Archive for 2012

Paris in the Summer

Posted on June 25, 2012

Hi Everyone,

It doesn’t feel like summer in Paris yet, but it is. The weather has been awful, cold, gray and rainy, but it’s still Paris, and I don’t care if it snows, I’m always happy to be here. There’s always lots to do, and the big excitement in my life is that I’m turning a playroom into a home movie room, which will be fun when my kids are home, or on winter nights, to share a pizza and watch a movie on a big screen with friends. Pretty tame pursuits!!

Other than that, I’m enjoying the usual art shows, auctions in my favorite auction house; I’m taking a little break from work, seeing friends, and doing errands for the house. I got a new couch for the movie room yesterday. It’s nice to take a break from real life, real problems, real work, deadlines, and all the pressures of daily life that are all too real most of the time. And it’s relaxing to do something mindless like buy new soap dishes, or something for the kitchen. » read more »

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Robin Roberts

Posted on June 18, 2012

Hi everybody,

I was so greatly shaken and saddened today when I heard that Robin Roberts, of Good Morning America, is facing another tough challenge. After beating breast cancer five years ago, she now has a bone marrow disease, as a result of the treatment she underwent 5 years ago for cancer. Apparently, she is beginning some form of treatment immediately, will have to go through chemotherapy again, and a bone marrow transplant. I only know what I heard on the news, so I am no better informed than anyone else. » read more »

Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Emailing, Texting, Instant Messages, and More

Posted on June 11, 2012

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m of a different generation. Technology is foreign to me, and will never be second nature as a means of communication. And even I can see the benefits of it. Instead of having to find a phone to tell someone you’re late, you can send them a text, and I can respond to emails or send them, at any crazy hour for me, despite international time differences, and without having to track someone down by phone. So I get it, and without question, it’s convenient. I can communicate with anyone I need to in business, at any hour, and respond to inquiries from them about everything from titles, to jacket covers, to music for a radio ad, or editing issues with my editor. Or communicate with my kids, without intruding on them, or calling them at a bad time at work. BUT, and there is a big BUT here, I think these modern technological conveniences are severely overused, in ways I find alarming, on the spectrum of human exchanges and relationships. I am ALL for the text saying “plane landed an hour late, I won’t be home for another hour” or “traffic on bridge, will be 20 minutes late” That kind of text message can be a godsend. » read more »

Passing the Baton

Posted on June 4, 2012

Its Memorial Day weekend, and I’m spending a relaxing, lazy weekend at my beach house in California, after a couple of weeks of hard work. The weather isn’t great, and I just took a nice walk under gray skies, enjoying the scenery, and saying hi to my neighbours, as I walked along. Until a few years ago, I owned a second house across the street, which allowed our whole family to come to the beach, with spouses and significant others and friends. We’re a big group, and having two houses worked well. And even with two houses, on many occasions, both houses were bursting at the seams. (I keep fold up rollaway beds everywhere, and inflatable mattresses, and can turn a room into a dormitory in the blink of an eye!!!) It’s the kind of overcrowded family weekend I really enjoy (you have to enjoy crowds, if you have 9 kids!!!). Although admittedly, in recent years, it doesn’t happen often to have all of us together, only on holidays or for special occasions. » read more »

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The Graduate

Posted on May 29, 2012

Another one of those major landmarks seems to have snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking.  I tend to be so busy on a daily basis, just keeping my life organized, being in touch with my kids, hoping to help them solve their problems, meeting my writing deadlines and leading my life with all its minor details, and then BLAM!!! Suddenly you are face to face with one of those moments that stop you in your tracks, and you realize that something enormously important just happened.

After working very hard, getting terrific grades, and the usual grousing about how tired she was of school and couldn’t wait to finish—–my youngest daughter just graduated from college. WOWWWWW!!!! Talk about a landmark event.  I’m not sure even she realized how momentous it would be, and for a while, like all my kids, she threatened not to ‘walk at graduation’, because it would be ‘so boring and stupid’, and then she decided to do it. (Damn right, I’ve been waiting all these years for that moment, so I could watch her walk in her cap and gown, and feel giddy as she did it!!). She was taking finals, finishing papers, and doing all the stuff people do before they graduate, and I was busy planning a family lunch for her and a party afterwards. I don’t know why, but with major events, one seems to get distracted by the details. And then suddenly, the day was here. The whole family flew in last Thursday night, and we’re a big group. » read more »

Filed Under Family | 7 Comments

On Being Both Mother and Father (of the bride)

Posted on May 21, 2012

As I mentioned to you in my last blog, we are having a wedding in the family this summer, which is a joyful event (especially since we love my daughter’s fiancé), and I’m busily planning the wedding with my daughter, and trying to attend to every detail. And I have to admit, there have been some very funny moments in doing so—-and also some immensely touching ones. Only one of my other daughters has married so far (the younger ones are still too young, by today’s standards, and even this bride is on the young side), and it’s been a while since I planned a wedding for my oldest daughter. And each bride and each wedding is different. And the thing to keep in mind is that it is her wedding, not mine. In years past, when I was young, parents commandeered the whole wedding, invited their friends, decided the style of the wedding, the food, the music, and you were lucky to have enough of your friends there to have a good time (and music that you didn’t have to be 80 years old to enjoy dancing to). Today, the bride and groom decide and run the show, which to be honest, seems right, much better, and much more fun for them (it IS their wedding!!). I had much more fun at my wedding when I married their father, than I did the first time, because we were grown up, had been previously married, and we had no parents to dictate the wedding, we ran the show. We invited our friends, chose the location and size and style of wedding we wanted, and we had a ball, and so did all our friends. » read more »

Life, In Real Time

Posted on May 14, 2012

Hi Everybody!

It’s still rainy, cold and gray in Paris—-what kind of May is this? People write love songs and have dreams about spring in Paris, and none of them include long-johns and umbrellas!!! And either there is some kind of worldwide lousy weather thing happening, or I’m cursed, since I arrived from the same kind of unseasonable weather in New York, Los Angeles before that (pouring rain and freezing cold), and 3 weeks of miserable cold weather in San Francisco. And to top it off, I’m going to New York in 2 days, checked the weather, sure it would be balmy and warm with spring in full swing, and discovered that the weather in New York is more of the same. Yerghk!!! I hope it warms up and dries out somewhere that I am soon, since I’m heading off on my usual rounds to see the kids. » read more »

Filed Under Family, Kids | 1 Comment

Spring?

Posted on May 7, 2012

Having grown up alone with an older father, and married two men who were twenty years older than I (who often had friends even older than they), I have often spent my life with considerably older people, and discovered (to my dismay when I was very young) that older people have 3 favorite subjects of conversation: how well they slept the night before, how well their digestive systems are working, and the weather. I always found all 3 topics incredibly boring, but maybe I’m slipping over the edge now too. I’ve never had trouble sleeping and sleep very little (I don’t need more than 4 or 5 hours a night), my digestive system has always worked fine and I pay no attention to it (and find it an appalling topic of conversation), which leaves the weather. And I find that lately, I’m getting obsessed with that. I left Paris more than » read more »

Filed Under Paris, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

May Day in Paris

Posted on April 30, 2012

As I’ve mentioned before, May Day (the first of May) is a big deal in France, and it is to me as well, for several reasons. It’s the French equivalent of Labor Day, and often the French get to do what they call ‘make a bridge’, like this year the 1st of May falls on Tuesday, so everything will be closed all week end, Monday (the bridge), and Tuesday (the actual holiday). It’s a particularly nice holiday, because everyone gives everyone else ‘lily of the valley’ for good luck. they are sold in little pots, bouquets, or just a sprig, and there are vendors on nearly every street corner selling them, with the delicate scent of lily of the valley fragrant in the air. » read more »

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Spring Cleaning

Posted on April 23, 2012

Hi Everyone,

Here I am—-doing closets again!!! Spring Cleaning!!! I always question why I do them (other than the fact that closets get messy), and I think there are two reasons why I take such pleasure in cleaning out and reorganizing closets. For one thing, it’s something you can control. None of us can fully control our lives, people come and go, things happen, the unexpected and unpredictable turns our lives upside down (romances that go awry, children who worry us, bumps in our careers, lost clients, lost jobs, and all the things that stress us everyday), but when you tidy up your closets, you feel like you’re the master of the situation, you get to make choices, decide where you want to put things, and what you want in your life and what you don’t. You can dispose of every outfit you feel fat or ugly in, the fashion mistakes, the things you bought on a bad day, look at later and wonder what you were thinking. » read more »

Filed Under Uncategorized | 5 Comments

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