Yves wants a shot at doing "A"

Editor's note: Hello. This is Karl here. Yves' lawyers have threatened to reveal decade-old secrets if I don't post his attempt at doing "A" in the little glossary we're compliling at my glorious "blog". So here it is (if you want my opinion, I think Yves does a little too mush hasheesh, no?)

Oh, hello! So nice to see you! Come in and sit by the fire!

A is for authentic style, born of adventure in your life, not Aspiring to be some one else. Aspirational is the worst, but adventure, that is chic, so very chic.

We had an intern, Tom Ford, who aspired to be young again. Plastic surgery doesn’t stop aging, he would have been better off with and acupuncture facial, it moves energy. Too much plastic surgery and soon you look like a muppet, or like you have panty hose over your face. The technical term for Tom is colonista.

OOOh, but I have an adventure to tell you about, are you comfortable? Here, grab the ottoman that goes with that chair, yes that blanket does melt over you like butter.

Soooo,I am exhausted, but in an exhilarating way!

OOOh, Pierre and I went horseback riding. I could have dressed el gaucho, but I went instead for a more Western look-plaid, denim, and a hat that I admired on some folk singer in the 70s.

And Wrangler jeans, what real cowboys wear, as the inseams are kinder. (Karl, I said kinder, as in easier when riding, not kinder, like that garcon Baptiste.)

Denim, and where does that word come from? de Nimes!

Anyway I was inspired to go riding by several things. First, I have been reading Winston Churchill’s My Early Years, This man won a Nobel Prize for literature when Nobel Prizes still meant something. In it he has the most beautiful descriptions of whirling dervishes and berbers attacking the British, on their horses, in hooded cloaks, charging across the spare rosy desert at dawn. And I learned the origin of the phrase “Hold your horses.” Apparently, when shooting at the enemy from horseback, you have an underling hold your horse’s bridle so it doesn’t startle. Oh, how I long for life before tweeker or whatever.

We rode far as the American West. We stopped in the middle of the shimmering gold and sage desert, and saw two men, in a field that went on for miles, on horses circling with ropes. They were calf roping on horseback, so beautiful in silhouette it looked like a ballet. A rugged ballet.

Of course, horses are a wonderful chance to be elegant, with colorful woolen blankets, and graceful deportment. Who compared horses to shopping? They were wrong. Shopkeepers, non. “Ooh, would you like a nice spaghetti sandwich to go with those shoes you will regret before the light bill is due?”

Save your shop money and send the maid out to look for acreage with a barn.

Of course, Karl wears his denim jeans too tight to mount a thing.

Afternoon tea around a real campfire is nice, crackling noises, and the scent of pine in the breeze, and a ninety mile view of the Cascades and Canadian Rockies.

Oooh, so is being home, surrounded by my books, carpets, furniture, zinnias, chrysanthemums, and watching the cat’s tail waiver past the window as she chases a moth out in the garden. .

Oh, lets ring for smoked salmon, and tawny port over ice! Beach! And some sweet banana nut bread with the apricot pineapple jam we made that lovely afternoon in August! The scent of it makes summer return, fleetingly!

Oh, I am so glad you came! I do look forward to our visits, ma puce!