January 2015 – Page 2 – *the gratitude-a-thon

gratitude-a-thon day 522: What I know for sure, Take II

January 21, 2015January 21, 2015UncategorizedLeave a Comment

Hey, I realized know more than I thought.

25. Good lighting is like plastic surgery. Carry your own if you have to.

26. Fresh flowers. Class dismissed.

27. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels, except crusty French bread, al dente pasta, and full fucking fat cheese.

28. Bloomingdales return policy is the best thing sing Jesus returned from the dead.

29. Good tv can entertain, enlighten, educate, and prevent you from relocating in the middle of the night during a miserable New England winter.

30. Having a smart phone, is like carrying the whole world around in your pocket, but much less heavy.

31. I WAS RIGHT. I never have used algebra, geometry, or calculus in my real life.

32. When car shopping, spring for the heated seat option.

33. Always try and catch either the sunrise, or the sunset. Bonus points for both.

34. Music is like perfume for your ears.

35. A king sized bed is a king sized luxury.

36. Losing a loved one gets easier after the first year (note the word “easier,” not easy).

37.Encouragement. The end.

38. A long marriage is a lot of work (it’s a lot of other things, too, but I know for sure it’s a lot of work).

39. Getting your first period is horrible. Getting your last one is amazing.

40. Dunkin’ Donuts coffee is better than Starbucks. There, I said it.

41. It would be nice to have my 26 year old face back. But with my 56 year old brain inside of it.

42. Enthusiasm and optimism are the two girls everybody wants at the party.

43. You can get anything in New York, and on the next block you can get it cheaper.

44. Traditions matter.

45. Girlfriends. Lots of them. Forever.

46. Treat people as you would like to be treated.

47. Climate change is really happening.

48. A girl cannot have too many jean jackets.

49. Or diamonds.

50. Feel yourself up. It could save your ta ta’s and your life.

51. Reading is like getting to be other people, live in other places, and learn super cool stuff without having to go to class.

52. Atrium White, Dove White. Benjamin Moore.

53. Time speeds up as you get older, so celebrate when appropriate (and inappropriate, too).

54. Curiosity is like the damn fountain of youth. Creativity is its gorgeous sister.

55. Volunteer. Volunteer. Volunteer.

56. Gratitude is gosh darn EVERYTHING.

gratitude-a-thon day 521: what i know for sure, or don’t skip the fucking cake

January 20, 2015January 20, 2015Uncategorized6 Comments

Oprah does it every month, so I thought here, the week of my 56th birthday (holy shit, fifty fucking six), I would tell you, What I Know For Sure (not that much, but a couple things).

1. Having a career you love is really something. Having people you love is everything.

2. Good hair always helps.

3. A dog is the best kind of people there are.

4. Fuck the forecasters, black is the new black. And it always will be.

5. A sunny day is an instant mood elevator. Take it to the top floor.

6. Nobody’s life is perfect. NO, NOBODY’S. I’LL SAY IT AGAIN, NOBODY’S.

7. A good bra. That is all.

8. Laughing daily might be one of the best things you ever do for yourself or others.

9. Exercising everyday will make you, and your health happier. (Dancing around your house like someone on the verge of a breakdown counts.)

10. Good coffee, or no coffee.

11. It really is about how we respond.

12. White teeth are a de-ager.

13. Crest white strips really work.

14. WORRYING DOES NOT HELP. I REPEAT, WORRYING DOES NOT HELP. Acknowledging a specific worry, and taking action on it, does.

15. Cellulite is not a character flaw.

16. Happiness is a choice you make everyday, every hour, every minute.

17. The beach is as forgiving, and life-affirming a place as there is on the planet.

18. Having kids is like having a great teacher for the rest of your life.

19. Karma is always lurking, act accordingly.

20. Essie’s nail polish color Waltz looks good on everybody.

21. A tan in a can can give you a sunny glow and save your ass from getting skin cancer.

22. Jewelry. Period.

23. Being nice can transform the world. (Think about if everybody was.)

24. Smiling can move mountains. (BIG, BIG mountains.)

25. With every birthday, we are closer to the end of our lives: DON’T SKIP THE FUCKING CAKE.

gratitude-a-thon day 520: He had a dream

January 19, 2015UncategorizedLeave a Comment

I’m endlessly fascinated by what makes one person unable to hold a job, and another able to hold the attention of a nation (I have no answers, just the question). Martin Luther King was was bigger than his body, a man who was able to create change, mold beliefs, and transform a country. His words are so important, we can call them up from memory, and do, routinely. His dream, a dream that seems to go in and out of focus, has become a historical touchpoint.

Mr. King, thank you for bringing us as far as you did. I wish you weren’t taken so soon, sadly, we still have miles to go.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
‘I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
‘I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.
‘I have a dream today!”

gratitude-a-thon day 519: not having to get up

January 18, 2015January 18, 2015Uncategorized1 Comment

Sleeping late is one of the top great joys of this here life. The ability to just let your natural rhythm decide when you will get out of your cozy bed, is a five star dinner, free luxury, good as a summer day slipped into a Boston winter (it’s 30 out right now, slated to be 43 tomorrow, if I wore bikinis, I’d be out there in one now, lucky for mankind, I do not).

We are empty nest practicing right now, since Ally jetted off with her friend to visit her friend’s grandmother in Arizona. Yes, Ally is sporting summer clothes, swimming, and hiking amidst cactus and desert. Jake called yesterday causing down Pacific Coast Highway, on his way to Malibu Beach.

Peter and I both have colds, but we are sleeping late. Our form of sunshine. Gratitude for that.

gratitude-a-thon day 517: long lost small bites friday

January 16, 2015Uncategorized6 Comments

Because I love Adam, and this is just too fun. I don’t know, the people in this thing are a little too beautiful, but if it’s real, fucking wow. And if it’s not, it still made me smile all day yesterday, so there’s that. Plus, I can’t stop singing the song.

Because it’s a beautiful place to live (except when it’s winter, and it’s too damn cold). Take a look at Boston.

Check this out–in the category of seriously? I have all I can do to get to the real gym.

I saw a robin hopping around the snow in my backyard yesterday. A harbinger of spring? GAWD, I HOPE SO.

The Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert has a blog. She is lovely. I think for realz, she is just a lovely human being.

What a nice idea. We need more of this. Pizza for all!

gratitude-a-thon day 516: gobble, gobble

January 15, 2015January 15, 2015Uncategorized2 Comments

546f77aab7fbc — Turkeys cruise around Brookline, like they think they’re on old McDonald’s farm.

There are turkeys in Brookline, and I’m not talking about on sandwiches. I’m talking about wild turkeys, and I”m not talking about the whiskey either. Real, live turkeys. A whole big family of them. Brookline, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, is about 20 minutes from downtown Boston, which means it’s 20 minutes away from a place turkeys should only be found at the Symphony Hall Whole Foods, or the Prudential’s Star Market. But even though Brookline is a completely inappropriate place for them to live, I kind of love that they live here.

10392463_1640531049507223_672416774331051104_n — My neighbor captured this one sitting on my porch the week of Thanksgiving.

Like, I was just sitting at my desk today, gazing out the window, trying to will the sun t comet, and avoid working, if you must know, and there was a turkey bobbling around my neighbor’s yard. This somehow just perked me right up, made me smile, and lastly wonder, as I always do when I see them, how they have managed not to get flattened by the myriad of cars that speed around town.

I haven’t pinpointed exactly what it is about seeing the turkeys that gives me a little lift, but I’m sure it has something to do with the absurdity, the wrongness of their locale, the sweetness of the people who stop their cars while the turkeys parade across the street, sometimes taking as long as five minutes. I once got caught in a turkey gathering in the middle of the road near our house, and Ally actually had to get out of the car and try and guide the determined-to-stay-right-where-they-were group out of the street so I could drive past. It made us giggle and stop our day to consider the wild life in our midst. And maybe that’s part of what’s so nice about having them around, they do make you stop. And stopping is good. Grateful the whole feathered fam, which I have hosted in my yard, for apparent loud Italian get togethers, came to roost here.

gratitude-a-thon day 515: transparent

January 14, 2015UncategorizedLeave a Comment

One of the best shows I’ve seen all year, isn’t on a network, or even on cable. It’s not on Netflix, either. It’s on Amazon Prime. And if you don’t have it, get it. This show is extraordinary, and might be one of the top ten things I’ve ever seen, EVER.

“Transparent,” is about Jeffrey Tambour, who does not play his role as a man transitioning to a woman in his sixties, for laughs, but rather, plays it poignantly, thoughtfully, with a shit ton of heart and some bold fashion statements. As a divorced father of three, the revelation that dad wants to become a woman makes everyone rather “transparent” about what’s going on in their own lives. And while there are plenty of laughs, the overall effect is soulful and sad, but also honest and hopeful.

Tambour, usually a dry funny guy, is straight here (no pun intended). He is not a drama queen, instead he seems to be a real person going through a complicated thing that he hopes will finally make him whole. He just won a golden globe for this role.

It’s 13 degrees out, and if you’re like me, tv helps these horrible winter months pass until we get back to the good stuff. Watch this show. Tell me what you think.

gratitude-a-thon day 514: they come and they go and they come and they go

January 13, 2015January 13, 2015UncategorizedLeave a Comment

College catalogs and S.A.T. books litter your kitchen. Discussions of scores and GPA’s and weather, and campuses become the norm. Conversations about dorms and frats, and majors never seem to get boring, but the incessant dissection of a college’s attributes contributes to the generalized anxiety plaguing everyone in a home that houses a high school senior.

The push to get the applications in isn’t easy. Unless you have an organized kid. which I do not. So, you cajole, beg, plead, and finally cry. They get in, those essays and apps, with an entire 45 seconds to spare.

Then you wait.

And wait.

The first round of Early Decision kids up the stress level as word spreads like mono around the school. Acceptances, deferments, disappointments. You’re in or you’re out. It’s Project Runway without Heidi Klum.

You wait some more. Meanwhile you note the “last” everything you do before college. The last time you’ll vacation, get a haircut, go see Aunt Ethel (you don’t even have an Aunt Ethel).

All the while you hate yourself for wondering, “Is my kid good enough?” Why exactly didn’t you send them to Russian math school? Why didn’t you let them get those light up sneaker in kindergarten? Should you have nursed longer? (You should have, you know you should have. They’ll never get into a good school because you didn’t nurse long enough.) You become obsessed with how to react to rejection, because you know how to react to acceptance (You will have a small parade of 984,321 if there is an acceptance, ANY ACCEPTANCE).

And then you silently wonder, or not so silently wonder how it will be without your child in your house? How they will cope? HOW YOU WILL COPE?

How you will live.

And then it happens and they’re in. They’re into their number one long shot first choice, and they can’t believe it and you can’t believe it and for a good long time the excitement of this seeming miracle is like finding out that Aunt Ethel has left you an inheritance the size of Nebraska. You float. You feel vindicated for every parenting move you have ever made (nursing be damned). You feel proud of your brilliant offspring. You order a tuition worth of t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats with the college your child has just been accepted to emblazoned on the front (because you realize this may be the last clothing purchase you can afford for the next four years.)

And then they go. And you cry. Tell me if you don’t cry. Because if you don’t cry, you probably run on batteries. But then you stop crying and you start adjusting. And they call, and you call, and you wonder at night if they are safe, but you can’t know, because you forgot to microchip them before they left.

Then you see them and they’re the same, but different. And it’s so good to see them that you want to squeeze them until they can’t breathe. (and then you could keep them home!) But you don’t, you know you have to give them a long leash on this, the first time they come back. And you have a sort of up and down time, because things are a little topsy turvy now, with the new independence that’s been their life at school, mixed with the old life that’s been their life since they were born. And when they leave, you cry again. Because you were just getting used to them being home and then, just like that, they’re once again, not.

And this continues to happen. And you get a little smarter with each visit. You realize there is an adjustment each time you see them. They’ve grown and you, too have grown. You’re used to having their room clean, and you shudder a little when you see the clothes piled up like Mount Fujiama. They don’t think they need a curfew. You push and you pull. After a few days, you adjust. Again. Again, you adjust. And again, you say goodbye. And fuck it, again, if you don’t cry.

And this is what it is. This is what college is for we parents. They go. They come back. They love you, and hate you, and admire you, and disregard you, and separate, and hold tighter, and show off, and act aloof, insecure, despondent, silly, funny, out of their ever loving minds, completely and totally sane.

And every time they leave, a little part of you leaves too. And you’re blue for a day or two, until you remember that they can do it, they can do this thing you’ve been preparing them near 15 years for, they can do the college thing.

And so can you.

gratitude-a-thon day 513: golden globes: the best and the worst dressed

January 12, 2015January 12, 2015Uncategorized2 Comments

And it’s the Golden Globes red carpet roundup. Who was blindfolded when they left the house and who hit it outta L.A? Who schooled us in fashion, and who flunked out?

Let’s start with the Worst Dressed. It’s so much more fun.

1. The clear winner here is obvious. Keira Knightly made worst dressed history, right alongside Bjork’s swan dress. What’s that noise? It’s Joan Rivers talking about how ugly this dress is.

1. The conversation between stylists for Keira Knightly:

Stylist 1: “You know what would be really funny, if we intentionally tried to make her look bad.”

Stylist 2: “She’s too gorgeous, you can’t make her look bad.”

Stylist 1: “Wanna make a bet?”

Stylist 2: “You’re on.”

Stylist 1 wins. This combination of Christmas Tree skirt, combined with your nature-loving grandmother’s curtains is so preposterously bad that it’s truly hard to believe the 30 people at Chanel who made this weren’t part of a terrorist plot. This thing is so ugly, the butterflies on it wanted to fly away.

2. I love you Tina Fey, but you were clearly still writing jokes when you left the house and forgot to see what your people put on you.

Gosh darn it, Tina is brilliant and brainy and downright beautiful, but this dress is like a high school prom reject. It’s dowdy. It’s cheap looking. It gave her arm vaginas. You’re a big star, Tina, but this is just a big disaster.

3. Zosia Mamet. Oy, Shosh.

Was anybody styling this girl? If so, were they actually awake when they picked out this ill fitting, Pepto Bismal-bottomed hot mess? Oh, you used Lena Dunham as your stylist. Now I get it.

4. Julianna Margulies. No. No. And no.

Wow, you’re giving George Clooney a lifetimes achievement award and you’re wearing this? Why not your bathrobe? First of all a red dress with black shoes is so wrong. Secondly, this matronly, totally lackluster dress looks like it was purchased off the rack in the post holiday Talbots sale section. You’re beautiful, Julianna, but even you couldn’t make this unforgettable look memorable.

5. Clare Danes. Shame on you.

Valentino Shmaletino, yes, I know it’s real feathers, but this thing is for the birds. It doesn’t fit, first of all. What, she couldn’t afford a tailor, as a nominee for the Golden Globes? The sheer piece kept wrinkling up, which is not the effect a sheer piece is going for. And could the colors be much more dreary? It’s like the weather in Boston, dark and ugly. I did, however, adore the earrings she wore, which were a fabulous shade of blue and matched her eyes in a striking way, but as for this dress,well,there’s always next year.

6. Alison Williams. A dress as bad as that live production of Peter Pan.

I think red is hard to wear to start with, so already I was put off. The dress fits beautifully, and in another color, I might have loved this confection. But let’s look at her face. This is a very beautiful girl. She looks like a man. An ugly man. Let’s just say Jeffrey Tambor looked better as a transitioning woman in Transparent than Alison Williams looked last night. ‘Nuff said.

And on to the less snarky, less fun, but much more visually arresting Best.

1. Amal Ammudin. White glove treatment.

I mean, as if showing up with George Clooney on your arm isn’t enough to elevate your look, Amal did a whole modern day Audrey Hepburn thing, and it was flawless. I do not think this woman is beautiful. I think she has a gorgeous body, a brilliant mind, and a shy and charming manner. She is, what I would call, adorably handsome. She is my number one, I think it was the gloves that pushed me over the edge (or maybe it was George).

2. Leslie Mann. An all-around hit.

No, I don’t love yellow. But this look was perfect from head to toe. Her hair is great. The fit is great. The overall look is a sunny day in L.A.

3. Gosh, I don’t like Katherine Heigl, but this dress, that’s a different story.

Ever since she left Grey’s Anatomy with that holier-than-thou big attitude about her talent, she’s been on my naughty list, but as much as I dislike Katherine Heigl, her dress last night was on my nice list. The fit was right on and the whole look came together for a big freaking A+.

4. Kate Beckinsale can pretty much do no wrong.

First of all, there’s the body. Second of all, there’s the face. But putting them aside, there’s the dress, which I just love for its sophistication and sparkle. I love a blingy situation, and this has just enough to make me swoon.

5. Michele Monaghan. It’s simple, and that’s why I like it.

This isn’t a complicated look, but that’s what’s nice about it for me. I love a simple line, and that’s what this is. I think her healthy, shiny hair, and her lack of jewels makes her look like she wasn’t trying too hard, but just enough.

6. Sienne Miller. What a doll.

Sienna’s face always gets me. She is just so damn sunny looking. But this dress, while a tad too big on the top for my liking, is really just insanely beautiful. It’s intricate without being overdone. And this hair is modern without being cray cray. LOVE.

Ok, so what did you like? Tell me, tell me, tell me.