Anyway, this not about Mark. It’s about me and my blog lift.

I decided  this site needed a little face lift. A font tuck. And A page nip and a color change.  So this week, we are shut down for reconstruction.  We will return a week from today.  That would be the 2oth in blog days, since the day of of is always the day before. It’s a bit like traveling to Japan only backwards.

In the meantime, if you miss me you can skip over to Gratitude and Trust or find me Tweeting away @TraceyJackson4 or you can watch some old episodes of the Kardashians from 2009.  Incase you want to remember what we were all thinking back then… or not.

See you in a week. You won’t recognize me.

Spring is also a time to clean up your house and your life.  Start with your closets.  Anything that doesn’t fit, you haven’t worn in two years or you hate, give to someone who can use it.  You won’t miss it and nothing puts a spring in your step like doing something for others…..

To Do List.
Oh, if you don’t have it, Get the Wunderlist App. OCD dream come true.

The Tulips in the middle of Park Ave. Yell Spring.

My favorite flower, peonies are in season for about 45 minutes

I fill the house with spring flowers. I can’t help myself.

The park is green again. And I can see it out of my clean windows.

Boots way up high.

Sandals where I can reach them.

The Yogo guy is back on the block. Yogo on the block!

Ice Coffee with everything.

Everybody is outside.

Nothing says spring as vividly as Lissa Ligget’s Botanical Bangles.  You can find them on Open Sky or Lissa Liggett.com

Many female writers between the ages of forty-five and seventy are trying to capture the firefly of the relationship between mothers and daughters in a bottle.  To accomplish this they are using all sorts of literary devices to set their memoirs apart from the pack.  Some have used homes, some food, others travel, but Volk has come up with something truly original. Volk has cleverly juxtaposed her stylish albeit constrained, slightly fearful, often unhappy, fifties mother against the fearless trail-blazing designer Elsa Schiaparelli.

What sets this book apart is not just her depiction of these two similar in some ways yet polar opposites in most women, but how we project onto the famous and glamorous attributes we admire and often want to embody,  some times at the expense of the people who are solid and boring by the mere fact they are predictable and ours.  This ends up the being the meta message of the book, at least it was for me.

But along the way, as she peels back the complex layers of these two women who shaped the woman she was to become, she reveals many interesting things about Schiaparelli whose glossy, inventive patina grew less appealing as Volk matured and she could see both Schiaparelli and her mother from the perspective of grown woman and not a child.

It all starts for Volk when as a young girl she reads Schiaparelli’s memoir A Shocking Life.  The text she claims was the transformative book of her life – not because she wanted to be in fashion, but because Schiapareilli’s trail blazing ways showed her there was a different way to live your life than just  playing by the accepted rules.

With her often wry, self-revelatory prose, Volk takes us on the journey of three women as she intertwines the lives of her mother Audrey, Elsa and herself

As a designer and a woman Schiaparelli was far more ahead of her time than Coco Chanel.

When I picked up this book  the two main things I knew about  Schiaparelli were she was Marisa Berenson’s grandmother and invented the color shocking pink.

But Schiap, as she was known, did things that edgy, rule breaking designers today see as inventive and inspirational.  She used her friends the Surrealists Dali, Duchamp and Giacometti to design things for her and with her. She invented the word boutique.  She was the first person to make the smoking jacket for women, something over thirty years later St. Laurent would do and get a lot of attention for.  She was one of the first to license her name, own her own label,  mix art and fashion, turning the former into the latter. And most importantly to a pre-pubescent , insecure Volk she proved one could turn weaknesses into strengths, even careers.

This told Patricia Volk anything was possible, a message she was not getting from the mother whom she adored, sometimes from afar, and whose life was colored totally within the lines.

While Schiap took her crayon box of experiences and colored outside of any line she could find, Audrey Volk colored every bit of her life by the numbers.  This looked very boring to Patricia as a child, and perhaps was.  But what she learns as she herself ages and her mother starts to deteriorate is being an avant –garde, narcissistic figure does not always make for the coziest of women and attentive of mothers.

And that while books can transform us in a myriad of ways, in the end we usually don’t want to be the central character in their stories or in the case of Volk better to have been raised by the mostly present, sometimes super-critical Audrey, than the creative, self-involved, child abandoning Schiaparelli.

By way of example Schiaparelli’s life story showed a young Patty you could reach for the stars and if there were  none there you could create your own. It took Volk many years and her mother’s death to realize  while she did not want to be like her, Audrey “Was always on her side.”  Something Go-Go, Schiap’s daughter most likely was never able to say.

You don’t have to care about mothers and daughters to love this book, you just need to care about life.

Elsa Schiaparelli

Audrey Volk on the left with her mother.

Patricia Volk today.

Famous Lobster dress she designed with Salvador Dali. It was made famous by the Duchess of Windsor. Who apparently did not see the humor in where the claws are placed, in fact she didn’t even notice it.

Shoe hat, she designed with Dali as well. This is the item that told the young Patty Volk anything was possible.

Shocking Pink, the color Schiap invented.

More traditional dress. Though still pink.

Her gloves had fingers. You have to remember this was the thirties.

Famous Perfume Bottle.

“Roman Krznaric is a cultural thinker and writer on the art of living. He is a founding faculty member of The School of Life in London, which offers instruction and inspiration on the important questions of everyday life, and advises organisations including Oxfam and the United Nations on using empathy and conversation to create social change. He has been named by The Observer as one of Britain’s leading lifestyle philosophers.”

The title of the lecture is  ”How to Find Fulfilling Work.” In these times where most of us switch jobs several times in our lives, and with the present job market being in the condition it’s in, his words are inspirational and enlightening.

Many people are stymied and held back by fear of change. Take fourteen minutes and watch this video. I think you will be less fearful of change and more  grateful for the opportunity to make change a part of your life

I  don’t let things back up, so I tend to deal with them as they come in. One of my favorite things is a totally empty inbox. Except it lasts for an eighth of a second and suddenly something from Verizon comes hurling at me. Duck here comes Travelocity with a deal on a weekend in the Bahamas. But wait, didn’t I unsubscribe from Travelocity?   How many things have thought you unsubscribed from only to find they still make a weekly, sometimes daily appearance on your screen?

And then of course the whole procedure of unsubscribing to unwanted solicitations is another time suck. “I don’t want it, that’s why”

I love getting email from real people. I do, and I answer it. I am the moderator on two websites so there are things I need to see immediately. But every time of my 4700 Facebook “friends” joins Pinterest I don’t care. I And I know you can deal with that in settings. I have. But someone up there seems to think this is information I cannot live without.

I did luckily get them to stop informing me every time someone in one of my overstuffed networks listens to a new song on Spotify.

A few weeks ago I became frustrated at the amount of time I spent deleting unwanted emails.  And  if not deleting, something beckoned, a little cyber finger saying come on, see what’s on sale today at Barney’s….two hours later….

Sometimes in life you are sent things just as you need them. One of my readers Tanya Monteiro sent me an email saying she thought with all the emails I got I might like to try a new program called  Unroll.me

I checked it out.  I was skeptical at first.  I had the  usual Internet fears.  How safe is it?  Will people read my emails?  Will I lose things I want?  I then read an article about it on Mashable titled the Five Bests Services to Enhance Productivity.  Unroll.me was listed as number one.

I immediately signed up for it and one called SaneBox. Unroll.me was number one on the list but Sanebox comes as the most highly recommended and it works with more servers. Unroll.me only applies to you if you use Gmail or Yahoo.

Sanebox made me really nervous as it takes a ton of your emails, including personal ones and decides if they are important to you or not. It goes through your inbox, I think, it must, and sees who you email the  most and what topics you are most engaged in. It then lumps the rest in one folder called Sanebox, which you can get to whenever you choose. I got off if it after one day. It was too Big Brother for me. But I know people who like it. I suppose if you are getting thousands of emails a day it works.

There is also one called The Email Game.  This one takes everything in your inbox,sets a timer and you race through your email in a Beat the Clock fashion. The purpose of which is you don’t fritter your day away going through endless crap. I found it to be silly and more of a waste of time. But I have called many things wrong. Time Magazine loves it. For the fun of it,  I say try it once and see if you like it. Writing this is making me want to try it again.

I decided to stick with Unroll.me for two weeks. And at the end of the two weeks I have to say it has made my life a lot easier.  Once a day, (I pick the time) I get an email that contains many things I have requested stay in there, certain blogs and announcements I get, but might not want to read each day or see the second they arrive. And then it grabs every unsolicited thing that appears.  Saturday it told me they found 129 new subscriptions in my inbox. It then makes it really easy to unsubscribe from the ones you don’t want.  You click on unsubscribe and it does it for you. It also puts all Facebook or any social media sites notifications in a separate folder in the inbox it creates.  As you click through everything, you make the  critical choice, is this worth stopping and getting involved in?   It also shows you enough of something to see if the topic is appealing and if not, NEXT.

Now that I’m used to it, it’s one of those things I’m not sure how I lived without. No question, it has given me back at least an hour  or more a day, and saved me money from online shopping too. I stuck eBay and all stores in there.

Thank you Tanya!

What your daily roll.up looks like.

To Bergdorf or not to Bergdorf that is the question.

You get to see it all.

But 129 Subscriptions – a bit much.

Facebook looks like this.

Sanebox try it – you might like it.

Part of the fun and upside of having a writing partner and best friend who is a real legend is getting to blog about them when they do cool things.

I did blog about Paul Williams when his doc Still Alive came out and he makes an appereance on this site from time to time. But this week he opened at The Café Carlyle and I can’t let that go unnoticed.

In other parts of the country this might not be a big deal. OK, it’s not Madison Square Garden.  But it has a different kind of cachet. It’s a little jewel box of a room where  as Cole Porter, (who the place pretty much embodies) would say“Is The Tops.” And to get to play there you have to be ” The Tops”

It’s the home of legends who sing The Great American Songbook or their own songs if they, like Paul have a large body of work they have created.

So, Tuesday night Paul opened in the Café Carlyle to a sold out run and what looks like the first of more engagements there to come. It might not be totally sold out, so if you live in the Tri-State area and want to see him, I would try and get tickets!

I was thinking how I could make this not just – here guys look at more pictures of Paul Williams and now I’m going to plug our website Gratitude and Trust and our upcoming book.

And I landed on an idea- I would go up while they were rehearsing in the afternoon and snap some shots and then shoot the opening so it would all look well thought out, which at that moment it was and as I write this appears to be.

I was curious what happens the hours before you go on stage as a singer.  I always figure if I’m curious about something, there is bound to be someone else out there who is too.

Rehearsing and hydrating.

The amazing Chris Caswell. Paul and Chris have been performing together for decades.

John Lee Sanders

Musical Selections. Wait a minute that’s the song wrote for my doc Lucky Ducks. OK, I have to do a little self promotion here too

The room hours before it’s filled with people and music.

“And That’s Enough For Me.

Tea for the throat.

What to wear the black or the black jacket?

The Black Jacket.

Show Time.

We  sat with Judy Collins who performs in the Cafe Carlyle several times a year.

Regis and Joy Philbin.

Chris on stage, getting ready for Paul to come on.

John Lee Sanders on sax.

The audience loved him.

Encore!

Paul Williams Live At The Cafe Carlyle.

Popular opinion is catching up with me  as Light Years is presently considered to be the great novel in a career that has many extraordinary books.

Now Jim has added a new novel,  All That Is.  Another beautifully constructed unflinching look at life.

It is lucky no one asks me to review books as I end up speaking only in superlatives.  As I write this I see Jim sitting in his light filled breakfast room cringing at my shabby sentence structure.

So,  if you don’t know his work just read the damn books. OK.  Start with Light Years. Then move on to Dusk, his Pen/Faulkner award winning collection of short stories. After that you will be hooked and you will grab up everything you can find with his name on it.

Last week  Mr. and Mrs. Yves-Andre Istel gave Jim his New York City publication party.  Everyone wants to give him a party and this was a classic New York book party;  filled with bold face name agents, authors,  publishers and friends of Jim and his wife  Kay. Everyone was thrilled to celebrate the man, his work and the fact that at 87 he has turned out another novel that will have people talking for decades to come.

Little bit of personal trivia – Jim Salter book parties are very special to us as Glenn and I  met at the publication party given  for his memoir Burning The Days.  Another James Salter book to add to your list.

All That Is

Jim signing books.

Glenn with  editor of Time Inc. Sports Group Terry McDonell

Author Gay Talese with Joan Raffeld.

Author Jeanne McCoullough with legendary editor Gary Fisketjon and Glenn.

Glenn with playwright and one of Lucy’s favorite actors Wally Shawn. Glenn certainly had fun while I was taking photos.

Jim saying a few words. In the background Yves-Andre Istel and his wife Kathleen.

Jim Salter with his wife playwright Kay Eldredge.

And the way it should be with all great book parties you come out into a perfect Woody Allen New York night.

I came to William (aka Willie) Dalrymple’s work a bit later than I discovered Jim, but with no less fervor.  Willie writes about India, at least he did when I first started reading him. His newest book, Return of a King- The Battle For Afghanistan 1839-42  is – well, about the war between Britain and Afghanistan.  Willie is hybrid, along with being a bigger than life personality, he is an award winning travel writer, he won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award when he was 21 and still at Oxford and he is an award winning historian.

His early book City of Djinns , in my opinion is the best book I have ever read about the city of New Delhi.

Willie writes big.  Willie often writes long.  He sometimes writes about topics you might not find that interesting.  But he has this amazing gift, he makes something that could sound utterly  boring absolutely fascinating. His five hundred and twelve page book White Mughals  is described as   “the true story of a love affair that took place in early nineteenth century Hyderabad between James Achilles Kirkpatrick and Khair-un-Nissa Begum.”  Chances are unless you love nineteenth century Indian history or are doing your dissertation on James Kirkpatrick this might be a bit much on the topic. But I am not lying to you, I could not put the book down. And I was not alone, it won The Duff Cooper Prize for History and Biography and its follow up From the Holy Mountains White Mughals won the Wolfson Britain’s most prestigious history prize.

Willie is so passionate about his topics and he is such a good writer, he just lassoes you into worlds you would never venture into on your own and keeps you coming back for more.  I personally have never spent a nano second thinking about the 1839 War between Britain and Afghanistan. Truth time, I didn’t know there was one.  No one told me. I never looked into it. Now I can’t wait to read 448 pages on it, and that is only because Willie has written it. He has a way with history and with India, Pakistan and now Afghanistan.

The night after Jim Salter’s party, Tina Brown  opened her maisonette and gave Willie a party. Willie comes to town and it’s a big deal, he’s just that kind of guy.  Every one wants to see him and get one his big Willie hugs and hear what he’s been up to. And he is always up to a lot.  He also has the distinction of starting the now famous, Coachella of author gatherings  The Jaipur Literary Festival.

I told you he writes big.

Willie signing books.

Newsweek’s Tina Brown catching up with Marie Brenner. Read her memoir Apples and Oranges. Soon.

Marie with Olivia Dalrymple, Willie’s wife.

Me with Aroon Shivisdani whose IAAC Film Festival opens on April 30th. If you want to catch up on the best of the films coming out of South East Asia check it out.

Tina Brown toasting Willie.

Another Woody Allen night. How is it New York has turned into one big Woody Allen set?

Prada’s windows were all black and white.

Hermes ditto….

Max Mara went with see through white and black skirt.

Lanvin Mens put white doves with their black tie clothes.

Most things came in pairs, like these Michael Kors bags.

Jimmy Choo went with off white to pair with their black.

Giuseppe Zanotti sandals.

Same style in black. One of each please. No. I didn’t get them. But I think the white ones are really chic.

Derek Lam did a full black and white window display.

Armani’s windows were all black and white too. The evening gowns were amazing, but the glare was too strong to get a photo.

Black tote bag by Armani

A stack of crisp white cotton shirts in the window of Carolina Herrera. A new white shirt – a great spring purchase.

A touch of black with white at Michael Kors.

Valentino mixed them together.

I think these are DKNY.

Everywhere you looked.

A beautiful vase against a black background.

An antique watch.

Black and white on the streets.

Then I was on the lookout. I pass this Miro sculpture every day.

Today I wore black and  white shoes.

So did Nolita haberdasher Jay Kos.

Black and white jacket at Kos.

Some cozy sweaters at Jay Kos.

African Heads at Jay Kos. BTW – I’m going to do an entire blog on Jay.

We passed this Glenn yelled “Black and white!”
Of course he did.

A dress on Elizabeth Sreet.

Window at a store I love from Australia called Dinosaur Designs. Everything is made out of resin.

On a  table in Dinosaur Designs.

Downtown girls wearing black and white.

You can find Jay Kos here.

And you can find Dinosaur Designs here

And you might be wondering in all this black and whiteness what did I take home. Did I get a new bag? No. New shoes? No. A stripe dress? No.

My one black and white purchase – a dalmatian spotted vase from Dinosaur Designs.

The week starts with the first terrorist attack (whoever did it is a terrorist despite nationality) since 9/11. The middle of the week saw ricin letters being sent to  President Obama and Senator Roger Wicker.

And then we end the week with the lovely news that absolutely no changes will be made to our gun control laws. Not one. Not a teeny tiny amendment. There will be no background checks, nor cutting back the size of magazines sold and types of ammunition made available.  We are just going to carry on, Tra –La –La like everything in this country is exactly the way it was two hundred years ago.

All I can do is put my head in my hands and say “Oh Dear.”  Well, actually, I say WTF is going on?

I don’t understand it – none of it makes sense to me.

Yes, of course, I comprehend the power of the NRA and that certain politicians in Red States merely have their eyes on re-election and that if you start pissing off the gun toters you lose voters.

Those of you who follow this blog regularly know I recently went through a slight inconvenience while trying to change over my California driver’s license to a New York one.

Two trips to the main Social Security office, two trips to the DMV. I had to show every form of identification I had. They ran some background checks on me.   And this is merely to change a perfectly good, not expired, no marks against it driver’s license from one state to another.

But, if I wanted to go buy myself a semi-automatic it would have been a hell of a lot easier.

They would not do a background check to find out if I were a criminal, though they do at the DMV. And all that proves is you can drive the getaway car legally, which would probably not be the first thing on your mind if you were about to shoot forty people. Gee, better make sure my driver’s license is in good standing before we shoot all those people watching Batman.

How about a mental health check?  We can safely assume if you are in the mind to kill people you could be slightly off balance.

Approximately 20.9 million Americans (only Americans, we aren’t counting crazy foreigners here) over the age of 18, have a mood disorder of some sort.

There are three million schizophrenics residing in this great land of ours.  And thanks to the Second Amendment they can go out and buy themselves any ole gun they want.  “Pistol? Semi? Rifle? What will it be today? You said your name was Mr. Napoleon?”

Don’t you think we should, someone should, know if a mentally ill person is buying a gun?  A person who might be OK on their meds, but they could go off their meds any day. Schizophrenics are legend for going off their meds.  And then what –  armed , dangerous and seriously crazy. Criminals are known for being sociopaths and well, criminals and often times killers, so maybe, just maybe we might want to know if they are out gun shopping.

No question there is more stress, mental instability and diagnosed problems than there were say in 1900.  Some might say it’s the same only now we have the tools to find these diseases. We have names for them. We have the meds to treat them. But we also have many more people.  We are also often crammed tightly into urban areas, where uncontrolled rage has a better chance being played out on innocent people.  And we have tens of millions of people who spend endless hours playing the most violent video games imaginable.

We are in fact not only teaching our children that killing is okay, it’s become a sport and a pastime.

People from the ages of seven to seventy play what they call first shooter games. Which means you get to hold the guns and do the damage.

We all know about the rampant use of video games and that some conscientious politicians have been working on getting some bans and labels on them.

And while people worry that kids are the ones becoming anesthetized to bloodshed while being adrenally pumped up by massive daily doses of violence, the average age of game players is 35; and they have been playing them for twelve years. That is a lot of Mortal Kombat – the number one selling brutal video game of all. It has sold over one hundred million copies.

Mortal Kombat came out with its first edition in 2008 and its latest in 2012. Which are the exact years that the crazy shootings started escalating.

The troika of no gun control, all time highs in mood disorders and entertainment in the form sitting around a box or screen taking part in massacres has resulted in a danger to us as a society that seems to have no chance of ending.

Though I am aware of violent video games being the mother of two girls I have never been exposed to them. I went online and found the list of the top sellers of all time. They have names like Carmegeddon, God Of War and Resident Evil. What they all seem to have in common is a description that reads, “Violent features; massive shooting, excessive bloodshed and dismemberment.”

In light of this week and frankly the last ten years in this country, these are not merely games anymore, they have  become our reality.  Someone has to do something to change  it.

This week we took a major step away from that change instead of towards it.

It has been high voltage for us as Taylor is in her last month of college at Emerson, which was at the epicenter of the carnage. Every time they say Boylston Street my heart leaps as she lived on that street for three years and goes there each day. Blessedly she moved way off campus and was home due to Patriots day.

How many issues can rankle you at once in regards to these things?   Screw gratitude.  I can do that over here, though I am profoundly grateful my daughter is safe, while at the same time my heart breaks for those who lost people and limbs.

It slays me we live in this society where our children are no longer safe watching their parents run a race.   I am appalled that we live in a world where these things happen on what feels like a regular basis.

I will be fifty-five years old in one month and I do not remember a time when our world looked or felt like this.

Glenn and I were just talking about it and he said, “No, no man has always been evil – this has always gone on.”

I said,  ”Really, Newtown was just two months ago, and now this. When did we have Columbines and Virginia Techs and the endless lineup of crazies and jihadis coming after the public like we live in some run for your life video game?”

He said, “Well, in 1920 they bombed the stock market.  Then in the sixties the Puerto Ricans”  I didn’t let him finish. I did that thing where you don’t listen, you just run in and make your point. “What happened in the fifty years in between?”

“Numerous wars.”

And don’t ever think you can have a war discussion with Glenn and win, he knows every battle in every war and every uniform they found.

“Sure wars are one thing, we are not talking about wars. And do not bring Hitler into this. Hitler and Darfur, just take them off the table or we can’t talk. Real life day to day, people did not run marathons and have their limbs blown off. Kids were not dropped off at school and then mowed down in cold blood.  People did not go to the movies and get shot by the row.

He gave up and dropped the Puerto Ricans and Hitler.

But Glenn’s response comes out of a genuinely sincere place that the world is always fine and rotten in equal measures.  Evil lurks, but not any more often than it used to.  “The stock market went up two hundred points today the world feels safe.”

I on the other hand absorb these things, think about them, fret and want justice served.

I long for a time when we did not have to turn on the news with such regularity and be faced with these endless tragedies.

The fact my child is at college and the Boston Marathon, the oldest in the country goes down her street and I got a text “I’m OK.  We’ve been bombed but I’m OK.”  Then “I’m scared mommy.”  What kind of fucking world is this?

I was curious how many killings Taylor and Lucy had lived through compared to what I experienced in my youth.  Mother Jones.com has a very interesting article – here are some of the facts…

“Since 1982, there have been at least 62 mass shootings across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii. Twenty-five of these mass shootings have occurred since 2006, and seven of them took place in 2012.  What is scary is that in thirty years over a third took place in a six year period.  And seven last year alone. That tells me things have changed – I’m not crazy. My kids are living in a version of a run for your life video game only it’s not a game.

I went to the gym this morning, I know that was a jump, but I have a point; I’m just too tired to make an elegant segue. Anyway these two bubble-heads were yabbering on about how they couldn’t watch the news and they didn’t want to know anything or talk about any of it and, it was better to pretend it all didn’t happen. And god forbid they should see a photo. No photos should be shown!

I practically had to shove a towel in my mouth to keep from saying, “And what will that prove – bubble brains?  You think by burying your head in the Upper East Side soil you make the horrors disappear and reinvent your world?  Because in my world and the world we all live in this is a sad, sad reality, and unless we do something about gun control and a lot of other things in this country I don’t see it stopping.  We need to see the footage, it is our reality.   But maybe someday if you’re running a race and your eight year old is blown to bits, you might believe it.

For all our sakes I hope that doesn’t happen. But I’m not counting on it any time soon.

Though it’s not entirely fair to pass the buck to Linda, as I do adore blogging boys, hair and make-up from time to time. That being said, boys you may exit now as this will bore you silly, unless you are a cross dresser or a tranny and in that case I don’t think B and B creams will be enough for you.

As many of you have probably noticed all of a sudden something called BB Creams appeared on cosmetic counters seemingly over night.

And no sooner did they make their grand entrance when CC Creams nudged them over and took a bit of that coveted shelf space.

I have done an exhaustive survey of the BB’s. OK, trying on make-up is not exhausting, but it’s  confuses your skin and I  had to endure some breakouts and really bad make-up days all in the name of public service. But once I got on to the notion of BB’s I wanted to find out what I could and that meant trying seven of them.  I did have some help from my daughters and even my mom, but I did try every one myself.

So what are these things and do they work?

BB’s claim to be do everything but the dishes in the form of make-up base.
Some say they were born in Japan and Korea and then migrated over here, others say they started in Europe. Regardless of where they came from  every line of make-up now has a version.

Like a man smitten on a first date they make many promises they can’t deliver.  Though the better ones can deliver on some.

What to they say they can do?  They say if you use them you don’t need any primer, moisturizer, sunblock, in some cases serum. Many like Dior and La Praire and Urban Decay promise anti-aging properties. They will  take over every job in your beauty chest and make you look ten years younger!

Realistically how can one cream deliver all of that in a tiny tube?   This is who they work on, young people. For Lucy they work great. She is thirteen. She puts some on and voila her wrinkles and fine lines disappear.   Taylor at 22 can use them by themselves. I have not found one that allows me replace anything I used before.  I have found some that give better coverage and better SPF.

I even got my mom in the act.   I have been redoing her makeup since I was in my teens. She needed a new base and I thought I would guinea pig her into my project. How would they work on someone 84?   I bought her Laura Mercier’s Illuminating  version. She loves it. She loves it as make-up.  But she  still uses her beloved Lazlo cream she has been using for forty plus years.

They are wonderful foundations. I think they make you look more natural and whatever they put in them, (while maybe not enough for women  thirty-five and over)  makes them much nicer than heavy foundation. In fact the older you get the less cakey stuff you want sticking into your wrinkles. And these do glide on and give you a sort of shimmery moist look that stays that way much of the day.

In terms of SPF, in the city or bad weather I think what the BB’s provide is plenty. If you are in the sun or live in a warm spot, I would say add a layer of your normal sunblock.   I also use my serum, my moisturizer and my primer. When I’m going out at night I use tiny bit of base in the places that need a little more covering up.

Having worked my way through the seven, I am down to three I like. I have pawned the others off on the girls.

The CC’s are next. They promise to correct your skin color. This I’ve got to see!

Jouer sells itself as a tinted moisturizer and won Allure’s best of the year last year. I have been using it for two years and it remains one of my favorites.

Bobbi Brown is my second favorite. Nice coverage and good color selections. Mid price range.

I tried the least expensive to one and then one of the most. This was the least. I did not like it. It was too light and did nothing for me. Lucy loves it. She’s the right age.

This one proves price does not equal results. I wanted to like it.  It’s Dior. It only comes in one color, I never trust anything that comes in one color and promises to work on all skin tones. I looked like I was up for a Kabuki role. I’m giving it to Taylor tonight. Every time I put it on I washed it off.

Urban Decay’s The Naked line. Promises anti-aging in a month. I didn’t have the patience. The color is OK. I will finish the tube. But I would not buy it again. Grance Dore on her blog says she loves it, she’s under forty and French. And “Optical Blurring”?

Laura Mercier – As far as I know the number one seller in the country. Both my mother and Taylor swear by this one.  When you’ve got two women sixty years apart saying they love  there must be something to it. Is not my fav. But I stuck a little tube in my purse.

La Prairie – this is the first class ticket of the group. I flirted with it at the store until one day Glenn handed me some money and said go splurge on something. So, I bought a tube of this. I felt so guilty I did not unwrap it for three days as I was going to take it back. I stared at it. I fondled the receipt that said a hundred dollars. I thought if I wrote about it I would lose readers. But it was a gift. And if I was doing a real survey I needed to try the best. So, I finally opened it and tried it. It is amazing. I don’t know what is in it. But when I put it on I look better. It will remain my special occasion B B., as I won’t buy another. I will go back to Jouer and Bobbi Brown. But it is the best of the lot.

In the last week I have been fortunate enough to to see two of the great broads  perform.

Elaine Stritch and Better Midler.  They don’t come any broadier than those two.

Last Thursday I went with my writing partner Paul Williams to see Elaine Stritch at The Carlyle. BTW Paul will be performing at the Carlyle starting on April 23^rd for a two week run.

Glenn did not want to go. I kept begging him.  He was deep in March Madness and he and Paul and his wife the author Mariana Williams and I went to see Elaine six years ago. He felt that was enough Elaine for him.

Now, the reviews were not too kind and I can see maybe why. She is old and is not well, but damn-it all she got on that stage at 87 in what has become  her performance uniform;  a little white shirt and tights and boots, with the legs of 23 year old.  She knew she probably couldn’t pull off a night of singing, her singing years behind her – but she has done so much of that, give a broad a break. She did what theatre broads do – she entertained.  She sat on a stool and she told stories. Fun stories. Broad stories.  Yeah,  she forgot some words, and dates, but I do that everyday.  The thing she did was the thing she had done for decades she made em smile. She did what broads do, they march ahead, age be damned, health be damned, OK, the memory sucks  but she surrounded herself with handsome young gay men to remind her and she did her thing.

And as my grandmother (who was not a broad) used to say “ God Love Her.”    And along with God loving her, the audience did too. It was a full house. She was only performing for five nights and then packing up, leaving New York and heading home for Michigan to live out her life with her family. Broads can also know when to go home when the party is over.  She has led an amazing life, with way highs and way lows. She has had a stupendous career and she’s now 87. She’s exiting on her terms.

As I said to Sting on the way out, “There comes a point when all of you have to stop.”  And Sting agreed.

How obnoxious was that?   But I needed to find a way to slip it in. And yes, I did say that to Sting.  And yes, he said that back.  Sting God knows is not a broad, but something else entirely and it’s quite fabulous up close.

Name-dropping behind me, I saw Stritch in her prime, and for that I am grateful.   I saw what she says is her last show and I am grateful for that too. But the thing about broads is they often surprise you. So, she might be back.

Bette Midler is the definition of a broad. And she has nurtured her broadom all the way through her career.

At the moment she is playing on Broadway in a one woman show about another broad, (broads sort of have to play broads) Sue Mengers, who was the first big time Hollywood agent who happened to be a broad and not just get them jobs.

The play is called “I Will Eat You Last.”  I’m not going to give it away and I’m not even going to say much about it. We saw it in its second night  of previews, and it has three weeks to get itself  on its feet.  Bette needs to work on her lines. But one of the great things about broads is they tend to be a bit fearless, the show goes on whether they are ready or not, old or not, prepared or not. They know their personality will carry the day. And as far as the audience was concerned, Bette delivered.  She got a standing ovation.  I think sometimes broads get applause because they are a dying breed.

Let’s hear it for the broads.

Elaine Stritch

Broads need one good body part, and then they show it off. Elaine has the legs…aka gams. At 87 they’re still there.

Broads wear fur. They don’t worry about PETA. They also love to laugh.

See, she’s still laughing. Elaine Stritch with Paul Williams and Trudie Styler. Trudie Styler is not a broad. But she’s married to Sting so she doesn’t need to be.

Broads are not afraid of their bodies. Bette got the boobs.

Another broad with boobs – Sue Mengers, big boobs big mouth – smart = broad.

Broad playing broad, Bette as Sue Mengers.

Broads are required to do a combination of these things. Though they eventually will give some up.

Broads are not afraid of telling you what they will do.

I don’t know if this is a broad shot or not, but I’ve been dying to put it up here.

“Every movie blogger, entertainment journalist, critic and film buff who had crossed paths with Roger Ebert or absorbed his influence — which is to say just about all of us — posted an elegy or a reminiscence.”

Well, I hadn’t. Not that A. O Scott was waiting for mine.  But as I read this I realized I had a great Roger Ebert story and I’m a blogger.

In 2002 after writing movies for years I had my first film actually produced. It was called The Guru, and to this day it remains my favorite piece of work released by a major studio. It was one of the first, if not the first, Hollywood/Bollywood crossover films.  And  thank heavens it has evolved a cult following. It never did much commercially in this country but it was a huge hit in England and India.

In August of 2002 there was a big premiere in London and by big, I mean BIG.  Leicester Square. Thousands lined up screaming to see the stars. A giant theatre packed to the rafters.

The producers had high hopes for the English release and they pulled out all the stops, every third bus had our poster on it.  The Underground was plastered with the biggest posters I had ever seen. All the magazines had full page ads.  That week you’d have thought it was the only film playing in England.

The night before the premiere we were having dinner in a place called Wheelers.   So there we were eating our Dover sole and sitting two tables over was Roger Ebert and his wife.  Seeing my name all over the city had my narcissism in overdrive, and I said to Glenn, I wondered if they were in town for the premiere.

We all happened to leave at the same time. It was not planned.  I promise. Glenn told me to say hello to him. I’m not good at that stuff, thrusting myself on people. I said “No way.”

But Glenn, being Glenn, fell in step with the Eberts as we all made our way down Jermyn Street. I walked a few paces ahead with my in–laws.

Glenn of course asked him why he was in town and he said “On holiday.”  He asked if he knew about The Guru, Roger said “Of course.”   It turned out he was not attending the premiere. At that point Glenn called me over and introduced me.  He had already told him I was the screenwriter.

And suddenly there I was in London on a warm August night,  strolling down Jermyn Street and Piccadilly with THE Roger Ebert, America’s most influential film critic; the night before my film was coming out.  I mean what are the chances???  What are they???  How did that happen???  Was it a sign from above or a mere freak experience???

And then from time to time a bus would zip past with our film and my name splashed across it. Could this be true?

I asked him if he was attending the premiere and he said “No.”

I asked if he and his wife would like to come and he said,  “Yes.”  Emphatically – yes.

I said  “No problem, I can arrange that. You’re my guest.”   You Roger Ebert are my guest – at my film, that I wrote.  Well, I didn’t say that, but  it was sort of tap dancing through my brain.

I was so excited I wanted to call the producers as soon as I got home. But waited until the next morning, when I burst into the offices and said, “Guess who I met and wants to come tonight? ROGER EBERT.”

Nobody looked very happy. Like not at all.

“We can’t do that,” they said.  I was floored.  I thought they might up my production bonus on this one.

“Are you nuts?”

“It’s not coming out in the States for four months he shouldn’t see it now.”

“But it will be playing in every theatre in London starting the next day, he can go and buy a ticket,” I rationalized.

They stood firm.  They did not want to invite him.  I stood firmer.

“Far better he see it in a packed house with people festive and laughing, than alone in a dark basement in Chicago.”

They stared at me and shook their heads.

“And furthermore” I did not drop it, “I invited him. I told him I would have two tickets delivered to his hotel today.  If I don’t he will only remember that I lied and didn’t get him tickets and it would make him hate this film and every other film I write for the rest of my career. I will be the writer who couldn’t deliver promised tickets.”

They started looking like I was making some sense.

“I demand we ask him. Or I will give him my tickets.”  Down went the gauntlet.

Mr. and Mrs. Roger Ebert were cordially invited to the London premiere of the The Guru.

It was a great night, one of the best in my career.  I did not however see Roger.

Four months later  when the film opened in the US I waited impatiently for his review.  Though the reviews were OK, fifty-seven percent “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes, we needed his thumbs up. Finally the Sunday morning he was to review it came, I sat on the edge of the bed  waiting…My friend Roger from Jermyn Street panned The Guru.  He just hated it. Hated it. Hated it.

This was before he got sick and he still had his show.  I was devastated. I never watched him again. I took it personally.

I felt badly when he got sick four years later. I actually had great admiration for him after he lost the ability to speak, yet he went on Tweeting and blogging and reviewing and writing a cookbook when he himself could no longer eat. How could one not have endless admiration for a spirit like that.  But I never followed his reviews again.

Flash forward to when my next big studio film came out,  Confessions of A Shopaholic,   I never bothered to see what he had to say about it.  As a critic his opinion no longer interested me.

But just now I was curious – so I checked  for the first time, and  he liked it.  He wrote a whole blog about it and gave it a decent review.  A film so inferior to The Guru in every way, but Roger Ebert liked it. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a twenty-five.

Maybe illness had softened him. Who knows?  Maybe he didn’t like Bollywood.

He reinvented film criticism. He was an American icon. He adapted to the  changes in his life and the world.  At the time of his death he had 800,000 Twitter followers. He was a totally unique person. And that night walking down Jermyn Street in London he was very kind and open.

In the end I got a thumb down when I thought I deserved an up and  and an up when I would have given me a down.

His life mattered in a big way.   All thumbs up for Roger Ebert.

A wonderful article in Esquire on Roger Ebert click here.

London Bus with The Guru

In the Underground more Gurumania.

Director Daisy von Scheler Mayer with our full page ads.

Actress Marisa Tomei

Heather Graham and Laura Bailey at premiere.

Director Daisy Mayer and DP John DeBorman and me at premiere.

Jimi Mistry as The Guru.

Roger Ebert

If you find yourself saying it’s too good to be true chances are it’s not as good as you think it is it or it’s not true

I don’t mean this to sound cynical. But, the really great things in life are either earned through hard work, waited for with patience or the result of being prepared when opportunity strikes. Those perfect things that appear out of nowhere are often times apparitions, projections of our own desires or other people merely not telling the truth.

Too good to be true does not mean good things don’t happen, it means a type of perfection is more often than not, not a reality.

We’ve been looking for a new office.  Glenn called me when I was in California and told about a building he found, he said, “this is too good to be true.”  The minute I heard those words something told me, it probably was.

It was far to inexpensive for what it was. It was palatial.  It was in the best neighborhood in the city. The terms were beyond amazing.  And, of course, within 36 hours the whole thing turned out to be too good to be true.  The space was true, in the sense that it existed, in all it’s splendor.  But, the terms and conditions the owner first stated instantly changed when a deal started to be struck. They wanted much more money, the lease was half as long, and the building was not zoned for commercial use. I said to Glenn, goes to prove – yet again, too good to be true is exactly that.

One sees this constantly in relationships. How many times have you met someone at some point in your life, and said, “Oh, he/ she is too good to be true.”  And then for some period of time depending on their skill set they can keep up the too good to be true persona, though eventually their real selves emerge. And, low and behold they were too good to be true.

The problems come in when we blame ourselves in these situations. When we start to think if I were another way this person would be that idealized too good to be true character they were a week ago.  But, that is seldom the case. People are who they are and none of us are too good to be true. Look at yourself – are you?

It doesn’t mean we can’t seek perfection – though perfection never exists. What we should seek from ourselves and others is the best we can be given the circumstances and constantly work at self-improvement. We need to have standards and stick to them. Not everybody will have everything in the same way an office or apartment will never have everything you want. You can renovate and make it close, but you might give up closet space for a terrace in the same way you might give up a certain carefree spontaneity to nest with a dependable more solid mate.

We should not expect the world to fall in line with some prefabricated, unattainable list of criteria we have fantasized will make us happy.

We always have to make adjustments. The office you want may not be on the best street, with as much square footage, and six terraces.  It may have a few of those things or enough other things that make up for it.

The person of your dreams?  If you compare real people to dreams, they will often fail you;  and that is not fair to them.  Would you want to be compared to a dream?  Would you want to have to fill every one of someone’s fantasies and unfulfilled desires?

Flexibility goes very far in life. We give up some things in exchange for others.

It’s sort of the way I feel about final sales.  That six hundred dollar pair of shoes marked down to $75.00. I find you get them home, wear them once, keep them around for a year and end up giving them away. Too good to be true.

Something can be very, very good and many things are true. But the next time you find yourself saying something or someone is too good to be true, don’t be disappointed when you find out you were right.

Like many young girls (and old girls too) my thirteen year-old daughter’s favorite film is Breakfast at Tiffany’s. So when I saw it was opening on Broadway I ordered tickets immediately.

I didn’t even bother to  see who was playing Holly Golightly. I didn’t take time to read the review in the New York Times when it came out. I figured it was Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It would be close to the film. How could it not be?

Boy was I wrong.  There was not one thing remotely like the film. In fact within fifteen-minutes Lucy turned to me and said,  “What is this?”  I didn’t have a clue.

Nobody can be Audrey Hepburn. She was one of a kind. So much so she remains an icon of style and grace for girls of my daughter’s generation, mine and those in between.  I can think of no other fifties or sixties film star for whom this holds true.  Find me a sixteen year old who models herself on Elizabeth Taylor or Ava Gardner. Audrey Hepburn remains as vital a character in people’s imaginations today as she did forty years ago.

So why on earth did they take Breakfast at Tiffany’s? And then why would they  turn it into something that had nothing to do with the film?
The writer and director say they wanted to keep it closer to the novella. Though I have read the novella many times and I didn’t find them that similar. Maybe as I read it I always had Audrey in my head.

They changed it from the fifties to the forties; 1942,  before the war was over. This immediately caused me concern.  How would they bring in the froth and fun of the Blake Edwards film while dealing with the horrors of World War 2?  They got rid of a lot of the froth and they didn’t handle the war very well.

I’m not a theatre critic so I won’t break it down as to what worked and what didn’t.   In trying to move away from what people loved they invented something that was flat and sad, and made one long for the film and Miss Hepburn. Which only reinforced my theory; don’t mess with things that worked – just let them be.

The biggest problem was Holly. Granted it’s a big job to take on one of the most identifiable characters in cinematic history.

They didn’t make any attempts to come close to an Audrey lookalike:    They picked a young woman, Emilia Clarke who appears in the giant TV hit Game of Thrones. I’m sure she does a great job in the Middle Kingdom, but she fell on her face  in the mid-century.

The jaded screenwriter in me can’t help but think it was not a coincidence the play opened three weeks before the third season of the hit TV show premiered.   She is a pretty girl, a bit too zaftig for Holly. She looks, dresses and acts like she studied Elizabeth Taylor in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and never bothered to even watch Breakfast At Tiffany’s.

There were odd things you can’t begin to make sense of.  She sat on the stage in a slip, one that Holly would never wear, strumming a guitar and singing a song that was not Moonriver. This caused Lucy to say, “Where is Moonriver?” I wanted to know where Moonriver was as well. I thought maybe they couldn’t get the rights, but of course they could have. Just one more bad choice.

And they put George Wendt in as the bartender. Yes, that George Wendt, in a bar. So every time he appeared I  thought the story had morphed into Cheers and Ted Danson would be appearing momentarily .

There was an ridiculous bathtub scene with Holly and the character based on Capote. They hinted at him being gay in the film, in the play there was no question.  But  one wants to know why they stuck him stark naked in a bathtub with Holly?  Was it just for the frontal nude scene that caused Lucy to cringe? I wasn’t too happy either and I don’t mind a good male frontal nudity shot, but not this guy and not in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

I believe people go to see certain things to see certain things. I believe when you are selling the title Breakfast at Tiffany’s you owe it to the audience to deliver something close to it. What I really believe is when something is close to perfect and lives on in people’s hearts, minds and video libraries leave it the hell alone. We don’t have to remake everything because it worked once. Most things work once because of a certain alchemy at a certain time. You can seldom capture that firefly in a bottle again.

More people saw the film than read the book.  When people think of Holly Golighty they immediately think Audrey Hepburn in her Givenchy clothes, her gamine look, her giant sunglasses, cradling her cat. They think of her at Tiffany, something else that was left out of this production. They could have called it Breakfast at Bloomingdales. In fact I think that might have been a good idea.

Does this look like Holly Golightly to you?

I really like my blog over yonder on Gratitude and Trust today.  It’s a bit built up from when we launched it.

I don’t think I can do anything as good here for the second, so  I’m posting it in both places  MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR MIND.

I have never actually been to a proper spa. I have been to hotels with spas in them; hotels that might have tacked on the word spa at the end to make it sound more relaxing.  But I have never been to a place like the Canyon Ranch.  For many years, before every Day’s Inn had a massage room spas were spas and hotels were hotels and The Canyon Ranch was where people went to lost weight and get pampered.  There was an exotic, movie star patina to the sound of “She’s at the Canyon Ranch for a week.” And in those days it was just in Arizona.
But then resorts started to all have spas and one did not hear about Canyon Ranch so much anymore, though they opened outposts everywhere from Vegas to Miami.

They also apparently ( I have this from an expert) were a constant destination on Gossip Girl. Thus why on our Grandparent Express spring break getaway we ended up staying two nights at the one in Miami.
We had to stop in Miami and once Lucy heard that she said. “We have to stay at The Canyon Ranch.”

We arrived late on Saturday, in time for dinner. I figured if I were going to have 24 hours there I would do it right, take the classes, eat the food, the whole bit.

Dinner was amazingly good and the portions ample, considering what they claimed the calorie count was.  The menu lists every possible metabolic iteration to everything. The calories, the fat, the sodium and the sugar. We started with artichoke fries, which for a portion that satisfied all of us apparently only had 144 calories.  And it had a ranch dipping sauce. Lucy had four ounces of steak, 220 calories. I won’t bore you with what we ate. I will say this, that on the breakfast menu, steel cut oatmeal and berries had 345 calories while whole wheat French toast had 235. And, if you think by cutting out gluten you are cutting out calories, wrongo, gluten toast with butter and jam had a whopping 450 calories, while regular toast had 240. So something is wrong in the land of gluten free.

There are three floors of spas, exercise rooms, treatment rooms, a pool, they even a rock-climbing wall.  They have exercise classes all day. I went for broke, or exhausted or serious calorie burning – I took three exercise classes before lunch.

I started with something called Gyrokinesis, it said it released neck and shoulder pain, something I have a lot of.

I felt very good about this choice, I was doing something I had never heard of.  I arrived on the floor where many of the workout studios are and encountered a long line. I asked a lady if this was Gyrokinesis.  She said no it was Super Cycling.  She was clearly a regular as she pointed to the end of the hall.  I found my way to a room that had mats on the floor, on top of which were stools that were covered with towels. A lone woman sat on a stool reading The Alzheimer’s Diet book – this was my spot, The Exotic Marigold Hotel of exercise.

I would lie if I said the idea of exercising while sitting on a stool did not have a certain appeal. I would lie if I said I wasn’t the youngest in the group, until a mother and teenage daughter showed up. BTW the daughter was the worst in the class. So to excel in Gyrokinesis age is not a factor. You just have to sit in the stool and move your arms a lot, OK, they do move around, but it’s not taxing.

When the class was over a gentleman in the age range of my father who was wearing tight cycle pants and love beads told me I had to come to noon Zumba. Then four other people gathering their things all nodded enthusiastically, noon Zumba was clearly an event not to be missed.

I snuck in a Buff Ballet Booty class first.  I then grabbed a water and headed over to noon Zumba.

Now I have made jokes about Zumba while never really knowing what it was.  But it’s a funny word- Zumba, it lends itself to humor.  The class was packed.  There were only three people there under seventy and I was one of them.

Zumba is held in the Ocean Studio, which is one of the few studios quasi outdoors, read no AC. It was ninety degrees out and all they had were fans. Which proves  “ That only mad dogs and geriatric Zumba fanatics go out in the noon day sun.”

I looked around and thought how are all these people going to get through this class?  Someone is going to pass out.  Towards the middle of the class I started fearing that someone might be me.

This was a hearty and Zumba loving lot, they danced and glided and did something that resembled the hokey pokey, while Donna Summer belted out Hot Stuff.  Mr. Love Beads took his place next to me. I started following him as the teacher moved around so much there were often people blocking my line of vision.  Mr. Love Beads liked to twirl, when he twirled, I twirled, which made us look like a couple.I didn’t think that was such a good idea, plus he was moving faster than I wanted.  Which proves never judge someone’s Zumbability by their age.

At a certain point I decided to take my cues from a man one line over who looked like his only goal was to get through the class alive so he could make it to Seder.

This was a competitive group, especially the women. They spin around and wriggle their hips in front of the men; they do that rolling thing with their arms that I associate with “knick knack paddy whack give your dog a bone.”

I did make it through the class, but was seriously shown up by people old enough to be my parents.  I also gained a quarter of a pound in twenty-four hours.

List of Classes. It’s very impressive.

Lobby isn’t much. It’s partially an apartment building. And it sort of smells like a spa. But the residents seem very happy.

The menu with the calories and anything else they could think of.

Spa portion of fish and grains.

The artichoke fries. For the recipe click on artichoke fries in the text.

A no cell phone policy. They have to be on vibrate all the time and you can’t talk. You can’t smoke either. Someone missed their cigars. You have to sign a release you won’t talk on the phone or smoke.

Hot pool. It’s not really a jacuzzi.

One of the pools.

The gym.

No Zumba for him.

Gyrokinesis Class.

We all got facials in the afternoon. Someone waiting for theirs.

Getting ready to Zumba

Swing the hips.

The one in black is Mr. Love Beads. In all fairness he was very nice. And you know what – it’s very impressive these people are doing this at their age. It shows spunk and energy and endurance and a vibrancy – I like that.

The beach in front of The Canyon Ranch.

Twenty -Four hours at a spa and we never felt better.

While I have written about her I have never actually shown photos of my friend Penny Bianchi’s home and garden.  Penny is a great friend and a wonderful interior designer. The home she shares with her husband Adam has been documented in many magazines and design blogs. But, I haven’t done it yet…until now….

Their garage is covered with lavender or maybe wisteria. I’m really bad with flowers. OK, I know lavender does not grow that way.

The front door.

The house.

If you didn’t know you were in California you could be be in France

The duck pond. Nobody takes better care of their ducks than Penny and Adam Bianchi.  Those little pagoda things are floating duck houses so they are safe and warm at night.

If you don’t want crows to come and kill your fowl then you hang dead crows all over your garden.

Incase you didn’t get the idea from the last shot.

She has these very fancy Belgian chickens. She does not want them being killed, thus the hanging crows.

They lie in the dirt and take “dust baths”

There are more chickens on the way.

Penny and Adam had this magical playhouse built for their grandchildren.

Everywhere you look she has special places to sit and enjoy the beauty she has created out of nature.

I would love a spot like this for my morning coffee.

A corner of the kitchen.

The duck theme is picked up all over the house.

Another table in the living room.

Penny Bianchi

I’m telling your everywhere you look is a surprise.

 You can keep up with Penny on her blog.

At one point I was crossing the street and watching these poor baton twirlers in these skimpy outfits, freezing to death, literally unable to toss their baton anywhere due to the wind I felt terrible for them.  As crazy as the parade can drive a moderately  sane, sober, non Irish person, nobody should have to go through that.

Something interesting I discovered – The New York St. Patty’s Parade is the largest parade in the world. I still find it hard to believe.

Don’t laugh we wore green sweaters. OK, you can laugh.

Who wears short shorts in the snow?????

The Three O’Migos

Got a light?

Nothing was going to snow on her parade.

St. Patty’s Color Blocking

The Green Panther. I feel like I took her picture last year.

I think he might be half Hawaiian. Notice the lei.

Everything matches – even the soda. Well, it might not be soda.

Puff Paddy.

Did they leave anything at home?

Somehow this worked.

The Hat Did It.

She made it work too.

So did he.

There actually is a parade.

Dancing the jig.

They stuck it out even in the snow.

Girls just wanna have fun.

Green Bling in a Window.

Suddenly the green was hard to find.

Okay, it’s a little dramatic, but after “ The Website” I was at a loss. The logical thing to put up would have been the Twitter and The Facebook, but it just smacked of too social media 2013. I could have put the movie, but that would have been a  lie.

It all starts with the book.   My next book has been popping up in the pages of my chatter. My book is really “our book”.  I  have also been referring to my esteemed writing partner ( he will like that I refer to him as esteemed, he’s getting sick of legendary) Paul Williams. I  didn’t want to talk about it or jinx it until I knew it had a future.

So, you heard it here first,  last week Paul and I sold the book, not the book actually, we sold a hundred and twenty-seven page proposal for a book we are now going to write. Yes, Virginia that is what it takes these days, even if one of you is esteemed and even legendary and the other is published. After three days of meeting with publishers we sold  our lengthy proposal to  another esteemed person ~ publisher David Rosenthal. So far I’m the only one in this mix who is not esteemed. This is the part where you all write in and go NO, Tracey, we find you esteemed even though you have a tendency to write about lipgloss. But, back to  David, David Rosenthal is also a bit of legend. He ran Simon and Shuster for years is beloved and thought of as really, really smart man and I’m not just saying that because he had the good sense to pay the most money for our book. Though  that move  does prove a certain high level of intelligence.  Despite that when ever you mention David, the word smart, or really smart usually seems to follow.

David now has his own imprint and Penguin called Blue Rider. And in 2014,  they will be publishing Gratitude and Trust – Recovery is Not Just for Addicts, by Tracey Jackson and Paul Williams. Paul is letting me put my name first, even though he’s the legend. He thinks we should go alphabetically. My guess is marketing may have a different take on that.

I’m not telling you what the book is about, because that would mean I could not yank you all by the cyber chain and make you click on to part two of the this announcement, THE WEBSITE.

You all know me by now, God forbid I would do something without a big, splashy, time consuming online adjunct.

That is unfair, I’m just being glib because on the site Gratitude and Trust, (whichI would beg, plead and perhaps even bribe you all to sign up for. scratch bribe, but stick with plead and beg) I can’t really be glib. Or as my esteemed partner would say “Stop it with the Princess Snarky.” I will remain Princess Snarky here on this site, which will stay up and running. I will be blogging a tad less, but my guess is you have noticed that I’ve been weaning you all off of me a little, mostly so you will want more and take a gander over to Gratitude and Trust. And honestly, all of this book selling and new website launching is a tad time consuming and nobody bring up Turks and Caicos.

Glibness aside, we are very excited about the site. It is  different then this one. It is what is referred to as site specific which means I must stay on topic and not write six hundred words on beauty balm just because I feel like it.

The site will consist of two blogs a week. Paul and I will take turns writing them and we will have one guest blogger. The other three days are affirmation days. I could hear all the New Age haters go “Yuck, not affirmations.”   Hey we can all use a good affirmation. Think of it as a happy massage for the soul.   And  it’s not new agey!  It’s sharp it’s smart, it’s life enhancing. And there will not be that much to read.

I could tell you everything, right now. It would take me five minutes, five minutes with a ton of typos;  a half hour with the usual amount. But, I don’t want to tell you a thing. I want you to all go over and see for yourselves.

Paul blogs today. He tells you quite a bit about what we’re up to in his blog.  The site itself will give you an idea. My blog next Tuesday will offer more info. And I keep thinking if you see it you will sign up.
I’m not doing what I did with this site which is dump it in all your boxes sans invitation. That very act would go against the principles we are espousing.

It’s all a bit of dream come true for me. I have wanted to work with Paul since I was eleven. Yes, I was that prescient, in 1969 I thought in 2013 there will be this thing called the Internet, take that Mark Zuckerberg, and my favorite pop singer and songwriter, (who was famous, but not old enough then to be legendary) and I would join forces, sell a book and have a website together.

That book and website would not only entertain but hopefully help many. Its mere existence would prove that with right thought, right action and by taking your life by the horns and responsibility for your behavoir you can make things happen.  If you live your life by according to certain foundational truths  many things do have a way of working out.

This is not about drugs and alcohol or for those with problems with drugs and alcohol. It’s a book and a website with insights, stories, tips and shared life experiences that will hopefully give a little boost, a little hope, a smile, a feeling of not being alone, sometimes a nudge in the right direction, sometimes tips on just how to get through it all with a little less drama and stress.  And who doesn’t need that?

So go over here and check us out.

And maybe sign up and see if you don’t fall in love with it. I have a feeling you will.