Peace & Quiet

Grateful for the flickering flame on the white pillar candle, a 3/4-full tank of heating oil, the cozy living room. Good night.

TCOY

1. Boot camp in the dome.
2. Walked puffer around the block.
3. Delicious afternoon nap on couch.
4. Spinach & white bean soup.
5. Went to ob/gyn for overdue checkup. That's a biggie. Got Rx for mammogram.
6. Have my Fitbit Flex bracelet and charger up and running. Had to stay up to call Customer Support. Now I'm ready to roll.

Gratitude List

• Ice water with a straw.
• The sun after snow and hail.
• Cleaning products that smell good.
• A nap on the couch in front of the fire.
• Sister.
• Friends.
• Family.
• Creamy Dannon toasted coconut Greek yogurt that begs me to plunge my spoon in.
• Laptop.
• Tulip greenery shooting up through winter blanket; tough but pretty.
• Money to buy dinner and fresh semolina bread and butter to serve with it.
• Warm bed.
• Faith.
• Hope.
• Love.
• Experts who care.
• Ability to craft word play.
• Kind people.

Good night.

TCOY

1. 25-minute nap, set by cell phone alarm.
2. Private Benjamin.

Short List

Thank you for:

1. That nice sleep.
2. That text from Sis, in Chicago.
3. That quick, stolen trip to Dunkin' Donuts with Fig for hot bevs.
4. Sound of leaves crunching underfoot.
5. That hug, given and received.
6. That kiss, given and received.
7. That exciting plan--the query answered.
8. Experts with big hearts.
9. Sug's dog coat.
10. That cappuccino at Petit Paris on Church Street in Montclair tonight with girlfriends Anne and Elly.
11. That found check in a mile-high stack of bills.
12. My work. 
13. Enough heating oil in the tank for now.

Thank you. Good night.

TCOY

1. Walked Sug around block twice.
2. Brown rice sushi.
3. Private Benjamin, and I walked there.
4. Learning to listen rather than always fill the void with speaking.
5. Chicken.

Never Underestimate the Power of a Good Nap

The breeze was glorious. The bed was made. The piles of clothing I'd been meaning to put away for weeks were finally gone. H. was taking care of things, and I had the freedom to rest, really rest. I could see the blue sky through the window.

True gift.

Good night.


TCOY

1. Boot camp in park on beautiful day!
2. Walked Sug around block twice.
3. Planted spent mini daff bulbs.
4. Sliced tomato.
5. Faced the music--once more. 
6. Folded and put away piled-up clothing. Sorted some to wash and then dry in fresh air tomorrow.
7. Long rejuvenating nap.
8. Shower, good tooth care.
9. Unearthed and untangled favorite necklaces, the better to accessorize in a feminine way.
10. Delicious old-fashioned popcorn made by H.

True Happiness: Websites I Love

The bold and the beautiful:

1. google.com
2. wikipedia.org
3. toryburch.com
4. nytimes.com
5. moviefone.com
6. bergdorfgoodman.com
7. nordstrom.com
8. hotchocolatesparrow.com
9. vosgeschocolate.com
10. lillypulitzer.com
11. katespade.com
12. mapquest.com
13. hopstop.com

Let me know about your favorites! I might be missing something big.

Good night.

True Happiness: Magazines

I read any magazine I could get my hands on, including Will's Boys' Life.

I've loved them since Highlights and American Girl, my Mom's The New Yorker and [for a short while] Better Homes and Gardens, my Dad's Time and National Geographic, Parade in the Sunday Record, Reader's Digest at Uncle Anthony's apartment when we went for dinner. Even my brother Will's Boys' Life and MAD, Sis's Tiger Beat and, of course, the few copies of Seventeen I had. Oh, and the magazines like Mademoiselle that Moey brought to the Shore. 

As long as it had two covers with articles, ads, photos and illustrations in between, I was fascinated. [I think the only exception was Dad's Chemical & Engineering News, published by the American Chemical Society.] If the ads promoted beauty products like Bonne Bell Ten-O-Six astringent or Lip Smackers, Sweet Honesty perfume or "Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific" shampoo, all the better. It was my dream to work at a magazine. My dream came true, and I loved it. Still do, still proud to be a freelance writer for some of the best magazines and now websites, too.

But it can be an expensive habit. Today, couldn't resist three indulgences at the checkout line:

Cook's Illustrated, October [already!!!!] issue, $5.95. Going to make the A-List Apple Crisp for us at the Cape next week. H. and Figgy adore apple crisp.

O, The Oprah Magazine, September issue, $4.50.  Cover lines I love:

• MEDITATE AND LOSE WEIGHT
• SUZE ORMAN TO THE RESCUE: Cleaning up a mess of debt
• How to Get a Great Job [I like the fashion/style makeovers for women around my age]

The Best of Fine Cooking Tailgating, $9.99. I know, that was a splurge. But I couldn't resist. It's not a magazine, it's a lifestyle--like all good magazines. This one is packed with fabulous recipes and alluring photos.

In the scheme of things, they are small, simple pleasures. And wonderful escapes from the everyday world. Long live the magazine. It rules, and it rocks.

I've never forgotten this ad! What brilliant marketing to the teenage girl. I absolutely wanted to be her, to have her clothing, her hair and her admiring lab partner.

True Happiness: On the Radio

Driving this morning with the BBC on [they had an awesome report on the music in Hitchcock's Psycho], I smiled at the memories of radio stations I've known and loved.

77 WABC: Sis is seven years older than me, and we shared a room. So she was 16 to my 9, and she had her white radio with the butterfly stickers on every morning when she got dressed for high school. I used to sneak peeks at her in pantyhose--I didn't wear those yet, and they seemed so grown-up--as we listened to Harry Harrison and Cousin Brucie [pictured above]. In the summer, Dan Ingram was famous for "Roll your bod," said repeatedly, a reminder to roll over in the sun at the beach. So funny, even at the time. During this same morning music window, as Sis got dressed, she also sometimes communicated with Barbara K., who lived next-door to us and was the same age. Their bedroom windows were directly across from each other.

MOM'S EASY LISTENING: Down in the kitchen, as her little metal percolator spat and bubbled and she scrambled eggs in her bathrobe, my mother had another dial going. We listened to Doris Day singing "Que Sera, Sera," and other songs like "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head." Especially remember "Those Were the Days": Once upon a time there was a tavern... I won a contest when I sent in a song request and they sent me an album of best songs from the sixties. I was so excited. The collection included "Young Girl," and I played it over and over on the portable record player in my bedroom, sitting on the floor next to it, soaking it in and very seriously contemplating the words. You better run, girl, you're much too young, girl...." One of the best songs ever.

MYSTERY THEATER: When it was my Dad's turn to drive to evening Girl Scout events in the 1970s, he'd have the Mystery Theater on in our green Datsun. He'd jokingly shush Moey and me, so we could listen. It was fun.

ASBURY PARK STATION: I don't remember the callout letters, but I do remember the soothing voice of the DJ--a woman--keeping me company on Sunday nights when I was driving back to my apartment in Ocean Grove [right next-door to Asbury] after a weekend back home in Bergen County. As I drove the lonely, darkened Garden State Parkway by myself from exit 165 to exit 100B [about 1 1/4 hours], stopping only to throw quarters in the toll baskets, she spun tunes I liked. I think they were oldies.

WNEW: This is what was playing in H.'s tiny Park Slope studio apartment when we were dating. Happy music memories, and also warnings about traffic and bridge delays.

RADIO DISNEY: Fast-forward to motherhood, when you play kiddy stuff in the car. Figgy used to love that.

HOWARD STERN: I may or may not be married to a man who likes this radio show, and used to have Sirius in the car just so he could listen to it when driving alone. He did have the courtesy to switch back to my country music before parking the car. I will grudgingly admit that despite all of his grossness and sexism, Howard does have a gifted interview style. H. and I agree on that. He's smart, funny and quick on his feet--or his seat at the mic.

Now, it's NPR all the way, 93.9 FM for A Prairie Home Companion; Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me; Selected Shorts; Fresh Air with Terry Gross; Brian Lehrer; Leonard Lopate; and This American Life, and 90.7 FM out of Fordham University for the best music ever. It keeps me in touch with new artists and cool DJs. I love it.

I feel so connected. So in tune with my world. Now I better put my money where my mouth is and make a pledge to NPR. I keep meaning to.

True Happiness: I Love My Fluffy Dust Mop

Sugar Maureen brings us so much happiness. She's six years old now [36 in doggy years], and we got her when Figgy was in third grade. She was so small that she fit in Figgy's sneaker. Now she has topped out at 10 pounds. She is a Bichon Frise; Miss Personality. That dog above is not Sug--that's Waiskai from dailypuppy.com--but looks exactly like her.

Top 10 Reasons I Adore Her

10. She hates for us to leave and loves when we come back.

9. She is afraid of things--a luggage cart or a garbage can lid can make her tremble--yet she plods forth and faces a challenge head on, which I personally find inspiring.

8. She leaps off the bed or couch in a single bound and into the kitchen at morning, noon or midnight if we are eating a piece of turkey or cheese.

7. She is kind to little Punch, even though little Punch has done naughty things like pull her tail or throw things at her. And when Punch was a newborn, Sug would race after me when the baby cried and I ran up to find out why. When Punch finally feel asleep, Sug would collapse in a furry heap of relief. I called her baby nurse.

6. She has adorable black licorice eyes.

5. She walks with pep in her step and pride in her stride.

4. She thinks she is 50 times bigger than she is, though no one is afraid of her.

3. She licks you if you cry.

2. She loves my Dad [runs right to his apartment door in the senior center], Sis [she now knows the word "Auntie,"] and Figgy's friends. If they come to the condo and don't say hi to her, she keeps yapping insistently until they do.

1. She loves to sleep at any and all hours of the day, so is therefore our perfect excuse to take yet another nap.

I love you, Sug, or [as Daddy calls you], Rough Tough Cream Puff. Long may you prance.

The Big 100

This is my 100th post since I started blogging in early February. I think I've blogged every day except one, on Cape Cod, when I couldn't get wireless. I finally did, out in the cold, in the dark, on a bench outside the Hot Chocolate Sparrow, but then couldn't see the keys on my little red laptop.

Just Passing Through
In honor of passing through the portal of 100, below is a list of other doorways I've darkened at least 100 times [in counts as one, out counts as one].

Surprisingly, there aren't that many beyond home, school, work and church--things I've done routinely. That says something about life.

Maybe my memory is failing, but I don't think I've even been to the homes of my closest friends 50 times, or to Sis's apartment in NYC, and I went there a lot. And while I loved walking in Central Park [often with my friend, Madonna] at lunchtime when we worked near there, it wasn't 50 times. [Now if it were virtual homes, aka website addresses like toryburch.com, that would be different. I bet I've knocked and entered there more than 100 times, mostly just to browse, sometimes to buy.]

The 100 List
1. Our gray-shingled house on Bedford Road in Dumont
2. Cars: family's white Ford Falcon, little green Datsun, tan Chevy Nova; my tiny tan Chrysler Champ; our blue Honda Civic, black Volvo wagon, silver Honda CR-V
3. Selzer School, kindergarten
4. St. Mary's Church [first in cute white steepled church, then in giant brick church when white one was demolished and replaced]
5. St. Mary's School [first and second grades in little white building, with nuns; third through eighth in new big brick one without nuns--Sister Agnes, Sister Frances John et al were abruptly called to another parish, like a flock of migrating birds]
6. Dumont High School
7. White's Norge Village Laundromat [first job]
8. Twin-Boro News, Bergenfield [first paying newspaper job]
9. College dorms and buildings
10. Red and white Rutgers campus buses
11. Cooper Dining Hall [ate there and worked there]
12. Voorhees Chapel on campus
13. Daily Targum, Rutgers campus
14. Ocean Grove apartment
15. Catholic church in Bradley Beach [doesn't seem like I went there 50 times, but must have, since I had my apartment at the shore for four years]
16. Apartment [with fire escape, window boxes] that we rented as newlyweds
17. St. Cassian Church [first in little old dark church, now in brighter, more modern one that has cornerstone from first one]
18. Kings supermarket
19. Our little yellow house
20. Woman's Day Magazine, in Times Square, first real job
21. Seventeen Magazine, Third Avenue, East side, second job
22. Good Housekeeping Magazine, near Columbus Circle, third job
23. Sesame Street Parents Magazine, near Lincoln Center, fourth job
24. Strategic Communications Group, Park Avenue South, fifth job
25. Port Authority
26. Penn Station
27. NJ Transit 167 bus, Dumont-NYC
28. DeCamp 66 bus, Montclair-NYC
29. NJ Transit trains, Oradell-Hoboken and Penn Station-Asbury Park
30. "A" subway train
31. No. 6 subway train
32. White house on Wonderstrand Way, Cape Cod
33. Papa's apartment at Sunrise in Cresskill
34. Friend Irene's house? [50 times? Most likely; Irene lived around the block from me and was my closest neighborhood friend. For reference point, just asked H. about his best friend Dan's house, a few houses away from his childhood home in Teaneck. "Did I go to Dan's house fifty times? I went fifty times a day. Seriously. I was there all the time." Love that glimpse of him as a little boy--a loyal friend, a fun lover....and someone whose own home was not always warm and fuzzy.]

This 100th post is a reminder--to shake it up and add more beautiful, nurturing, colorful places to my most-visited list.

True Happiness: Ugly Betty

I adore this show. So does Figgy--it's one of the things we can clearly agree on as she ventures more and more into her independent, artistic teen thinking.

It's on tonight at 10. Can't wait. Love the portrayal of life at a fashion magazine in NYC--complete with beautiful, biting editor, colorful fashionistas, models, photographers, young writers [like Betty] who are hungry to climb the ladder.

We are Family
But one of the nicest things about it is that Betty lives in Queens and we are immersed in her family life, too, with her dad, Poppy, her sister, Hilda, and Hilda's high-school son, Justin.

Pure popcorn. That's why I'm so sad that next week's episode is the series finale.

Sugar on Top

Our Sug is doing fine, but doesn't like losing sight of me. That fat little ball of fur must have been shaken by us unceremoniously moving her out. She's very possessive. When I walk her by our house, she tries pulling toward there. When I go over to get something, she insists on coming. As I turn the key in the door, she's pawing eagerly at it, to get in.

Pretty in Pink
Today was a better day. My boot camp friends did something really special this morning, and in the late afternoon, I ran an errand for Patsy. That errand involved going to Bobbi Brown, The Studio here in town to get two pink lip glosses--one for Patsy's friend's birthday tonight, one for Patsy.

Private Eye
While there, I got the Extra Eye Balm, soft and cucumbery, to put on at night and under concealer for day. I really love how it smells and am about to go upstairs and use it for the first time. Also got Figgy a $20 gift card from H., me and Sug to soften the blow of moving. She loves Bobbi Brown makeup. [Bobbi lives right in our town. She has three boys. We've trick-or-treated at her pretty home, and she gives out both lip gloss and candy.]

I must go to sleep now. We are meeting with two different contractors tomorrow. We are moving into Marriott Extended Stay on Sunday [with Sug] at least for the time being.


P.S. I would have to say that true happiness does exist in a Tory Burch turquoise-trimmed white cotton tee....the Bomen Tee, $165, pictured above. It's not real turquoise, but it's so beautiful....saw it at Bergdorf's the other day. Lusted after it. Love that it combines the classic white T, with a flattering neckline [not Fruit of the Loom crewneck] and built-in necklace, as only Tory can do it. Brilliant.

True Happiness: Old Movies + Sitcoms

True classics, all color and style and timeless chic. Think Holly Golightly singing Moon River on the fire escape and Grace Kelly as Hitchcock's Lisa Fremont packing her negligee in a stylish purse. Soothing as a tumbler of milk and a wedge of warm apple pie:

1. Gidget series [and Sally Field still looks SO good in Brothers and Sisters !]
2. Breakfast at Tiffany's [Last time I got a pedicure at Frederic Fekkai at Henri Bendel, this was playing on a continuous loop--I now proudly own the DVD.]
3. Gidget Goes to Rome
4. Gidget Goes Hawaiian
5. The Parent Trap [with Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith]
6. Freaky Friday [1970s original, with Jodie Foster]
7. Rear Window
8. To Catch a Thief

True Happiness: Mad Men

I just spent way more time learning to put a picture on my blog than I will spend writing about it.

I love Mad Men! It has totally transformed my life. I look forward to watching it, to closely observing the office politics, family lies and incredible fashions. Now that Season 1 is On Demand, I've been catching up on episodes I somehow missed--before I caught the bug.

A brief list of what makes me happy about Mad Men:

1. The clothing. The clothing. The clothing. From the stiff, starched white handkerchiefs peeking out of Don Draper's front pocket to Joan's incredible clingy sweaters and handbags and Betty's beautiful dresses and filmy peignoirs.

2. The hairdos. How hilarious or how glamorous, depending. The flips and updos and bouffants. The slicked-back hair for the men. The barber coming to Roger Sterling's office.

3. The workplace. The plastic covers for the typewriters, the couches in the offices, the make-do bars behind every man's desk, the ice cubes clinking and the liquor flowing. Come on. Though I did once know an editor who went out for two-hour liquid lunches and then came back tipsy.

4. The city. The restaurants, all big stately banquettes that you can really settle into and Brandy Alexanders for the ladies. The true hunger for work, for unparalleled success that is so tangent still in New Yorkers and in those of us who thrive on the city and its pathways and staircases.

5. The blatant infidelity. They make it so frothy and easy for the men that it's completely absorbing to watch. No strings attached. All this dallying at hotels, on office couches and in single women's apartments...but it's all cotton-candy fiction. No one you know is really getting hurt when very married Don Draper or Roger Sterling is cheating on his devoted wife. Pure fun as a spectator sport.

6. The food. Oh my God, the food. The casseroles. The "delicatessen," used as a noun as in "I know how you love your delicatessen" when a client is sinking into a pastrami on rye and sour pickles.

7. The brilliance. The hard work these writers, directors and set designers have done to so carefully recapture this early 1960s lifestyle, from the Kennedy-Nixon debate to the Post cereal commercials to the lipstick ads--every little detail, even the sound of the trains rumbling by when Peggy turns out the light in her bedroom in her first Manhattan apartment, the one she shares with a roommate who gripes about the Velveeta being eaten before she got to it. Oh, take me back to the sixties.