My closest friend in SF, my best friend for many many years, and an incredibly wise, wonderful and often funny woman, has a terrific saying about dating. “You meet someone you think is the love of your life, and then you see him eat a lamb chop, like a cannibal, and never want to see him again.” She calls it The Lamb Chop Factor. » read more »
Archive for 2011
Weekend in Amsterdam
Posted on May 2, 2011
After visiting the antique fair in Maastricht, Holland (a brief and easy 3 hour drive from Paris), I decided to stay in Amsterdam for the weekend, to discover a new city. This is very adventuresome for me, since I usually hang around home, whether in Paris or San Francisco. But alone in Paris for the month, I decided to do something different for a change, and weekends are very quiet in Paris. And it is so easy to hop from country to country in Europe, often after a very short drive. On the way to Holland, » read more »
Filed Under Travel | 10 Comments
Fantastic Antique Fair
Posted on April 25, 2011
For years, I have wanted to see the biggest and most impressive, and best known antique fair in Europe, which happens in Maastricht, Holland every year. The Paris Biennale is incredibly impressive too, and happens every other year in Paris in September, and I always enjoy it. But Maastricht is supposed to be the very best there is, and it’s yearly, in March. Although I am usually in Paris for the month of March, somehow I always get busy doing other things. My college age kids have spring break then, and I try to convince them to come to Paris and sometimes succeed, and my three daughters » read more »
Filed Under Art, Travel | 5 Comments
Weekend in Deauville
Posted on April 18, 2011
Hi Everybody,
I recently experienced a relaxing weekend at a beach town in Normandie. It’s still cold in France, but it was fun to get away even in winter. Deauville is a pretty, old fashioned beach town, about an hour and a half’s drive from Paris. Lovely beach, some beautiful old hotels, a main street full of shops, and a lively Casino. It was gray and drizzly for most of the weekend, but fun to be there anyway. » read more »
Filed Under Travel | 7 Comments
Happy Birthday
Posted on April 12, 2011
Happy Birthday
In Stores: July 19, 2011
Valerie Wyatt is the queen of gracious living and the arbiter of taste. Since her long-ago divorce, she’s worked hard to reach the pinnacle of her profession and to create a camera-ready life in her Fifth Avenue penthouse. So why is she so depressed? All the hours with her personal trainer, the careful work of New York’s best hairdressers, cosmetic surgeons, and her own God-given bone structure and great looks can’t fudge the truth or her lies about it: Valerie is turning sixty.
Valerie’s daughter, April, has no love life, no rest, and no prospect of that changing in the foreseeable future. Her popular one-of-a-kind restaurant in downtown New York, where she is chef and owner, consumes every ounce of her attention and energy. Ready or not, though, April’s life is about to change, in a tumultuous transformation that begins the morning it hits her: She’s thirty. And what does she have to show for it? A restaurant, no man, no kids.
Jack Adams once threw a football like a guided missile. Twelve years after retiring from the NFL, he is the most charismatic sports analyst on TV, a man who has his pick of the most desirable twentysomething women. But after a particularly memorable Halloween party, Jack wakes up on his fiftieth birthday, his back thrown out of whack, feeling every year his age.
A terrifying act of violence, an out-of-the-blue blessing, and two extremely unlikely love affairs soon turn lives inside out and upside down. In a novel brimming with warmth and insight, beginning on one birthday and ending on another, Valerie, April, and Jack discover that life itself can be a celebration—and that its greatest gifts are always a surprise.
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Wow Chanel!!
Posted on April 11, 2011
Hi fashion fans,
Okay, so I lied—-a little. I said that my last blog, on the Givenchy (pronounced Jee-von-shee) fashion show would be my last fashion statement on fashion week in Paris. Just one more? My report to you wouldn’t be complete without telling you about the Chanel show. It’s just too good to miss sharing with you. And since it was the last fashion show I saw during Ready to Wear fashion week in Paris, you’re safe (for men who hate these reports), I really won’t be writing about another one, but HAVE to tell you about this one. It is always the best organized, most breathtaking and most impressive show. And it is massive. » read more »
Filed Under Current Events, Fashion, Paris | 3 Comments
More Paris Fashion: Givenchy Fashion Show
Posted on April 4, 2011
To all you guys who are nice enough to read my blog, I apologize for assaulting you with fashion reports from Paris, but just one more, okay?? Besides, as I just explained to a friend in the states, in France, fashion shows are not considered only of interest to women. The men here (in France, and Europe generally) consider these fashion shows interesting hunting grounds for ‘real’ men—-they go to ogle the models, and check out the women who go to the shows. That’s actually a pretty clever idea; there are lots of good looking women (and men) at the shows. So with all due respect to both sexes, I just thought I’d tell you about the Givenchy ready to wear show I recently saw. It was a Wow!!! » read more »
Filed Under Current Events, Fashion, Paris, Shopping | 7 Comments
March in Paris….Not Yet April in Paris, But A Lot of Fun!!
Posted on March 28, 2011
It is becoming an annual tradition for me now to come to Paris for the Ready to Wear Fashion Week, which happens in March. It is where French Ready to Wear designers show their wares for next season at runway fashion shows with gorgeous models and gorgeous clothes. And the shows are so much fun. They don’t have the pomp and circumstance or decorum and grandiose quality of the Haute Couture shows which happen twice a year as well. » read more »
Filed Under Current Events, Paris, Uncategorized | 5 Comments
Earthquake in Japan
Posted on March 21, 2011
Like the rest of the world, everyone in Paris is riveted by the horrifying reports of the recent earthquake in Japan, and it is heart breaking to watch the destruction, both by the earthquake and the tsunami, and to learn of the inevitable loss of life as a result of those two events. Natural disasters are so terrifying, and remind us all of the force of nature when unbridled. And the threat posed by the damaged nuclear power plant adds yet another frightening dimension. » read more »
Filed Under Current Events | 6 Comments
Ground Hog Day
Posted on March 14, 2011
Whenever I see that date on a calendar, I think of the movie of the same name, Ground Hog Day, and it reminds me of my own life. In the movie, Bill Murray, the actor, kept living the same day over and over and over again. Every time he woke up, he was living the same day again. The concept is pretty funny—-except when it happens in real life.
I don’t know about you, but I tend to make many of the same mistakes again and again, and again. It’s not that I’m unaware of them, but our patterns are so hard to change. I have gone to groups, done a lot of soul searching, read self help books, and REALLY worked hard at changing some of the things I do. And some of it has worked, but sometimes, more often than I like, I find myself doing the same unconstructive thing again, let people get away with things they shouldn’t, being too cowardly (myself) to speak up when someone is standing squarely on my toes, or just doing the same things myself. I don’t want to. I’m aware, but our old habits die hard, and sometimes I hear my own voice and think, OH NO!!! Not that again. I guess life will be a work in progress til the end. » read more »
Filed Under Uncategorized | 9 Comments