4/29/19, Hudson Yards and May Day

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a good week last week. I was on the move again, and spent a couple of days in New York, with two of my daughters. (Always fun for me!!) And I visited a really fascinating new area recently opened and still under development, with lots of construction going on. It’s fun to see new and different things!!!

The area is Hudson Yards, possibly the biggest shopping mall in the country. it’s an area that goes for about five blocks on the West Side of New York, in the 30’s (from 30th to 34th Street), and is about as wide, near the Hudson River. It is built above the train tracks running under ground, and is a vast area of really beautiful new buildings, housing apartments, offices, and a huge complex of stores. There is also a fascinating structure, a GIANT sculpture that looks like a honeycomb, with stairs and people walk up and down and all through the structure. (I’m guessing that it was about 10 stories high, possibly more). The buildings were all strikingly modern and beautiful, none of them identical, but each one remarkable and different, and yet all together they were a harmony of the best of modern architecture. (And we checked out Neiman Marcus briefly, which was fun too!!!) Although even new structures can be somewhat uninteresting at times, I found the whole grouping of buildings REALLY beautiful. It’s a very impressive development, with many buildings still under construction. It covers 28 acres, and 18 million square feet. It’s really worth seeing if you’re going to New York. I was enormously impressed.!!!

Other than that, my new book “Blessing in Disguise” is out, about a mother and her three adult daughters (by 3 different fathers) and how different they are—just as different as their fathers were. It takes a close look at mother/daughter relationships, how challenging and rewarding they can be. I hope it will be the perfect Mother’s Day Gift for anyone on your list—-and a good read for you any time!!!

This week I will be celebrating May Day, on May 1st. It’s a big national holiday in France, and is actually Labor Day. But it’s considered a very special lucky day. Street vendors everywhere sell sprigs of lily of the valley on that day, which you give to people for good luck!!! The air smells delicious all day with the scent of lily of the valley everywhere!!! It’s a particularly special day for me because it’s the birthday of my late son Nick. It was a perfect day for a birthday. I invite friends to dinner every year on that day, just close friends, for a quiet dinner, to remember his birthday and what a very special sweet boy he was. I loved the fact that he was born on May Day. And we’ll have lily of the valley on the table at dinner.

I hope this is an especially nice week for you, with happy things happening and fun things to do.

Have a great week!!

love, Danielle