything about this Craftsman-style house, the ceilings, the moldings, the windows. Everything that is except the kitchen, which I hate, hate HATE. The cabinets just don't fit with the house in terms of style or color. I know I'm going to be in the minority here but I'll say it anyway: White is the new generic. Take the virtual tour and you'll see the original dark door next to the range - it's authentic and splendid. Beside it the new white cabinets look like off-the-shelf boxes. They may have cost a lot or they may be warehouse specials but they look wrong and they make the rest of the house look disoriented.
And as an aside, in case you think that the market is sliding downwards, this house just raised its asking price by $1,000,000 and change. Even though it has been on the market over a year at the lower price. While everyone else is dropping theirs. Now that takes balls.

Method Eco-friendly Cleaning

Tips on keeping the house clean in an eco-friendly manner.
I used to have to go to Target especially to buy Method cleaning supplies but I can get them at Ricky's drugstore in town now. I love their wipes, especially the grapefruit fragrance ones.
My favorite tip is in the bedroom: Not making the bed is more green than making in it. I've been right all these years......

So glad to be alive

We got hit by a truck last weekend.
OK, breathe. We're still here; the car, however, is totaled. We were lucky to have side impact bags and a car with enough steel to stop the hook on the front of the truck coming through the driver's door. If it had been my Jeep or the "caprice" I don't think I'd be writing this. We were actually dragged by the wingnuts on the front wheel of the truck. The impact buckled the frame and smashed the glass and cracked the windshield. We were doing maybe 5mph. We are very lucky.
There are no photos because I really didn't think of it until afterwards. A long time afterwards, after the police report had been taken, the EMS had left and the car had been towed.
I've never understood the benefit of those automatic emergency service phones in cars before but the second the airbag went off a voice was asking if we were alright and they phoned the Police and alerted a tow truck. They stayed on the line to speak to the Police and I didn't realise they were still on the line until half an hour or so later when they interrupted us to give us the ETA of the tow truck.
By the way, the accident happened right outside the drive, and the sound of the impact had neighbors running. Guess who arrived first? An attorney, an insurance agent and an off-duty police officer. The perfect trifecta.

Anthropomorphised Peonies

This peony looks like it's peeping out from a white bonnet, and giving me a come hither wink at the same time.


There was a fantastic short shower and I snapped this one with the drops still glistening. Does it look like it's weeping?


Sadly for the peony, but happily for me, one branch had been knocked down by the rain. I bought it inside and artistically arranged it in a bud vase. It looks like it's trying to attract my attention by jumping on one leg and waving. Possibly it would like to be shoved in a glass jar by someone who knows what they are doing.


I couldn't bear the way it looked so I chopped its head off and lovingly floated it in a bowl. Drastic, but I think its happier this way.

Why should effluence be prosaic?

Pretty much the most basic facility in the City - the Newton Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn - is already an architectural masterpiece. Eight 145 ft stainless steel eggs hold millions of gallons of sewage and convert it into clean water and what will become fertilizer, all while looking like something from an episode of Flash Gordon. And now there is a bonus feature. They will be illuminated at night, from June 3, with a “diaphanous layer of blue light.” That's according to French designer Hervé Descottes whose firm L'Observatoire International is responsible for the lighting project. Poetic, no?

Surreal bath filler

I'm still looking for that inspiration piece that will kick-start the master bath into action. I don't think this Mimi Bath Filler from Gessi is it, though. Perhaps it's just me but I find it too Daliesque, too Magritte, too surreal. Like the side section of a male anatomy model sculpted by Picasso......

Ant on a Peony

Or as I named this jpeg file: AntonPeony. Now doesn't that sound like a character from a novel? Anton Peony, debonair designer...

Competition Sunday

And through to the end of the month Create My Event is having a Fourth of July Traditions Contest to win this Inhabit Grass Stretched Wall Art from 2Modern.com.
It's stunningly simple to enter, just click the link and post your favorite tradition in the comments box. Easy, no?
Obviously my tradition on the Fourth is to hide away until people stop mentioning how the English got their asses kicked but I'm sure you can do much better than that....

Pinks

Pink


Pink


Pinks. I couldn't resist this Dianthus at the nursery last weekend. The combination of two-tone bright pink flowers and bluey-grey leaves is gorgeous. A girl can never have too much pink, even in the garden.

And on the home front

We haven't been ignoring the house this week. A couple of chores were crossed off the to do list. This guy came down. We haven't had a cover on it since the cabinets went on the wall because I didn't allow for the door opening when I went for the extra long boxes.
The ceiling was primed and we had just enough left-over paint to give it the three coats it needed to make it match seamlessly. Then the new fixture went up and we can now open the cabinet door. Ta da, another problem solved.
We took part in the annual slaughter of the carpenter bees. They only seem to be over the porch this year (so far, anyway) but they've already managed to drill two new holes that will be really difficult to fill unless we get a bigger stepladder.
Things we have to do this weekend: repaint the back door, sand and paint the bottom of the garage door, sand and stain the holes the woodpecker made, stain the new frame around the kitchen door.

Taxes or....

I had to pay the Town taxes this morning and I've spent the rest of today musing what I could have done with the money...


Like buy this unique and sensuous modern Ripple bench by Toyo Ito from Generate.

Cold water

See that blue water? Pristine blue water? Do you want to know why it looks like that? I'll tell you. Because no one has put so much as a pinky-toe in there since we opened it a month ago. Why? Because it's a freakishly cold 62F, that's why.
This year was the first Memorial Day weekend we didn't jump in the pool since we moved here. Even though we are hardy Europeans, we need at least a week of temperatures in the 70s to get the water warm enough for us, and this year that just hasn't happened. We've had one day, or at the most two, of warm weather followed by a stream of dreary, chilly days.
A neighbor suggested we use solar balls to heat the water but I can't find any more information on them. Does anyone know if these things work? It says non-toxic, but what are they made of? Will they mangle the mechanics of my new pump? I'd really like to start swimming soon and I'd be willing to try these things if I knew they'd do no harm.

Rear yard, rear end

Another stella shot of a dog's behind as it flees the evilness embodied in the camera

Cupcakes and family secrets

You know you're part of the family when...


Someone offers you the chance to feel the difference between saline and silicone breasts - saline today, silicone sometime later this summer


They trust you enough to tell you things secure in the knowledge it will not reach the internets the following day


Someone confesses that when they were small they liked to eat the paper that cupcakes are baked in. Bonus points if you admitted you preferred the casings to the cupcakes. Double bonus points if, while telling this story, you are actually chewing on the paper.


They eat all of your Strawberry-Thyme cupcakes but want to know why they are so tiny. That's because these are English fairy cakes (insert inappropriate joke here) adapted from the super-sized American version here. If you are a US reader, make the American version. If you're European and have access to the smaller paper cases the recipe is as follows:

Strawberry-Thyme Fairy Cakes
Take 3 sprigs of thyme and infuse in 5 tablespoons of milk. Set aside for 15 minutes. Discard the thyme. Cream together 100g butter and sugar. Add two eggs, one at a time, with a little self-raising flour, beating between each addition. Carefully fold in 100g sifted SR flour and a pinch of salt. In a separate bowl, mash a couple of strawberries, grate in the zest of half a lemon. Carefully stir this into cake batter with one or two tablespoons of the thyme-infused milk. Divide between 12 paper cases and bake in 180c oven for 12-15 minutes. Cool.
For the Glacé Icing
Mash another couple of strawberries with the rest of the milk and another teaspoon of lemon zest. Sift in enough icing sugar to make icing that coats the back of a spoon and pour it over those fairy cakes.
Enjoy!

Parade

Memorial Day 2008
After a toast in remembrance of the fallen, one to those who have served and another to those still serving, we went for a stroll. Although some of us seem to be striding purposefully.

Trickin' Out the Yard

When we moved her 47 months ago (I can't believe it's been that long, it seems like yesterday) we took a look at the property and pronounced it perfect "We don't have to do a thing here", The Guy said, "Except take down those trees a foot away from the window" I added. "Ha" the garden gods mocked us, and this weekend found us spending a few more dollars at the nursery,


We got a tray of Woolly Thyme to go between the bluestone pavers on the north path


And sedums to make the rockery next to the bridge look pretty. The two in the foreground I planted a couple of years ago and they are huge now so I hope the others grow in the same.


Unfortunately while planting we discovered that one post of the bridge has completely rotted and the only thing holding it up is the cross span. We'll need to replace that and six boards before anyone leans on it.
If the garden gods are reading this: we are not finished with the yard, we will never be finished with the yard. We are sorry for our hubris.

The Start of Summer

I want to be rich so I can decorate my house with live lobsters.
via remodelista.

To decorate my $230 million pad

I would so start with this gorgeous Hermes Espresso Cup and Saucer on sale at Bluefly.com, part of the Balcon Du Guadalquivir set. Available in red on white porcelain, 2 for only $171.00. It would work pretty well in my kitchen here, too. Except for that pesky price tag...

£8,000 per square foot

That's the price a London businessman will pay if the deal on this house in Kensington Gardens, London, England goes through. Britain's richest man, steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, can well afford the £117,000,000 ($230 million) price tag, I'm sure, and rumor has it the house isn't even for himself but his son Aditya because dad already owns a sizable house on the same street. But honestly $15,000 a square foot? With a declining housing market and a looming recession? I ask you is this a smart move?
via Huffington Post and The Times

White pine

Apparently you can make alcohol from pine but much research on the internets elicited nothing...

No-sew curtains

I took the porridge colored drapery panels back to Crate&Barrel and while I was in the store I had a look around to see what I could possibly buy to stop the sun shining through the windows at 5 AM.


I spied this greeny-silver from afar. It was pretty stiff and opaque so I wouldn't have to line it and it was already hemmed so there was no sewing involved. It's the right size and it doesn't matter to me that it's a Linden tablecloth. It's not the first time I've used a tablecloth as a drapery panel.



I bought two 60"x90" tablecloths at $39 each and spent $68 on hardware at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Not as cheap as chips but pretty close. The Guy attached the hardware and I attached the tablecloths to the rods with clips. Just one tiny design dilemma. That central support bracket meant we could only draw the curtains halfway. Oops.


I took the drapes down, cut each tablecloth in half and reattached them lengthwise, folding over the raw edge at the top. Luckily, there was still plenty of fabric. (Insert sigh of relief here).


They go fine with the checkered Pixel drapes on the other window, but eventually I will hem the top, making a pole pocket while I'm about it. I think it will look neater than the clips.
I just need to find the iron so I can stick the Stich Witchey to the fabric. I know we put the iron away when we demo'd the laundry room in December '06, I just can't remember where....

Spruce'd Up

New growth on the blue spruce on the north drive. (And yes, that is another azalea to the left in the photo in the link!)

Nul points*

Even united by a made-up language Belgium can't win. Last night was the first semi-final of The Eurovision Song Contest and Belgium failed to qualify for Saturday's final. So sad, so cruel.
Don't despair, through the power of the internets I bring you Ishtar with O julisi na jalini, the official entry of my adopted country. It sounds like a mash-up of Steeleye Span (Gaudete, anyone?) and The Smurfs. No really.
Click if you dare and remember Belgium is the home of the surreal.



Special bonus video: Father Abraham and The Smurfs


I always thought he said "Fruit Smurf begins" now I realise it's "Flute Smurf". Oh the power of youtube!

*translation here

I Heart Showart

That's show-art, not sho-wart I guess, anyhow I love it. It's Italian and so is the website. but don't let that frighten you. Click either link under the name Showart, the left will open a new screen, the right will open the site in the existing screen, and the hit collezioni on the left and wonder at the beauty of the shower pans, especially the Linea Texture. Only available in Italy, of course, but all the same: Pretty, pretty, pretty.

via Trendir

Who'd Stop the Rain?

It's been raining for hours (seems like days) so when I got home I left the umbrella on the porch. Guess who took advantage?

Stuck on TuneGlue

I don't know how I've managed to live without the extremely cool TuneGlue all my life.
It's an interactive "relationship explorer" and with just a few clicks you can see how bands and artists relate to one another musically. Take for example the artist featured in my last post Grandmaster Flash. Enter his name in the search box, click expand and similar artists will appear, click on one of those to see more relationships or on releases to check out their discography.
I'm totally addicted to it, firstly because it is so beautifully designed, second you can point, click and purchase music (from amazon.co.uk, though) and thirdly it totally appeals to the geek in me. I can play six degrees of musical separation to my heart's content. Deeply sad but at the same time deeply satisfying.

via Very Short List

P.S. There's another set of relationships in the music player at the bottom of the page....

Hip Hop Message

Guess who will be signing copies of his memoir in Huntington next month?



Grandmaster Flash himself will be at the Book Revue at 7 PM on June 12.
Remind me is "memoir" code for fact or fiction these days?

Modernist Architecture Reality Check

For lovers of modernist residential architecture there was mixed news this week. While the Richard Neutra Kaufmann Desert House (above) sold to an unidentified buyer for a respectable $16,800,000 ($19,000,000 including an adjacent plot), the Louis Kahn Esherick House (below) failed to reach its reserve.


Both houses were offered for sale as part of Contemporary Art and Design auctions and their selling price was expected to far exceed their real estate value. Auctioneer Richard Wright, who was hoping to sell the Esherick House for between $2-$3,000,000, didn't blame the declining housing market for the failure to sell, pointing out that bidders at auction would be paying cash and not worrying about a mortgage. Christie's, who sold the Kaufmann House, were also disappointed that bidding was at the lower end of the valuation. They had marketed the house as a work of art with a estimated price of between $15-$25 million.

Azalea Round-Up

I don't promise that this is the last time I will mention the word azalea, or post a pic, but they are looking so phenomenal I put together this composite. They are all different plants and because these were in the yard when we bought The Cool House I have absolutely no idea of the names.

It must be the combination of a mild winter this year on Long Island and a long, cool, rainy Spring that made the blossoms so abundant and so long-lasting. We've had a few real rainstorms and a lot of the plants have taken a beating in the past week but some of the pink and the white azaleas are still at their best, and the rhododendrons are just breaking out. If only we could get a few days of temperatures in the low 70s it would be perfect.

Mayday

I invented a new cocktail in the time between the wedding and the reception yesterday.
The Guy named it M'aider or Mayday as it contains Lillet, an apertif from South-west France, and I was pretty much underwater half-way through sipping it. I'll share it with you but be warned, it could leave you (ship)wrecked.


To a cocktail shaker a third filled with ice add 3 measures gin, two of Lillet, one of Noilly Prat. Shake.


Take a martini glass. Fill with ice and water so it's really cold, empty. Rub a slice of lemon around the rim.


Pour the contents of the shaker into the glass. Top up with tonic water. Garnish with the slice of lemon and a cherry.
It tastes like summer but packs a wallop so enjoy in moderation!

Sadie's disguise

Sadie had surgery to remove a large cyst caused by an ingrowing hair follicle. She was a trooper and came through it all excellently


We made her wear this attractive T-shirt for a while, which didn't impress her at all


But did cause a visitor to The Cool House to ask who the kid with the long black hair was.....