Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

New Addition

Posted on October 14, 2013

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to share with you that I’ve done it again!!! Not a husband, not a baby……but three weeks ago in New York, I stopped at the place where I found Minnie, and fell in love with an 8 week old, 14 oz teacup Chihuahua puppy…..a short haired in an unusual color called “Blue”, which is kind of a dark steel gray color (no pun intended). I’ve wrestled with the idea for 3 weeks, not wanting to make the teacup Chihuahua I have now, Minnie, unhappy. I love her and don’t want her to be jealous or feel pushed out. My kids (those I admitted it to) said I was crazy (but they always do about another dog), and they said that travelling with two dogs would be too hard, and they could be right, but I’ll manage. I used to travel with 9 kids, so 2 Chihuahuas shouldn’t be impossible……and you know how love is….I picked her up yesterday, and she and Minnie seemed to like each other, and they played yesterday and this morning. So here I go again, I have a puppy in my life. She is now 11 weeks old, weighs a pound and a half. I think she’ll be a little bigger than Minnie (who weighs 2 lbs now as an adult). It’s a complication I don’t need to my otherwise well organized life, but as I’ve said before, love is complicated, life is complicated….and why not? So here we go. I will include a photo for you here. Right now, she is mouse-sized. I named her Baby Blue Angel, and we’ll probably call her Blue. So here she is.

love, danielle

Filed Under Dogs, Family | 7 Comments

Happy Days

Posted on July 8, 2013

Hi Everyone,

What a treat I had this week, a throwback to another time in my life and total joy.

Although my kids had been to Euro Disney several times when they were younger, during our summers in France, I was always busy when we were in Paris, and used the treat of a trip to Euro Disney as a plan to keep them occupied for a fun day when I had grown up things to do. And when they were kids, we went to Disneyland in California every year and of course I went with them and we all loved it. But I had never been to Euro Disney here, and have not been to any of the Disney parks in about 15 years since my kids grew up. And I was thrilled when recently my Goddaughter’s father invited me to join her and her brother and sister for a day at Euro Disney, which they had never been to before either. It sounded like a huge amount of fun to me, with children who were going to discover it for the first time at ages 3, 6 and 9, the perfect age for all that joyful magic, Minnie, Mickey, Goofy, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, Aladdin, you can’t beat that. So with delight, I accepted the invitation, put it on my calendar in big letters, and waited for the day to come. And it came this week.

We set off at 9:30am, happily in a van big enough for the kids and adults, were at Euro Disney, less than an hour outside Paris, shortly after 10, and the fun began. I will admit that, much to my delight, 2 VIP guides had been arranged, and they made everything that happened that day easier for all of us. It may be an elitist way to enjoy Disneyland, but let’s face it with 3 little kids, summer crowds, and long lines at every ride, some help was greatly appreciated to shorten the lines, get in through back entrances at times, and take us on some short cuts across the park, two parks in fact, since Disney now has a second park there dedicated to movies and the old movie studios (with some scary rides thrown in that one of the kids and several of the adults loved—-I not being one of them. I am happiest on rides best suited for 6 year olds, and you’ll never find me on a roller coaster or some scary ride that plummets you from a great height toward the ground. I even skipped the Dumbo ride in Fantasyland because I don’t like heights. The three and six year olds and I loved all the same rides!! And the nine year old outclassed me by a mile.) » read more »

Play Ball!!!!

Posted on April 8, 2013

Hi Everyone,

I had SO MUCH FUN I had to share it with you!!! My youngest son is an avid sports fan, particularly baseball, and he thrilled me by taking me to a playoff game last fall, before the San Francisco Giants went to the World Series, and won!!! I was in Europe during the World Series, and there was a friend I called several times during every game, at crazy late hours for me, so I could follow the scores. And I was ecstatic for the team and my son when they won!!! It was a major moment for the Giants and their fans!!! And I was sorry not to see those games because I was away. » read more »

Filed Under Family | 4 Comments

Paris Fashion Week, Part 1

Posted on March 4, 2013

Hi Everyone,

It’s that crazy time of year again, which happens twice a year (In Sept/Oct and Feb/March): Ready to Wear Fashion Week, which is a misnomer right there, since it’s really Fashion Month, not Fashion Week, and is actually one week in each of four cities: New York, London, Milan, Paris. And store buyers and fashion editors and journalists race through a week of intense fashion shows in each city, then fly onto the next one, and by the end of 4 weeks, everyone looks frazzled and is exhausted. It is an intense event in the fashion world. The clothes being shown each season are for 6 months later (so what I am seeing on the runways now will be sold in stores in September for the fall and winter. » read more »

Filed Under Family, Fashion, Paris | 7 Comments

The Many Faces of New Year’s Eve

Posted on December 31, 2012

When my children were small, my husband John and I would let them ‘stay up til midnight’, which was Big excitement for them!! What they didn’t know was that we set our clocks ahead, and ‘midnight’ was really about 9 pm, when we would serve them ginger ale when they were really young, and later non-alcoholic champagne. They would blow horns and rattle noise-makers, jump around and ‘celebrate’, and by 10 pm (for real, although they thought it was 1 am), we would get them all in bed, and then he and I would happily fall into bed in our pajamas, eat popcorn and watch old movies on TV, and finish off the ginger ale (neither of us drank alcohol).  I had absolutely no desire to get dressed up, go out, or dance the new year in. I was totally happy at home with my husband and kids. New Year’s had never been a night that particularly appealed to me. With drunk drivers on the roads, rowdy people partying, it just never seemed like much fun to me, and I was much happier at home. » read more »

Filed Under Family, Holidays, Kids | 11 Comments

Happy Merry

Posted on December 24, 2012

Christmas. Just the word evokes so many memories. Good ones, sad ones, the excitement of Christmas as a child. Maybe more than any other, it is a word that evokes something different for each of us. The Christmas cards and snow scenes look the same, but the memories don’t. There are as many interpretations of the holidays as there are people in the world. For some, it was a magical time in their childhood and youth, and still is as adults. For others, it was bitterly disappointing as children, but has improved. For some it is the loneliest time of the year, and for others the time they most look forward to, when their family gets together.   A friend of mine remarried several years ago, she had children and so did her new husband, but their traditions were completely different, she had always overdone Christmas with lots of fun and decorations, their new family’s style was more austere, with few gifts and almost no decorations. They tried to compromise and find a middle ground on their first Christmas together, and she called me to report that all the children, his and hers, had wound up crying on Christmas Day, as one of them said in a wail, “Can’t we have a NORMAL Christmas?”  A “Normal” Christmas, or holiday, is different to each of us. Even in the same family, people have different ideas about how it should be. » read more »

Filed Under Family, Holidays, Kids | 6 Comments

Heartfelt Thanks

Posted on December 10, 2012

Hi everyone. So many of you have written such sweet posts and good wishes to my daughter who lost her home in Hurricane Sandy, that I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you. It was a shocking, traumatic experience, and a great loss to her.  Most of all I am grateful that both of my daughters in New York are alive, and weren’t physically injured. And their dogs survived it too. But one step beyond that, there are the things we cherish, the memories attached to things we have saved or collected, and the nest we build as a safe haven from the world. Losing that haven is like having a layer of yourself ripped away, and I have watched with sadness and dismay how saddened and displaced my daughter felt when she lost her home. It’s like being a turtle without a shell. And we question ourselves for being attached to material objects, a favorite chair, a dress we loved that something important happened to you when you were wearing, photographs of beloved people that can’t be replaced, and it hurts to lose the things we love. Right or wrong, a piece of our identity is wrapped up in those things, and it is hard to lose any of that. I know that time will heal the wounds, but it was a catastrophic event for so many. And to reassure those of you who asked about my daughter, she is okay. I’m sure it is a time in her life that she will never forget, but she is grateful to be alive. As bad as it was, it could have been worse, and has been for many people, particularly those who lost loved ones. But thank you with all my heart for asking about my daughter and sending good wishes. We truly appreciate it, and I have passed your kind thoughts on to her. » read more »

Giving Thanks

Posted on November 19, 2012

I like the idea of a holiday based on giving thanks and gratitude. There is something so healing and loving about it, a holiday where we don’t focus on ourselves and moan about how old we’re getting, or get presents, but a holiday where we reach out to others, to include them. We all have that Norman Rockwell vision of Thanksgiving, with a golden turkey on the table, and smiling family gathered around the table, and we also know that holidays don’t always work out that way, and can be fraught with stress, strife or disappointment or bitterly lonely for some. (Even the turkey can be challenging. One year, we dropped the turkey off the platter and it slid across the floor, to everyone’s horror. We took it out to the kitchen, dusted it off, reappeared trying to look ‘normal’ about it, and it was delicious anyway. Another year, my cleaning person at the time decided that the turkey was in the way in the refrigerator and put it in the freezer without telling me, and when I went downstairs at six in the morning to start cooking it, it was frozen solid, like a boulder, and I had to run around buying enough chickens to feed my family. We skipped the turkey that year. So from a culinary standpoint, we’ve had our comic moments around Thanksgiving). » read more »

So Much Fun!!!

Posted on October 15, 2012

I had so much fun the other night, I had to share it with you.  My youngest son is an avid sports fan (especially baseball and football), and very kindly invited me to a Playoffs game between the SF Giants and the Cincinnati Reds. And I was thrilled to go. I haven’t been to a baseball game since his next oldest brother used to take me to games in his teens. So it was a big deal to me to be invited to the first Playoff game by my son (we’ve never been to a baseball game together before), and I was very touched to be asked.  I got a stern admonition before the game to wear black and orange, definitely NOT red (good thing he warned me!!), and I figured I’d look a little Halloween, but what the hell. With an invitation like that, I was going to do what I was told, and I did. I dug out two orange sweaters because I figured it would be cold, a bright orange wool scarf, black pants and a warm black coat (SF can get windy, foggy, and bitter cold at night, even in the summer, and it wasn’t freezing but it did get chilly).    » read more »

Playing Catch Up

Posted on October 8, 2012

Hi Everyone, I’ve been busy writing, and catching up on work. It’s a sharp contrast to my Paris life where I work, but I play too. When I get back to California, it’s nose to the grindstone time!! But I wanted to check in with you.

I had some legal things to take care of when I got home, which is never fun. I went to the dentist, not highly amusing, but only a cleaning. I go to the dentist, (with terror), always prepared to hear that my head is falling off—-you mean you didn’t know? It’s silly of me, because I have an incredibly nice/good dentist, who has a wonderful hygienist, but I get nervous anyway. I guess most people do. (My late husband John was one of those people who made 5 hour dentist appointments, just to get it all out of the way at once (I would rather go 10 times for half an hour!!).   I went to pick him up once after some rugged dental surgery, he was fine, and I passed out cold in the elevator just thinking about what they’d done to him.  But anyway, I got my teeth cleaning out of the way when I got back. » read more »

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