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.