Cupid's Crafty Corner

I've loved this little start-up, based in the cubby next to the nail salon (which one, you might ask?) near the Sneaker King. I actually got to know the proprietor Ianthe Cupid (that's her name, y'all) when she was working out of the Caton Market and I bought a bunch of helium balloons for my daughter's birthday. (She offered free delivery, though I couldn't pass up the opportunity to walk home with two dozen multi-hued balloons rising from my hand, allowing me for a moment to savor my vestigial clown dream).

I started talking to Ianthe this morning and she happened to mention the accident 7 years ago that took her leg, and how she had to reinvent herself at that point from her dream of being an EMT, which was well on its way to fulfillment at the time of the horrible crash. Turns out her whole story was featured in the NY Times Neediest Cases, and you can read it all here from an actual journalist's keyboard. You'll note the excellent grammar, proofreading andfact-checking, which I consider terribly passé 
as, if, you, hasn't, noticed..

Ianthe went on to tell me she had lived at Lenox and Bedford from the time she was 8; that she had three kids and that her husband is co-conspirator of the party shop; that she witnessed the crazy stabbing of a dollar van operator a couple weeks back ( wacked out story I'll relate later). She was born in St. Vincent (the island, not the hospital, and not the indie heartthrob), and she's 100% Brooklyn, with the kind of immigrant pluck that keeps this the most exciting place in the world. Hell, if Brooklyn was ALL liberal arts grad macbook 'n' baby bjorners this would be one sad, sorry and predictable town. Actually...it'd be Portland.

Please, if you're having a party and you want some of that circus charm -- go see Ianthe and contribute to what I'm sure will be a very successful enterprise for her and her sweet-as-could-be family. Kick It, Cupid!