It's still the Season to be jolly, dammit

I spent last weekend in Nashville with Arnie and perhaps one of the most fun things we did was to indulge our inner child by escaping after 20 minutes from a party where we knew no one and where it was clear that we would never know anyone....We both felt like bad 2nd graders who had gone kicking and screaming to birthday party of a kid they didn't like. We had a drink, I ate a ham biscuit and then we snuck out, changed our clothes and went out to hear some local musicians. Nashville is full of music but this is practically the first time that the timing has been right and we could actually get a seat in a club. The song that I loved the most by this popular group -- don't ask me what they are called -- was "be Good or be gone."

Yeah baby. I think that's my new mantra.

And shopping in Nashville is of course so different than shopping in New York because people there wish you a Merry Christmas and indeed it is a Merry Christmas. I'm sure I won't win any friends on this one but frankly it is not the Holiday season, it is Christmas. And on then on Friday we will leave for our annual trek to Georgia to celebrate the Holidays aka Christmas with Sheftalls..Earlier this week.Kate and I bought a Christmas tree so that we will have that to come home to and I see now that it is towering in our living room that it is a very big tree indeed. Beautiful but big. We will do the lights tonight and then decorate it just in time to leave for 5 days! LOL

Tis the Season

Yesterday was quite a day. I almost got into 2 fights with women before I had even struggled onto a super crowded subway. How do these things happen? people who should know how to be nimble on city streets and subway stairs become belligerent and refuse to move. Holy cow. Of course I am talking about me, too. I was definitely belligerent, aggressive and un repentent...sort of. But I finally made it to work and tried to have a zen moment. Zen moments in the plural. More Christmas cheer. I went to a super swank staff party with a guest list and then dashed home to attend the lobby party in our building with the much anticipated annual visit by Santa Claus. All the kids in the building have stockings with their names on them and Santa gives them presents which he personally has bought. Apparently this year there was some grabbing at presents and accordingly great chaos which I lay totally on the 4 or 5 boys who live in the building, and so I have volunteered Kate as an enforcer next year to help Santa Claus to keep these boys disciplined.

Long Live the Plum Pudding

It's not like a plum pudding is the same thing as a travelling fruit cake, you know, which I am told lasts for generations. I frankly don't know what the ingredients are for a fruit cake besides massive amounts of glaced fruit which come to think about I have in great abundance sitting on my kitchen counters. However the plum pudding is finished. Bravo for me. It's the rest of Christmas that I have yet to really deal with, like the damn tree

And in celebration of completed kitchen duties I wore high heel boots to work today. I know that makes no sense but to me it was a triumph that I finished the plum pudding and that I could wear high heels. It's taken me years to recover from these ridiculous foot surgeries.I may even wear them to Nashville this weekend because I am a wild and crazy girl.

Harry Houdini

Now that Mr. Frou Frou has escaped once more and been found again , I have chosen to rename him Harry Houdini and perhaps also rename Kate the Mistress of sloppily locked cages. Do you get my drift.....

I am drinking too much coffee, tea and other stimulants tonight as I pace and consider changing my resume to fit a job that I would really like. Brings out all my anxieties...like the fact that I haven't' really finished my Christmas shopping although the biggest job is the Plum Pudding which requires a gathering of ingredients for this traditional dessert that I make for Christmas dinner at the Cedars. I went with Kate to her Saturday morning piano lesson and then ran -- NOR LITERALLY -- downtown to the Florence Meat Market which is a small but wonderful butcher shop on Morton Street to shop for beef suet but only if it's from the kidney. To be ordered they tell me. Next week. Which is what they tell me every year when I arrive breathless and fretting because I've left everything to the last minute. But oh I do love butcher shops. One of met first conversations in Nashville was with someone who thought that opening a butcher shop would be a great idea. Of course I have no experience, no real experience other than taking some butchering classes but there is just something about the smell of blood and all the sawdust that I find intoxicating. Call me strange I'll understand but won't care. Now back to the plum pudding: Then I reached out to Ronnie who lives somewhere in Brooklyn that is very close to one of the few remaining stores that sell glaced fruit and citron. Waiting for the ingredients to start rolling in. Such a part of the traditions but the newer tradition is that I ship two of them by Fed Ex so that some clueless TSA creep won't take it away from me thinking that the amount of brandy in a plum pudding will fuel a rocket. I'm sure it could. I read a book several years ago about two peripatetic British travelers who went to Siberia and they took plum puddings along as their food. Would work but oh my gosh you would probably kill for a lettuce leaf in under a day.

My other dilemma is about the Christmas tree. I have been nothing but scathing about fake trees all my life but I see that occasionally one might be helpful, specially if you are not around but want the flash and dash of a tree....Do you see my problem. I have scads of ornaments and lights and the prospect of having to put it up myself. Actually I want badly to give a party with new people....And so a tree would be nice.

In the meantime I spent equal parts of my day thinking about plum puddings and fake christmas trees and the rest of it sitting in on Kate's piano lessons and then she participated in a recital and did brilliantly. She taught herself how to play on a keyboard and in three months performed very ably. Mozart, she said. Mozart I want to play that. And jazz of course. And she won a prize for being the champion piano practicer!

The Frou Frou Chronicles

Mr. Frou Frou got out of his multi colored triplex living accommodation again and this time we think his run to freedom might have sent him scurrying down anyone of a number of holes in the walls of the apartment. Good bye Mr. Frou until later

Yesterday i took Miss Murray on her usual 6:30 am walk across Madison Aenue and around the side of the Morgan Library which is a great quiet street which leads to Park Avenue. It's quiet with the yellow and red fall leaves building up on the ground so that you can scuff through the piles and make that satisfying noises of sussuration. It gives a sense of quiet in the early morning before the traffic really starts to build up. The supers and night doormen are out on the street polishing the copper struts that hold up the awnings on their building and hosing down the sidewalks as we early dog walkers make our rounds. Then as I hit Park Avenue the street lights which have been on all night dim and go out. It's just a great time in the City.

OK NEWS FLASH: A sighting of Mr. Frou who ran across the floor and so I immediately texted to Kate. No response which tells me that yet again her phone is not with her. We will have to talk. But then Eva our housekeeper saw Mr. Frou in the closet but didn't want to pick him up. So we left Kate the delicate task of rustling him from his comfy quarters in a closet and returning him to his modernist digs.

Enough already with this rodent.

We are planning for Thanksgiving. Arnie comes in from Nashville and Lucy Banks, Danny and McKay will be at the house for some kind of meal. It is after all Thanksgiving so Turkey is the centerpiece but I am ignoring that by having someone else cook it. I am focused on sausage stuff and a requested chocolate cake from guess who.

Halloween

I think of Halloween as the medieval beginning of the dark days when we have to amuse ourselves. And Kate has found Facebook and communicating with them a strong diversion. It's facebook all the time. Now of course as upholder of standards, read the Mother, it's time to cut into those past times and limit her time on line. Just in the way that my parents limited my time on my princess phone which i coveted and loved as my communication to the outside world. Hours. I could spend hours on the phone. Actually I can still spend hours on the phone chatting my contemporaries who are similarly inclined. And now Kate is the same about Facebook. A tweet texting teenager is forbidden during the dinner hour. Which is all to the good since that is when I hear the news and learn more about life in the hallowed halls of Brooklyn Tech. Thursday is the first parent teacher conference and I am looking forward to it and not looking forward to it. Coming from the highly organizational culture of Friends seminary where everything was very tightly run, I am not looking forward to sharp elbows and thousands of people all trying to sign up to see their children's teachers. I will report back on how many teachers I saw and if I was satisfied. I am trying to promote myself as a volunteer -- certainly I have the time to help out -- because I might get to see the teachers in advance. Anything I can do to promote this is good.

The other members of this household are good. Arnie continues to be happy in his new job, Kate is really happy at school and I am happy with my two day a week work schedule. Even Miss Murry and Mr. Frou Frou, the hamster are happy. Frou is especially happy because after two escapes from his triplex cage, he was found again and now has clean water and a steady supply of food. No casualty of Saturday's snow storm, he.

just a little late

I can't say that the dog ate my home work or that the computer lines were flooded out but my only excuse and/or explanation for the silence of a month is:LIFE. It just got complicated. Kate's foray into the world of high school has continued to be a great experience for her. And by the way for me too. She is making friends, chatting on facebook and texting up a storm. She even has what she calls her 'posse' who move when she moves. She seems to be doing well in school -- thank you Friends Seminary for great preparation -- and enjoying every minute of everything and also trying out for the debate team. We sailed through the Jewish holidays which only confirmed my belief in global warming and unsettled weather. Who ever heard of rain on the Jewish Holidays. That was my first clue that we are coming to end of life as we currently know it.

And during this time I have been ramping down my own involvement in the day to day business of the Museum so that now I am a a two day a week consultant. Quite a glamorous designation I think. It allows me time to do my other projects and also to keep my hand in.

To mark the break between full time staff and world consultant I went out to the West Coast with Arnie who was making a swing through the Pacific Northwest. What gorgeous country with a variety of landscapes and who knew that they had cattle ranches in Washington State. I acknowledge that I am a provincial New Yorker and say it real fast before people can accuse me of a skewed view of life. we drove from the Spokane airport to Republic Washington where we stayed at the KDiamondK ranch which is a lovely laid back family run business. There was only one other person staying at this good size rustic ranch which was built in the early 1960's by the owner. A splendid log cabin with two amazing stone fireplaces which served me well the first day when it did nothing but rain. I curled up in a chair and read and only took a break to answer the call of the chuck wagon and move to the lunch table. Then the second day the weather cleared out a bit and I went out with the owner who was looking fora missing cow. Found the cow. Then we herded their horses up to the corral from the lower pasture and I went riding. That's really a misnomer because what I did was sit carefully on a very docile horse and hold the reins in a very expert way. The whole atmosphere at the ranch was laid back and friendly.Definitely a good place to be. Even on a horse.

Sku-el

Isn't that a good spelling for school which Kate started yesterday. High School my friends. 9th grade...the final 4 before going off to college. OMG What's a m other to do? Well, we did a practice run to this place called brooklyn where her school is located just to make sure that we/I/her knew where to go and how long it would take. Really easy. pretty day. Nothing to it. So yesterday when more than one million New York City kids went back to school it was pouring and many of the subways simply weren't running. Apparently Kate and I had done enough talking about transportation alternatives that when Kate learned that the B train was kaput she remembered several other ways to get there. Bravo. And then double bravo because somewhere somehow they had kate on a list. It was totally unnerveving for me to send this kid off to school without a letter indicating where she should go, or id to say who she was or anything even approaching that. She told me last night that she too was worried that she wouldn't be on any list. But somehow the gods were smiling and this kind of glitch was non existent. She got all her class schedules, id's and a sense of how big the school really is. And she has classes that she likes. One in particular is some kind of design/innovation/implementation that she was turned on by. Face it I don't know the name of the class or the homework assignment. What I got was real excitement.

That's my idea of education.

a bike, a kid and a dog

FREE. And 10 year's old. That's exactly how I feel going down the Chebeague Inn hill on my rickety old bike with the wind rushing in my ears and the sun beating on my face. I gave up wearing a hat several years ago because it always flew off and left me with the crushing question of whether or not to stop, ruin my breakneck downhill ride and pick up the hat. No more dilemmas.

We had great weather, mostly, and great meals mostly. I tried some new dishes and Arnie also tried out some new recipes but his were far more radical in the style of Spanish chef Adrian Bulli. Arnie offered to cook steaks but who knew that he would cook them right on the coals. Really? Oh, yeah really this guy is writing a book on grilling and this is one of his secret recipes. Don't buy the book would be my advice. And oh yeah, don't eat the steaks either unless you enjoy gritty beef. And then he was driven to grill the lobsters that we bought from local lobsterman Wink Houghton. Everybody but Kate agreed to eat a lobster. Cause after all we were in Maine. But you know grilling lobster takes a certain je ne sais quoi...That was the end of Arnie's cooking career for this summer. I'm thinking more burgers will be a more satisfactory dish for him next year. We could actually eat the food as well.

Kate and Lile must have biked the entire island and know every small path on their way to and from. One of the great advantages of this vacation which I must have said before is the ability to give the girls freedom to come and go. I don't worry because the island is small enough that people know who they are and the girls don't worry because the island is small enough that people know who they are.

With reports flying about the end of the world from Hurricane Irene, we agreed that it was prudent to leave a day early without even making my final stop at the Standard Bakery for ginger cakes. oh woe. We drove like 60 and +just got back to the City on Saturday afternoon in front or behind the now defunct Hurricane Irene from Casco Bay -- hard to believe that this makes our 10th year there -- in time to seek shelter. But like all news junkies I wasn't satisfied with the quality of this storm. It came and left without making a dent in Manhattan. i even left the bedroom window open on Saturday night figuring that when the winds came that I would wake up and experience this greatest of all storms. I slept quite soundly and woke to a strangely quiet city. No subways and no buses therefore the people who actually make this city function were nowhere to be found and so stores were closed, small restaurants were closed, cultural institutions like the Museums were all closed and only restaurants attached to hotels were able to serve meals. But the rain which was very heavy on late Saturday evening moved out on Sunday morning leaving the city hot and muggy filled with people roaming the streets with nowhere to go. Many were tourists who simply didn't understand what was going on. Who did. We even had an e-mail from Anne Lagarrigue and her family in Paris hoping that we would survive.

Miss Murray was definitely not happy about coming home and refused to do what dogs do for more than 24 hours and also refused to eat. A not so subtle statement....

reading Lists

I love reading lists and especially scour the New York Times and WSJ when they publish their favorite reads of the year. So while list making is one of my favorite things I can report that I've just finished making a food list for our week in Maine with each meal carefully delineated and organized with the appropriate and required ingredients. It sounds bizarre but it appeals to my soul. Especially since I'm the cook.

And now for the main event: the reading list. I'm gathering up the books that I want to read this summer or what's left of the summer. I've read Kathryn Stockett's the Help, started Great Expectations and was dismayed that Kate hated Time & Again by Jack Finney. I guess that means I have tor ead it again. I always remember his paragraphs about how noisy New York was with the sound of the shod horses on the cobblestones. He should be hear now. So some of my choices will go in my suitcase and some of them will accompany me the new fangled way: on my ipad. I used to estimate that I would read a book a day and pn most vacations took something I knew I should read, something by a new author, something that I wanted to read and just pure trash. Now I am just into pure trash all the time 24/7. And I just discovered a new author who I thought was a mystery story writer but turns out to be a combination between a mystery and what I think is a romance novel. No one has been ravished or fainted yet but there is alot of intense yearning and some pretty explicit wishes for future ravishment. And guess what: I'm loving it. Those are truly Great Expectations.

Kate came back from camp last night. She is brown as a berry because the concept of sun tan lotion to a 14 year old is totally foreign. And she heartily disliked most of the books that were on the Brooklyn Tech list. I have heard that many of the reading list books are depressing. depressing ok but not to be a good story teller and then land on the approved reading list doesn't seem fair to the reader.

I wish that I smoked

so that when I take a morning coffee at the local Cafe Piccolo and sit outside to enjoy the street and the air, I can feel Italian. But apparently this is not to be.

Time Traveller

Took a long weekend and flew down to Nashville to see Arnie and go on a road trip. One of my most favorite forms of entertainment. We drove, that is to say he drove and I was a passenger, on a sweet road trip to Lynchburg, Tn where we took a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery. i haven't drunk bourbon since I was at Sweet Briar and overdid to such an extent that I have never drunk bourbon since. You get the point about overdoing since that was more than a couple of years ago. But there was no problem there since this famous distillery is in a dry county! Then we had lunch at Miss Bobo's Boarding House which is a quaint little money machine that functions like an off shoot of Disney world. You have to book in advance, pay your money upfront and then sit with a hostess who makes the 10 or 12 other strangers at the table behave. It's quite fascinating. Just unfortunate that the food is not fascinating...then we drove on to Sewanee, Tenn, home of the University of the South And the countryside was lush and gorgeous with amazing rolling hills and mini mountains. We were following a travel prescription of a Nashville friend who suggested that we end up in the Inn on the grounds of the Assembly of God Chitauqua. (How do you spell that?) Wonderful old houses in this community that was orignally a gathering for religious denominations to come together to study religion. Any religion. Very old timey and very calm. It would have been a good place to know about when Kate was little because kids can walk around, bike and play with the sense that they are safe and secure in this community. Chebeague is like this, too

But perhaps the nicest part of the weekend beside a devinely trashy fried chicken lunch at the Monteagle dine, was that we met a really nice couple from Nashville that we will see again. Bravo for us.

And then just before we left I thought we should swing over to see Sewanee because I had this idea that it had some place in my family history. Which indeed it did. My grandfather according to Wikipedia was the rector of the church at Sewanee from 1922 through 1938. That's a long time. And then he became a bishop. but as we were there looking at the stained glass window of him in his memory it occured to me that my mother had worked for my grandfather at Sewanee after she broke her engagement to my Dad the first time. So it's not surprising that it had resonance for me.

We also learned about more Bourbon road trips. But that's a story for another day

Waiting on dinner

I'm always waiting on dinner and tonight i am going out with friends at 6:30pm so here I sit typing away in an effort to while away an hour and 1/2 without going home to walk Miss Murray. She can wait and beside it's going to rain. Actually I triple booked myself for tonight and probably irritated everybody. It's an old and bad habit of mine to try and cram everything into too little a window.

I stayed late the other night and went to a listening party at the Museum for an album by Kanye West and Jay Z. Deaf. That's how I was when I staggered out 47minutes later. Luckily one of the staff had handed me some ear plugs or I would have been howling like a dog...loud, oh so loud. When the music started the volume virtually blew everybody back in their seats. And I sat two seats away from Kanye West. How did I know that? Because sometime told me. I have friends in high places.

more survivor tips

I considered my situation in which I have no responsibilities to feed anyone except Miss Murray and I don't cook for her and then I created the following order: one dozen tubs of yogurt, 16 oz of raw almonds, pound + of proscuitto, 2 cantaloupe and some feta cheese. I think I can dine quite successfully on these foods for a month without having to cook until Kate gets home. Of course there is that cute little piccolo cafe which has warm croissant at 8 am every morning....But I an't doing no cookin'

and I'm reading Kathryn Stockett's The Help which I had long avoided. While it's terrific it also makes me uncomfortable because although it is set in Mississipi --how do you spell that? -- there are enough women in this book who remind me of my mother and how I was raised...How did I get to where I am today? Who cares. I'm just glad to be here.

This is my first weekend alone and I plan to stay up until midnight reading this book. Believe that?

keeping Body and Soul together

I gotta change these photos from last summer and replace them with some shots of Paris which probably means that I have to learn how to upload pix rather than ask for someone else to do it. There are many things I don't know how to do, don't really want to know how to do or don't want to do. Does this make me a bad person? i think not. Our housekeeper is going on vacation for 2 weeks and I, poor darling, will be faced with using the damn vacuum cleaner-- there is always a first time -- doing laundry which I won't do, I will hand wash stuff and in general taking care of the apartment. If there is anything that sends me into a dead faint it is housework.

Cooking, even in the summer, is fine. Although this summer I've discovered a wonderful little cafe that is half a block away from the house and so I can swan in there at 7 or so and go home with a delicious dinner that I haven't made. I am now stock piling recipes for our week in Maine because that is the time that I do what I would call Mommy cooking. Arnie will do some cooking but it's basically 3 meals a day for the girls - Kate plus Lile, Arnie, me and Grandma Dot.

camp

Now know why my parents sent me to camp: good clean air, sports, learning how to be a team player and lots of activities for two months. Oh, but here's another reason: time away for everybody.

Arnie will be here this weekend to help me get Kate off to camp on Saturday. We will have the weekend together in the City and summer city weekends are my faves and then next week it's downtime with Miss Murray in the big city.

What else can I say?

It's hot, hot, hot here and News Flash: I'm actually wearing a dress.

where Kate goes to Paris, eats escargot and gets patted down by Security

Okay, okay, I haven't blogged for days. A girl deserves a vacation! And off we went to Paris for a week and although we didn't meet the Queen or Mr. Sarkozy, we had a gorgeous devine time. 5 wonderful days in a borrowed apartment-- a quick stroll from the Marais and the Place de Vosges -- that was haunted by Musika and Chausettes, 2 rather large and spoiled cats which made me feel more secure about leaving Miss Murray in New York. While we were in Paris, Anne LaGarrigue and her family were living in our New York apartment and seeing the sights.

We were a travelling foursome: me, Kate, Lydia and her Mom Anne. We arrived in Paris on a hot and sultry Sunday morning and within 24 hours were able to map out a military type assault on the cultural institutions of Paris. Actually Anne and Lydia spearheaded these invasions and Kate and I were grateful to grab our Museum passes, bottles of water and step right along. Our first stop was the Louvre and after we saw La Pyramide, the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory and the world's camera toting hordes, I felt that I had completed my cultural obligations to Kate. Lunch and a Batann type death march in incredible heat from the Louvre all the way up the Champs Elysees completed most of our day and we topped it off with dinner at one of my favorite left bank restaurants but oh, woe, it was way too hot to eat real food in a space without AC or what the french call climatization. Which few places that we frequented seem to have had.

We saw other Museums -- Kate said oh wow when she first saw the interior of the Musee D'orsay --ate in other restaurants, learned that buying stamps at the post office was incredibly complicated and sweated on a great boat ride along the Seine. Finally the heat broke and we were able to get over our jet lag and actually enjoy being tourists. We selected a local cafe as our morning start -- we didn't want to cook and frankly I had no understanding of all their high tech stuff --and then set out to see the sights. In retrospect I realize how amazing the girls were : They saw the Museums that they and we wanted them to see, really seemed to have appreciated them and walked for miles without whining. Lydia spearheaded a tasting of escargot and Kate tried one too. Garlic, she said, they taste of garlic. Of course

So we also saw Notre Dame, the Rodin Museum which was featured so prominently in Midnight in Paris, spent some time in the Pompidou Center -- not me because I thought I had a rendez vous with destiny -- went up to the 16th arrondisment to visit the Musee Marmottan and then had a great lunch at a neighboring sidewalk cafe with the best madeleines ever. Mid week we met up with Corinne, Juanita and Corinne's sister Brigitte at a restaurant near L'Opera which was great fun and then the next day we straggled into Galeries Lafayette which was so busy that you wanted to run screaming from the building. Or that was my inclination. Sacre Coeur took up the earlier part of the day. Oh, yeah, I remember now that we walked from Sacre Coeur to Galeries Lafayette.

Friday Anne and Lydia went back to the Louvre but Kate and I decided on a day of sybaritic pleasure: shopping. Unfortunately that morning I had trouble finding anything to wear that wasnt saturated with cat pee. Bad day there and I spent some of my morning washing clothes and trying to be light hearted. Ever tried to do that when your clothes stink. Well, I wans't entirely successful. Of course, here again, I had no idea how to use their washing machine but to be honest I don't know how to use washing machines anywhere. That's what Eva does for us! Then Kate and I were off to stroll through our neighborhood which was lined with small cheap dress shops which said that they sold only to the trade. then we hit big time which was my favorite square which has St. Sulpice and the Dior store. Or had. The square is still there, the waiters are still surly and slam your coffee down on the table but the church has been cleaned and is now so sparkly white that I thought I was in the wrong place, and the Dior store is no more. While that wasn't our destination, Dior that is, anyway we strolled through some of the Luxumbourg Gardens because for me exploring is the real pleasure of Paris.

Kate and went shopping and bought some great white walking shorts for her and two replacement back packs for me. Then a romper with Turkish pants for Kate but nothing so exciting for me. A serendipitous lunch choice at some smallI Italian place so we could sit outside and then off to buy Arnie a gift. A perfect day which we capped off with a dinner at Ma Bourgogne at Place des Vosges. Oh my god that square is so beautiful especially when they shut it and all the tourists have to leave. What a mellow place.

What have I left out?

We got home safely! And then had dinner with Anne LaGarrigue, her husband and daughter on my roof on Thursday after we returned. Very charming people who really made the most of New York and loved it. We love that.

cleaning out the freezer

I am almost beside myself with pleasure today and for the last several days because Kate and I are leaving in 5 days for Paris with her friend Lydia and her mom Anne. I don't often have this feeling of hysterical pleasure but I gottit.

In the meantime I got a hair cut, had my nails done, plan to buy some Euros which will be laughable because the dollar has no value. Also trying to tart up the apartment. New router for the computer so that Anne LaGarrigue and her family will have access to wifi plus we have a new printer which does everything including walking Miss Murray and buying flowers. Amazing. Painted Kate's room yellow and now of course all we have to do is put the furniture back into its proper place. My feet are hardly hitting the ground which is fine for me.

Went to see Spook work on Sunday after a brisk walk in the park with Miss Murray and then a quick trip to buy brioche. Specially staged parade on 5th avenue for the movie she is working on with Camels, pratorian guards of a sort, very idi amin dada and funny until they were kicked off the street at 10 by NYPD who let the cars back on the avenue with a whoosh. Spook, Melinda Sue and I had a quick lunch!

Then back to the house for me and doing nothing!!!!!

Transitions & silly bands

Silly bands are my most important topic of the day because they were a gift from Kate who presented me with a package of the ones that glow in the dark. We all have dumb stuff that we like and that's it for me!

Of course my other most important present was from my husband and that was an Ipad. It's been my tech days because I also have a new Mac computer at the office so I am trying to stretch the possibilities and make them all work for me. The Ipad is really a great gift and I've toted it to work in a great red cover for the last two days! Kool moi. Arnie came into town on Thursday night and we all set off early Friday morning for the pre graduation breakfast in the meeting house courtyeard that kicked off Kate's graduation on June 10th from 8th grade. Just writing it makes me tear up which luckily I didn't do during the ceremony. I've gone from never crying to always crying. I'm sure I could easily get a job when I retire going to people's ceremonies and crying. It's like being a professional keener. I could charge for the tears or for the time spent weeping copiously. Anyway Spooky is in town for three months!!! and not working on Fridays so she came and Grandma Dot looking quite devine also came. I am very sad to have said farewell to parents and kids that I have known and seen on a regular basis for the last 9 years. We all started together in kindergaarten and now here we are with grown kids. Almost. The ceremony was simple as is the Quaker custom and then we took off for a favorite french restaurant on the lower east side. It was there that Arnie upstaged everybody with his present to Kate of an ipad. Mine came several days later. So lunch was a great success. French fries and an Ipad. What could be wrong.

Other festivities included an party for the kids that evening. A moving up party...barbecue festival in Madison Square Park which was a scene out of a New York movie because the entire area of Madison Park was perfumed by barbecue smoke and the area was littered with people sitting on the curbs hunched over small paper plates of ribs and other goodies. Impossible to get any food if you were seriously hungry. Shake Shack was crowded and if you thought that Eatley would be a good bet, think again bunky. So we bought some food to create our very own Italian al fresco and on the way home bumped into the Hari Krishnas as part of a very loud pink and bright blue Krishna parade. Just a little bit of paradise.

We are back to normal now altbough Kate has no school and I am enjoying her vacation thorougly.

Frying in June

I am totally confused about everything these days except one thing: I am not deaf. And I know this because I took the time to actually go to the doctor and have my hearing checked. And if I am not deaf, then Kate must mumble...You can tell that these simple words cover a ton of backing and forthing in our house that start with: What did you say?
But gentle reader: I am not deaf and I am also quite superior because I started and finished a book about Madame Pompadour. I didn't even take months because actually it was quite good. But since I read all the time and mostly trash I am glad to send out a tweet saying that my last book was: Madame Pompadour and my current book is my Erik Larsen about an american family in Berlin during Hitler's rise. If I could remember the title, I would include it. But maybe I won't tweet it just in case my tweet somehow bumps into Congressman Weiner's twitter account. Is this the season of men who can't keep their pants zipped up both in practice and in cyberspace?

Arnie is coming to town tonight and tomorrow is Kate's official graduation from 8th grade at Friends. Many transistions here. I am on the hotseat for donuts for the official breakfast which will be early enough so that we don't all die from the heat. I was advised to take cold packs with me and just wrap them in a light weight pocket book. The Quakers may be wonderful but they have done nothing to make the Meeting House comfortable in hot weather. Spook is also in town and then we will all go off for a fabulous lunch.

meal worms and puppydog tails

The Science Fair is history. It seemed to me that we had been building up to this Fair with an excess of drama. First of all I hate these group projects because they are fraight with one kid doing nothing and temper tantrums all round. and I was right with this project in a perverse way because one of the kids ran away from home and while recaptured so to speak is not back in school. But somehow Kate and her co consipirator worked it out so that the meal worms were somebody else's problem and lived at somebody else's house. Thank god. But the Science Fair was interesting for me because I had a chance to see all her classmates again and to see how they have grown. i have pictures of them in my mind from k or first grade and low and behold it's 8th grade and almost time to graduate!

Memorial Day weekend and the living was easy. Arnie came in from Nville and we saw friends for dinner, had a coffee in Bryant Park, went to the theatre to see the Chris Rock play with the bizarre name, went to see Woody Allen's new movie, midnight in Paris, which I loved and in general had a good time hanging out. The weather was amazing and even today looks and feels like a present. We had our first dinner on the roof which is always a harbinger of summer, and we had it all to ourselves which was sweet.

Graduation for Kate in 2 weeks! Of course our only hurdle is a week of exams....

Another day in Seattle

I read a small squibb in the Times this morning about Chicago city planners who anticipate that the chicago weather will ressemble that of Baton Rouge in the near future. So they are changing the kinds of building materials they mandate, re thinking their plantings to those that thrive in hot, steamy climates. Maybe we in New York should become the center of the umbrella industry because it's raining again...
So I came to work and I knew it would be better if I had a piece of chocalate..you've had days like that but at 9:30? hmmm then I was offered an extra copy of Nat Geo and then I thought maybe that's it. I never had Nat Geo growing up. Everyother friend of mine lived in houses literally filled to the brim with Nat Geo. Never. Am I deprived?

Kate and I watched Slumdog Millionaires this weekend which is great, funny and oh, so sad. She wanted to see it 2 years ago and I thought no. I am smirking because for me, I was right. I like being right.

We bought jeans, opened a bank account for Kate, did home work, she did, not me...thank god. Science Fair coming up....

Building the ark

OMG this is the day after the day before the day after the day that it rained to build the ark. It was not raining for a nono second alround lunch and I took advantage of this amazing phenomenon to step outside and pass amongst them. Yikes. The security guard at one of the entrances assured me that it would not rain anymore. must remember not to check in with him about weather or the ponies. Lucky that I did go out then because I see and hear that it is raining again.

Peg Fraser came in from Vermont and we had a girls evening last night. I've known her since we met at a frat party at W&L lo these many years ago. It's always wonderful to see her because there is no pause in the conversation. We can just pick up in the middle of a sentence. And when I got home I found that she and Kate had been chatting and she knew everything that there was to know! i wish I had that ability with kids to just be able to talk with them. I don't have it. With Kate maybe but I'm always amazed to find that half of her friends are intimidated by me. Oh, well.

lemon grass followed by lilacs

Msade a tour of Union Square Market this morning to find that spring has actually come to the surrounding farms and the produce is plentiful. Bunches of delicate red and white radishes, amazing tomatoes and rhubarb are just some of the offerings this morning. Plus of course beautiful lilacs which brought smiles and comments from almost everyone on the subway and they are now sitting safely in my office.

it's for sure that my work with the media which often requires me to sit in on press interviews when scientists are invited to talk their lives, radical influences and their work, has resulted in interview envy. I have things to say, too, you know. This morning I mused that in my dreams of glory interview about major life influences I would site the red, black and orange book of fairly tales edited by Andrew somebody. I took out everyone of his books from the 96th Street Library and gobbled up amazing tales of derring do, For instance there were the 12 dancing princesses who escaped every night and danced through the silver, gold and diamond woods at midnight or the good fairies and the one outrageously bad fairy who laid down the 10 year curse. These stories have informed my life. Scary, huh? Although I'm not exactly sure how that plays out. But I want to say that it does. One very specific offshoot of that early reading was my interest in having 12 good friends and one wicked fairy come together for Kate's baptism. The question was always how to choose a wicked fairy and if this should be a ceremonial position. or did I really have someone to nominate as being evil.

Too late now. But I still think about the amazing time we might have had.

Travelling with Lemon Grass

Arnie went into the hospital for an operation on Wednesday and I flew down to Nashville clutching a stalk of lemon grass. Besides being with him to fetch and carry was also to cook hence the lemon grass for a fabulous grilled pork recipe that tastes like nothing without the aforementioned lemon grass. I was able to smuggle it, along with my ham sandwich, onto the plane inspite of scanners and all matter of modern technological equipment.

But I degress. Arnie is fine. Living la vida loca on his sofa and wishing mightily that he could get off pain killers and go back to work. But we had a great visit inspite of the underlying medical theme. I lunched with friends and made executive decisions until Sunday when I flew back to New York to be with Kate on Mother's Day, She gave me a beautiful silver necklace that says Number # 1 mother which I will never take off. Especially since there may be days when she may regret that expression. And tonight we are going out for a Mother's Day dinner at Eatley which we both hope will not be wildly crowded on the Monday after Mother's Day.

We will know more later.

Jam packed

that was the weekend that was. Kate and a friend stayed at the Museum for the massive sleepover and they were thrilled because they were included in the crew and had special privileges. I didn't understand for several days that these two girls didn't hit the sack until 2 am. The mother in question was dropping off at 10! So much for stepping out to trip the light fantastic. Then Kate took her bright red souvenir T shirt and artistically shredded it. That's the only way that I can describe it except to say that it looks just great. If I had taken scissors to any item of clothing it might have looked more like a jealous lover on a rampage. But her results are great.

Saturday night I dressed up in a "we are a New Yorker" costume that is to say a black suit with high heels plus aligator bag and went off to represent family for Lucy Banks and Danny at their end of year cocktail party for graduating seniors from Syracuse's program. I think I was more fascinated with the fact that I could wear high heels than almost anything else. I guess that makes me totally self centered but I realized this weekend as I tranferred spring clothes out and winter clothes went in that I had worn black jeans for the most of the year because it was all about my feet and my shoes.

In the old days it was high heeled sling backs and now, sob, it's flats

What wedding? The wedding

Kate set her alarm so that we could get up at 5 am and watch the wedding of Pirnce Charles and Kate Middleton. I have to say that I was really upright until 5:30 and then used the entire ceremonial thing not to go to the Gym. I blamed it all on the massage that Arnie and I had last weekend. I think I am almost good to go back to gym tomorrow. But I digress as they say. Kate and I had tea and watched the wedding which was quite fabulous and history in the making as I am very fond of saying.

Tonight she, that would be Kate, my Kate, and her friend Emlyn are going to be staying here at the Museum for a sleepover. The good news there is that I'm not going to be sleeping here. The girls will be under the watchful eye of my friend Leslie and so I get to go home. But the girls are excited. and me, too. So by the time Kate gets home tomorrow morning she should be a wreck!

Watch out world.

It works

what you may ask works? rice, that's all. I's been the kind of week that tries the heart and mind of a mother of a teenager. It doesn't really help that the literature says that their brains aren't fully formed until they reach 20 plus years of age. I don't care because I can't beleive that I'll live that long.

the conversations always start like this: What should I wear to go to this person's house for the weekend and go to Church. Your bloack skirt with a nice top. Oh, I can't find my black skirt? guess you can't wear it then. Is it cold out? What should I wear? My jean jacket? Hmm, Incan't find my jean jacket. Guess you can't wear that either. What emergency $20? Well I guess there isn't another one in your future. My phone doesn't work. Ok lets send it back and get a replacement. the new phone that just came? It doesn't work. why is that? Well, it was in my coat pocket when somebody put it in the washing machine.

So we dumped the phone in a bowl of rice and waited. and waited. and waited. And eccole: the damn phone works. Of course I beleive that the rice is terminally poisoned and toxic so that went in the garbage. But this morning Kate lost her allowance for the week because she hadn't charged her phone.

There are tulips and dozens of different kinds of daffodils blooming in Central Park. There is a spring Virginia.


I'm really a nice person most of the time. But maybe it's time to stop being Mrs. Nice Mom and morph into the dominatrix that I should be.

Vot a Day

It's cold and nasty. We have guests coming for dinner tonight and I was a little lax about being organized but thought I could finish most of the prep this morning plus a little help from our housekeeper. Who called in sick this morning. I am usually quite easy about stuff like that but I was not a happy camper. Mainly of course because I had her scheduled to do some food shopping, put away a food delivery and put dinner in the oven. So the doorman gracefully put the food away for me and I thought Arnie when he came in from Nashville could help me cook. After all it's his great spare rib recipe. But the doorman put tonight's dinner in the freezer. and all those ribs are frozen solid.

plus I had a ridiculous work e-mail at 5:15 am which I totally ignored until I got to work and then mirabile dictu, it all worked out. But only because it's a slow day in the office. The whole week with Passover and then Easter has been very slow.

but dinner? With my new receipe for a black eye pea salad with lime, ginger and coriander. Seems like we'll be ordering Chinese food tonight.

April in New York

I've done nothing recently except rag about the weather. But just this week I ventured to the Union Square Market which was really an important sign of spring for me with all manner of vegtables and flowers available and abundantly available. The Sun is out for a limited amount of time today and I have put my heaviest coats into storage. That's a statement if ever.

Today I went down to Kate's school for a parent teacher meeting with her advisor Mr. Byrne who has become a storied part of my life. It's all about the Mr. Byrne stories; Mr. Byrne likes candy and apparently throws people's work back at them if he'd displeased and characterizes everything as crap. We imitate Mr. Bryne at home. ....Kate is doing well in school but sometimes her results are erratic. So I heard myself saying to her, "It's not enough to be smart. You have to learn about time management and spend the next two months just studying for finals." School will be finished on the 10th of June and so she has limited time to raise some of her grades and make a grand exit.

A new beginning

I should start by saying that all is well here. The Linden trees that line both sides of Madison Avenue are in full gorgeous flower so I know that Spring is trying to visit here. I actually didn't even wear a coat this morning. OMG. And I don't think I will pay the price and have to revert back to clutching kleenex and gobbling sudafed which was my MO over the weekend.

But it has been a tricky couple of days since we learned that one of Kate's school classmates had gone missing. And by gone missing I mean that he left his house on Sunday afternoon to go get a sandwich -- it was also his birthday -- and never came home.It sounds simple as I read it but the news which arrived both in a phone call from Arnie and an e-mail from the child's father reduced me to instant tears. It is a parent's worst nightmare and I quickly swing into the disaster mode. Clearly too much too much time spent watching Law & Order. Other more normal people opined that he had run away from home. And actually that is true but something that we didn't learn until he had been away from home for 3 nights. Kate kept wondering where he was sleeping, if he had access to a computer and if he would be watching NCIS, a Tuesday night TV program that he and Kate talk about every Wed at school.

As soon as it was clear that he had run away from home, the internet generation sprang into action. A find this kid website with almost 6.000 hits, plus ultiple posts on websites all over the city including various universites and schools around town with a notice on NBC TV resulted in his being found as he left a store in New Jersey! More than that I do not know. But the kids definitely contributed to his being found so swiftly.

I told Kate not to run away because how would I ever turn on the Tv with its 3 remotes or watch a movie again.

ed's house

I left New York last Friday wearing a winter coat and stepped out in 88 degree temps for a weekend in Nashville of sun and fun. Our plans included a stop at the famous or infamous Bluebird Cafe, home to down home country music, with a quick dinner before so that we could get there for a place to sit by 6:00 pm. No way that happened and so I hope the third time is the charm because certainly if that doesn't work I ain't going there for a 4th time. We grabbed the aforementioned quick supper at California Pizza which is a chain I've never been to in New York but have now eaten at several times in Nashville because they actually have good salads and the children -- they are all around you --are well behaved. We went on a hike Saturday morning and then shopping at the Mall of course for an anniversary prsent for me. I was just reading a piece in the WSj about a new emphasis on service at Macy's where we went. And I thought it was just part of the Nashville zeigeist but the sales person that I button holed was charming, competent and patient as we waltzed around the floor with a specific quest to find a tailored blazer for me. Of course we didn't find it but instead found a tailored jacket that was green. All beautiful but it had to do with spending some time with Julia, our sales person.

We also hiked on Sunday and I discovered what I think is a really pretty part of Nashville, some kind of private park with rolling hills, great trees, swooping hawks and horses. Then we had dinner with Ed on Saturday at FScott's which is supposed to be terrific restaurant in nashville and actually lived up to it's billing. But who you ask is Ed? Even Arnie will be asking that. Ed was our waiter and he was sensational and left us to have dinner at our own pace and then made sure that we got a good table so we could listen to Jazz.

Thank you Ed. thank you Julia

Amazing firsts

Kate came up to the Museum on Friday for lunch and she took the subway by herself!! That's a first....Next year she will be on the subway daily to get back and forth to Bklyn for school and I want her to have some experience by herself so that she can prepare or at least feel comfortable when there is a problem or deviation. We will do more of this underground travel during the spring and summer. So off we went to 5 Napkin Burger to have a quick lunch and then to buy her some shoes. We found David, my favorite salesman and I told Kate to watch an expert at work. We left without leaving all our money there so I was able to rise to the challenge.

Then Saturday Kate decided she wanted a new haircut so that she could look stunning for the first day of school. Maria had time for her that morning and I was allowed to give a general description of what I thought the hair cut should be. Another first. Geometric and Vidal Sassoon. The haircut looks terrific to me but most of all Kate liked it.

Off to another lunch as a bribe to get her to go to an exhibit at the Institute of Art & Design of modern African art which even I thought was lame.

What other amazing firsts?

Stay tuned.

Working backwards

well my biggest "news" is that I tripped on the street last night and slid into the pavement on 86th Street & Madison Avenue. No sprained ankles or wrists but everything went flying and as I went along like a bat, somehow the road came up to meet me. Eureka. I look like a victim of domestic violence or you could ask how the other person looked. I scarped my face and was bleeding profusely. so many really nice people helped me to move out of the way of the number 86 crosstown bus , gave me kleenex to staunch the profuse bleeding and made sure that I wasn't just left on the street. I took a cab up to Island Restaurant to meet Jill and as I was waiting there a man came by to ask if he could help. All so very nice. i had no idea how ghastly I looked until we got to her house. Kate was initially pretty kool and then I think she worried. How could her indomintable mother be dumb enough to trip and rip up her face. And of course today I look increasinly ghastly and have to be at work because we are doing a huge TV shoot for a pilot called Ringer that has the usual crew of 75 plus 240 extras. Pain in the neck but fun.

Kate and I spent one week of her spring vacation in Key West where the weather was 80 degrees and sunny. Oh, so sunny. And Kate has another week of spring vacation which she is spending here in New York where it is raining again. Last week it was cold and snowy. I was thrilled that I was there and not here for that. We rented bikes and toured around all the back streets of Key West and actually I found some areas especially around the Cemetary that I had never seen. I'm thinking 6 months every year in Key West would be great.

The beaches aren't great there and in fact they are man made but by the time we lugged our books down to the water, settled in our beach chairs, we were very happy campers. Every morning we biked to a new breakfast place and then back to the hotel where we installed oursevles by pool or the beach. Kate read 5/6 books on this vacation and me, too. I read all of my books and some of hers. All great. We stayed at the Casa Marina which used to be avery dumpy hotel with dumpy people but it has morphed into a really nice family hotel where all the women of a certain age appear on the beach in one piece black bathing suits while younger women wear bikinis. Made me laugh after I saw the pattern.

But most of all I was glad to get away from the office where I continue to do a Munch silent scream.

Breakfast, actually

I know that all the good nutritionists and their sober sided brethren rabbit on endlessly about the restorative power of breakfast but it is certainly a meal that I dislike. What to eat? What not to eat? Should it be taken in a leisurely fashion under a speading oak tree as you watch the clouds shift in the sky? Lucky you. Or do you need to eat a cold piece of toast standing up in the kitchen as the dog sniffs around your foot in a most hopeful fashion? Actually even if you sit down and make the mistake of watching Today Show that alone will make you feel sick as you watch the endless recitation of world wide horrors. Ok. And then to add injury to insult or is it insult to injury you probably need to feed your children. Or child. A little cereal my darling? No, isn't there something really delicious for breakfast? why yes: corn flakes. NO. How about toast?
Again? ok how about the black beans and rice that you didn't want to eat for dinner?
Great. GREAT

That's actually my favorite breakfast when you can create a backwards day and serve up dinner for breakfast. Steak, hamburgers, not cold Pizza and a coke but certainly black beans and rice make it a good breakfast day for me.

City scapes

My next couple of weeks are overflowing with doctor appointments which means, I think, that I'm healthy. Skin doctors, foot doctors, dentists and the obligatory and but always yuck making mammogram. But this morning's visit was to the foot doctor where I have been a regular visitor for several years now because I seem to have lousy feet. I'd like to be able to tell my mother that wearing those awful lace up brown oxfords didn't save me from having bad feet and that not only could I have worn loafers with no negative effects, I could have eaten white bread too.

But this morning's casual conversation was with my Doctor about how expensive I thought air fare are to Europe. And had he noticed? Not at all, said my doctor, immediately firing up the computer in the examination room. Lets check out fares, said he, bringing up aumber of cheap fares to Europe. Made me laugh to see him totally forget my foot and begin talking about affordable air fares to Europe. I thought it was a great way to start my day.

Kate dissected a crayfish

that's all. Just posting about her new scientific foray.

Maybe not an addiction but a source of great pleasure

we're still talking the Japanese on line comics Manga here. It was suggested to me that this is a return to an earlier stage of development and that the fantasy part of Manga may be ok. Providing it doesn't become wildly kinky. So maybe my objectiton is the amounttime spent on the Internet. Unlike my growing up where the most prized possession you could have was a phone in your room, not an extension but your own phone and separate tel #, for these kids it's all about the internet. In fact last night Kate turned on the ping to alert her when she got a message on facebook from the kool boy in her class. Yikes. Maybe we are there.

Anyway the good news for me is that there was no 6:30 am request to go on line and read more Manga. But then maybe it's because I staggered out of bed at 6:30 in the spirit of Christmas Past annoucning that I would not be up until 7:00 am. Then staggered back to bed before I walked Miss Murray on what I would call a Chicago kind of day. You know cold where the eyepiece on your glasses gets cold and your skin crinkles....In the spirit of Oscar Wilde, the rumors of spring are way overrated.

However this weekend Kate and I are going to sort through our spring/summer clothes in preparation for some time in Key West. Did we say that we were excited. Not an addiction but a source of great pleasure.

addictions

Arnie came in town for a 4 day weekend and we kicked it off with amazing dinner at Jean George on Thursday night courtesy of the folks from Ugly Betty. Actually I realize that we have been saving this gift for about 2 years which is how long we must have been waiting for something to celebrate. And now we have it.

I cooked all weekend long which was fine with me because my regular roster of weekly menus would leave most people screaming in boredom. Kate and I eat roast chicken, dumplings, home made Italian meat balls and our favorite orchiette with veal on a regular basis. Actually that doesn't sound so bad to me. I take it back. My menus are sublime unless I flatly refuse to cook, of course...

We are such a hip technological family now especially since Arnie introduced an IPad into the equation which sent Kate into a jealous fit because she does know how to use it and alledges that he doesn't. Save your money has become my mantra to her. I could care less, at this moment, that is. I keep waiting for some kind of techno lust to strike but somehow I am protected. The other addition we are now experiencing is Kate's new love of on line Manga which is a Japanse comicbook with some curious story lines. One of her friends, also addicted to this on line comic book, introduced her to Manga. I should remember that this friend has introduced her to several other time consuming on line games. This morning she tried to go on line at 6:30 am to read more Manga and I had to step in and details on limits loud and clear.

It's an addiction for sure.

Lean in and Grab it

Those are the words of our friend Dyan who is famous in our family for other quotable bits such as Crush him like a dog or Focus, focus, focus. And this time she exhorted Kate to lean in and Grab it. I like these mantras and find Dyan's passion amazing. She was our first guest over the 4 day weekend, with trips to the park with Murray first up on the agenda and it was %#&^cold and the snow had frozen into thick sheets of ice which gave me a sense of what the Antartic might look like. And it's still cold here. Yikes.

We got Kate a keyboard and she is as happy as the proverbial clam. My negotiation was that she would give me all her money, all $20 and then give Murray a bath every week until May. Actually she made some money yesterday helping Joe Gately baby sit and he gave her some money!

Really great design

well, anything Apple makes is both well designed and functional from the Mac pro to the iphone and i touch. But there are other companies that also do well and I just learned about Keurig yesterday. It's the new coffee machine in the office which uses those individual coffee portions and is amazing. The old ones used to have unstable cloth pouches but these little cups of coffee are efficient, fast and the coffee or it could be tea or hot chocolate is good.

Kate wants to be a desginer or an architect and I hope that she will always remember the design genius of Dyson with his vacuum cleaner and hand dryer. Beautiful with good functionality. If she does go to Brooklyn Tech then she may have a really good shot at this kind of career. We went last night for the open house for kids who have been admitted. The school has 5,200 students who go to high school in the largest high school in the United States. The open house was organized chaos and had no relationship to the polite, well organized school functions at Friends or Spence or anyplace that I know anything about. First of all the school is in Brooklyn and I always have meltdown going into Brooklyn and Wednesday was no different. Got out in a neighborhood that I didn't recognize but decided to follow a mother daughter duo that I decided were also going to Bklyn Tech. Lucky for us it was a correct supposition and we arrived along with 1,500 students and their parents. It was crazy and chaotic and Kate loved it. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not the one going to High School she is but how she got so old so quickly is still a mystery to me. And this high school sounds more like college to me. I worry because she is so used to Friends where they know when she has "forgotten" to produce home work assignments. In this place they won't notice anything until they give her a bad grade.

I just read in the Times that there are 80,000 kids who will be entering High School this fall. And Kate.

All that red must mean Valentine's Day

Ironically I was having a black pushback day swearing off black trousers and black sweaters which have been my uniform this fall and wintr -- how many times have I said that -- and came to work wearing red trousers and a white sweater only to discover that I was theme dressing. My mother used to send me to school wearing orange on St. Patrick's Day but then she was mean. So Mistake to be in red and white today. But in any case I look positively springy and the weather while almost tropical and in the 40's doesn't match the 60 degree temps that we had in Nashville yesterday.

Kate and I flew down on Friday so that she could interview for a place in high school -- OMG is it already HIGH SCHOOL? -- at the USN or University School at Nashville and spend some time with Arnie. As we landed I checked my e-mail and discovered that she had done well enough to be admitted to Brooklyn Tech, one of New York's prestigious special high schools. In a clear case of controlling access to the news, I quietly jumped up and down but we didn't tell Kate until Sunday. After all she needed to be able to spend the day at the University School without thinking about this great news. This test that she took in the fall is really like the blanc mange that ate London and requried tutoring, anxiety, etc. etc. Ok, we're finished with that and on Wed. Kate and I are due to go out to Brooklyn for an open house. This school has 5,000 people! I'm excited but not excited. I have no faith, ok I have little faith in the public school system....

Arnie and I had lunch with friends while Kate was touring the University school and then after all that good behavior and smiling it was definitely nap time for me. For dinner We took Kate back to a restuarant that we had discovered a couple of weeks ago and liked but I have to say that the second visit wasn't so successful. Nashville seems to have a number of high tech industrial looking restaurants with cement floors, high sound and buzz but after this dinner Arnie and I both thought the owner/chef would win an award for attitude because he wants you to know that he knows best. About everything.

Saturday was a beautiful blue sky day with time for rock climbing, more networking and then dinner with Beth and her daughter Tatum. Sunday we, read Arnie because I really don't drive, took Kate out for driving lessons in a parking lot. Gotta love that. All kids do. Then on for a celebatory lunch which had its funny aspects. We took a wrong turn along the way and ended up god knows where, until we found the restaurant which turned out to have an egg centric brunch menu which brought on sulks from Kate. Gotta get out of here. And then we sat on the curb in front of a bail bond office with a sign that said executions cause more problems while Kate found a restaurant using google maps. Hard Rock Cafe it was. Located in the most touristy part of Nashville and the food was grim. Why am I surprised. But the celebratory lunch itself was wonderful.

Urban mole

The solution to the proper ending for Miss Amelia Hamster's short but happy life was to have one of the building staff send her on a final journey. Happy trails.

Today is almost 40 degrees with brilliant sunshine and melting snow which made my trip up to the Museum from Union Square very colorful. I rejected my role as an urban mole, eschewed the subway and took a cab so that I could see everything and everyone. People were flooding the streets on their way to work. Park Avenue is a riot of color with giant red and orange flower sculptures which are amazing. Every store on Madison Avenue is festooned with red hearts and the whole trip was great. Tonight it is supposed to snow and rain.

I wasn't really looking forward to several of my weekend activites because...well just because. The first one was a shoping trip to help a friend nominated for an academy award buy a dress for the ceremony. Shopping is hard word but at 10:00 am in the pouring rain Trish and I had our noses pressed up against the doors of Bergdorf Goodman. Start shopping! This is the best store because it's where you get the most help from sales people who don't just point to expensive dresses but help you, get you shoes and offer to accesorize. Trish found a stunning coral dress which she may or may not buy. Standing by....

the rest of the day was spent in a pleasant kind of cocooning coma. Homework for Kate. I read two books and we totally blew off soccer.

Then Sunday Kate had a date to go to church with Alice and her family in Brooklyn. I detest going to Brooklyn at any time but especially on the weekends when the subways inexplicably stop running and the conductors start talking in tongues. Detour is the only word I every understand. We got up at 6:00 am so that we could get out of the house by 7:00 in time to arrive at our destination by 8:30. And while there is very little snow left in Manhattan, there is plenty in Brooklyn where the streets and sidewalks are still incredibly icy, slushy, and generally yucky. I wouldn't want to do that trip during rush hour but the views of the City on the way back are drop dead gorgeous because the J train -- who has been on the J train? -- runs above ground and you can see the entire city skyline. Quick drop off with Alice in Bed Stuy and then back to the house by 10:00 am. What a good mother I am....

Kate got home around 4 pm just in time for a round of festivities for Chinese New Year Lile, Maia and Rosie. It's the year of the Rabbit and in Vietnam it's the year of the Cat. It's amazing to me that these girls who see each other perhaps 4 times a year always have such a good time together. Worth organizing these trips and dinners at Chinese restaurants more often. The girls sit together at a table and the adults sit together which is a fine arrangement for everyone. I specially like the fact that the waitresses always come tell us what the girls have ordered....There is always surveillance.

Death of a Hamster

Snow, sleet and ice. More snow, sleet and ice. At least it's not the cyclone of the century that Australia is expecting. And now I don't care anything about Chicago and their snow storm. It's enough. even so my day had some early upheavals. I finally rousted myself from my nice warm bed to drag Miss Murray out to the streets. She refused to go more tan one block which was actually OK with me and then I went on to the Gym. I felt like a visiting dignitary because I hadn't darkened their door for a week. Welcome back stranger.

Got home this morning just in time to take a quick look at Amelia, Kate's hamster who was clearly in distress last night. Kate alerted me to the fact that she really wasn't moving. I touched her and found that she had a pulse, huddled in a corner, very shallow breathing and just not happy. What's wrong, Mom? She's dying Kate....So much for sugar coasting things.

And so this morning I found Amelia in the classic paws up posture. And then I really had to be the Mom again because Kate was grossed out and asked me to take care of her. So I produced my most beautiful silver shoe box with a red lining and carefully picked up Amelia and placed her amid some tissue paper. And she was stiff. Then we said some words about Amelia who had only lived sith us since Easter of last year but had a wonderful life. Kate played with her regularly, fed and watered her and also had an excercise ball so that she could roll around through the apartment providing Miss Murray didn't swipe at it with her paw. But all in all Amelia had a good life with us. And as I reminded Kate Amelia didn't suffer and neither did we. Of course by this time I was sobbing. Kate comforted me and took the box into her room until we can find a solution for the body. Because now my problem is what to do with the showbox/coffin which has a yellow sticky saying Miss Amelia Hamster, RIP.

It's too cold and snowy -- the ground is really frozen -- to take her to Central Park and dig a burial pit. We don't live close to a river where we could slip her in for a final sail. We could keep her in the freezer until the Spring and the ground is softe. No, I don't think so.

I think we will turn to Peter our very reliable handyman to take care of this probem for us. Any suggestions gentle readers?

Almost the tropics

I had my first piece of chocolate at 10am this morning. Not going to be a good day.

I had a great weekend in Nashville after I negotiated the airlines and actually got there. They cancelled my Friday flight that morning by robotic phone call and tried to push me onto am 8:00 pm flight which would have gotten me to Nashville at 10:00 pm. Too late. Too late. I managed to get myself on an American airlines flgiht which was a much bigger plane although curiously empty and arrived in time for all scheduled activities. The weather was so warm there that people were pushing the season a little I think by wearing shorts but I was totally supportive. when I lived in London I was forever talking about going to Portugal so that my bones would get warm. I never did. I kept on going to Paris and stayed cold. This past week I was thinking fondly of some warmer climate and the beach so Nashville was a pretty good stand in for warmth. We went to visit the Belle Meade plantation, which is now the center of some of Nashville's and the country's most high priced real estate. On to a new hot restaurant in the germantown neighborhood which actually was very New York in ambience with a high tech factory setting, ambitious Tuscan food and incredible noise. All good.

Home again to the cold. Yesterday I was really dragging my feet and hating my coat which is warm and heavy. But then I've complained about it before. Endlessly.

Had lunch today with my cousins Lucy Banks, McKay and one of his Middlebury friends Mitchell. Had just a sip of a Margharita which saw me through the afternoon.

OMG, Murray, it's reallu not nice

You have no idea how many times I have said just that to Miss Murray as we tested the air and found it incredibly cold. My walks with MM which can be a pleasure as we pass through the nabe are just agony with layers and layers of clothing and wispy pieces of fabric pressed into your face.

this is just one of those winters. But Kate and I have enjoyed the indoor activitires, been to A shakespearan play, gone to see the movie, the Kings Speech which she loved and read a number of books. This weekend I'm going to Nashville where I expect the weather will equally wretched and cold. But it's all relative becuase after several days of 6 degree weather, a day in the 20's is positively tropical.

Street Life

Yesterday was a veritable smorgasboord of city sights. The early morning cast of normal folk just working out was transfored by the apperance of several overblown body builders with tats, bulging muscles and black knit caps.

Then as Miss Murray and I rounded the corner onto Park Avenue at 5:30 am, I saw an older woman sitting quite comfortably on a folding chair that she had placed on the top of a subway grate so that she was warmed by the heat escaping from the subterranean tunnels!

Another beautiful day but very very cold....

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Busy busy weekend with a major and final test at Chapin for the ISEEEfor Kate as we go through this process of deciding where we are living and where she is going to high school. For the New York City schools it's all about crowded control and I suppose for the private schools it's the same thing. But Saturday we arrived at Chapin, sort of blast from the past for me because they were my arch enemies when I was at the Brearley. I and many other parents discovered on site that we were expected to bring proof of identity. Something which none of these hyper organized parents had known about because they changed their information format and had none of that information on the letter aka ticket for admission. So I am thinking OMG I'll have to go home and get some id for Kate, OMG we'll have to take the test another day when Kate was able to log onto her facebook page and prove that she was herself. Nicely done.

I got to spend time with Dorothy and be totally coddled with freshly made oatmaal, tea and generally sympathetic conversation. Then Kate and I went off to celebrate at McDonalds. She celebrated and I drank black coffee. An interim and then off to soccer and then back for a dinner chez nous with kathy and Buff.

But Sunday was the best for me. Kate went off to Chinatown with Melanie and I didn't. I didn't do a thing. Well almost nothing. I actually made a flying trip to Bloomingdales and what a luxury that was. I swooped in and swooped out without having to go to every floor and touch everything. My goal was to replace my favorite black cashmere head band and also replace my totally tattered orange suitcase. Successful on both counts and then I was whisked home to sloth out.

I'm having trouble reading anything but its probably because my internal life is chaotic. Balance. I need balance...

And tomorrow, I've just learned, is a snow day for Kate. OMG. I know I'll have to come to work but she, lucky duck, will be able to romp and gamble in the snow!

SNOW and more snow

It began snowing this morning at about 6 and the City looked beautiful because there was a sense that you could actually enjoy the snow. It's your friend. Unlike the snow that came down hard and fast over the Christmas weekend that seemed to be friendly and then suddenly turned around and took over the city.

Going to a gallery opening and then I want to go home and just read mystery stories. Kate has yet another test tomorrow morning and then it's all fun and soccer. Well, let me restate that. It's all soccer fun for her and for me it's hanging around an indoor soccer court! So fun.

Happy New Year to me and mine....

I spent last night trying to help Kate write a different conclusion to Catcher in the Rye. It quickly became apparent that I had read the book so long ago that I couldn't remember the end and certainly had no idea that everything in it was symbolic. Maybe it's better that I just read it in a clueless manner. In fact I had to ask what a catcher in the rye was. So you see. During this new term Kate announced that she studying World War 1 and she told me how interesting it was...And last week she started reading Sppok's gift, Le Petit Nicholas et ses copains, out loud with me and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. We are not our children and they are not us. But I am knocked out by Kate's intellectual curiousity which I think only occured in my late 20's.

Bravo for her