Better yet, I got to do something outrageous. I had no idea what people wear at Le Baron, so I winged it. Normally, if my fashionista daughters were in town I would have consulted them, but they weren’t so I had to figure it out on my own. I wore a long black satin shirt with a white front (like a man’s shirt), with skinny black pants, high heels, and a rhinestone necklace. As those things go, I think it looked okay…..but then, I happened to be in a store this week and saw a black satin headband, with rhinestone mouse ears on it (Kind of like Minnie Mouse goes to nightclub in Paris…..), and I couldn’t resist. They also had cat ears, which looked even sillier, and rabbit ears which would have been truly absurd. So I settled on the rhinestone mouse ears. They probably would have been a lot cuter if I were l6 years old. But one of the (few) nice things about getting older is it no longer seems like a life crushing event if you have a sense of humor, laugh at yourself, or even make a fool of yourself once in a while. So I bought the mouse ears—–and I had this wicked/naughty sense when I did, knowing that my daughters would kill me for going out in something like that. (But let’s not forget that I wore a whoopee cushion costume on Halloween 2 years ago, so my sense of humor does occasionally get out of control). So off I went to the party in the black satin shirt—-AND the rhinestone mouse ears. I thought they were hysterically funny, and yes I was the only one at the party in mouse ears. I forgot I had them on, and they caused considerable comment!!! (Of course, who else would be silly enough to wear mouse ears to a chic nightclub?) Well, I did it. So I got to go to a fun place I’ve never been, see friends, meet new people, and dance myself silly—-while wearing rhinestone mouse ears. It shows that you can be ridiculous at any age. I know I will be scolded soundly when my daughters find out—-You Wore WHAT??? ARE YOU KIDDING??? Do you know how ridiculous you looked??? Are you crazy??? What did people think? MOUSE EARS??????? Yeah, mouse ears. Then of course I’ll be sent to my room, put on restriction, have my allowance taken away, not be allowed to go shopping without supervision for a year, my mouse ears will probably be confiscated, and I’ll be put in the Hall of (Fashion) Shame. But I got away with it tonight…..and I got to go to Le Baron….in mouse ears…..it was wayyyyyyyyy cool, and I had a ball!!!

Love, Danielle

I’ve just come home from a wonderful summer trip with my kids in France and Italy. The summer started out cool in June, even chilly in Paris, and then overnight in late June or early July, the summer burst forth in full bloom, and we had a heat wave in Paris. Ninety degrees most of the time, hot nights, and it hit l00 degrees for a few days in mid-July. We went to the South of France then, and spent a few days in Italy, and the weather was close to l00 on many days, but being at the beach and on the water, we didn’t mind the heat. And it cooled down, but only a little bit, when we got back to Paris in late July. And it was very tolerable, when I stopped in New York for a night, on the way back to San Francisco on the last day of July.

When you mention California to people in Europe, or even other parts of the U.S., their faces light up with envy, and they instantly think “ahhh….warm weather’. Tourists who come to San Francisco in the summer assume that LA and SF enjoy the same climate, and you see them shivering in shorts and tank tops, waiting for the cable car, while they turn to icebergs. Actually, the chilliest months in San Francisco are July and August, when the city is swathed in fog, with a chill wind off the Bay. If we get hot days at all, they are in September, and not for long, or an occasionally lucky day in June, but San Francisco is basically chilly all year long, with permanent ‘autumn’. You can get by wearing fall and winter clothes all year, except for those few rare warm days in September. I never get to wear summer clothes in SF, and don’t buy them anymore, or if I do, I wear them in Europe or New York. What you want to do in SF is bundle up in the summer!!! The temperature is in the 50′s in the daytime, during San Francisco ‘summer’. And the only way you know it’s summer is by looking at the calendar. If you look out the window, or step out the door, it looks and feels like November.

So if you’re planning a trip to San Francisco, bring your woolies, your heaviest sweaters and bring a warm coat!!! I’m serious!!! I wore a big wooly shearling coat the other day, in the daytime, in August. The hardest thing about San Francisco summers is that they get so depressing, the gray days really get to you, and the fog all day or every afternoon. People here talk constantly about how depressing the weather is in summer, and I cant disagree. After weeks of it, your spirits really plummet, and you know it will be just as cold the next day and all the weeks after. The odd thing is that if you travel just a short distance, you find yourself back in summer weather. Drive an hour South down the Peninsula, and it’s in the 80′s or 90′s. An hour and a half North, into the Napa Valley, and the temperatures are close to l00 degrees. And just across the Bay, toward the East, in Berkeley, it is easily 70 or 80 degrees, while it’s 50 in the city at high noon. But in the city by the Bay, with the cable cars and the quaint houses, the legend of Nob Hill with its fancy hotels (The Fairmont, Huntington, and Mark Hopkins) and reputation for sophistication, and the Golden Gate Bridge swathed in fog in the summer, it’s just plain freezing…..so if you’re coming out to see us, especially in summer, button up, wrap up, and once you’re here, try to cheer up despite the gray weather and fog, and icy blasts of wind. It’s a pretty city, there’s no doubt, but just as Mark Twain said, it is freeeeeeeeeeezzzzzing in the summer!!!! I hope you’re spending the summer someplace warm and sunny!!! (And now that I’m back, I wish I were too!!!).

Love, Danielle

In the second chapter, you fast forward 16 years. The kids are pretty much grown up, the oldest is the jewelry editor of a fashion magazine and leads a high powered very stressful life (afraid to attach to anyone since her parents died). The middle child, a boy, is a law student, and the youngest child is an art student and a very independent kid (tattoos, piercings, and very much her own person). The aunt who brought them up adores them, and they love her. And she is now adjusting to their having grown up and moved out, and the void they have left in her life. For 16 years, her whole life has centered around them, so now what does she do? She has a successful business, but an empty nest, and hasn’t had the time or inclination to have a serious man in her life for 16 years, she was too busy bringing up the kids.

The book is about everything that happens after that, to the 3 young people, to the aunt, their relationship with each other, and with other people. The people they get involved with, the situations they face. There are a lot of touching things in it, and some funny ones (a series of terrible blind dates set up by friends who insist she has to find a guy, and she really doesn’t want to—particularly after those dates.). I love the book, and I hope you will too. It’s about 4 people, facing real life and the real world, and the situations that some of us face, with kids, and just trying to cope, particularly as single parents—-and in this case, the kids aren’t even hers, but they might as well be, she has been a wonderful stand-in single parent for them. And of course there is some excitement and adventure and a few hairy scary moments.

Anyway, I wanted to share with you that the book is out. I hope that you’ll buy it and love it. I have a paperback out right now too, “Matters of the Heart”, about the very unnerving story of a woman who gets involved with a charming sociopath. Parts of that are terrifying, and experiences like that must happen to a lot of people, because I got an enormous amount of mail from people who had survived similar situations. I try to write about the things that happen to real people, and affect us all. If you have time for summer reading, I hope you’ll buy the books!!! Love, Danielle

As I mentioned to you recently, I discovered about a year and a half ago that I had been embezzled, which was a shocking and deeply upsetting experience for me. The person who did it said in court that she did it out of jealousy, and that it never seemed wrong to her, until she got caught. And only then did it occur to her that she was a thief. Those were her exact words in court.

Recently, I tried to buy a piece of art, and the person I was about to buy it from, misrepresented their status with the artist, and tried to charge me more than the going rate. I didn’t buy the piece from that person in the end, because my trust in them had been damaged.

Also recently, I met a person at a dinner party, whom I later learned had committed a financial scam and gotten away with it, without being prosecuted. It involved taking money that they weren’t entitled to. And yesterday, I heard about a young widow who was financially ‘cleaned out’ by her boyfriend.

I guess this stuff has always gone on, dishonesty is not new, nor are scams and crimes. And maybe I’m just sensitive to it because of the embezzlement I experienced, but it just seems like I’m hearing more and more about incidents like these. It really makes me wonder what’s going on, and why it feels like we’re hearing more and more about things like this these days. The young widow in question needed the money. I work incredibly hard for mine, which the embezzler knew well. I’m not a slacker, I work like a dog, and I supported a lot of kids while she was stealing from me. And stealing from an institution isn’t right either, although stealing from an individual seems worse and more personally destructive. And then there are the dishonesties on a massive world-impacting scale, like the BP oil spill, which has affected our environment, cost lives, destroyed wildlife, and will ultimately deprive fishermen of their ability to make a living. The enormity of that disaster is hard to conceive of, and yet we are told that they knew of safety failures and continued pumping oil anyway,even at high risk. Have massive numbers of people suddenly subscribed to the Bernie Madoff school of ethics? I personally know of 3 people who were personally impacted by Madoff’s scam, and were financially wiped out, 2 of them are in their 90′s and lost everything they had worked a lifetime for. The indecency and heartlessness of it is so enormous that it’s hard to wrap your mind around it. And it would appear that many of the people who have committed these crimes and offenses seem to feel no remorse.

The question running through my mind is whether these are individual shocking crimes, or is somehow the fabric and moral fiber of our society getting threadbare and wearing thin? Why are we hearing more about crimes like these?? Has the financial crisis frightened people so much that they suddenly give themselves a pass on ripping off someone else? (The crime against me was committed long before the economic crisis, and for many, many years, so there’s no excuse there). Are people reacting out of panic, in some sort of moral freefall from honesty and grace??? Have our standards changed? Do we need to redefine honesty? Have people lost their boundaries, or sense of right and wrong? Has our definition of honesty gotten fuzzy? Lying, cheating, and stealing have never been okay.

I would not steal a carton of milk from the grocery store, and neither would you, I assume. I wouldn’t help myself to what’s in someone else’s purse, because I like it, nor take someone else’s money. And yet, I keep hearing of situations where some kind of major dishonesty has occurred, and the person who did it finds some way of making it okay to themselves. One of my children was ripped off in a major way by her best friend of l8 years. Her friend stole from her and from several others in their group. She never sent an apology for what she’d done. No conscience? Bad manners? Compulsion? Pathological? Or some kind of new morality that makes taking what belongs to someone else okay? (Isn’t that a scary thought!!) And how far does it go? Is it okay to take someone else’s husband, or grab their purse, steal their wallet, their dog maybe, take something dear to them, or put them at financial risk? Is it okay now not to follow the rules of society, and our laws, as long as we get what we want out of it??

There have always been dishonest people in the world. But so many of them? So many scams? During the investigation of my embezzlement, the FBI told me that crime is up. Why? Panic? The economy? Less supervision at home as kids? Are people no longer sharing with their children the basic old fashioned rules? I recently ran into a situation where someone else’s actions, caused me to have to hire attorneys, and although it cost me a considerable amount of money, through no fault of mine, everyone thought that was okay. No one apologized, or offered to make it up to me in any way.

All added up, I find these incidents shocking. And I am wondering where it starts. I’ve heard people delighted that a waiter didn’t add up the check right, in their favor, and they were positively gloating when they left the restaurant, or if the waiter forgot to add in the wine.

I’m thinking that the answer rests with each of us, to be scrupulously honest in every instance, with money, with people, and about our mistakes. That even if we need the money, we HAVE to tell the waiter or the cashier or the salesperson that they gave us too much change, and give it back. There is no victory in stealing what we’re not meant to have. There will always be criminals and crooks in the world, it’s inevitable. But maybe the key is not to let them taint the way we view and treat the world. Taking anything not meant for us is wrong. Lying is wrong. And if our boundaries get blurred, and we get ‘soft’ on the concept of honesty and integrity—what happens to our society after that? How far does it go? Yesterday, someone reported on a whole conversation they never had with me. Lying isn’t okay either, even if it gets someone what they want.

I think we need to get crystal clear on what is honest and what isn’t, what is ours and what isn’t (even if we wish it was), and be scrupulously honest ourselves. Our integrity is one of our most precious gifts. If we damage it or give it up, the essence of our morality becomes damaged. I don’t think we can afford to sacrifice our integrity, or compromise it, neither on a personal level, nor on a broader scale. Integrity and honesty are not gray areas, they are black and white. None of these people I mentioned were Robin Hoods, stealing to give it to someone else. They all hung on to what they stole for their own benefit and use.

I think honesty and integrity begin with each one of us. It’s up to us to police ourselves, to correct a mistake, and to stay on track. And maybe if each of us does that, all added up, we will make this a better world. I don’t want to live in a society where I have to look over my shoulder constantly, to see who is ripping me off, or try to figure out the latest scam. And if as a society, we have gotten fuzzy on the concept of honesty and integrity, we need to clean that one up fast before it takes us all down. We need to be scrupulously honest and responsible for ourselves, and share that message with our children, so they are clear on what is okay and what isn’t, and what is just plain wrong. All those people doing scams and committing crimes were once someone’s children. What did their parents say to them, or failed to, and what behavior and level of honesty did they model for them at home?

You may have been the victim of a crime too. But even if you haven’t been, how many times have you been short changed, or been disappointed in the lack of honesty of someone you work with, or even a friend. I think this is something we really need to watch and keep our eye on. Just as BP has polluted the ocean with their oil spill, our daily world has become polluted by petty dishonesties, sometimes so subtly that it’s easy to close your eyes to it. But just like the BP oil spill, if we don’t get a grip on the small dishonesties, and refuse to tolerate the scams and lack of integrity we see around us, the decency and integrity of our world will be poisoned forever. It starts with us, on a small scale, and like ripples on a pond, it will spread out from there. Let’s try to be the pebble of integrity, sending out ripples of honesty in this troubled world. Even our own small efforts will ultimately make it a much better place.

Love, Danielle

But while we are so busy envying youth, which is epitomized by young people in their 20′s, those of us who are older have all managed to forget how difficult it is being that age. My own 20′s werent fabulous. I married in my teens, had my first child at l9, by 21 I was separated, carrying all the responsibility for a child. I faced divorce in my 20′s. I wrote my first book at l9, and in my 20′s I was struggling hard to start my career. I was broke. I had multiple jobs to make ends meet. I never seemed to be able to figure out who had the instruction manual for my 20′s. I sure didnt. I went for long periods of not dating at all, too busy working and taking care of my daughter—and then dated the wrong men. I got my heart broken umpteen times. My 20′s were one long endless struggle, with the constant angst of feeling that I was doing everything wrong. And I was just young enough for my parents to feel free to tell me that I was (doing everything wrong) every chance they got, and some of the time they were right. I’m sure I must have had fun in my 20′s, but damned if I remember when. It really was a hard time. Difficult things have happened to me since, which have been very hard, but most of the time I feel like a competent person dealing with it. In my 20′s, I was never sure I was on the right track, and always afraid I wasn’t (and some of the time I was way off track and didn’t even know it). It was an era in my life of constant insecurity. It’s hard to know where you’re going in your 20′s, or where your path will lead. By the time you’re a little bit older, you have more confidence and a sense of what you can actually do. But in your 20′s you just don’t know, you haven’t proven yourself yet in any area of your life, and you have no idea what fate has in store.

My five youngest children are in their 20′s (from 22 to 28), and these days I have a front row seat of just what that means and what it’s like. While we (anyone older than that) are envying them the delights of their youth, they are graduating from college into a world where it is agonizingly difficult to find jobs. Where once they get those jobs, they rarely if ever get raises, since most companies have freezes on salary increases, thanks to the economy that we, the older generation, have managed to screw up for them. In the distance, there are the sounds of war, that they didnt cause, but may pay the price for. In earlier generations, people had job security, and if they chose to, could work for one corporation for an entire career, or switch jobs along the way with confidence, and even had a multitude of choices to find good, solid jobs. Now, no one’s job is secure, at any age. Careers in the arts have never been easy, now they are damn near impossible, with money no one can live on, particularly at entry level. Relationships are complicated and people are confused. Suddenly gorgeous 22 year old girls claim they cant find a date or a serious relationship, and even young people are looking to Internet services to pair them up, rather than meeting their dates or future mates through family, friends, or jobs. People communicate by text and emails, instead of having real, human contact. Men are confused by their role in today’s society, and the women they go out with or want to date may make more money than they do, which may hurt their ego and scare them off, or put too much strain on a relationship. Women no longer have to put up with what they once did, or even make a relationship work, because they can support themselves and don’t have to depend on a man. In my generation, getting married and having kids was an important goal. Today, having watched their parents and nearly everyone they know get divorced, many young people no longer want to marry and are extremely leery about an institution that no longer seems to work (in 60% of the cases, which are lousy odds), some are not so sure they want kids, and if so, they dont see why they have to get married to do that. And for those who missed the boat and don’t meet Mr. Right while their biological clock is ticking, they go to sperm banks and have babies biologically fathered by strangers they’ve never met, and bring the child up alone (which is not always so easy). We have handed down a world to our young people that is full of challenges new to our era. Environmental problems, political problems, economies that don’t work, jobs that are hard to find and hang onto. Many of these conditions are new to this generation and have never existed before. Our economy has never been worse, or jobs harder to find since the Great Depression. And on a more personal level, one of my pet peeves is people texting and emailing instead of talking to each other by phone or face to face. It takes a lot of the humanity out of our daily contacts, and even dating. Whole relationships rise and fall by text. People get ‘dumped’ by email, or fall in love by email and then find out it isn’t real, and they’ve either been misled, or made a mistake themselves. Far too often, relationships are ‘virtual’ instead of real. All of which makes it hard to find your footing as a young person in today’s world.

Along with all of these problems that we, the previous generations, have handed to young people in their 20′s today, are the problems that young people that age have always had to deal with. Figuring who they want to be when they go grow up. What job they want, or career. Who they want to be with, and marry, or not. Most people that age aren’t stable in relationships, they change their minds, disappoint each other, cheat on each other (not exclusive to our 20′s unfortunately, but more frequent then). We usually get our hearts broken for the first time in our 20′s, make our first big mistakes. I am constantly distressed to see how often young people that age are exploited by their employers, who pull things on them they wouldnt dare do to an older employee. They work longer hours for less pay in worse conditions, and are threatened with getting fired if they don’t like it (and may have trouble finding another job, so are afraid to leave a bad one, a factor which abusive employers exploit). Most people are scared in their 20′s, I was. You’re always afraid of losing a relationship, or getting fired, or doing things the wrong way. You have no experience to draw on, which you have later on, so you’re flying blind at that age, and everything is new, whether in relationships or at work. You’re never sure exactly what’s expected of you or if you’re doing things right. Will you succeed? Does he or she love you?? Can you pay your rent, find a room mate, find a job, afford a car? Should you move to another city? Quit the job you hate? For most young people, then or now, their 20′s are fraught with risk, and the fear of taking the wrong fork in the road. It is a time of constant choices. Friends your own age advise you who know as little as you do, and may give you poor advice. Parents put the pressure on to get serious, find a job, a better job, or get married. It is a time when you often discover that the friends you thought you could count on aren’t as faithful as you thought, and you discover the sadness of betrayal, or the simple fact that the people you grew up with are changing, just as you are, and your friendship once so precious may not survive. It is a time of loss and gain, of shedding the treasures of our childhoods, and finding new ones. It is a time of putting our childhood and adolescence away, and having to face being a grown up forever, which looks scary at best, even in the best of times.

When I look at what all young people have to deal with, the bumps in the road they will have to face and always have at that age, and the even bigger bumps we have created for them, and the potholes in the road, my heart goes out to them, and aches. As I watch my children deal with growing up, I worry about them constantly at the difficulties that may face them, and sometimes do. I hate the romantic disappointments they face, the losses, the sorrows, the fears. I hate the hardships they may face. And as I watch them struggle through it, with amazing grace, I am filled with admiration for their courage. Their road is so much harder than ours was. They have all the same normal heart aches to face that we did, and many of the same fears, that come from just not being a child anymore and having to find their way in a grown up world, with less protection than they once enjoyed. And now, in addition, they must learn to navigate in a far more complicated world.

Young people in their 20′s are not to be envied. When I take a close look, and remember, I would not go back to my 20′s for anything in the world, even if I was wrinkle-free and my thighs looked better. It is a tough, tough time, a rite of passage, and a hard one. My children in their 20′s, and their peers, have all my love and respect for all they deal with, and how hard they try to figure out their path. They are not to be envied, but to be supported. By the time we hit our 30′s, many of us have figured out how things work, and we start to feel confident about life. But in our 20′s everything is to be discovered, sometimes the hard way, by our mistakes. It is the beginning of the game, the beginning of real life. And all we can wish them is safe passage, and hope that the joys they encounter will be greater than the pains. But if those of us who are older think back to our 20′s, we will remember that it is not an easy time. All I can wish for those of you in your 20′s is that the road will be smooth, and you will make wise choices. Try not to be afraid, you will discover everything you need to know in time. Take good care, and be careful…..and enjoy these years, as challenging as they are!!! And if you pay attention to what you’re doing, I know you will be fine!!! (And remember that no one else knew any more than you do at your age!!) You’re doing great!!! Love, Danielle

One of my daughters recently moved into a new apartment, and took the opportunity to get rid of some of her old student furniture (not yet vintage, just old and tired), and she set out to replace it with vintage items. She combed all the stores she knew and had heard about in New York, and Brooklyn, combed the Internet, where she found an amazing number of fantastic items, and even checked out stores in LA when visiting her sister. And when the big day came to move into the new apartment, I really wondered how it was all going to look together. She had sent me emails of some of it, and very kindly asked for my advice, and some of it looked really tired to me, but she insisted it was ‘charming’ and would work. I took her word for it since she has a great eye, lots of style, and very good taste. And when I saw what she had gotten together and how it worked together, I was totally amazed, and impressed by her skill at not only finding cast off items from another era, but how she put them together. I love decorating, and have a pretty good eye myself, but I can honestly say that not one of these things would have inspired me or caught my attention if I had seen them in a vintage store, a junk shop, or a yard sale. She found two old leather couches, that I thought had seen better days, a pair of leather chairs (Danish modern, like the couches) that didn’t look special to me until I sat on them, and they have to be the most comfortable chairs I ever sat in (and have magical powers, since every time I did during the move, I fell asleep!!! And pretty soon, we were all fighting to sit in those chairs!!! No, my turn!!!). She said she wanted an ‘industrial’ table as her dining table, and found one on-line. I had trouble imagining it, and the old iron table, with a rich dark patina, that she found is spectacular as her dining table—with wooden chairs from the 70′s that have really lovely, rounded modern lines. She found a beautiful old table on-line as her coffee table, end tables, a metal bookcase (industrial shelving), and a bronze standing ashtray I would never have looked at twice at a garage sale, a low rocking chair that is fantastic, and on and on it went. She added interesting accents and personal touches, a comfortable couch in her bedroom, and another vintage chest. All put together, by the time she was finished, it looked like a magazine spread, all put together with things she had hunted down and researched and ferreted out from unusual sources. And we even went on a special mission to find lamps at vintage stores and found some great ones. I have new respect for ‘vintage’, and particularly for how people use it today. And I was blown away by my daughter’s creative ability to see its value and beauty and how it would all work together!!! What she created is absolutely terrific, and in spite of the odd, eclectic assortment, all put together it has a beauty and warmth that I don’t think any of it had in its first lifetime, but suddenly now, it looks chic and new, attractive and really beautiful. I have become a convert and a fan!!! I think vintage is fabulous!!! And I have new respect for this generation of young people who see the beauty in it, and use it so well!!! Love, Danielle

Everyone entertains differently. A female publisher I know (married to a banker) gives beautiful, elegant dinner parties, with a fascinating mix of people, usually 20 people, at 2 tables of l0. She always hires a caterer, the food is delicious, the people are interesting, and everyone has a great time. That is top of the line as dinner parties go. Another single woman friend gives dinner parties for ten, and usually hires a funny little old lady who makes home style food, and it is always a cozy evening at her table, with people I like to meet and some I’ve seen before. She also gives ‘hot chocolate parties’ on cozy winter afternoons, when everyone is bored (EVERYTHING in France is closed on Sunday, so there is very little to do, and people are happy to have something to do on a Sunday. I often give Sunday brunches for that reason, to break the monotony of a dreary Sunday, particularly for single people who are alone). I know several people who give very elegant dinner parties, but I am always filled with admiration for those who manage it in more challenging circumstances, which shows some real effort and creativity on their part. I’m also touched that people feel a need, or a desire, to reciprocate socially in France. If I give a dinner party for a dozen people in Paris, ALL of them invite me to dinner at their homes, within several weeks after. In the States, no one does. These days in the States, when people have no help at home, they seem to prefer going to a restaurant with another couple, but they just don’t seem to invite groups of people to their home to dinner, even if they can easily afford to. It makes invitations to them seem very one-sided. You invite people to your house, and make some effort to do so, and they don’t invite you back. Three of my (single) daughters love entertaining, and give casual dinner parties often and love to do it, but they all comment that none of their friends invite them for a dinner party at their house. It seems a shame to me that the pleasure of entertaining friends seems to have become a lost art. And I think that eventually, for lack of reciprocal invitations, people eventually stop making the effort. I do most of my entertaining now in France, because it just isn’t fun entertaining people (in the States) who never invite you back. There is more give and take about it in Europe.

The two people who most impress me in Paris, in how they entertain, are two men I know, one is single/divorced and has been for many years, and the other is married, with two children. People always love to invite bachelors to their dinner parties, and it’s so nice to see one who makes the effort to invite people back!!! The single one recently invited me to an impromptu, last minute dinner at his house. He said he ‘threw’ it together at the last minute, and I was really impressed at how capably and beautifully he did it. I think he invited me to reciprocate for a couple of gatherings I had invited him to. He lives in a relatively ordinary apartment, with a small kitchen, and when I arrived, the table had been very nicely set with place mats (nothing fabulous, just nice), nice plates and glasses. He had invited 10 guests, all very interesting people (a well known journalist, a politician, an artist, an interesting mix of people, 5 women and 5 men), and he had made a simple but very good salad, had his butcher make some sort of meat dish that was easy to cook, and had made potatoes to go with it, and then served a delicious store-bought peach pie for dessert. He made it all seem very easy, made no fuss about it, the food was good, very good, even if not cordon bleu, and he made it all seem incredibly simple. He cooked and served it himself, the table looked pretty, and the guests were terrific to talk to. It did exactly what a dinner party should: it got together a group of fun, interesting people. He fed them with very little fuss, even though it cant have been easy to organize all alone, and he made it seem absolutely effortless. One didn’t get the impression that he had been slaving over it for 12 hours, it was good to eat, everything looked nice, and we all had a good time together. It was perfect, and the kind of thing that anyone can do if they make a little effort. And he said he had organized the whole thing the day before. He has a busy, stressful job, but still managed to get to his butcher and baker, toss a salad, stick the meat in the oven, make the potatoes, and serve the pie. And presto magic, a great evening was had by all. I had a terrific time!!! And I was touched to be included and that he made the effort to entertain us all.

The other man whose entertaining skills I really admire is a young man in his 30′s, married to a writer/journalist, with 2 young kids (aged 2 and 4, and are expecting a third), and he is starting his own company and really works hard.They have a very nice apartment, some really interesting art, and I always meet interesting people at their home too, from a variety of backgrounds and countries. In this case, the young husband cooks the dinner, serves it, keeps an eye on the kids and gets them to bed before we sit down to dinner. He loves to cook and the dinner is always delicious (better than any caterer), and for years I thought he had someone cooking in the kitchen and he just served it. Not at all, he does EVERYTHING, a real one man band, taking care of 2 young kids, cooking the dinner and serving it, and he probably only gets home from work shortly before he does it and the guests arrive. And once again, the charm of the evening is that he makes it feel effortless, he is part of every conversation, fully focused on his guests, and doesn’t make us feel as though he is slaving away at it, but that it’s easy and he enjoys it (and I know myself, cooking for a dozen people can be far from easy, and I am not an artful chef to say the least, which is why I either hire someone to cook, or serve pizza, salad, store bought roast chicken, and ice cream. And sometimes those evenings are the most fun!! If you don’t have help, people are very forgiving of what you serve, and just grateful that you make the effort!!). Entertaining doesn’t have to be difficult or fancy. But in the case of both these men, I am REALLY impressed by how easily and gracefully they do it. And they seem to keep in mind that the important thing is having fun with the guests and having a good time. They both remind me that you can entertain friends without driving yourself (or them) crazy, keep it simple, and provide an evening that people really enjoy coming to. It makes for such a warm, nice evening when you get invited to a friend’s house, or even someone you don’t know that well. It opens new doors, introduces you to new people, or gets you together with old friends you like. You don’t have to have a fancy chef, or even a caterer, or a fancy home set up for entertaining. You can serve pizza if you want to, but the great thing is assembling 10 or 12 people, or even 6 or 8, and sharing a lovely evening, and even inviting someone who invited you recently. I think we really have a lesson to learn here from the French, in the warm, easy, hospitable way they entertain at home, with such seeming ease. (It’s just not the same when you meet at a restaurant, and much more impersonal). It’s something I really love about France!!! It’s a real inspiration to me to see how people entertain in Paris, and maybe it will inspire you too!!! Love, Danielle

Because of my love of contemporary art, I have always wanted to go to the Art Basel fair in Switzerland every year. It is one of the, or possibly THE, biggest and most important modern and contemporary art shows in the world. It happens in Basel, Switzerland in June every year, and there is another in Miami in December. I have never been to either one, because in both cases, it’s a hard time for me to get away. December is too busy, and the show in Switzerland happens in early June when my kids are finishing their school year, or nowadays graduating. But this year, because of the World Cup Soccer games, the Basel art fair happened two weeks later than usual, and I decided with much excitement to attend. It’s about a 5 or 6 hour drive from Paris, and I decided to stay in Zurich, Switzerland, which is an hour from Basel. Zurich is a small town on the Lake of Geneva, whose main focus is around banking. The surrounding area is very pretty, and I thought it would be a fun break. I knew that Art Basel is a very, very big art fair, but in some ways had no idea what to expect. I also knew that important galleries come from all over the world to exhibit there, and that there would be well known important work, and also a separate building showing the work of new artists (just my cup of tea!!)

So on the day the show opened, off I went by car from Paris to Basel. I arrived early afternoon after a five hour drive, and went right to the fair, after a beautiful picturesque drive through the French countryside, mostly through Burgundy, with endless fields of emerald green grass, and cows grazing. Basel is right over the border from France, and in a short time, I was at the immense halls housing the art fair, and I went in, filled with excitement for what I was about to see. And the first thing I saw were immense crowds of people. To put it in perspective Art Basel is The Event of the art world every year, like the Super Bowl or the World Series or the Olympics of Art. It is a very big deal!!!

The crowds wandering through the halls as I walked in were immense. Throngs of people wandering up and down endless aisles lined with booths that had been taken by each gallery and were filled with art. I heard every imaginable language in the first five minutes, French, German, Swiss German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, some Scandinavian languages and Eastern European languages and some I couldn’t even figure out, and a smattering of English, which was sometimes the only common language as dealers spoke to clients, or to fellow dealers. There was an instant atmosphere of excitement, as people crowded through the aisles to look at the work. Among the first pieces I saw were by the “Big Hitters”: Picasso, Fernand Leger, Dubuffet, and many other very famous artists, whose work was being sold for astronomical prices, in the millions, whether Euros or dollars. It was impressive to see such important work, although what usually makes my heart throb is newer, more recent work, and by artists who are much less well known. I can neither show nor buy Picasso, so all I can do is admire it, and eventually move on to less important galleries, who show more accessible work. (The theory behind my gallery was that I wanted to make the work of unknown artists available to collectors at reasonable prices. It’s not an easy way to make money in the business—-and I didn’t—but I am always enthralled by the work of unknown artists). So while I was certainly impressed to see the beautiful work of Picasso and his peers, I was more interested in seeing the work of other artists, and kept moving down the aisles, stopping at each booth to admire the work. And when I mention ‘aisles’, you have to imagine enormous buildings, that seemed almost the size of airplane hangars, and aisles that stretched as far as the eye could see, with booth after booth after booth occupied by galleries on each side of the aisle. There were three or four aisles lengthwise, and other aisles intersecting them in a grid. And since I have a very poor sense of direction, I was lost most of the time, and just wandered down whatever aisle I was, trying to keep my journey through the art fair in order, and not succeeding most of the time!!! There was art everywhere I looked!!

Of course there weren’t just Picasso’s, there were also very famous contemporary artists like Warhol, Calder, Robert Indiana, and similar artists, all at enormous prices. The work that was shown there were for the most part big ticket items. It was a feast of art—-and if you love art, you could wander there for days. My assistant had come with me, as she is an art fan too (and went to art school, as I did, she has a masters in fine arts, and is a sculptress, and I studied design, so we share a love of art), and we wandered the hall for many hours, and then finally, we were so exhausted we had to leave. We then drove another hour to Zurich, and stayed at a beautiful hotel there called the Baur au Lac, that I had never been to either. I briefly attended school in Switzerland, at two schools in my early teens, but both were in French Switzerland, and I had never been to Zurich, which is in German Switzerland. It is a small, pretty city, on the lake of Geneva, and we spent the night at the hotel, did a little shopping in Zurich the next morning, and then headed back to Basel. Having seen all we really wanted to of the main exhibition hall the day before, we turned our attention to a second hall, where the ‘newer’ artists exhibited. And here we found ‘installations’, usually enormous set-ups of contemporary work, not the sort of thing you can carry home—-and there were many well known video artists exhibited there as well, like Bruce Connor and Bill Viola. Some of the work was very interesting, although I will confess to you that I am not a huge fan of either conceptual or video art, although I did enjoy a video installation of Bruce Connor’s about the 60′s called “Three Screen Ray”, set to the music of Ray Charles. The work in that hall was far more avant garde, a little too much for me for the most part, but it was interesting to see what’s happening on the art scene. And only the best of the best gets exhibited at Basel. My favorite, corny as it sounds, was an installation by an artist called Jack Pierson, who makes words out of old letters. He had a smaller one in the main hall, which spelled out the word “Heaven” in multi colored letters (in letters about l8″ high), which attached to a wall. And in the hall of installations, he had an installation of old letters (that looked like they came from an old theater, with bulbs in the letters, which were not lit up) that spelled the word “Romance”, the letters were set up helter skelter, some lying down, some standing up, some on their sides. The letters were three or four feet tall, and I absolutely loved it!!! I have no idea what it sold for, probably a great deal of money, since the smaller wall installation of the word ‘Heaven” was priced at $350,000. Needless to say, I did not walk out with ‘Heaven” under my arm, at those prices, nor did I drive the installation of “Romance” back to Paris in the back of my car. Neither of them were in my budget, but I loved seeing them!! I have always had a strong attraction for paintings or sculptures that include words in them. (I collect a French artist called Ben, who does paintings with words). And since my original training was in design, before I became a writer, for years I have bought colorful old letters, usually in bright colors, and make words of them—–by sheer coincidence, similar to Jack Pierson’s work, and I have done them for many years, and sometimes make them for friends, and they are always fun and gratifying to make, so I can relate to his work. I’ve never sold them, but love making them, and give them as gifts to friends. For instance, in my tiny office in Paris I have the words IDEA, LOVE, MIND, AND INSPIRED, in old letters in red, white, and blue. In my kitchen, I have the words, HAPPINESS (the letters are red ,blue, yellow, and green, none of the letters I use match, but they all look great together) ROMANCE (in red and gold), BONHEUR (in red and blue which means Happiness in French), ADORED (all red), and BEACH (yellow, green, blue ,red, white, and gold, over a photograph of a beach by Richard Mizrak). In my kids’ playroom, I have JOY, and HOT, and in my kids’ kitchen in Paris, I have FEEL, ACT,YES, NO, and the piece of the Hippocratic Oath I have always loved, DO NO HARM. So you can see why I like Jack Pierson’s work, since some of the art work I still do is in the same vein. And the other art work I still love to do are collages, involving photographs, drawings and words in sayings. Somehow art and words combine for me, and I’ve curated some art shows with work that combines words and art too. I think Jack Pierson’s work was my favorite at the show, along with Robert Indiana’s famous sculpture that spells Love, 3 feet tall, in silver.

So when we had our fill of the hall with the installations, we left. There were several other halls offering exhibits (not for sale) and lectures, but we didn’t visit them. And then we drove back to Zurich, had lunch, picked up our things and drove back to Paris (in huge rainstorms!!). It took us longer to get home, about 8 hours due to the bad weather, but it was a pretty drive through beautiful countryside even in the rain. I’m so glad I went to see Art Basel, although it was a little overwhelming, mostly because of the crowds, and the huge quantities of art being exhibited, but it was definitely worthwhile!!! It was a very serious view of some very important art, some more playful things, and some avant garde work as well. I didn’t buy anything, but it was fun to look!! So that’s my report of the Art Basel Fair. Love, Danielle

And there are all the real people we all know, some of them badly married, and some who seem to be genuinely happy.  I don’t think any of us know what the recipe for that is:  wise choices at the beginning, an enormous amount of patience, flexibility and forgiveness, luck perhaps, it’s hard to tell which marriages and which couple will ‘make it’.

I have always liked what marriage represented, and the philosophy behind it.  I believe in standing up in front of one’s community and saying ‘I love and believe in this man, I have faith in him.  I cast my lot with him, and I stand beside him proudly.’ It’s a big statement and an act of courage and always has been.  And if you speak to couples who have been married for a long, long time, many will tell you that they had a rocky patch for several years, stuck it out, and things got better—sometimes even better than before—but today, few people stick it out through the hard patch.  They throw in the towel, quit and walk away, which always seems so bad to me.  I’ve had my own failures too, and will always regret them.  I wish I had gotten married once, and been able to stick with it.  That’s not so easily done in today’s world.  Outside circumstances sometimes intervene (in my case, fame/celebrity/and success are a complicating factor), or events happen that make it impossible to continue (the discovery of an affair or some form of betrayal).  In my case, at least I’m grateful that I had long marriages, respect, affection, and admiration for each other.  But it is always sad when a marriage ends, whatever the reason.  It is an enormous loss.

Historically, we have lived through different periods and eras about marriage.  When I was a child, particularly in Europe, people didn’t get divorced, except in rare, rare cases.  Even if the marriage didn’t work, the couple stayed together, often hating each other, making snide remarks, and making it clear to everyone that they dislike each other.  That didn’t look like much fun to my generation.  So when my generation got old enough to marry, and started hitting bumps in their marriages, they remembered those unattractive couples in their childhoods (often their own parents), and thought, we’re not going there, stuck with someone we hate for 50 years of misery, so my generation got divorced—-often much too easily.  And it created a whole generation of divorced parents for our children.  And if they remarried and it got rocky again, they got divorced again.

Different cultures handled it differently.  In America, people tended to get divorced more often.  In Europe, particularly Catholic countries (like Spain, Italy and France), where divorce was legally impossible for many, many years, and much less common, couples that didn’t get along stayed together and had affairs.  It remains something of a bad habit in some of those countries.  Most Europeans still divorce less frequently (which is a good thing), but too often simply because they don’t want to spend what a divorce would cost them, so they stay together but each one goes their own way, and often take lovers, which still seems like an unfortunate solution to me, and isn’t my vision of marriage.

I am also dismayed even now by couples I know who proudly say how long they have been married, but clearly don’t like each other, and cheat on each other regularly.  As far as I’m concerned, you don’t get to brag about how long you’ve been married if it takes a tag-team to do it.  I met a man several years ago who admitted to me that he had begun cheating on his wife right after their honeymoon, and had continued to do so.  They had been married for 49 years by then, and he was extremely proud of it, even though he admitted that he had cheated on his wife for all 49 years of their marriage.  What’s the point of that?

So our children have grown up with these strange trends in marriage, grand-parents (or even parents) who stayed married and shouldn’t have, with a poisonous atmosphere in the home.  And parents of my generation who got divorced once or several times, looking for Prince Charming or Nirvana, and were always disappointed.

Our children have seen us pay alimony and complain about it, battle our ex spouses in heated divorces.  They’ve seen us disappointed and divorced—-again.  Like a contact sport with too many injuries, it’s awfully hard to convince them that it is worth signing up for the team.  Why would they?  And there are too many disappointed, bitter women out there who speak badly of men to their children, and an equal number of angry men who appear to hate women and are vocal about it.  What a hideous legacy for our children.  And happy couples appear to be in the minority these days, although we all know, admire, and even envy them.  But they seem to be few and far between, and are the exception not the rule.

So what have we taught our children?  That marriage almost never works out?  That it’s a fantasy?  That it is fraught with dangers, and far too costly, emotionally and financially?  Even if we don’t say it openly, the subliminal messages are strong.  And what do we ourselves believe now about marriage?  I am no longer sure.  And watching our mistakes and failures, why would our children want to marry and emulate us?

I want to believe in marriage.  I believe in the institution.  I believe in two people who love each other making vows to each other and sticking by them, even in tough times. I believe in tradition and solid foundations.  But most young people no longer seem to believe that.  We may say one thing to them, and have lived another, with our own failures in plain sight.

When I speak to my children and their friends, in their early 20’s about it, they are leery, skeptical, even cynical.  They no longer believe in the institutions we did.  Many would rather have children without the burdens of marriage.  They saw us burned too often, bailing out, and on the run, and in some cases failing again.  And now they don’t trust us as the spokesmen of marriage, and I can’t blame them.

As much as I believe profoundly in the institution of marriage, and always have, suddenly in good conscience, I can’t sell it to them.  My divorces were not bitter or ugly, they were civilized but heart breaking.  My kids saw me cry too often.  And do I want that for them?  Do I want to see my children disappointed, give up power to someone who may abuse them, or be unkind to them, there is always that risk.  I don’t want them hurt, and they don’t want to be hurt, as we were.  And suddenly, I realize that I no longer know what I believe.  I no longer have the conviction to say to them that I am certain marriage is the right thing.  Is it?  How do we know?  How do any of us know that this person in the right one?  It’s a complicated world today.  And we have taught our children to be independent thinkers, even if that means they don’t follow the same paths we did.

In speaking to my younger children and their friends the other day, I realized that I no longer have all the answers, or even think I do.  Instead of convincing them that the old ways are the right ones, I found myself wondering if they have the right idea for their generation.  It truly got me thinking.  Until recently, I always believed that I would be willing to marry again if I met the right person.  But would I?  Would I take that trip again, and risk all that agony and heartbreak?  I am no longer so sure.  There is no greater leap of faith and trust than marriage.  I’m no longer sure I could do that again.  But I’ve had my chance.  And the new generation deserves theirs too, even if it is fraught with risk.  They might get lucky at the roulette wheel of life.

I have always preferred the idea of being married to have children.  But even that idea has been rejected by responsible, respectable young people in many countries and cultures.  What they say to us now constantly is ‘Why?’ and as I leap in with the old answers, I lose my voice and sit thinking.  Yes, why?  Am I so sure that our answers were the right ones?  What if they weren’t?  What right do I have to impose or even share my philosophies, when they clearly did not work for an entire generation?  And sadly, I am no longer sure what does work. I don’t think anyone is sure about it.  The world has changed, mores have changed, and we can no longer sell ideas and rules that didn’t work for us either.

I never thought I would come to have an open mind on these subjects, to be less sure than I once was.  I had such iron clad convictions.  But as I listen to these young people, I want to protect them for the mistakes we made, from the hurts and disappointments.  And perhaps they have found a way to protect themselves better than we did, by not following in our footsteps.

Perhaps growing up is no longer being certain that you have all the right answers, and being open to new ideas.  The older I get, the less certain I am of all the things I used to believe in.  I am willing to believe that others may have better answers, for them at least.  And perhaps it is a form of freedom that none of us are bound by the old theories and ideas.  Each of us is free to choose now whatever works best for us.  There are and will be as many right solutions as there are people on the planet.

So when I think of ‘happily ever after’ now, I am not sure what or of whom I am thinking, or how that vision looks.  Hopefully two people who love and respect each other, and after that it’s up to them.  And whatever form of Happily Ever After they choose, they have my earnest hope and wish that it works for them.