I feel like anything I say at this point will be a cliché. It’s over. It went fast.  It went well. It was life’s natural progression progressing naturally and for a change I stopped kicking and screaming and learned to go with the flow.  It was all fine.

I like our life now as much as I did before, or I’m used to it.  But it’s all just swell.

I can’t quite believe it’s over, her first year in college, wasn’t she just in Pre-K?  Of course I can’t quite believe I turn fifty-two this week, wasn’t I just in Pre-K?

We had some memorable times here on Freshman Mom.

I am not going to bore us all with what they were, they will all be up on the blog and archival from today’s post on. If you get a yen to remember what it was like in those first few weeks they were gone, you can log on and all the posts and comments will be available for a sentimental journey. And if you have any friends who are going through it you can pass the link on to them and they can maybe get over  some of their  speed bumps by reading about how we did it.

In fact for the next several days the blogs will be mostly in the form of a diary. There is too much going on for me to come up with new material – I think!

The plan is this I will arrive in Boston at noon, head for the hotel, which is next to an outpost of my gym EXHALE!!!! Down ups for days despite the work out I will get packing.

Now I am an expert packer. It’s my OCD in overdrive. I can and do move into a house in record time. I refuse to live with boxes for even a night.

This has meant I have unpacked without a break for twenty-four hour stretches, but it can be done.

Taylor only has a room, but I’m expecting a lot of crap to get through, much of it I used to call my own. But we need to have it all boxed up and ready to store and ship by noon tomorrow. It will be done.

It will be all I do today, until I break at seven to have dinner with my friend Ti-Grace Atkinson. If you don’t know who she is Google her.  Yes, she is my friend and while we are an unlikely pair, we have become quite close.  She is a super intellectual and one of the founders of the Feminist movement. And me, well the jury is out, though neither of those apply.

But Ti-Grace through her long, well thought out, probing and enlightening emails is teaching me how to think about life in different ways, and me, I’m teaching her how to shop. No joke.  Friendships have been formed on much less.

Tomorrow we are going to the mall, after the last box disappears.

Then Tay and her leftover junk move into my hotel room, until Friday when Glenn and Lucy arrive.

Sarah Funke who has worked for Glenn – well, since before I met him is getting married to Patrick Butler at Harvard and there are festivities all weekend in Cambridge.

I then fly back with the two girls. Glenn stays one day in Boston for business but we get home on Mother’s Day, and Lynne and Aaron Horowitz the in-laws with the mostest are coming to town for Mother’s Day, grandparent’s day at Lucy’s school and Taylor’s and my birthday.

They didn’t know this, as I was keeping quiet, there was a good chance Tay and I were flying out to LA on Monday for two days. I’m not talking about why as these things fall apart too easily and this has been rescheduled and I will tell you about it when we are in the studio and they say “Two minutes to air.”

But I got the email yesterday that we didn’t have to go and was so grateful. I didn’t want to leave Lynne and Aaron and I didn’t want to land and turn around and fly out ten hours later and I didn’t want to miss Lucy’s school production of Macbeth and I didn’t want to spend my birthday on an airplane. And I really wanted to film this TV show on Tuesday for an Indian station, as I will always do any press that involves India.

Now when you see this don’t laugh as I have the terrible habit of involuntary vocal mimicry. Which means when I speak to people with certain accents I automatically start speaking with their inflections.

Whenever I hang up the phone from talking with an Indian friend, the kids will say “They were Indian you did your Indian voice.”  It happens with Brits too and when in France I start doing that thing French women do with their mouths when they talk, it’s part pout and part kiss. It’s weird.

So that is the next five days.

Lots of photos.

Lots of captions.

Some dialogue.

Hopefully three workouts.

And total elation that Sarah is getting married and we are there to watch it.

And still utter disbelief that this year has gone by so fast.

The purpose of this shot is to show you how OCD I am. This is how I pack.

My hotel desk after I unpack. Notice who is missing. Hot Pad and Mean Vaio.

When we last left off - her dorm room looked like this. Sept 6th, 2009

I was prepared for something but not this

Or This - Plus I was told I didn't have two days I had four hours.

Double Starbucks run. Get out the disinfectant wipes. Let's Go.

Lucky I love her so much - every drawer resembled this.

Two hours to go. Halo in background is impending angel status about to be bestowed upon me.

Progress not perfection

Closer

His name is Taylor too. He is strong. He helped lift the boxes.

Speaks for itself.

I now understand why I did not go to college, there is no way I could have lived like this. We got it done with fifteen minutes to spare.

She’s now a Sophmore and I’m just a tired mom!

The whole blogging thing started with her and now she has two weeks left, not even – I go up a week from Wednesday to move Taylor out of her dorm. I just booked Jet Blue and I really can’t believe it. Didn’t I just write Jet Boo Hoo And What To Do?

Wasn’t it yesterday I was writing about how we would all get through it? Weren’t some of us wondering what we would do when we came back to those empty rooms after we left them off? We were worried about dorms and roommates and how we would ever get to sleep not knowing where they were.

And here we are, those of us who started off as freshman moms here on this blog and we all got through it and I think with flying colors, really. A big round of applause for all the freshman moms!

I know I surprised myself, not calling, not nagging, not much…never calling on Sunday morning – before she called me. And all the trips I planned to Boston, I made a grand total of two – one being visiting weekend and one on my night to Providence to edit.

Granted she has been home quite a bit and it when she is here it feels like she hasn’t left.

Though I do know now how not to get in her face and how to ask for the few household things I need to have done for my own sanity and OCD cleanliness.

I have accepted and it was confirmed in a book I was reading last night (another book about a mother and daughter), she is gong to take my clothes, she is just going to do it, Lucy is now taking hers, I have given up trying to fight it. The best defence I have found is to hide the things I really don’t want touched and if there is something basic like a t-shirt, sweater or  jeans that I know I will blow up if I find it gone, I just get her the same thing. It saves a lot of aggravation. Moms with sons don’t have this issue.  But for those of us with daughters it is not an insignificant issue, you go for that black silk T-shirt – only to find is not only gone from your drawer, it’s not even in the tri-state area.  So it’s not about spoiling or indulging or saying no, it’s about self-defense.

This weekend she was home and getting emotionally ready to return for four months.

I have talked to some moms who are worried about the four months of having a young adult around the house…. there are days I wonder too…but somehow we slip right back into our old life patterns.  Her room is still not what I call clean, but I close the door; she goes out and I don’t even wake up all night until she’s home.

I do wander in around five to make sure I see a lump under the covers,  but that is it.

I don’t ask where she is going or make plans with her unless I check and I never make her feel like she has to be with us and consequently she wants to be with us a lot.

She has decided we have cool friends.  Friday she opted to join us for dinner at Devi with Jonathan Burnham – who is one of the best dinner companions in the city. She totally agreed, plus he’s hot. Now he read this and he’s blushing. I know him. But it’s true!

Yesterday we all took off on our own paths for Saturday – just like we used to.  On other weekends this year when she was just here for two days there was this feeling that she had to spend time with us.  But now we’re back to all being together when we’re together and we all retreat to  our own lives when we’re not.

Lucy had her normal drama class; Glenn took her and did whatever he does downtown on Saturdays, it usually involves books and cigars.  Tay went with her friend Katherine to find a prom dress and I – god I walked all day. I literally walked seventy blocks.  It was so gorgeous. I walked from home up to the nineties to get my nails done and walked back. It was a perfect day and there was this calm that the family was back on the brink of being a foursome – at least until fall.

I have found one of the biggest differences in going from four to three on a daily basis is the way I cook.

We eat dinner as a family four or five nights a week. When we were four it was always around the table – we still do, but I must admit there are more take-out nights and some are eaten in the kitchen in front of the TV…not many, but I would lie if I said it never happened. When we were four it never did.

Weirdly since Tay left there are several standard dinners I have not bothered to cook, not once since September. Like Taco night, taco night for three seems weird to me- for four makes sense.  Sundays were always soup night, one of Taylor’s favorites; I haven’t made it in over a year.  You just cook and shop differently for three than you do for four.

It was one of the things that really took getting used to. I would reach for cherry tomatoes and put them back as she is the only one who eats them. I bought a box yesterday.

Last night she started listing her favorite foods I make, all the things she has missed at college and soup night was one and my lasagna got the top prize.

Now the thing about the lasagna that is funny, when I first introduced this into the family dining repertoire, everyone had a fit. Hated it.

Over a period of time I took us totally organic, mostly meat free and partially fat free.  This is not easy with a kid under ten. And when people have been eating normal lasagna their whole lives and one night mom plunks a wheat free, turkey sausage version on the table you get shrieks of horror and the next thing you know the kids are in the kitchen making Kraft macaroni and cheese and you are staring at your fat free – meat free – wheat free wonder.

But over time – with perseverance people get used to the flavor of healthier and better food.

Lucy would still opt for Kraft, and the nights we go out she gets the organic version of it.

So last night without even thinking I just automatically made lasagna, this caused Taylor to throw her arms around me and tell me how much she missed my healthy lasagna.

Considering the ups and downs and dietary things we’ve been through in her teen years this was a mind-blowing experience for me.

We went through the fish only stage, the only eating protein phase, the two months that no matter what I made she only wanted scrambled eggs and then Lucy would only eat chicken fingers.

I would find myself making three different meals, one for Lucy, one for Taylor and then whatever Glenn and I wanted, then one day I decided I hated cooking after loving it for thirty years.

You can’t blame me. I went on strike for spell.

But I’ve come back to it and now we all eat the same thing and since eating college food for nine months anything I make seems like a treat. And since turning ten Lucy is branching out beyond anything white with cheese melted on it for her all her food groups and suddenly mom’s food is looking better, in fact it’s now requested.

So in true PW style I am going to give you our now beloved healthy lasagna recipe.

GUILT FREE LASAGNA

1 pound of turkey or chicken sausage – preferably organic

1 onion diced

3 cloves of garlic

1 large ball fresh mozzarella – better unsalted, but if you must you must

1/4-cup fresh basil

I large can or box crushed tomatoes

I cup Parmesan

Olive oil – as much as you want is the way I do it

I box brown rice lasagna noodles – OK – it takes getting used to but you are better off for it. Trust me if Lucy can get used to anybody can.

Cook Noodles according to package

Sauté the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft then add sausage – break it up and cook until mostly done.

Add tomatoes, salt and pepper and let simmer until it looks done to you or until noodles are done

Grate the mozzarella

Just as you turn off the sauce toss in the basil

Then just layer it like you would any other lasagna

Sauce first, noodles, cheese, more sauce, more noodles, ending with a layer of noodles, keep some sauce to dump on the top – toss the parmesan all over it, cover it in foil

Then bake in a 350 over for about forty minutes.

The first time you may have some complaints but before you know it, it will be their favorite dish.

Given my choice I vote for Kraft. But I like helping

It's turkey - that's the way it's supposed to look. If I was the PW I would add two cups of cream

Waiting for spillage

Add the tomatoes. I lost Lucy to ABC Family

Always put sauce on the bottom of the pan with lasagna

Not your grandmother's pasta - but the good news is you won't have your grandmother's arteries.

I don't know how the PW gets those photos. But this is ours ready to go in the oven.

Done...

Dancing for joy!

Lucy made me put this up. She said it was only fair that people knew I put the iPod way up and danced with her. She said she wouldn't help with my iPad if i didn't. So now you know we put on the iPod and dance.

Someone already knows ho to use their iPad!

The amazing Madeline Levine getting ready for her close up.

When the author and psychologist Dr. Madeline Levine agreed to be in Lucky Ducks it not only gave us Madeline, but it gave us a stamp of significance and relevance that allowed us to move forward and made it appealing for others to climb aboard.

It also gave me a blueprint for structure and questioning in the beginning.

Like most docs we strayed and that is inevitable, but for Act One her book was really my bible.  I carried it around with me and when people asked what the film was about I could say “It’s about privileged teens and the problems they have.  Have you read The Price of Privilege?  Madeline Levine is in the our film.”  I started referring to her as the High Priestess of Privilege.

She was in fact the very first footage we shot. Gabe, Taylor and I headed out to Marin County in November of 2006 to spend three days with her. It was in those first days I realized I in fact had a film. Those early hours of footage proved we were on to something and I wasn’t crazy.

I do believe that without her generosity and participation the film would not have been made. She has so much wisdom to impart and she has become the real go-to person on the lecture circuit on this topic.  I don’t want to wreck the film by telling you what part she plays in it and all that she says. I also don’t want to ruin the amazing twenty-minute interview we have with her in the bonus materials. But in honor of Lucky Ducks week here, I will share with you one of the truly golden nuggets we walked away with.

I may have the quote a little off which is wacky, as I’ve only heard it twelve thousand times in the editing room. But when I just went to put my last DVD I have at home in the TV, something happened to it and it’s refusing to cooperate.  Continuing to put it in every TV in the house and swearing at it is not shall we say working for me. Wait, I just remembered it’s on my iPod….what she says exactly is: “If you only take one thing away from what I say, it is to have the capacity to see who you’ve been blessed with, as kids are a blessing; but to the extent that you’re pushing for the child who isn’t there, you  will never be able to connect with the child who is there.”

If you’re a parent read that again and really take in what she is saying. I think this is such an important and vital statement in light of what I see around me, and the things I discovered about other parents and myself while making this film. There is so much hover parenting and parents pushing their kids to be something they’re not it’s truly a crime. I think it has always existed, but there is no question that it’s far worse today than it’s ever been. The stats are there to prove it.

There have always been the jokes, which at their core were not really jokes about the Jewish mother and my son the doctor, or people nudging their kids towards law schools and degrees they might not be interested in. I think much of it started with immigrants, certainly with Jews, and then with the Asians that came to this country with little and it is a way of climbing up the rungs of the American Dream ladder, and taking a family from blue collar to white.  So in a time and in a place that type of thing has a foundation that can be tolerated and perhaps even applauded. However that is not what we are talking about here.

We’re the generation that came up with Baby Einstein and pushing our kids (I didn’t but many have) into Mandarin classes at the age of three. It didn’t end up in the movie, but when interviewed the writer Molly Jong Fast even said, “Ice hockey in pre-school– what does that even mean?” And I totally agree with her. Though I know what it means; it means mom and dad want little Joshy or Jameson to be the best, the brightest and too often the fastest thus continuing the family habit of if not real perfection than a perfect public family persona for the world to see.

Then we have all the hoopla over which nursery school they’re going to go to as if it makes any difference. We have made it make a difference. It’s coloring for God’s sake, and some singing and game playing and I suppose you work on vowels and consonants.  But unless you have a developmentally challenged child they will learn those things. They don’t have to feel like they are less than you want them to be because they didn’t wow the pre-school admissions officer, what does that even mean???

I went to  nursery school in LA which is now impossible to get into, but back then in the stone age all you had to do was afford it and show up. I know there are more kids now, I know all of that, and they haven’t built any more great universities and we’ve all had all these kids and we want the best for them and parents really want that bumper sticker that says Harvard, Yale or Brown on the back of the Audi Wagon.

But still  – back off!  If you don’t take anything else away from what I say and I’m only a faux expert now by spending two years thinking of nothing but this and seeing what happened with my kids, take that away.

I remember a pediatrician once saying to me, do you know anyone who goes off to college who doesn’t know how to read or isn’t toilet trained? Let them be themselves and stop interfering and running their lives. They will get there, each at his own pace and each in his own way, and with many less neurotic impulses if they don’t feel like they are constantly letting you down because they aren’t nationally ranked tennis players.

They will learn and they may not learn what and the way you want them to. But they have to learn sometimes on their time and not yours and it’s not a reflection of the parent if the kid isn’t up to the parent’s speed. Madeline talks a lot about this in her interview, you should get the DVD just for her advice.

I see parents pushing and pushing their kids from two years on through college in directions the kid has no desire to go in. This is not only robbing your child of their identity and the chance for them to discover who they are, but it is sending the message to them that you are not actually paying attention to who they are. And nothing, nothing makes a person feel worse about themselves, especially a child, than not being acknowledged and loved for their uniqueness.

If a kid feels like if they don’t kick ass on the soccer field and end up as captain of the team that wins their division they are somehow letting their dad down, this to me is just heinous. I don’t use the word lightly; I know the impact it has.

It didn’t end up in the film for a variety of reasons, time being the main one, but I cannot tell you how many kids/teens I spoke with were going into business, banking and other activities only, only because it was expected of them.  And if they didn’t they would not only be letting their parents down, but how would they ever afford the lifestyle to which they had grown accustomed?

One boy wanted to be an artist, but he felt he had to go to Wall Street as that is what he had been groomed to do. I don’t want to think of what he will feel like at fifty when he looks back on his life.

This entire way of thinking has been planted, nurtured and now harvested by us Boomers. It did not exist on the monumental scale it does now when I was growing up.

I have and do complain about my mother on here and my father at times, but nobody ever expected me or pushed me to be anything other than what I was.  That’s not entirely true, my mother wanted me to marry a Duke or a Baron and by not doing that I totally let her down. But nobody threw a map down in front of me at the age of four and said this is where you are going and here is the retinue of people who are going to help you get there. I was forced to take tennis and guitar but only to a point– I got to stop at ten. And I’m totally getting off topic. But the point is, I found my way to where I was supposed to be in my own time. And I didn’t go to college and I have lectured at MIT.  So who cares if as someone once told me about Taylor, she was inferior spatially?

She was three.  What did that mean? She wasn’t good at puzzles. Well, show me where that will impede her productivity in life. I have managed fine and never had a job required me to do a puzzle. But I know parents who are ready to jump out the window when they get that kind of news. And then they go and get someone to work with the kid on puzzles. And the kid takes away the message I’m lousy at puzzles – well maybe he is, but perhaps he will wake up at twelve and be a musical wonder or a mathematician.  That’s the way life is supposed to work.

Give it up.

Parents do their kids’ assignments so they look better. Well, what message is that sending?  You’re not good enough to do it on your own.

How do you learn about life if you don’t fall and learn to pick yourself up and do things for yourself? That is another thing we delve into and one of Madeline’s other big peeves. Parents do not let their kids fall and learn to pick themselves up and in turn learn to trust themselves.

We saw kids in India who at four were taking care of two younger siblings. Here a kid at four can’t find his own sippy cup half the time, without someone doing it for him.

Like yesterday I could go on all day with this too. But, really, each child is totally different and those of you with twins see this more quickly than the rest of us. Two babies born of the same parents, in the same womb, at the same time – totally different in every way.

So take the gift of Madeline’s wisdom and see your child for who they are, not who you want them to be; which is really at that point an extension of who you are or a fulfillment of your unrealized dreams. Let them dream their own dreams, and of course you are there to help them see those dreams come true. But who are we if we are robbed of the ability to be ourselves and define ourselves, form our own dreams and make those dreams come true?

http://www.thepriceofprivilege.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Lucky-Ducks-Tracey-Jackson/dp/B00394RL6U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1268947314&sr=8-1

Taylor and The Teen Whisperer Mike Linderman - Trout Creek

Lights, Sound, Jokes and Filmmaker himself, George Nicholas with Cowboy Mike

DP - Gabriel Judet Weinshel - it's totally working for him at this moment.

LUCKY DUCKS is a film about family, connection, bridging gaps, asking questions and searching for answers.But the underlying theme always comes back to behavior – patterns of behavior that for the most part end up shooting us in the foot.

As I told you the other day it all started with me asking the question why are today’s teens (primarily those of privilege) suffering from so many issues?  Most of them fall under the heading of behavior problems and unhappiness.

So it would make sense that much of what we ended up learning though out the process was ways to look at our behavior and hopefully change it.  When you read that, the our is important. Because for one person to change in a relationship or family structure the others have to change with them.

Patterns get formed and everyone plays their role; thus when one character changes the others have to make adjustments to fit the new personality. It doesn’t always work; certain people may not vote for change. Many people are comfortable with status quo even if status quo is quite uncomfortable.

But it’s been proven, especially with kids who go away to special schools and are then brought back into the home, that if the family dynamic doesn’t transform itself to fit the new persona things will most likely revert back to the way they were. In most, if not all the schools, the ones in Utah, Idaho and Arizona where the kids are in a version of lockdown because their behavior is so out of control, the parents are required to come in and take weekend long seminars in an attempt to teach them how to amend their own patterns of dysfunctional behavior.

It really does take two to six to make a difference.

I used to always hear if one person changes the other has no choice but to change.  However in my experience this has not proven to be true. Many people refuse to change, which means the changed one has one of two choices: either to remain changed and have to put up with the other or walk away. I suppose there is a middle ground, but middle ground is a place I am not so good at settling on.

We didn’t have the kind of drastic issues I’m referring to here, but our journey led us to people who did and those who worked with them.

Our last stop on the Seeking The Answers Express was Trout Creek, Montana where I found a guy called The Teen Whisperer. He is a big ole cowboy who has spent much of his career working in the rehabilitative schools. His name is Mike Linderman. While I grew in many ways to dislike and distrust him, that came much later, and had to do with business not so much his work.  He had a certain down home wisdom that one could not ignore.

In the beginning he sucks you in with his country charm, old fashioned common sense and no bullshit approach to kids, parents and their problems. He also uses some very concrete techniques like drawing up family contracts that outline the codes of behavior that are acceptable and those that are not. And then there is a list of consequences that are enforced when the rules are broken.

One of the BIGGEST problems and every expert reiterated this is that parents, moi included, do not follow through with consequences. One of the key issues with this generation (Gen Y? Z? I forget what letter they have been awarded) is parents have zero follow through in the consequence department, starting at a very young age.  And this opens the proverbial floodgates for kids to have no idea where the boundaries are, so they end up spending their time knocking them down right and left in a feeble, yet often aggressive attempt at having someone put some in place, mainly their parents.

But the best thing we got out of Cowboy Mike was his phrase “How’s that workin for ya?”   It not only became a statement we used for getting to the bottom of behavior issues, it became the group response for almost everything.

Film crews are little families, with their inside jokes and banter.  And from the moment we all heard  “How’s that workin for ya?” we never stopped saying it. We plugged it into most any situation that arose, be it serious or comical.  George Nicholas, our very funny sound and light guy, took that ball and ran with it, and to this day when we all see each other, inevitably something happens and one of us will turn to the other and say, “How’s that workin for ya?”

If my beloved DP Gabriel Judet –Weinshel would find himself fighting with broken a fire wire cable, in battle he was sure to lose, somebody would chime in “How’s that workin for ya Gabe?”

One day in Trout Creek, where they literally still have a movie tape rental store, I tried to convince the waitress at one of the only two places in town that they had to have green tea. I might as well have been asking for white truffles to be shaved over my burger. But I refused to accept no for an answer. How could they not have green tea?  This town barely had a gas station.  Finally she just shook her head and stomped away, probably muttering “crazy city folk” under her breath. The entire group turned to me in unison and said “How’s that working for ya?” Now you kind of had to be there to get how funny it was and why we laughed about it for hours.  And they all still remind me of it to this day.  But when used properly the phrase is very muscular.

So what exactly does it mean aside from the obvious? It means exactly what it sounds like; but how it works is, it leads up to a place of real honesty after one is posed with a difficult question or group of questions they would rather avoid, that demand an answer in the form of a simple yes or no.   Yes or no is a real response that then makes way for deeper discussions that hopefully lead to a version of the truth and some sort of acknowledgement of one’s participation in one’s life story.

This works with kids and adults as once one is forced to verbalize what exactly their behavior is and all the ways it’s not “workin” for them it’s out there. It doesn’t always mean it will change, or it many take months or years, but it’s a start.

The way Mike would use it is, say he has a kid who is flunking out of school, stoned most of the day, fighting with his parents, angry, not paying any attention to authority and in general just plain screwing up his life and torturing everyone around him.

Mike, who wastes no time says, “What’s going on with you?”

Those of you who have raised teen, are in the process of raising teens or remember your own teenage years know that coming clean and being honest is not usually part of the program, so the response of choice to most any question from “how’s school?” to “what’s that in your pocket?” results in “Nothing.”  This response usually causes the parents to get frustrated and often times yell, as getting no response day in day out tends to drive you mad and that only causes the teen to further retreat into the land of “Nothing” and whatever poor behavior he/she has been exhibiting usually gets ratcheted up.

So Mike, who doesn’t take “Nothing” for an answer starts asking a series of questions. But what I learned from him and from others is if you want to get a real answer from a reluctant subject don’t give them a lot of choices.  There should only be two choices: yes or no.

If you ask someone a question where this is built in- and you can plug this into all relationships that are not working for ya – you do get an answer. It may not be the one you want but you get one.

So we continue with our fictive kid here (and this kid is indeed totally fictive). After the “Nothing” Mike would say “Are you doing well in school?”

Pause. And the pause can be for days. Mike will wait.  He has that ability. Eventually the response is “No.”

If the kid says “Yes” Mike will lead him down the road to where the no’s or yeses spell out that he’s lying and not doing well in school. Though the kids know going in that Mike already knows the answer otherwise the kid wouldn’t be sitting opposite him. So lying proves to be a waste of time. Not that it isn’t tried.

“You showing up for all your classes?”

Again, it’s a  yes or no. “Sometimes” doesn’t cut it. ALL your classes -”No.”

So he takes them through a series of these questions about their lives that while eliciting a simple yes or no might not be spilling the beans, but they lead to other yeses or no’s and it does end up being, if not particularly articulate, at least a type of confessional.

The kid ultimately verbalizes that things are not going well. This is something not just kids but most people hate to do.

How are things at home?  This is not the right way to pose the question, and Mike would not ask it, certainly not in the beginning;  it leaves too much room for improvisation and side-stepping.

He would say, “Are you getting along with your parents?”  Again – yes or no?

He would not follow that with “Why not?”

The kid at that stage would not answer or he would say “They suck.”

Mike would say, “Is there a lot of yelling and fighting?”

“Yes” would probably be the answer.

He would not ask what are the rules of the house you are not following? Again, an easy one to avert.

Are you following the rules of the house? It’s simple: either you are or you’re not.

“No.”

“You smoking a lot of weed?”

Now the kid could say no, but again he knows that Mike knows the response. So eventually, and again it may take awhile the kid will have to say yes or no.

Mike will not take “sometimes.” “Sometimes I smoke” to Mike translates into “you smoke.”

And this whole trend of questioning that results in a long list of concrete yeses and no’s take Mike to place where he can say, “And how’s that working for ya?”

And the answer is inevitably “It’s not.”

Of course the story doesn’t end there, these are the very first baby steps in getting someone to say, I’m screwing up.  My life is a mess and I’m the captain of the sinking ship. That is Mike’s big thing; we are all the captains of our own ships – teens included.

He did this with me, and I’m someone very adept at verbal gymnastics. But he wouldn’t let me get away with it. I tried.  He asked me-

“When you punish or consequence for poor behavior to do you always follow through?” Again, read the always.

“No.” I’m terrible at it. I used to be worse (see me trying to justify) but I’m still not great.

“When you get upset do you yell?”

Sometimes, doesn’t cut it here either; I know because I tried using it.

“Yes.”

“Are there set rules and chores in place in your house for the kids and do you consistently enforce them?”

Again, no wiggle room.  “No.”

“How’s that working for you?”

“Badly.”

So he takes you to this place where you have to acknowledge the areas where you are responsible for the position you are in.

I was sitting in front of him, at that point in time, because I had a teen who was acting out.  But by pointing out all the places, and the list went on and on, where I had failed to fulfill my responsibilities, I was as accountable for her poor behavior as she was. I was guilty of lax parenting, which is an epidemic in today’s world, at least in this country.

The great thing about “How’s that workin for ya?” is that once you get the hang of it you can pretty much plug it into anything.  Yet you must be rigorously honest with your answers.

Take it to the Office. “Are you where you want to be in your career?”

Again, not where do you want to be as that can result in a vague answer followed by a laundry list of excuses as to why you aren’t.

But are you where you want to be – simple – YES OR NO.

If it’s no. Then again, not why? But pointed questions.

Do you spend too much time a day online wasting time when you could be working?
Yes or no?
Are you putting in extra hours to prove to your boss you deserve the promotion, raise or whatever?

Are you staying out late, having too much fun and thus not on top of your game during the day?

Are you really doing what you want to be doing?

Do you have a concrete list of goals and tasks that will take you where you want to go?

Are afraid if you went after what you really wanted and failed it would be too painful so it’s easier to just slide by?

You can take it as long and deep as you want to.

But at the end you get to the same question.

How’s that workin for ya? Are your behavior and your actions getting you where you need to and want to be in life?

And he doesn’t really judge while he’s doing it. This is harder to pull off when one does it to oneself or others.

I was sitting at the airport on Saturday, doing one of my favorite things: eavesdropping, which wasn’t hard as the woman across from me was yelling into her cell phone. She was hysterical, as she had forgotten to pick up her insulin before she left for the airport.

This action immediately tells me something about the woman.

And she was asking her son in NY to call Duane Reade and see if when she got in they would give her insulin ASAP. Now what was great about this was throughout the conversation she was scarfing down a big bag of peanut M&M’s, which she followed by two bags of Lays Potato Chips. She hung up the phone, opened another bag of chips and smiled at me.

I was dying to Mike Linderman her and it would have been so easy.

“I couldn’t help overhearing– do you have diabetes?”

“Yes.”

“It must be pretty bad if you need insulin.”

“Yes.”

“I noticed you just ate a bag of candy and three of chips.”

“Yes.”

“How’s that workin for ya?”
Obviously I can’t go butting my head into her business and if a diabetic forgets their insulin and proceeds to consume candy and chips at nine am who am I to stop her? But say I had wanted to butt in and said “If you’re diabetic why did you just eat all that candy and chips?”

She could have responded with,  “I needed it for my blood sugar.”

Which might shut some people up, but I know the best thing to give a diabetic in that situation is orange juice. I didn’t want to get into it with her. But had I – she would have been put in a position where she had to own that her behavior had to be the contributing factor to her condition.

It’s great and I have done this probably more than I should with younger friends of mine whose marital relationships tend to derail after the birth of their kids. They complain but take never look in the mirror. It’s such an easy one to spot and you can do it so subtly.

“Since Ashley and Dylan were born have you guys taken a weekend away alone?”

“No”

“Do you make time for each other and go on a date at least one night a week without the kids?”

“Not really.” Not really counts as a no.

“Is Ashley still sleeping in your bed with you guys every night?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t she five?”

“Yes.”

Now you don’t follow that with when are you planning on moving her to her own room as that is not a yes or no and allows the person to tell you what you want to hear or what they think they should say. So instead you say -

“Doesn’t your husband hate that?”

“Yes.”

“How’s that workin for ya?”

I could write another three thousand words on this one because I love it so much.  It’s one of my favorite things I took out of this film. And one of the most useful on a daily basis, you can really stop yourself at almost anything with it.

Of course I don’t want to give away the movie, as I want you to all go on Amazon and buy it. But the remember it the next time you start complaining about a situation or find yourself up some tree you don’t want to be in, or realize are unhappy with a part or parts of your life. Or even if those around you are acting wacky and you can’t figure out what to do.

Start asking the simple yet tough questions about your own participation. Questions that can only be answered with yes or no.And then once you get to a place of realization, ask yourself, “How’s this workin for me?”

PS. You can do it on anyone in your family too!

Push pin portrait by Eric Daigh

It arrived today   –  my push pin portrait by Eric Daigh. The whole story is in an earlier post when we met him at an opening and Glenn commissioned him to do a portrait of me.  For those of you who missed the earlier blog, Eric is an incredibly talented artist from Michigan.  He makes these Chuck Close like portraits using thousands and thousands of push pins.

Someday he will be VERY famous and you will remember I told you about him.

I’d get one now before he gets really expensive.

PS – I told him about the eye-lift before he started so he didn’t do black push pins under my eyes!

http://daigh.com/

The Perfect Morning

I said this week would be entirely devoted to LUCKY DUCKS as the DVD is coming out on Amazon and well, we need to PUSH IT.

It’s going to take some fancy footwork on my part as I’m going to have to mesh the filmmaker with the author, with the mom and the blogger. And oddly when I think about it they all sort of dovetail into each other.

At the same time I don’t want to wreck the interview Deb Eckerling is doing this Sunday for her website writeonline.com..

But a question she asked me last night spawned a whole line of thought that I realized might be somewhat helpful or not, to people who are stuck in places in their lives where they need to move forward and not only don’t always know how, but often don’t know in which direction.

How was Lucky Ducks born? Very simply out of necessity.  If certain events in my career had played out differently and by differently I mean how I wanted, thought, anticipated and quite frankly worked hard for them to, I never would have made this film.

I would have had no need.  I would have had no time and I would have remained on the same path I had been on for close to twenty years.

And while it was a path I had chosen, stuck with, liked, was good at and gave me quite a hefty salary, one day not of my own choosing it sort of vanished.

While I always knew it would; screenwriters unless they are superstars by forty to forty-five have a shelf life and that shelf life is forty to forty-five.

I was considered quite successful, less than some, more than many.  And while I had just come off of two big projects where I felt I had hit the ball out of the park, I woke up one day for the first time in eighteen years and I didn’t have a job waiting.

My loyal, beyond loyal, then agent, now manager Richard Arlook said it would be a month or two, that went to six, the six turned to eight and on and on.

How did this happen? I have asked myself that many times.

In the beginning I played everybody’s favorite game when life isn’t dealing the hand they want, I was a victim. I was a victim because Hollywood was stupid and didn’t appreciate my talent. I was a victim because I was a woman in a man’s world. I was a victim because I was getting older and the hits didn’t come at the rate I thought. The films got made but by then made wasn’t enough, they had to gross hundreds of millions. I was a victim because I was ahead of my time, that’s one of my favorites. I was a victim because I lived in NY; forget the fact that I had made a conscious choice to move there.  When one is playing the victim you can spin it anyway that perpetuates your misery and thus inability to move.

There are  many real reasons the jobs dried up and few had to do with me. The business shrunk,really shrunk. I did get older. I did lose a certain hunger. I was not on the cutting edge of comedy any longer. Comedy is young person’s game for the most part and the face of comedy had changed.  A writer’s strike was brewing.  There was a hiring freeze.

But hindsight often times being clarity I now like to think I was simply not meant to do it anymore. I did it. I did for close to two decades.  I did it well. I had my time.

The universe wanted me to move and when the universe wants you to move sometimes it just sticks you in one miserable, confused place until either you tire of it and want to move or for a myriad of reasons you have no choice but to move. But you are stuck until you decide uck and get yourself unstuck,  after a certain age no one can do it for you.

But it doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen in work.  It doesn’t happen in relationships, it took me five years to leave my first marriage. Aside from uck,  there is a real stubbornness that comes with  stuck.

So when I stopped working I opted for impotence, misery and daily tears. That was my coping mechanism of choice.
I would still come to the office as that is a life long habit.  But I would close my door, put my head on the desk and weep. Then I would write e-mails to everyone and bemoan my fate. This went on for I would say a good nine months.

During that time every now and then I would go up for jobs, and lose them, which would only plummet me into a deeper sense of despair, misery and victimization.  I was fun to be around.

Lunch dates started bailing.

Even my overly patient husband was getting fed up with me.

Nobody likes to hang around someone who spends their time complaining about their life while doing nothing to change it.

The thing is I really did not know what to do. I had been Tracey Jackson screenwriter for close to twenty years.  If I wasn’t that what would I be? I didn’t go to college so that eliminates a ton.  I was forty-seven that eliminates a ton more.  If I wasn’t a female romantic comedy writer, well, I didn’t know what I was.

I was also stuck in something else, I really, truly believed writing movies was all that made me happy. I could not imagine myself doing something else that would give me the same pleasure. Except for the fact that aside from the money and the first draft, the rest made me miserable. I was always on pins and needles I would get fired.  Every job one fears is one’s last, talk about zero job security.  Anything remotely good I turned in was handed to someone else to pulverize. I was always looking over my shoulder to see who was coming up behind me.  Does that sound like fun to you?

It was the devil known.  And it was a generous devil in terms of a salary, limos,  suites and trips with movie stars.  But in terms of real creative satisfaction it was Faustian with a double F.

Of course I didn’t know this until I landed on something else.

But I was stuck, where could I go?

Finally as often happens I got sick of myself and that is the only way one does move.  This is true with any kind of maladaptive behavior or relationship; the drunk has to reach rock bottom and seek help. You have to wake up one day so miserable in a relationship that you decided life is too short.  Sometimes you have to take the big, bold, brave step and realize your dreams have worn out their welcome and it’s time to create some new ones.

And finally one day that is what happened to me.

Either I was going to be miserable and torture those around me or move forward with my life, somehow, someway in some direction.

I had to own that I was  unhappy and somehow only I was going to make myself  happy again.

And I think this is one of the great life lessons we learn: if we choose to learn it.

I personally don’t like being unhappy and I don’t like being unproductive.   I have a lot to say and clearly waiting around for someone to hire me to say it was not going to happen.

So eventually the uck in stuck got to me and I decided to do something on my own.

I was reading a lot of quotes around this time.  I do that when I wallow and I happened across a wonderful quote by Robert Lowell.

~ Fate Loves The Fearless ~

Just pause for a second and breathe that one in.  I did – many times.

I actually took a big black marker and wrote it on my white board that was once was covered with my story beats.

And by day three of staring at that quote I stopped crying, complaining and blaming others and decided to do something I had been saying I wanted to do for years – I would direct my own film. If no one else would hire me, I would hire myself. Forget the fact I couldn’t afford myself.

And I would work in the genre I find the most interesting non-fiction. And since I couldn’t afford me, I certainly couldn’t afford actors, so I would make a film using my family.  And what was there to make a film about in my family?  My teenager was driving me nuts, in fact everyone I knew who had a teenager, was being driven around the bend by them. I went with what I have always gone with when coming up with stories if it’s happening to me, it must be happening to others as well.

During the summer of my continual discontent I had read the book The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine.  As I was reading it it  never crossed my mind that this would be an interesting jumping off point for a film. I was still too attached to my misery for that.

But once I got unstuck and I started putting the pieces of my new career together, it came back to me, oh yeah, that book. And then this other idea came back to me, the idea that had been percolating in my brain for several years, but again not as a film, but merely as a way to get Taylor unstuck from the life she was leading that we felt was not getting her where she needed to be.

And then it dawned on me, what if I put those things together?  What if I take my spoiled, somewhat malcontent kid and plunk her in a slum school in India to teach ? And then what if I make a film about it?

I have a slum school I have been helping with for years, so we had the place, we had the kid and  all of a sudden I couldn’t think of anything else.

I’m one of those people who are always looking for signs, signs that will appear to me and only me that this is the right path.

When I was attaching myself to the idea of making the film, there were still all sorts of hurdles to clear, but at least at that point I was on a track.

I went looking for my copy of The Price of Privilege.
My husband deals in books and we read a lot of books and god knows we have more books than you can imagine.  Many of those books live in our basement in Sag Harbor.

One weekend we were out there and I went looking for my copy of Madeline’s book. I couldn’t find it anywhere. Me being me, I took this  as a sign, I wasn’t meant to make the documentary. So I dove back into my dark hole of I have no career for several hours.  But I climbed out so we could meet our dear friends Jonathan Burnham and Joe Dolce for dinner.

Now Jonathan runs a big division of Harper Collins and Joe is big in PR. So when they asked what I was up to instead of breaking into tears and saying nothing, I said I had this idea for a documentary and told him what it was about.

Jonathan said that sounded  interesting and I should really be in touch with their author Madeline Levine who had written The Price of Privilege. 

SIGN. SIGN. SIGN. SIGN.

He gave me her email and within the week she had agreed to be in this film. Suddenly I really had a film.  I was unstuck,  I was making a movie.

Now I won’t bore you with the details of getting a film off the ground. Especially  one when you’re doing most of the work yourself.  There are endless details, but I love details and I love endless so it was perfect for me.

Suddenly, I was in the office an hour earlier and there an hour later. I was working weekends.

When people asked what I was doing  – I was making a film.

Once I made up my mind there was a magnificent daisy chain of good luck that led me to all the right people.  Or if we go with Robert Lowell, fate does love the fearless.  And my setting out to make a documentary, having no real idea what I was doing aside from the fact I have a good sense of story structure was a totally fearless act. Some might say foolish, I go with fearless.

But it all fell together.

And then one glorious morning that will stand out as such a bold strand in the tapestry of my life:  I was standing on the beach in Bombay at sunrise. I was in charge (those are huge words for a screenwriter) of a crew of about forty people.  I had thirty kids in the scene.  I had a steady cam operator who was the number one steady cam guy in Bollywood I had hired to capture this really lyrical moment in time.

And I looked out to one of my favorite images on the planet, The Arabian Sea, and truly from the bottom of my heart thanked God for sticking me where he did and leaving me there for as long as he did, as if he hadn’t  I would not have been standing where I was and I could not have imagined anywhere at that point in time I would have rather been nor could I have dreamt up anything I would have been happier doing than making LUCKY DUCKS.

California Girls LOVE Taco Bell!

Please don't tell the girls from gym about this.

Is it something about the desert?

The Labyrinth Path

Walking the walk without the talk.

My good friend and former student Ed Pinkasov

Thelma and Louise

I know you all think I’m stuck on this Penis Mountain thing. But quite frankly, if you had spent the last three days staring at it you might have a hard time letting it go too.

I do want you to know that despite the fact there was drinking, singing, the consumption of drive-thru fast food and other adolescent activities on Taylor and Tracey’s excellent adventure, I did try and balance it with some spirituality, some pampering and some unclogging of the chakras.

We did some serious spa-ing. I don’t think that is a proper word but I don’t care. We had our manis/pedis, massages and facials and I had Reiki. Now, I had never had Reiki, which is saying something, as there is very little in the way of spa-ing, unclogging, releasing and the laying of others’ hands on my body that involves gratuities I have not experienced.

If it results in unknotting me, enlightening me or making me feel good, I’m in. And I’ve gotten to do this all over the place.

There have been some weird ones. Once Taylor and I were in Mysore, India and I wanted to have the hot oil drip. It has a name, but I’ve forgotten it. Justine will surely email and remind me. The principle is that by dripping droplets of hot oil on your forehead you become acquainted with your third eye. Normally it’s a messy, albeit peaceful process. Though the time in Mysore it was anything but.

Tay and I were led to this dark, dank room where we were told to strip and lay on a large slab of wood, that had sides which made it look like a box that had been cut down. Four stocky women then proceeded to pour hot coconut oil on us and basically slap us silly with rough old towels, while one stood at our heads and poured more hot coconut oil on our foreheads in a never ending stream that got into our eyes, ears and noses.

Not only did it not help locate our third eye we couldn’t see out of the other two for hours.

The more they poured, the more we sort of slid around the tables and the more we slid the more they slapped. It was truly like a form of torture. I felt horrible for putting Taylor through it and it took a week before our bodies were oil free.

Despite the fact I knew Reiki was nothing like this, I had some image in my mind they could be similar.

But this week I figured it’s the only one left I really haven’t tried, why not? I lived through Mysore – I can get through Reiki.

I have no idea what they do as your eyes are closed. It involves hands gliding over your body but not heavily touching you. Its purpose is to release your chakras. I adore the concept of chakras and have been told mine are very blocked.

But I’ve got to say, this Reiki thing had me at hello. I was so relaxed, I almost went into a coma and I actually felt that kind of release you get with really good acupuncture.

And I swear I don’t have a clue as to what this woman did.

But I will do it again, and again, and again. As it has a long term effect. My chakras did not clog up again when Jet Blue said “We don’t know when the plane will depart.” Normally, I start throwing things when they say that.

They also did not clog up when in the dreadful storm last night they were trying to land our plane and we were diverted from JFK and had to land in Newark. They didn’t clog when they announced we may be landing in Newark but we would all be put on a bus to JFK to get our luggage. Blessedly, this did not happen, but those are the moments when not only my chakras tend to block but my temper tends to flare.

I didn’t even get upset when it felt like we weren’t going to land. I actually don’t know how we did. I think we had Captain Sulley’s nephew in the cockpit, as we were literally the only plane in the airport that got in. So Reiki works.

We followed the Reiki (actually, Taylor had her pores unclogged while I was dealing with my chakras) with a labyrinth walk. Now oddly in all my global spiritual seeking, I had never even heard of this one.

So I had no idea what to expect. Though in my head it I imagined tall perfectly manicured hedges that formed a labyrinth you wound your way through.

WRONG.

It was a coil like circle made of stones in the middle of a Franciscan Wellness Center. Thank you very much; yes I took Taylor aka Thelma to a Franciscan Wellness Center to help balance the rest of the trip.

So the labyrinth is an ancient spiritual technique, used for walking meditation. I have wanted to learn walking meditation for ages as I have a hard time sitting. I try, but it’s not easy for me.

I figured if there were a way to do it while on the move, this would allow me to get places while meditating. NOT.

We learned that you can’t find joy while rushing.

I like that. Think about it. It’s good.

No joy while rushing. I desperately needed to hear that. I need to now repeat it to myself about four thousand times a day.

What happens is you enter the labyrinth and slowly, slowly follow the path that is formed by these precisely placed rocks. They may look random but they are anything but.

They look sort of like a Mandala. But they also look like the snaky line you go through that leads you to the entrance of Space Mountain in Disneyland.

It’s laid out you so you don’t have to think. You just walk very, very slowly. Remember, no joy while rushing and you breath in and out slowly like in sitting meditation and you follow the path and like in sitting mediation you let your thoughts come and go without attaching meaning or judgment to them. You can’t jump the rocks. You can’t forge your own path, or the path that you think is right for you or the path you find most appealing. You have no choice but to follow the path that is laid out before you and you do and you become very calm, and centered, at least I did.

Cindy, the woman who taught us this said some people, mostly men, get nervous and run out. It’s hard to walk slowly in a direction you don’t understand or have control over with just your thoughts ebbing and flowing. But that really is the ultimate lesson of life. I loved it so much I did it three times.

And halfway through lap two it hit me, and it’s so uncomplicated – it’s only the basis, the real foundation for most religions and spiritual practices: just relax and follow the path, trust it. Trust it’s all going to be all right. Move slowly, with purpose and faith and it’s all laid out for you.

This is not easy for everyone.

Taylor got it though. Her revelation came as she saw the rocks as the self-inflicted boundaries, both physical and mental, that hold us back as long as we will let them. She feels now after walking the walk that those boundaries– the rocks, stones and walls– are only as powerful as you allow them to be. I like that.

Different epiphanies – walking the same path. Just like life.

So you see the wine and mojitos and all were balanced with some good spiritual awakenings.

We ended our stay by having dinner with my former student and good friend Ed Pinkasov who is now living in Phoenix. He took us to a fun place, we had mojitos– last night spring break, come on, I had an epiphany. I opened my chakras. I was going home to my life of moderation. One more night of indulgence was fine, plus we had a great time.

But then this is the best – yesterday morning as we were checking out, the nice woman who took such good care of us when they gave our room away was on the duty. She asked how we liked the room. I told her it was amazing and like so often happens a wrong turn can lead to the right destination.

And I said, “And how about that mountain…” and gave her a wink-wink look without winks, as I can’t wink.

She said, “Oh, The Monk.”

I almost fell over.

The monk?????

“The mountain is supposed to look like a monk?”

She nodded.

I didn’t have the nerve to tell her what I saw in that mountain.

But I gave her my website and told her to check out yesterday’s blog.

As we drove away and I glanced back, there was no question that mountain didn’t look like any monk I’d ever seen. Unless they are referring to those pervy monks in Germany the Pope is dealing with this week.

I was looking at a monk for three days and seeing a penis.

I suppose I should find it disturbing. Yet I don’t think I’m wrong.

You guys saw the photos. Did that look like a monk to you?

Paging Dr. Rorshach. I’m sure he would agree one man’s monk can be another man’s penis.

FRESHMAN MOM HOME FROM SPRING BREAK

Last time I promise - Penis or Monk?

Here a little souvenir from our trip.  Susan we got your Aretha in there.  We had about twenty more, but we edited it down  to these.

So even if you’re not from California,  driving the PCH, or down Sunset with your hair flying in the breeze, load these babies on your iPod and you will at least think you are – fur sure. They’re totally awesome. Narly in fact. Hey I’m a seventies California girl!

See you back in New York.

Freshman Spring Break is officially over. Three days  at spa and I need to go home and detox.

TAYLOR AND TRACEY’S CALIFORNIA GIRLS DRIVING PLAYLIST

1. CALIFORNIA GIRLS – BEACH BOYS
2. BORN TO RUN- BRUCE SPRINGSTEIN
3. EVERLASTING LOVE – ARETHA FRANKLIN
4. HOOKED ON A FEELING – SWEDE
5. DO YA THINK I’M SEXY – ROD STEWART
6. LET’S GET IT ON – MARVIN GAYE
7. BROWN EYED GIRL – VAN MORRISSON
8. KOKOMO – BEACH BOYS
9. WHO’S ZOOMIN WHO- ARETHA FRANKLIN
10. MORE THAN A WOMAN- BEE GEES
11. UPTOWN GIRL – BILLY JOEL
12. DANCING IN THE MOONLIGHT – KING HARVEST
13. I’M COMING OUT – DIANA ROSS
14. GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN – CYNDI LAUPER
15. SEPTEMBER – RAPPERS DELIGHT
16. I CAN’T HELP MYSELF- FOUR TOPS
17. BRANDY- LOOKING GLASS
18. AMERICA – NEIL DIAMOND
19. NATIVE NEW YORKER – ODEYSSY
20. FAMILY OF MAN – PAUL WILLIAMS
21. I LOVE L.A. – RANDY NEWMAN
22. JANE FONDA- MICKEY AVALON
23. COULD IT BE I’M FALLING IN LOVE – THE   SPINNERS
24. SAVE IT FOR A RAINY DAY – STEVEN BISHOP
25. LA BAMBA – RICHIE VALENS

PENIS MOUNTAIN shot by Tracey

Taylor's lovely arty shot at sunset. It glows.

Penis Mountain the post card version

All these gorgeous shots are obviously Taylor's this one she wants you to search out the penis. She feels like much else about me mine is too in your face.

Yes, I did just say that. And I said it because as I type this I am staring at a giant mountain that is shaped exactly like a penis.  We call it Penis Mountain.

We are in Scottsdale, where Camelback Mountain is one of the big sights.

Now, I want to tell you having seen both, to me Penis Mountain looks much more like a penis than Camelback looks like a camel.  Or perhaps I have just seen more  — oh stop me now.

Anyway, the further adventures of Tracey and Taylor on the road: we are in Arizona, on our computers, staring from time to time at our giant Penis Mountain.

I tried going outside and meditating on it this AM – it’s not what I would call a relaxing thing to meditate on. It had the reverse effect.

We got here two days ago. People want to know if we are still singing in the car and the answer is yes, in the car and everywhere else. We now sing louder as we speed across the desert. We have taken to calling ourselves Thelma and Louise. Taylor really wanted to be Thelma. I too wanted to be Thelma.  But sometimes you have to be the mother even if you are not behaving like one. So I let her be Thelma and I’m stuck with Louise.

No, we are not driving off a cliff.

Perhaps if Thelma and Louise had gotten to see Penis Mountain they would have decided on a different fate for themselves. Penises have a way of doing that, especially when they are mountains.

I didn’t plan on this giant phallic image being the backdrop for our mother-daughter spring break adventure. But sometimes in life you are presented with things and you just have to deal. Sometimes they are in the form of a penis.

When we got here there was a mix-up with our room. They gave our room, which was just a room, and was not even supposed to be a mountain view,  much less Penis Mountain View, to someone else. They were very nice about it, rather upset and really had to scramble to find us a room as they are sold out.

I was in one of my life’s short I’m not yelling at anyone moods or I was just so hung over from night with Maria I didn’t have the energy to cause a fuss. I had my mind on other things. Normally I might have had one of my traveler’s hissy fits. But I just said  “How about we go to the bar, you pick up the tab and sort it out the best way you can.” VERY NOT ME. Taylor who finds me somewhat of an hysteric at times was impressed.

So off we went to the bar and had a few glasses of wine. Much like my night with Maria, I hadn’t eaten all day.

One aside here: yes, I am with Taylor, yes she is 19 – almost – should I be drinking with her?  You know – my answer is yes, obviously it’s yes, I do it. Not in excess, not like the little performance Maria and I put on the night before but a glass or two is fine with me.

Many would say no. Paul, Larry you out there? What do you think she does when she’s not with me?

She actually doesn’t even drink that much. She ordered a mojito last night took one sip and left it. This caused me to start a rant of do you realize that was fourteen dollars and you’re letting it go to waste?

I’m chalking that up to having to deal with this giant penis all the time.

So we were in the bar waiting for our room. I ordered the most expensive wine as they were picking up the bill and they did screw up and I was in that kind of mood.

Then it was sort of deja vu all over again from the night before with Maria, except there was much less booze and for the most part the conversation was different.  Though there were some similarities. We  ordered bar snacks and went outside. That is when Taylor brought out her cigarettes and I lit up.

They brought the new room key.  We were having such fun we stayed another hour.

Then some cute guy– Taylor says he wasn’t cute, but I think while Turk did my eyes he snuck in some filters that make people cute who normally aren’t. Anyway, Rick,  I remember his name at least, brought us up here – way up here. Just getting to our room is like an expedition in itself. But because they had screwed up, they gave us this suite – I had not ordered a suite. We were just supposed to be in a normal room with no giant penises out our window.

So we come to the room, a little tipsy, and it’s a big suite, really big, kitchen, fireplace, and two terraces, big bedroom, the works.  I go out on the terrace to breathe in some of the lovely desert air and there it was, Penis Mountain.

I thought perhaps because I had consumed more alcohol in two days than I had in the last month, I was seeing things. I was seeing giant penises where there were none.

I had them on brain? I don’t know. I don’t normally. Was this a special week?

I brought Taylor out.

“Taylor what is that?”

“Jesus Christ!” she said.

“It’s like all there, all the parts.”

I had mixed feelings about this; I emailed Maria, “You are never going to guess what is outside my window. I’m not sure I’m in the mood for this, I’m here with Taylor.”

I watched the sun set behind it. It took on a more romantic appearance. It was very aggressive when we first arrived. I felt a hostility coming from it. With the sun setting behind it, it became more comforting.  Perhaps I would grow to embrace it.

We went to dinner. OK, it’s spring break, more drinks. I think I ate shrimp.

Now I never drink and drive, but we were on this little hotel property, so after dinner we buckled up and went back to our room.

Or tried. This place is really complicated, really dark and we hadn’t paid attention to where our room was. You know when you do that?  Bad move.

So we just drove up the mountains, knowing that our only landmark was our giant mountain penis.

The place kind of twists and turns and the casitas all look alike; except ours is the only one that is close to the penis.  Well, there is one with a lap pool that butts up against it.

We knew the only way to find our way home was to spot that big ole penis in the sky.

Taylor is a cheap drunk, two glasses and she’s toast. I was a muffin, and we were lost.

Now, the sensible thing to do would have been to go back to the desk and just ask how to get our room. But no, I didn’t want to do that.  I wanted to find my way there – I wanted  the penis to guide me.

It became almost  a spiritual calling at that point.  Here I was in the desert, land of the Indians– sorry, Native Americans, who much like the Indians– sorry, South Asians I love, pray to phallic symbols. It’s only the westernized, Calvinistic societies who are so hung up on making such a big deal of it all. Come on, world – lighten up.

So Tay and I started yelling out for it. “Oh penis, where are you? Please come out and show us the way home.”

We thought if could make up songs to it. Songs that had the word mountain in them it might appear.  We were in this Playlist mood anyway.

As we made our way up and down the hills, now on foot, we started singing “Ain’t no penis high enough, ain’t no penis low enough to keep me from you.” Then more age appropriate – perhaps not-  I had so crossed line of propriety at this point – there was no going back.

The Sound Of Music came to mind. “Climb every penis.”

We went to that place where you can’t stop laughing. We were Thelma and Louise only instead of Brad Pitt we had a mountain penis and we couldn’t find it.   “She’ll be coming around the penis when she comes.”

This was not getting us anywhere. In fact we ended up jammng our key into someone else’s casita. This caused them to yell at us and we in turn ran off into the night in search of our penis and thus our room. Laughing and singing to the point we were almost in tears.

HEY IT’S SRING BREAK  WE ARE FRESHMEN THIS IS WHAT WE DO.

Well, I think in Ft. Lauderdale they have a lot of real ones actually.

The sad end to this story is we never found our penis; not on our own at least.

A guy in a golf cart who works for the hotel happened by and through the snorts of laughter we asked him where 273 was.

It was literally right in front of our nose. Like right there, like four feet away. So near and yet so far.

Proving something I have known for years: depending on penis for guidance is not always the best idea.

FRESHMAN MOM – live from PENIS MOUNTAIN

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Three years. Thousands of miles of travel.  A hundred and eighty hours of footage. Weeks spent in the editing suite with Cob Carlson.  One festival. One nomination for BEST DOC.

Frantic swimming against the tide of the newly diminished indie market, but finally we are out on DVD and for all the people who have written in and asked how to get it or see it and for all those who have not – now is your chance.

What is I think (and OK, I’m prejudiced) is special and ultimately very valuable about this DVD is along with the Lucky Ducks film we have included fifty minutes of interviews with experts. I made the executive decision that we’d use those for our bonus materials instead of funny shots of us in India or the goofy outake scenes that usually end up on DVDs, and believe me I like them and we had some great ones. But I thought this would be a much more important learning tool if we let the experts speak.

The original intent of the film did get kind of side-tracked as most docs do, but the way I could nudge it back to the original concept was in the bonus material section. So what you will get is a twenty-minute interview with adolescent therapist and best selling author Madeline Levine, who wrote The Price Of Privilege. We have ten minutes of another amazing expert and the author of Teens In Turmoil – Carol Maxym. We have the “Teen Whisperer” chiming in on how he handles problems. We have Paul Williams who along with being an Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, and Golden Globe, Hall of Fame songwriter, is a recovery activist who travels the world speaking at AA and sobriety conventions. Paul speaks candidly about what parents should do in dealing with kids who are starting down that path. He also gives some important tips on how to maybe help them from even getting to that place. And then we have some unprecedented footage with James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, who has acknowledged his own problems with addictions and tells us some of the things that might have been done to stop him and what he would do with his kids.

Finally, we have Taylor three years after the fact talking to kids about how she felt then, how the film changed her and how she feels now. And of course I can never shut me up so there is the director’s interview and a hunk of footage shot in India when I had one of my bigger epiphanies of the last decade.

So please…tell your friends. Pass this on.

Many people have asked for it. Everyone who sees it says it has truly opened their eyes to issues in their past and present. I’m not saying this because I made it; it is worth the $19.99 if only for the bonus material. But the movie is fun too!!!!

And because life being what it is and me not having a press agent for this project, I have to take out my horn and do a little blowing of my own here. So these are some of the comments from people who have seen Lucky Ducks:

“Ever since I met you I’ve had a very high opinion of your brains and ability to be outrageously funny.  But Lucky Ducks surpassed everything that I might have expected. The clear-eyed honesty, lack of self regard, and irony of your film are extraordinary, as is the fundamental tenderness with which you handled both Taylor and in the little vignettes Glenn.

Also, you must be one hell of a director to have elicited that performance from Taylor.”

LOUIS BEGLEY, Author of ABOUT SCHMIDT – WAR TIME LIES

“LOVED YOUR FILM!!  Benton and I both thought it was MARVELOUS.It was true and awful and sweet and loving and oh, so wrenching. Upsetting,just what it needed to be.  I thought the cinematography was wonderful and your direction was SUPERB.  What a TALENT you have.  The many vistas and locations, our beautiful neighborhood, all the young girls and finally, Taylor was incredible.  She was wonderfully shrill when yelling and yet so very still and contained and vulnerable and strong in her own way. One  can feel it, feel her despair and feel you through her.  And finally, you were AMAZING as an actress. One of the most stunning and touching things was that you, who are always beautiful and sexy, allowed yourself to be filmed in every way: with smeared makeup and without it, with swollen eyes, looking anxious, tired and stressed…but  mostly, the shocker was that you opened yourself wide and showed us  your pain, who you are and every vulnerability. TOTALLY COURAGEOUS and what a thrilling film.  BRAVO and heartiest CONGRATULATIONS. Nor to foget, Glenn was extraordinary!   Thank you for such a beautiful, thoughtful and true film.”

SALLIE BENTON

“Recovering. What an amazing experience. You really have created a fantastically raw, powerful and mesmerizing film that is going to have people arguing, searching themselves, thinking about their mothers, about their children and their rel’ships…. . What really impresed me is that it moves from being a chirpy, well-informed and intelligent investigation into spoilt Park Ave children and turns itself into a darker, more wrenchingly personal cinema verite doc about a mother and her daughter and their very complicated interaction. But you made the right choice: the shift felt true, as if in making the movie you moved deeper into yourself and realized this went beyond $5000 handbags and into much more complex areas, and the viewer goes with you.”

JONATHAN BURNHAM, Chief Editor Harper Collins

“Your movie was so honest and funny. I thought it was brilliant. Really identified.”

ERICA JONG

” What a moving experience the screening was for me. There were so many synchonicities..The film had so much wisdom to impart while being completely entertaining not a small achievment.  After reexamining all my values reliving all the pain and frustration, I am left with the truth that the Mother- Daughter relationship is  just overwhelming.”

SOMEONE I NEVER MET

“Congrats on a job well done…the film is fast-paced, interesting, and so very very brave…it made me go home and set limits and type up a list of chores for Luca! Very thought-provoking…”

JESSICA VELMANS FROM ABC

“Your movie is shocking and touching and upsetting and scary and brave. Thanks for sending it.”

MIKE NICHOLS

“Your movie is extraordinary; I think you’re really brave to do such a no holds barred film; it is bound to provoke a huge amount of debate and launch 1,000 columns.”

JOANNA COLES, Editor-in-Chief of Marie-Claire

“I think everyone should see this movie, Lucky Ducks!!!”

JUDY COLLINS

So there you have it….

If you happen be by the newsstand today, in this month’s MARIE-CLAIRE  we are featured in Abigail Pesta’s Q and A on page 101.

And on April 23 Deborah Eckerling is doing a Q and A for her writer’s website  Writeononline..com

http://writeononline.com/

Newest Oldest BFF - Maria Bushkin Save

Morning Maria

As bad as this is - I looked worse a week ago.

Joe Bushkin's Website

The other morning Taylor came in my room and said, “You are really turning into the teenager you never got to be.”

I said, “What are you talking about?”

“You know how in school you weren’t popular and you didn’t have a clique? Now because of your blog and Facebook and your gym, you’re like the popular girl doing all the things and getting to be the person you never got to be.”

Sometimes Taylor really astounds me and this one did actually stop me in my tracks.

She like totally – fur sure – was right on.

I wasn’t popular in high school.  I wasn’t popular in grammar school. In fact until I started dating (and they were not my peers) I was not popular with anyone but adults.  I had a few friends and being consistent people, two of them Susan Davis and Vanessa, who show up here all the time, were two of my best friends growing up.

But suffice to say, people were pretty mean to me. I was the kid who got picked on. And to this day, I’m not sure why.

People who knew me in school will sometimes come up and apologize and say, “Sorry, I was really mean to you.”

Even yesterday at breakfast after our sleepover –which I will get to – Maria said, “Everybody was really mean to you. Why?”
I have often asked myself this question.

My mother says no one liked me from my first day in nursery school (except Blake) she says I was bossy and wanted it all my way.

Wait a minute isn’t that you mom?

Though, there is no question I can see that – a bit- sometimes- perhaps.

But, actually I don’t think any more so than the popular people. Popular people are totally bossy. Why else be popular if you can’t order people around?

I wasn’t hideously ugly or fat or awkward or anything.

I was kind of blonde and perky the way I am now. I was funny then too.

People assume girls with long blonde hair and boobs are always popular. Well, take it from me they are not.

I might have been a bit overbearing. People have accused me of being too fast, too much to keep up with, too demanding of them to show up in ways that are not in keeping with their personality. But I’m not so sure I was that way at 12, 13, 14, and 15.

Like everyone else, I wanted to be accepted by my peers. I wanted to be a cheerleader and date the cool guys.

Who did I want to date? I wanted to date a guy called Tom Patten, tall, blonde, a junior when I was a real freshman.  He had a baby blue Datsun XKE. He drove me home from school once.

That was the extent of our time spent together.  And he kept the motor running and looked the other way as I exited the car.

I have heard he has turned monstrously fat. Which is what one always wants to happen to those people.

So, suffice to say I grew up very fast, and kind of went from playing with Barbies to playing with boys without a stop in high-school ville to live a normal teen-age hood in between.

I heard a quote from a film the other day, and it went something like this, I didn’t see the film, I think I got it from the ad. Someone had been in a coma  and had just woken up and a person was explaining how the world had changed.  They said, “And then there is Facebook; it’s where you re-connect with all the people you wanted to go out with in high school and finally get to be friends with.”

Now, I may have the quote a little off, but that is the essence and there is truth to that, a lot of truth. I think it is partially – scratch partially – I would say primarily why so many Boomers spend so much time online, on FB connecting with all the people from their past.

Thanks to the magic of the internet we are allowed the chance to present the image of our idealized self or just be who we are now and say hey – remember me, I was the nerd, well, now maybe that’s changed.

I think many people are reliving and photo-shopping their high school image online.

And the popular people, who might not have grown up to be popular people, which is many times the case (wonder if Tom Patten is cool now? If he’s fat -NOT) anyway, I think they get to go back to the place where they peaked.

It’s kind of all things to all people.

Plus like many things as we age and much that used to be part of our lives and personalities starts to diminish FB is a way of keeping certain aspects of our youth in play. And let’s face it; we are all up for that.

So yes, on Facebook I have become someone I was not in high school, popular. Tay is right. I’m now getting to be one of the cool kids. It took four decades,  I’m loving it.

And then, there is my gym, well, my gym, the center of so much of my life, I’m back next week guys – my gym is like totally the cafeteria minus the food.

There is a little clique at my gym and the members, we all know who we are, we rule.

Glenn calls us the Warriors.

One of the member’s daughters once said, we were “the mean girls of the place.”

I hate to admit it, I loved it and she was right.

Like all cliques we have an outfit, and you pretty much have to wear a version of it. If someone comes in without it, they won’t be allowed in the group.

And we have real rules – consistent attendance is mandatory.

You like totally, fur sure have to show up at least five days a week, and better to make it seven; anything under that is considered a lazy ass and not allowed in the group.

Because all members of the Warriors, are type A, competitive,  New Yorkers, you have to have a certain body fat ratio or you are not allowed in either. You have to have a certain type of abs – flat. Butt – firm. Legs – well defined. Attitude – superior.  Hey- high school is not always a pretty place otherwise people who have been left out would not make so many movies about it once they grow up.

You can spot us sometimes, the Warriors striding down the street between seven and ten am., in rain, sleet, snow or even the high holidays. We wear Lulu Lemon workout pants or leggings, black and gray only;  bright colors out you as imposter.  You can mix and match the tops and if you are at the white-hot-center of the group and I am.  OK, just accept it, you have to.  At fifty-one I’m finally cool enough for school.

If you are at the white-hot center you can start new styles, mostly variations on the top.  Like I started wearing day glow sports bras under longer than normal tops, others took notice and I have seen this look appear on a few people now.  But the tight little workout tops we wear, are covered by either a snug long sleeved t-shirt or a cashmere hoodie.

But only for the first ten minutes, once you hit the deck for push ups, you have to throw off the long sleeves and toss them in the direction of your Emergence spiked water otherwise you look like a pussy.

And of course we are deeply judgmental of everyone’s body types, especially our own and some of the teachers as well.

And the highest compliment is “you’ve lost weight.”  Sometimes people will say you should put some on.  Which of course nobody means, but it’s acknowledging you’re really walking the walk or doing the down-ups, as we like to say at EXHALE.

So Taylor was right – I have found these places in my life to experience the popularity that was denied to me in high school.

And I guess this blog does a little too.  Though I end being the least popular girl on the page with some people many days.  But the other stuff is all kicking so – like you – know – I’m chill with that.

And now with my new ten-year younger eyes – YES! Jon Turk, it worked!  Jon Turk the guy who can take your middle-age face a quarter of the way back to match your high school personality. Now with that going on, I’m so not acting my age here.

Like the other night I had a girlfriend come over for a sleepover!

I did. I did. What is more high school than that?

My friend Maria Bushkin Stave, who I reconnected with on FB and have not seen in at least twenty-seven years, drove down to LA to have a sleepover at my hotel.

Maria, much like me had no teenage hood either. In fact I at least went to school and did graduate. Maria was yanked out in 7^th grade and put on the professional horse show circuit where she spent a decade or so becoming one of the top equestrians in the country.

But this eliminated any high school experience including a diploma.  Which  actually turned out not to hinder her, as she is now a shrink. See school can be overrated.

While Maria and I were not friends in high school, since she wasn’t even there, and I was there, but yanked out  to travel with my mother and do other things, we have many  similar points of connection. And we are both trying in our own ways to relive the stuff we never actually lived.

So she came down and no she did not have a sleeping bag, we had two beds in the room – down boys.

We just had the best time.

She got there at six.  It had been kind of a stressful day for me, and she had had a long drive, so the first thing we did was crack open a bottle of wine, sat down and pretty much drank and talk until we passed out. What are teenage sleepovers for? At least we didn’t call Dominos and order forty pizzas to be delivered to random people.  I’m kind of bummed we didn’t do that Maria. Next time.

Though we really didn’t have time for pranks as we had close to thirty years of life to catch up on. Our combined dating lives took up most of that time. Do the math – two girls- thirty years, both dropped into adulthood way ahead of schedule, it’s not hard to figure out the meat of our conversation.

And trust me, if there had been cameras rolling this would have knocked THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ANYWHERE on it’s ass.

At one point, we decided since neither one of has had eaten all day,( Maria has a Warrior’s body) and we had just consumed a bottle of Merlot we should get dinner.

But we are not in high school, we are both mothers and wives, so we did not get behind the wheel of a car, we just stumbled down to the hotel bar where we continued to drink and at least eat something to absorb some of the alcohol.

Then back up to the room, more wine, we eventually moved on to the topic of our mothers, many similarities – I will say no more, except that required more wine. We moved on to her father, the late Joe Bushkin, the amazing jazz musician and she showed me his website, more wine.  That kind of made her sad, back to boys and more wine.

I hadn’t had a night like this, well, maybe, never.  I have, but never under the heading of high school sleepover and with another girl.

We had so much in common. We had so much fun. We felt so close.  I think it meant even more as both of us had not had this in our youth.

Eventually we put on our jammies, that’s what you call them in high school right or is that first grade? I didn’t have a normal childhood either.

And we passed out.

I woke up at four and took three Tylenol.

At around six I heard grumblings from Maria’s bed, “ADVIL”

How many?

“Three.”

“Too many Maria, I only took two with the eye-lift.”

She took the two I gave her. OK I am bossy.

We ordered huge pots of coffee. We climbed back in our respective beds, not daring to look at ourselves in the mirror, as when you drive this way in high school it leaves no tracks on your face.  At fifty, even Jon Turk can’t make you look good after a night like that.

But we picked up where we left off the night before. I think we did as neither one remembers exactly where we left off the night before and we talked for another three hours.

If Taylor and I had not had a plane to catch and Maria did not have her family to return to, my guess is we would still be there.

We made it down to breakfast, dark glasses and more coffee; then Taylor arrived.

She thought it was funny, as she had called all this days before.

So high school.

So what.

We waited a long time for this.

My suggestion for the day is find someone on FB you really wanted to get close to in high school, invite them over for a sleepover and get totally plastered. There is no one to yell at you because now you’re the grown-up and the kid!

I have to go – I want to try and find Tom Patten on Facebook. I just want to see how fat he is.

FRESHMAN EVERYTHING

http://www.joebushkin.com/ 

For some great musical history, stories, photos check it out. Joe Bushkin was the original too cool for school.

http://www.exhalespa.com/

If you too want to be a Warrior. Do  not be scared, unless you take the advanced classes you will not be exposed to the mean girls.

Up in the air so to speak

Somewhere over Arizona - all shots taken by Taylor

Our hideout - try and find us!

OK - I know it's bad, but I do it like once every three years and it's so damn fun.

Taylor's arty shot. She has her own blog for this stuff, but its OK

Taking in the view

This is a little late in the day for Freshman Mom to be posting, but shall we say it’s been a long day, or rather I guess it was a long night.
It was a long something that involved oh-so-many glasses of Merlot.
Freshman Mom’s old friend from grammar school Maria Bushkin came down to have none other than a sleepover with freshman mom in LA.
No, no, no not that kind of sleepover – a freshman girl sleepover. Forget the fact our combined ages are one hundred and two. We are shall you say, in denial.
The guys in the bar, where we spent a good hunk of the night, catching up on oh, thirty years of misadventures and romance thought we were hot. But that will be tomorrow’s blog.
Suffice to say we tied one on! And freshman mom is not that big a drinker. So blogging with a colossal hangover this AM was totally out of the question.

And now freshman mom and her freshman are in oh-so-fab suite at The Sanctuary in Scottsdale.
However due to the hotel giving our original room away, it took them two hours to sort things out, and thus sending us to the bar to wait for our room to be ready.
This involved more red wine, on the house and no Larry I don’t need to join the program.
It’s a two-day thing. OK.  Sometimes a girls got to do what girls got to do. Hey I’m on Spring Break
And since my freshman is not off in Ft. Lauderdale drunk and naked on the beach with four thousand of her comrades, mom is her companion for the next three days
This means mom has to do many things in true freshman form.
This could mean being slightly wasted until Saturday; but I doubt it, as I do have Reiki therapy in the AM.

Though I will say Freshman Mom, did partake in the smoking of several Marlboro Lights, which was quite fabulous and since according to the doctors she has the arteries of a freshman this should not cause any problems. And tonight her attitude is who cares?

Oh my goodness. What’s up next?  Stay tuned.

Be my relationship to it ever so complicated, it’s the place I understand the best. And I guess that is what people mean when they talk about home. The people who return to the native land to live out their lives do it for a reason. I can’t imagine doing that with LA.  I’ ve done my time here so to speak. But it’s the place I internally connect to in a way like no other.

Mind you I don’t really like it.  I get bored easily here. I don’t  like endless days of sunshine. And I hate that it’s a one-industry town for the most part. There is  no question I enjoyed it more when I was at the peak of my game in that industry. While I sit on the periphery of it still I’m no longer at the white-hot center like I once was. And that is partly because of age and partly by choice– I just kind of got sick of it.

But it goes back so much further than that.  And I imagine everyone who now calls home the place they weren’t born and raised understands this.

I respond to the air here differently; it’s the air I know. Earthquakes, forest fires and the Santa Ana winds, are the weather and natural disasters that feel the most natural to me. Earthquakes, dive under the desk. I don’t know what to do in a hurricane. Batten down the hatches? I think that’s a submarine. After twenty years in New York I’m still startled and amazed when it snows. I wake up like a kid and go “It’s snowing.” And I can’t drive in the snow. But I can maneuver the canyons with one hand in a downpour.

The birds here sound like the birds I know. These are my birds. The birds I grew up with or at least their great-great- great- great grandchildren.

But despite the fact I don’t like living here and every stay is marked with a giant expiration date,  I have this oddly comforting  feeling that I know from where I come.

My grandparents are buried here. Every other street has some kind of life landmark or anther for me.  Despite, walking, talking, writing and living like a New Yorker, part of me is pure Californian.

And I think there is nowhere that one is more a Californian than behind the wheel of a car.

I hate driving in New York. I won’t do it,  and it amazes me when I see others doing it. My friends Maureen and Jerry drive to work every day. My friend Jody drives around the city like she lives in Westport. I took Lucy to a birthday party the other day on Lexington and everyone was dropping their kids off in SUV’s. Blew me away. I thought, what are they doing?

Once, once I voluntarily drove in New York. I decided that I needed to take charge of my driving life.  I had a car tucked into a garage four blocks away and damn it, I should use it. I’m a Californian thus I DRIVE.

So one Saturday morning I called the garage, I had to ask someone at the office for the number and I said would you please have my car ready.

And I had a destination. An old family friend, Lisa Lidow, was moving into a new apartment.  We had had dinner the night before and I told her all about ABC Carpets, and what great stuff they had. And not only did I tell her about it, I told her I would drive her there. And since I had a wagon we could fill the back with purchases.

I didn’t walk, I marched over to the garage.  My car was waiting. I got behind the wheel, buckled up, I knew how to do this. I’m from California. We drive.  So I pulled out and headed down Seventy-Sixth Street and then made a right on Second, this was easy. I was driving in New York! But nervously, no music, deep concentration – I’m telling you this taxis and buses do not know what they are doing. But anyway, I got myself to Fifty- Eighth Street and picked up Lisa and her assistant, plus Lucy was still baby and in a car seat in the back. So I now had an octogenarian, a woman I didn’t know, and my baby, all on this NYC road trip with me.

But I was feeling confident, I could do this. I could drive in New York. And if I could drive in New York think of all the money I could save on cabs!

Feeling full of my newfound transportation independence I turned onto Broadway. A bus was pulling out from the curb, I slowed down because you really don’t want to go mano a mano with a bus.  I mean he pulled in front of me, I had two choices, hit him or let him go. I opted to slow down and let him go.  The ladylike, good defensive driving move, the kind of driving that is wired into your DNA when you come from California.

But clearly this is not the kind of driving people learn in the tri-state area as I was promptly rear-ended by a fish truck. Bam.  Sammy’s Fish Truck smashed right into the back of my Volvo.

Poor Lisa hurls forward, thank god she was wearing her seat belt.  Lucy’s car seat tough not dislodged moved and the assistant was a tad shaken up. This was not my first fender-bender so while I was not happy  I was OK.

Plus, he hit me; I knew it was his fault.

I got out and was greeted by Sammy the irate fish monger/driver who promptly started yelling at me.

“What’s wrong with you you stupid idiot? Women don’t know how to drive”  Not only was the blood from the morning’s catch on his fingers, he was sexist, smelly and had very poor vocabulary.

On top of which as I tried to explain to him, when one hits another it is their fault.  He did not get this concept. Despite the fact he hit me it was my fault.

“That’s not how it works in California,”  I told him.

“Look around blondie,” I think he had the nerve to call me blondie.  ”Does this look like California to you?”

Maybe not, but the laws of the road are the laws of the road. Well, not in New York and not if you spend your days hauling and unloading fish I guess.

After swearing back I tried to talk sense into him.  New Yorkers when they get in fender benders automatically get out and start yelling and screaming at each other. I’ve never seen an accident where this was not the case: Be they the drivers of cabs or Bentleys.

In California we quietly pull over, get our insurance cards out of the glove compartment, check for damages and then decide if the cops need to be called, a report filed and we exchange insurance info and leave quietly, unless of course the damage is such you need to be towed. New Yorkers don’t do that. They start by calling you a moron and usually ends up somehow with the word “mother” attached to a sex act. But when it comes to swearing I can hold my own with any fish monger.

There was no resolution. He was convinced I was wrong. I was convinced he was a moron. I knew I had had two choices, slow down and let the bus pass or crash my car filled with an older woman and an old family friend plus my six month old child into a bus.  NO CHOICE, SAMMY.

That was it. I called Glenn and had him come pick me up.

Lucy is now ten. Except to get to the LIE and get out to the country I have never, ever driven in New York City again. But, this is how you know you’re a California girl, the minute I get behind the wheel here, I’m in heaven. I know how to drive. I know the roads, the shortcuts and I love it.

There is a way to drive in California.  There are not only rules of the road but there are conventions to the way you actually drive the car and an attitude.  It’s totally California girl driving.

And oddly Taylor, who left here when she was seven and still does not know how to drive herself, intrinsically understands the California girl way to drive.

So yesterday, when we picked up the rental car, she instantly went through all the moves. First you do buckle your seat belt.  Then you roll back the sun-roof, you  open all the windows so if you’re driving you can put rest your elbow where the window is, if you’re the passenger you can flirt more easily with whoever may pull up beside you. Then you crank up the radio to as high as you can take it.  Only a certain type of music works.

Obviously, you hope to get the Beach Boys. “Help Me Rhonda” or “California Girls” ideally, but Old Motown works, or disco. I have a hard time driving to rap, but that is probably an age thing.  There is a station, I forget the number but it’s something like Love Songs On The Coast, and they always have those goofy dedications:  “This song is dedicated to  Sandy, who even though she is out with Brad, will live in my heart forever. I want her to know I understand.”  And then they play some sappy love song from the 80’s.  This only works if you have just fallen in love or just broken up with someone.  Otherwise, you need a beat, a little base, not too much; most importantly you need to be able to sing to it. ”Buttercup” is a great example of a song you can pull this off with.  You play with the dials until you get the song, then you pull out,  you put your pedal to the metal and off you go.

So yesterday Taylor and I, two girls– well, OK so I’m not a girl, but when I’m in California and behind the wheel of a car I feel like one– two girls, both born in Los Angeles, seven days, albeit thirty-one years apart, took off down Sepulveda singing at the top of their lungs, while their blonde hair blew out the window (blonde hair is not a deal breaker here, but it helps) and we sang and we danced and she is ready to kill me right now for telling this story. But even she has to admit we had  fun.

And we looked at each other and we realized that on some level we will both always be California girls!

I shouldn't have taken my eyes off the road but I got carried away.

103.5 FM....just the way we like it.

I had full on shots where she was singing, but she erased them all as she knew I would post.

She's groovin to the tunes here.

I think she calmed down cause she spotted someone hot.

LA I LOVE IT - Randy Newman works too

I am heading off to the home of my birth. This makes it sound like I was born in Mozambique, but, yes, it is the homeland, that cradle of civility and traffic: Los Angeles.

I read somewhere home is where you learned to drive. Only a Californian could have written that.  And actually I learned in Santa Barbara. But I cut my driver’s teeth on the 405, the 10 and the Ventura Freeway.  California is still the place I feel the most comfortable behind the wheel even though it has a tendency to make nervous in a variety of other places. The last time I was there was for Blake’s memorial so this trip has to be a step up from that.

Before I do anything else, I want to warn you all that Jonathan Adler trashcans, while being inconspicuous and high on style are truly weapons of mass destruction.  If George W. could have unearthed a few of these in Iraq he might have been able to plead a better case for his war on terror.

I have just now had my second incident involving one that leads me send out this bulletin.  The fist run in I had was a few weeks ago I happened to drop mine as I was taking it to empty. YES, I EMPTY THE TRASH, thank you very much. So, I was carrying my chic, albeit heavy little JA trash can when I dropped it on the floor. You wouldn’t think much of this but when I picked it up, it had left this massive ding in the wood.

I didn’t know what to do. I rubbed some wood polish on it and that didn’t help, it was a crater. I was hoping no one would notice.

Well, wouldn’t you know the next morning, I was getting dressed and I heard Salva’s voice, “”Traaaacey.” Salva calls and I go running. She was standing over the crater and pointing to it, she often times doesn’t have to say anything, she just puckers her lips and raises her eyebrows.

“You?”  I sort of wanted to blame it on someone else, I thought maybe she would take Jon Stewart away for a week or something. But I couldn’t lie, I said  “Well yeah, I dropped the trash can. It’s heavy.” I felt I had to defend my position.

She looked at me and said “Now what am I going to do?”

“We just have to live with it” I took the high road – Zen approach. Salva was pissed that I wrecked her floor. She takes great pride in everything and when I goof up that makes her life more difficult.

I hate it when she finds me incompetent.

One weekend some towels got in with Glenn’s workout clothes and bled, that was it – she told me no laundry on the weekends. Which is not fair as I do a good job – sometimes.

I don’t think she’s forgotten as the crater is still there.  And every now and then when we both walk by the spot at the same time, she will look down and just shake her head.

But then ten minutes ago I was emptying the trash, good Sunday clean-up girl that I am, and I didn’t know my dog Ramu Gupta was standing behind me.  Which is a fair assumption on my part as he leaves his bed for a grand total of thirty minutes a day, and those minutes involve either the ingestion of food or the evacuation of it. He’s not a stand around kind of guy. But he was behind me, I suppose thinking it was lunchtime and he got wopped in the head with the same corner that dinged the wood.

I feared I had given the guy a concussion. If I had used any back swing I could have knocked his eye out. He kind of stumbled back to bed. And the problem with Ramu is Ramu with a concussion and Ramu without one is going to be hard to differentiate.

And this whole discussion of Jonathan Adler and his stylish yet dangerous trashcans leads me to one of my favorite things, which are boxes. (Ok, I admit it; there was no natural segue so I had to impose a false one.)

Anyway, I love boxes – always have.

Despite the dropping of the trashcan and the one laundry mix up I am the world’s most organized person. My idea of a good time is reading Real Simple and doing everything it says. So boxes and organizers and anything that allows for things to all have a place of their own makes me ecstatic.

And of course there are boxes and then there are boxes.

Lucy takes acting in the Village (another clumsy segue,  but I am going somewhere with this, trust me) anyway, she takes acting lessons on Saturdays. Glenn and I switch off on who takes her. If he takes her he goes to the Strand and buys books, which he in turn can sell as he is bookseller. If I go, I go to a wonderful store called The End Of History, that is one of the best little shops in New York. It is filled with the most amazing mid-century glass and bowls and boxes, and other gorgeous things for your life, all beautifully curated, edited and displayed. It’s run by a great guy called Daniel Petix who will tell you about things in such a way that you are learning yet he doesn’t make you feel like a dummy.

Did you hear that Salva????

An hour there is such fun. And of course I usually leave with something, which unlike Glenn I can’t resell and make money,  since I’m not in retail.

A few weeks ago I went looking for something specific, which of course Daniel had and then I found the this box.
Now you might wonder what makes it so special, it may be a one of a kind and  even if it isn’t it was designed by one Baron Allsessandro Albirzzi,  who was sizzling hot in the sixties and seventies.

Not your average box. An Albrizzi!

Actually when I went and googled him it’s amazing I never went out with him. He was so what I was up to in my early twenties.  He lived in London where he had his shop and did most of his designing. My mother rented a house in London for much of the seventies. How he got past me I have no idea.   He was royalty, which is all my mother wanted me to marry. He was Italian, which during my early twenties was all I wanted to marry.  He was gorgeous, beyond stylish, and bisexual which made him totally  unavailable and trouble which up until my thirties was pretty much all I knew how to date. I think I have shared plenty about that.

When you go on his site, Allessandro’s (I cannot tell you how many guys I dated called Allessandro, it just rolls off my fingers here) when you go on his site you see how responsible he is for so much of what is happening in design today, including, I might add, Jonathan Adler (which means I have not been meandering my way to nowhere in this blog!).  Check out the stacking tables. Check out his site and then go to Jonathan Adler’s site. You see a little influence there? Though I don’t think the Baron did trash cans.

And then go on the site for The End Of History.  Daniel turns out the chicest and most informative and fun blog about style and glass and so much more. After Pioneer Woman it’s one of my faves.

And if you’re ever hanging out on Hudson near 11^th in the Village go in and tell him I sent you.

It’s actually worth going down just to hang with him for an hour.

And if you have a Jonathan Adler trashcan – don’t say I didn’t warn you.

http://theendofhistoryshop.blogspot.com/

http://www.albrizzi.com/

]]> http://www.traceyjacksononline.com/2010/03/glass-boxes-style-and-trashcans/feed/ 0 http://www.traceyjacksononline.com/2010/03/cupcakes-freshman-and-just-because/ http://www.traceyjacksononline.com/2010/03/cupcakes-freshman-and-just-because/#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:28:53 +0000 tracey http://www.traceyjacksononline.com/?p=1267

How cute???????

I love the card too!

OK, so yesterday’s was the first blog Larry didn’t like.  What I love about Larry is he feels close enough to me he could email and tell me that he thought I sounded like an Amex travel commercial. Which is fine.  I’m crazy about Larry but you can’t please everyone all the time. The flipside is my cousin Lorraine loved it.

Yesterday I had a friend tell me I shop too much and someone emailed me and asked me to help them learn to like to shop more. As they say, that’s what makes horse racing… or now blogging I suppose!

That is the thing you learn when you flap your every thought and action around like wings, some people will take hold and come along for the ride and you smack others right in the face. Not that Larry was offended, he just wasn’t amused. Not that the shopping comments were offensive, or bothersome, it’s just when you offer up your life as a main course you give people the right to give you their opinions. It’s why many people don’t want to do it. Me, I love the give and take.  And I have always been fascinated in life how so many different points of view can bounce off the same topic or statement.

I have offended my share on this site and imagine as time goes on I will continue to do so.

Taylor actually called me the other day and referred to something I did on the blog. She said,  “Boy that really dinged so and so.  You certainly have a talent for slipping in insults. I can’t do that, nor do I want to.”

“That’s OK – I’ll do it for you when ever you need.” And we know I will!

This blog has gone so far from FRESHMAN MOM but I don’t really mind.

I pretty much rode that horse until it collapsed. This morning I feel the horse is making its way to pasture. There are freshman things – I still feel this obligation to stay on topic, at least every now and again…. let’s see what are they?

Taylor is home. She is asleep. She and I are going to LA and Arizona tomorrow for some mother daughter R and R. Well, she gets two days with her dad and three with me.  That bored me; can’t imagine what it did for you.

My friend Will said the other day, “She’s almost a sophomore,” and it’s true. There really are no issues. None that don’t fall under life as we know it. She’s being good. I’m leaving her alone in ways I never thought humanly possible. I’m actually proud of myself.

As we went to sleep last night Glenn said, “What time is Tay coming home?”

I said, “Whenever she wants, she will be 19 in two months. As long as she takes her shoes off when she gets home I don’t care.”

He oddly is more attached to the old scenario than I am. But I guess he didn’t have as many issues to get over as I did, so he hasn’t spent five months working on them.

BTW- she didn’t take her shoes off. But there are battles I cannot win. John from Maintenance refuses too.

But she is growing up; yesterday after she met me for coffee she wanted to go to a museum. Her idea! 

Sadly, the Whitney has The Biennale up and the lines were around the block. And The Guggenheim has a big show that also had a thirty-minute wait to get in. So today she is going to MOMA with some friends. After all those years of me saying “You live in NYC, go to a museum,” that would result in her  rolling her eyes and slamming her door.

Well, they do get to it when they are ready.

They eventually land on a leaf that excites and motivates them to embrace the world in a bigger way and this is a large step towards responsibility and adulthood. For Tay it’s been photography.

I’ve always felt I don’t care what the passion is but if you have a passion, that passion will lead you down so many roads and open so many doors, it can and does make your life a vibrant, constantly expanding enterprise. It never fails.

Issues will arise, they always do, but from now on I truly feel they will be of a different sort. I am totally adjusted to life as we are living it and so is she.

I see a lot of her,  I will say that.

Next year she taking her second semester in Paris and while I will miss her, I think the BEST thing any young person can do is see the world and live abroad. Everyone I know who has done it feels it was one of the most thrilling, perspective-altering events in their lives.  I’m always advising young people spend six months in India, China, Europe, anywhere because you will never get these years back. It goes fast and you wake up one day and your responsibility dance card is so full you will most likely never get the chance again.

But the great thing is the Freshman Mom has led me to all these other fun places and in a long career of writing every form there is from plays, to TV, to feature films and now a book (have to slip that in) nothing gives me the pleasure of this blog and the feedback I get from all of you.

So I thank you for turning up and tuning in and responding the way you do.

Despite the fact Larry doesn’t like it when I give tips or finds, many people seem to,  so I’m going to retool the blog over the next few weeks and add a section for when I find things in the world I want to share and also a section called JUST BECAUSE.

JUST BECAUSE is something I want to do and perhaps I can take some of you along with me.  Once or twice a week, I try and do this anyway, but I will do some random act of kindness, for no reason at all except it’s the best way to live your life and I try and teach my kids that. And I will post it in JUST BECAUSE.

It’s not about bragging or brownie points at all. I would like to start a daisy chain of positive energy on the blog, as I can be arch and I have no intention of dropping that nor do I think I can or should. It’s me. But it’s balanced in my life, and not everyone knows that.

I do have this hippy-dippy side; a burn the candles, ring the bells, god is in the creatures outlook mixed in with all the jokes and observations and anxiety.

And perhaps random acts of kindness from one person can bring in others. It can be for a friend, someone you don’t know, a charity. It doesn’t have to be big, sometimes the smallest ones have the biggest impact. If it’s a charity post the link and see if you can lasso some of the other readers to become aware of it. I posted the link to what my friend Justine is doing in Kashmir the other day.

Now there was no random act of kindness there, it was press for her. Sending her the money I spent on the Herge Leger dress would have been the random act of kindness.

In fact JUST BECAUSE for me this week is doing just that.  I am sending Justine the exact amount I paid for the dress to help the hospital she runs in war torn Kashmir.

She will be surprised as she and I joke how we each have our own NGOs in third world countries. The only difference is she has three and actually puts her life on the line and works in them and I have one and send money and go visit when I’m in town. But again, it’s not about money.

Taylor had a Pakistani cab driver yesterday who is dropping off homemade rice pudding for her today. Now I don’t think on his part this is a random act of kindness as much as an obvious attempt to get her to out with him.

But think about it, I would love you to join in and  to share them.

If it’s making a Pioneer Woman cake and taking it to a friend who is sad, or just a friend you haven’t seen, that counts.

I’ll give you and example of JUST BECAUSE, it happens a lot on FB, people post their charities or friends who need help – you know what I’m talking about.

Matt Mosby, who I grew up with, did this great thing last year and sent packages of things, all sorts of things from toothpaste and sun block to DVD’s to the troops in Iraq. I thought this was great. I always want to do something for them and never quite know what.

A few years ago I tried to work it out for Taylor and I to go to Walter Reade and sit with the patients or read to them, just talk, so many are far from their families and receive no visitors. Well, the government makes it really hard to do that. You practically have to be an MD to get near the place.

Anyway, it didn’t work out so when Matt did this, I was thrilled and sent him stuff.

In turn when my friend Barnetta needed help, Matt said he would as I helped him.

Not all of the JUST BECAUSES will take this turn, but some will and if that happens it will make us all happy and not to sound like a Miss American contestant, the world a better place.

If can be offering to pick up something at the store for your neighbor – that counts.

If it’s doing something unexpectedly nice for your mate, that counts too. The sex stuff we sadly have to keep off the blog or I would really get to roll with this thing.  But that doesn’t play so well in Middle America. It plays great with me, but I want to broaden my readership here, not shrink it. And I guess there are no random acts of kindness in sex, or there are I suppose. Oh please stop me now, I cannot go down this road.

That’s that -  JUST BECAUSE.

And then I’m adding my TIPS, not sure what to call it, any suggestions would be helpful. But my friend Pace was really happy I gave the link to the products I get from Jon Turk. I spend  a lot of time seeking and finding things and I love to share those. They will be the balancing act for JUST BECAUSE or vice versa. In fact, I have one for you today….

For months Lucy, who has a real cupcake radar, has been talking about someplace called Melissa’s Cupcakes. Now I was not paying much attention as America has become so cupcake crazy the last few years, and we have Magnolia here which thanks to Sex and the City has become as popular a tourist destination as the Empire State Building. And I try and avoid cupcakes as much as possible. But yesterday she got her dad to take her.  When Tay and I got home there was Lucy with this giant grin clutching a small box and nestled inside were a dozen of the cutest, tiniest cupcakes you have every seen. They were like doll food.

Except they were amazing, I mean beyond, the beyond.  I ate two in as many seconds. Taylor grabbed the red velvet, that left the rest for Lucy and all but one disappeared before I could take a picture to post.

If you live in New York you have to check it out. I was hoping, hoping they shipped all over the country. What a great JUST BECAUSE, send a friend a dozen tiny cupcakes with a note saying JUST BECAUSE.

Now I’m signing off to do what a mother should –  make Lucy breakfast. It’s ten fifteen; the PW has probably already made her kids Belgian waffles from scratch with homemade donuts on the side. Lucy is getting a whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter, organic! Lucky Lucy.

BTW – no word from PW – YET.

Still FRESHMAN MOM until May 5^th

http://www.bakedbymelissa.com/

CHECK IT OUT!

New Year's Eve Bangkok, Glenn and Lucy sent this into the sky for luck.

Up Up and Away

Siem Reap. What else can you say?

We went to visit this Buddha on New Years Day because all the other Buddhas were busy

Buddha's from Frederic's shop. Don't they make you want to meditate?

Also from Frederic's. Made by a French artist living in Cambodia

He is very tall. Poking a hole in the theory that all Buddhas are short and fat!

The long lost blog I have been promising to write since January.

I had this list of things to accomplish while in my ex-eyeL and today alas, I think it is over. I am venturing up to the seventies. Considering I have not left a two block radius except for the party in twelve days this is big.

I’m looking like a version of normal. I now look like I might have gotten drunk tripped over a table and come down with pink eye all in the same night.

I can live with that. Many people have that experience.

So I HAVE to write this blog as I am about to set off on a new  adventure on Monday and I’m think of adding a “tips” section to this blog.

ASIA wow, that was so long ago

But when I returned I had endless emails asking  about places I went and many basic questions.

The one place I truly am a bit of PW – all kidding aside, I will go anywhere and have been all over. I love to travel and always have.

I have a section in my book BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HOT PLACE, had to do it, when I talk about a trip to Romania I took with my mother in 1971. Now let me tell you NOBODY went to Romania in 1971. My mother in all of it is a bit of PW in her own right she went to China in 1975. NOBODY went to China, except Nixon in 1975. So I inherited this wanderlust gene.

When I met Glenn he used to go to Europe only. Now the guy is happiest in an Asian bar with a Cohiba chatting up tycoons and pretty young things.

BTW – Re yesterday’s blog, I think he does find Bethany hot, as when I read him the piece and sort of accused him of it, he didn’t deny it. I will show him the show when she is naked and watch for a response.

But I digress yet again…

ASIA – BIG PLACE

I don’t say that glibly. Well of course I do, I say most things glibly even when I’m sad or serious. But it is a big place and you have to kind of focus.

I am one of those travelers who is not happy staying in one country for three weeks unless it’s India as in India you can travel about and visit what feels like twenty countries on one sub-continent.

But in Asia you have to focus.
There are different types of travel focus.

My fiend Buck Henry goes to one country stays for one month and sees every nook and cranny.

There is a big upside to that, he has been to Thailand once and has seen the entire country. I have been to Thailand seven times and tend to only end up in Bangkok and once I went to Phukett.

But especially when you are traveling with kids and life being what it is,  I like to cram in as many different cultural experiences as I can.

The trip we took in December and January was Japan, Thailand, Viet Nam and Cambodia.

People think this sounds like a lot. It is.

Far away – it is.

Complicated – not really.

Interesting – beyond.

Worth It – like you cannot imagine.

Expensive – doesn’ t have to be.

Asia is still much cheaper than Europe or the Caribbean or Hawaii or many places Americans tend to flock.

The most expensive part is the airfare.

We always make these trips using miles. We have a lot of miles.

Anyone who has an Amex card has miles with Delta. Most people know this, but if you have not used your AMEX points you have Delta miles.  Delta has many global partners.  They can get you anywhere. The secret is you have to book early. Especially if you are going peak season.

I book a year in advance.

For example I am presently booking next XMAS in India.

If you don’t the mileage miles the price is high.

Unless you can fly coach for 19 hours, which I refuse.

The other thing with using miles is you usually cannot fly directly into a city; you have to make a stop or two.

I prefer to stop somewhere and get out of the plane for say two days and then carry on.

So this last trip we had to stop somewhere.

We flew directly from here to Tokyo.

This was a great choice, as the girls had not seen Tokyo.

It was only two days, but they got the flavor and both are longing to go back.

From Tokyo it is then a six-hour flight to Bangkok.  You think a lot of these countries are close to each other, they are not.

But we needed to get to the South so we were close to Viet Nam and Cambodia as that was the main focus of the trip.

Traveling with some one as young as Lucy I like to ease her into places, so Bangkok was a good stepping stone for Cambodia where not having been, I didn’t know what to expect. Plus Bangkok rocks. It really does.

Since I blogged the things we did, I’m leaving all that out.

From Bangkok it really is a one-hour flight to Cambodia and then Cambodia is an hour flight to Viet Nam.

Viet Nam to New York well, it is what it is.

But if you are paying for your ticket and not using miles there are few direct flights. Air France seems to be the best choice for that.

TOKYO

Tokyo is expensive. Japan is expensive all those jokes…

“I had a coke and a grilled cheese in Tokyo and it cost fifty dollars?”   It’s not a joke.

The two hundred dollar taxi from the airport;  it’s true.

There are ways to get around it for certain things,

The public transportation system is the best in the world probably. It requires some Japanese to really master.

Glenn and I got lost a few years ago when we ventured out of town so I could see Sumo Wrestlers in training. I LOVE SUMO WRESTLERS.

Adore. Love. Love. Love.  I want one for a friend. A BFSW. Best Friend Sumo Wrestler.

But we kind of got lost,  though we made it back.

You can take a bus in from the airport. You can stay in cheaper hotels

And if you pop into any local noodle house you can eat amazingly well for very little.

Admittedly, It’s not the way I travel. If you want my places, here goes…

Good hotels are plentiful in Tokyo. I have stayed in many.

The best by far in my opinion is The Peninsula.

I’m one of those people I would rather stay two nights in a great hotel than four in a mediocre one. If you’re going and it’s in your budget. It is so worth it.

THE PENINSULA TOKYO

Tel # – (81-3) 6270 2888  FAX – (81-3) 6270 2000

Email – ptk@penninsula.com

www.peninsula.com

The other hotel I really like is

THE HOTEL SEIYO GINZA

1-11-2 Ginza Chou-ku, Tokyo, 104-0061 Japan

Toll Free: 1-800-745-8883 in the US or Click here for toll free near you.

Tel: (81-3) 3535-1111

If you go you have to go to the TOKYO TOWER

Start off your trip this way it gives you the whole scope of this vast city. I don’t know how it took me five trips to discover it. Go early, go on  a weekday and you avoid huge crowds. In fact you almost have the place to yourself.

TOKYO TOWER

Tel – 03-3433-5111

FAVORITE TEMPURA BAR

TEN-ICHI-ZAN

Main Shop GInza

6cho-me

Nmiki St.

Sony Bldg.

Tel – 03-3571-1949

It has been good for ten years. Never lets you down.

Shopping in Tokyo in the Ginza or major areas is like shopping in any big city in the world. They all clone each other now.

To get to the heart of the Tokyo Street life and fashion, you must venture out to Harajuku, it’s Williamsburg, the East Village, and more rolled into one.

You just have to wander and you will find more cool things than you can ever imagine. Just walk and walk and eat street food, you can there and you will have the time of your life.

The other cool hood is Shibuya. This is where you find the things you don’t find in London, Paris or New York, plus in both neighborhoods you see those great Japanese girls dressed like a cross between Hello Kitty and Amy Winehouse.

My friend Harper who goes to Japan a lot on business has this to say about it.

“I would take the subway to Omotesando (upscale neighborhood with cool stores and architecture, especially the Prada store) and walk around, then descend the hill to Shibuya, stopping at the department store (name I’ve forgotten) that caters to teenage girls. It might be called Shibuya 109.

When you get to Omotesando head towards:

http://www.ratholegallery.com (be sure to print the map, else you’ll not find it)

You’ll pass Prada and Hysteric Glamour is next door.

There is also a Casa del Habano in Ginza not far from your hotel. Good place to buy some cigars.  (Glenn likes cigars)

The foot massage shops on Ginza are good for 1/2 hour jet lag nap.”

The other thing in Japan that rocks your world are the department stores.

The problem with shopping in Japan if you are an American woman is they stock pretty much size one by our standards. If you have a size ten foot like me don’t bother even trying.

DEPARTMENT STORES

TAKASHMAYA – nothing like the one here

MATSUYA DEPT STORE – best makeup brushes in the world.

Both stores big outposts are in The GInza, but Tokyo is huge and they have stores scattered all over.

Don’t miss the food courts – the best part and everyone fits into food!

BANGKOK

The sights are the sights and every guidebook will point you in the right direction.

HOTELS

THE MADARIN ORIENTAL has been voted the best hotel in the world

for so many years it’s like an Emmy award going to the same show.

It is a great hotel. I have stayed there many times.

http://www.mandarinoriental.com/

My friend Bryan Bantry who has a total handle on Bangkok swears by

THE PENINSULA

http://www.peninsula.com/Peninsula_Hotels/en/default.aspx

You want to be on the river, I feel like why else go.

Bangkok is a wanderer’s city. You just take off and go.

You have to do The Temples and the shopping is everywhere.

For antiques – anywhere around the Oriental is good.

Clothes – same ole same ole – Western Shops

But to get things made. The best I have found in many trips there is

.

JAMES FASHION INTERNATIONAL

439/1 SUKHOTHAI ROAD

Tel – (662) 668-2993-5

Once they have your measurements they can send you anything.

The tailors are everywhere the good ones are hard to find.

Everyone will tell you theirs is the best, sort of like doctors, you have to find what works for you. But I like these people. For us, they did a great job.

THESE TIPS COME FROM MY FRIEND BRYAN BANTRY

GREAT BAGS

DAVIDS

64/27 shang-plaza opposite Shangri-La hotel

Restaurants

NOT remotely touristy…real Thai people visit the following

baan klang nam restaurant Address: 288 Soi 14, Th Phra Ram III | Thanon Tok, Bangkok, Thailand Phone: 0 2292 0175  Website: http://www.baanklangnam.net/

(top rated by FT in london)

yok yor    94 Soi Charoen Nakorn 21, Banglumprulang

Bangkok 10700 Thailand +66 02 860 1266 7 / +66 02 439 3477 8

email info@yokyor.co.th Hours 11a-11p daily  http://www.yokyor.co.th

also THE GOOD VIEW restaurant which is a bit slicker but still yummy… ask concierge for directions

****************

the vietnamese restaurant XUAN MAI…

Xuan Mai 32 Sukhumvit Soi 13, near BTS Na Na Phone: 02-251-8389 Tue-Sun 11:30am-2:30pm, 6:30pm-midnight

Bryan’s best tip is he is sharing his driver.

Now you need a driver there and drivers in Asia are inexpensive and make life so easy.

It’s one of the things I miss when I get back are these totally RHWONYC words coming out of my mouth.

Where is my driver?

Oriental Escape Bangkok Transfer

011 66 2881 8710

011 66 2881 8711

mobile     84 560 5000

email contacts

service@orientalescape.com

chayabhatra@orientalescape.com

orientalescape@gmail.com

Thailand is 12hrs ahead of NY local time

manager mr Chayabhatra

+ 66 2881 8710-1  hours  mon – sat 10a 6p

wit new mobile  + 66 84 560 5000

http://www.orientalescape.com/contact.html?type=phone

It is a third the price of what the hotels charge and they will pick you up at the airport and if you travel like we do you need a van. They also accept plastic over the phone or internet.

Despite my many trips there Bryan goes twice a year and knows much more about it than I do.

SAIGON or HO CHI MINH CITY

Depends on how PC you want to be

As I told you in the blogs, the people there mostly call it Saigon

HOTEL 

PARK HYATT SAIGON (see)

2 Cong Truong Lam Son, Quan 1

Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

Tel – 84 8 3824 1234

Great hotel and I am a snob when it comes to these things.

Again, the sights are the sights

I talked about them when I was blogging and they are made more than evident when you arrive.

These are just some of the little places we found.

There is Lacquer everywhere and like everything else there is lacquer and there is lacquer.

HUONG NGA FINE ARTS OF LACQUER, LTD

202 D 5 Street Ward 25, Binh Thanh District

Tel – 84 8 3899 2098

Email – Nga@HuongNgaFineArts.vn

Website – www.HuongNgaFineArts.vn

Clothes and all  are fine.  Though for the most part they are not up to other places yet in terms of style.

But it’s fun to walk around.

If you are at the Park Hyatt the whole district there is called  District One.

That sort of tells you all you need to know.

If you wander around you will find your own treasures.

The best resort I have ever stayed at is

THE NAM HAI

Tel – (84) 510 3 940 000

www.ghmhotels.com

It’s in Hoi An.

You fly into DANANG

They are all close to each other.

The great thing about it is not only is it an amazing place.

But if you plant yourself there for five days you can day trip to some of the great sights of VN.

The Old Port City of Hoi An a day of total magic.

We didn’t make it but  HUE a world heritage sight as is Hoi An is right there –  a six hour drive away.

THE MARBLE MOUNTAINS

I cannot tell you what a magical place this is.

Hoi An is filled with artists, artists studios and galleries.

Glenn is the knowledgeable one about that stuff in our family

He felt in Hoi An these two really stood out.

CO. ART GALLERY

18 Nguyen Thi Minh Khi St,

Hoi An City – VN

Tel – 05103862123

Email – cogalleryhoian@yahoo.com

MIN MIN

51 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai  Hoi An

mobile- 0905 206395

www.lethuyoianvn@gmail.com

We did not have anything made but in terms of silk we found this one place

MANGO
142 Tran Phu St. Hoi An Town

Tel – 051039115670914

myhan90@yahoo.com

SIEM REAP – CAMBODIA

I like typing Cambodia it gives me a chill and makes me want to run and grab my passport.

The place is teaming with hotels.

We stayed at
THE RAFFLES as it’s the oldest. The most authentic and we loved it.

There are newer ones.

Cambodia like Viet Nam is still very reasonable  in terms of cost

THE RAFFLES

http://www.raffles.com/EN_RA/Property/RGA/

One of the many things that makes my marriage work is Glenn loves to shop as much as I do. And he is totally unapologetic about it.

Siem Reap is not brimming with shops yet.

Though there is a lot of chic stuff coming out of  Phnom Penh

Siem Reap is really still  about the Temples as well it should be

But we found two retail gems.

Remember my story about Frederic and drinking  champagne by his pink and yellow pool in the jungle?

If you don’t remember the pink bowl from PW piece two days ago?

I got that at his shop.

WA Gallery Concept Store

FCC ANGKOR.POKAMBOR AVE

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA

TEL- 855(0) 92746287

gallerywa@gmail.com

If you are really nice to Frederic and it’s really easy to be nice to Frederic, he’s divine.  He might just ask you back to the house for midnight champagne.

Tell him you’re friends of ours.

Next door to Frederic is

JASMINE BOUTIQUE

Email – jasmineboutique@online.com.kh

www.jasmineboutique.net

Really pretty things designed by an Australian who lives and works in Phnom Penh.

Don’t you just love the world?
I want to go now- again – just writing this.

I’m going to be very generous and share one of my best resources with you a truly great travel agent.

Ben Shubitz – 212-592-1372

And if it gives you any indication of how good Ben is I’m tougher on my travel agents than I am my doctors!

Kelly Langberg - nothing too Pioneery about this shot.

Real Housewives of NYC photoshopped by Dr. Jon Turk

I'm throwing this in for pure vanity as I have posted myself looking so horrible the last few weeks I feel I deserve this one small indulgence.

The party. I told you it was dark.

The real Real Housewife of NY - Countess LuAnn Lesseps

This was taken with my camera on the tulip setting.

For some reason girls this is a look that men seem to go for seeing impaired and petulant.

LuAnn looking great.

The only photo that looks like a photo. I took it!!! They had monitors all over to watch the show.

First off I have not heard back from the PW (Pioneer Woman). But we are waiting patiently, something we do not do well at all.  PW of CPS wants what she wants when she wants it.  Which is why she spends so much time in India, as India is supposed to teach you patience.

So far we are still in phase one, which is not bad considering we’ve been working at it for thirty years now.

Yesterday, while yet another governor turned into Humpty Dumpty, Haitians still are not getting the relief and who knows where we stand with the Taliban, my pressing issue was would I actually venture out into the dark of night despite the fact I still look like a fright mask and attend the premiere party for The Real Housewives of New York?

Now in light of what is going on in the world at large, this is you might say, bupkus, but for me it was something I was spending a lot of time thinking about. I was on the fence, off the fence, straddling the fence.

I thought it would be a good outing for my new eyes.  Though they were really not yet ready for public viewing.

Glenn would rather take a bath in molten lava than go to those things, but I had my good friend Kelly Langberg who was up for it.

I did work all AM then headed the long two block trek to see Jon Turk my plastic surgeon, talk about a real housewife of NY-  a real NY housewife lives within yelling distance of her plastic surgeon. I fear schizophrenia has taken hold, am I Pioneer or a Real Housewife of NY?

I think I know the answer and not sure I like it.

So Jon scraped away some of the dead – oh forget it TMI even for me,  and that is saying something. But aside from being a good PS (such a Real Housewife of NY thing to say,  calling your plastic surgeon your PS)  aside from his being a great PS,  he is a Howard Stern lover and I almost wrote a movie for Howard and do have great Howard stories that can be found on this blog. So we chatted about Howard and then I looked a little better so I called my friend Kelly who is sort of RHWOFNY-ish too and said “let’s go.”

Once I made that decision I needed a new dress. I did.

I did? I didn’t? I so didn’t.   But I went to Bergdorf’s anyway, and I know it’s a RHWONYC thing to call it Bergdorfs.
I’m writing myself into a cliché of a human corner here.

So, there I was. Now my big discovery of the week is that it’s very hard to shop in dark glasses. I always wear them, but I used to always take them off inside. With them on you can’t see colors, you can’t see textures, forget sizes and do you know how small the print is when it comes to prices?

Small, very, very small.

But while I was tootling around the 5^th floor, Taylor called to tell me that her Blake (as some of you know around the time I lost my Blake, Taylor went to college and got herself a best friend with the name of Blake.  I am now OK with that. I have always adored Blake, her Blake, but the name was not easy on the tongue in the beginning.) anyway,  she was calling to tell me her Blake was saying if I didn’t go he would never speak to me again.

Well, that sealed the deal; that and an Herve Leger dress exactly like one I had only in a different color. Taylor all the while asking where I was.

“Buying an Herve dress,” I said, sounding,  oh don’t even say it – like a we know what.

But then she, sounding like the offspring of a RHWONYC said, “If you buy that you have to buy me something.”

“Excuse me, I’m going to the party for Blake.  Blake would have me down on the third floor buying what ever remained  from Alexander McQueen’s last collection.”

So, I came home all happy with the thought of going out for the first time in close to two weeks and what better outing than that party?

But, alas, life throws you those damn curb balls and I turned on my computer to be greeted with the news that one of my oldest friends had died that morning. I couldn’t cry, you can’t cry when you’ve had your eyes done. Believe me I have tried, yesterday and today.  NO GO. So I did what I do when I don’t know what to do: I wrote. I wrote her a eulogy and posted it and felt better-ish.

But I figured I had to go.  Blake was counting on it and Justine in London wanted me to go and I will do most anything for Justine.

So I got into the dress, now the thing is I can’t wear makeup so getting dressed takes  a quarter the time. That must be what it’s like to be a guy.

Kelly came by looking cute as always and we had photos taken by Lucy and off we went.

Now, I knew before going what I was in for. This was not an intimate dinner for eight. It was a big ole public relations celebration full of queen bees and wannabees all buzzing.

I have to say I happen to really like the show.  But I was very late to the RHWONYC table. Now, actually , it’s the only thing on TV I watch and I’m not just saying that. Since Jon Stewart is on Hulu I never watch TV except the real news. Well, I’m one of those people who thinks Jon Stewart is the real news. But last year after avoiding the show for two seasons I was suckered in.

I always took the I was above it attitude about that show. Sort of like I felt about PW and her decals. But then when Shopaholic came out Elizabeth Hayt from the NY TIMES called me to get my opinion on the HOUSEWIVES as she was doing a piece and she knew I had opinions about most everything, even things I know nothing about. Since this show fell into that category  I made something up and her bullshit detector clearly saw through it and my quote didn’t make it into her article.

Now this is a true story. I had been Tivoing it, or Taylor had, for two seasons. Not sure why, we were meant to I guess. So after the whole NY Times debacle I decided to watch it.

One Sunday I watched  one show and I swear to God I spent the next eleven hours in bed watching all of them. I was hooked. I even moved on to Atlanta and then, then when those Jersey girls hit the screen, I was an addict.

And Glenn kept saying only stupid people watch this, only stupid people watch this. Now, Mr. There Isn’t A Sport He Won’t Watch, excuse me, we found out all these smart people watch it. Barbara Landreth watches it. Barbara went to MIT. My lawyer watches it. Everyone I knew was watching it. And I mostly know smart people.  I’m not bragging; I don’t suffer fools gladly.

And then Glenn started watching it with me. Mostly because he liked watching Bethany. He liked disliking her, or maybe he finds her hot, I don’t know.  He would come in when she was on screen and make the bitchiest remarks. I love that about Glenn. Wait til he sees this week’s; she gets totally naked.

Once I was hooked, I was hooked. I started going to Phillipe and drinking skinny margaritas. I even had my birthday there.  We had Taylor’s there. We were becoming RHWONY junkies.

Then over the summer we were at our friend’s Maureen and Jerry’s and who walks in but  the Countess LuAnn De Lesseps. A RHWONYC IRL.

Taylor and I almost fell off our chaise lounges.

So we all had rose and chatted and she was divine. And I’m not saying that because she is the only one I know or anything. She is a real person and a nice woman and by the end of the summer we were having lunches at Pierre’s and I had myself a RHWONYC gal pal.

I’m glad it was LuAnn. I don’t want to be catty, well, I might, but Ramona, no, not my type.  Jill I think we would fight. Kelly, now I have met Kelly and she is very pretty. I must say, she can she wear clothes. She really is one of those girls who can wear a pair of cut offs and a scarf and look amazing, the Kate Moss thing.

Last night she was wearing  – you want to know, of course you do- skinny, skinny sequined pants, and this little top, it looked like she could have found it in a thrift shop but you know it was Chloe and she did that thing only a certain type of woman can, she wore a dark bra under her almost see through white top. I love that look.

I vowed to come home and try it, but I know I’ll walk out of my room and Salva will say “ Traaaacey your bra is showing.” But I am going to try it one day when Salva isn’t around.

The fact I’m not a model, five eleven and in my “late thirties” shouldn’t stop me.

But – last night – right, I got sidetracked by bras and which one of mine would look best under a see through blouse. Sorry,  it’s kind of been a long day for me. So we go to the party and it’s packed, of course it’s packed, and it’s dark and it’s loud, which parties can be and that’s ok unless you happen to be wearing sunglasses and can’t really see. So Kelly led me around like I was Stevie Wonder at the Grammys.

I also had this giant problem with my camera.  I couldn’t get the settings right, which I can’t do under the best of conditions, so take away all my senses except smell and I’m totally lost. I kept going up to paparazzi while they were trying to grab the best shots of Kelly and LuAnn and Jill and I would say, “Could you help me with my light settings here?”

Word of advice: do not go to a NY celebrity promotional event that is packed to the rafters with people and ask the paparazzi to help you with your light settings. They think it’s a ruse to get in front of them and get a better shot . They had no idea I couldn’t see what they were shooting.

One said, “I don’t understand cameras.”   He had nine lens hanging around his neck.

Kelly is so cute, she asked someone from one of the TV stations who was an on-camera person to help. The woman was insulted and held up her mic and said “I’m in front of the camera; I don’t work one.”

We wanted to get photos to share with you. I kept saying I have to post it and I can’t see anything.

But I could see some things. I did see LuAnn and she gave me a kiss. Me, Miss Blab Everything told her I was wearing the dark glasses because Jon Turk had just done my eyes. She batted hers and said, “I saw that and thought you might have done something naughty.”

She looked very pretty in sequins and she has amazing legs.

She stopped for a few photos with us.   My camera set on something with a tulip in the corner.  I knew that was not the right setting for where we were. That was for Martha Stewart’s garden tour.

We were inside, dark, dark, dark, people, people, people.

I Tweeted that I thought maybe Jill Zarin’s husband had had his eyes done as he too was wearing dark glasses.

So we mingled and I bumped into people by accident, and I kept trying to fix the damn camera. And kept taking terrible photos, the best ones are of the bartender.

The party was all about drinking and staring at people– unless you couldn’t see them. They ran the show on these big monitors that were cool, but everyone was so loud you couldn’t hear them and I couldn’t see them that well because of the glasses.

And I was upset about Barnetta and Kelly wanted to get home to her husband Jeffrey. And while I really like LuAnn I didn’t think she would notice if I slipped out.

It was very sweet of her to invite me. And it was fun to say I went.

And if I could have seen and heard and didn’t feel like Helen Keller in an Herve Leger dress I probably would have had some more fun.

I will say this, single girls – or not single girls who want attention, go to a party in a skin tight dress — only works if you are thin or like me have barely eaten in a week– wear dark glasses and have a pouty look on your face. Men cruise  you. Or at least I think they were. Kelly said they were.

I only cared about my camera.

We ended up getting home in time for me to watch Real Housewives Of Orange County while eating a peanut butter sandwich while John from downstairs fixed the dishwasher.

Now that is more PW than RHWONYC – except I was still in my Herve Leger dress.

I just asked Lucy which one I was and she said without missing a beat, “Both- no, Real Housewife of NY.”

Oh and Larry I don’t want to hear about the light in these pictures it’s an all time low even for me.

FRESHMAN MOM

PW OF CPS or RHWONYC

YOU PICK

Today I have been so full of glib and glam and bon mots, batting my still racoony eyes around Bergdorf’s looking for a dress to wear to the party tonight and then I came home to an email telling me one of my oldest friends had died this morning.

Not as old as Blake, but close,  we go back thirty years.

She was a bridesmaid in my first marriage, out of six the only one I was still speaking to.

Me – glib – even in the dark hours.

See the thing is I put off something and I’m sitting here just hating myself.

There was a period when we were together almost daily. Then a decade when we lived three thousand miles away. Then five –six years ago I saw a lot of her as she ran the school where I teach.

But then she moved away and she didn’t leave much info behind.

Barnetta had sort of disappeared and we really didn’t know for a while what had happened. And you know the way it is in life you get caught up in all the stuff of the moment that is so pressing – oh wow – what was all that pressing stuff I had to do?

Anyway, earlier in the year I found out she was in a home up in Rochester.

She had suffered her entire life from diabetes. She was always brave and never complained and you never would have known she was ever ill at all.

But it turned out she had developed early, so early, way early,  decades early diabetes induced dementia.

Her loyal friend and partner David was taking care of her.  He had found this home for her and she was happy he said.

It was pricey and she couldn’t work obviously so he was asking friends to chip in if they could.  We did. I was planning to send another check next week; it was marked in my agenda. “Send Barnetta check”

I posted it on FACEBOOK way back and sweet Matt Mosby said he would send something.

I was going up to see her. I don’t think many had.  People are like that you know.  Busy, busy, doing, doing, pressing things.

But by the time I found out it was close to winter and I had all these pressing things, and to be honest I didn’t want to get stuck in bad weather or snowed in.  So I told David I would wait until the weather got better and I would fly up and spend the night in Rochester and go and see her.

He said some days she knew people some days she didn’t. I didn’t really care.  I just would have gone and sat and held her hand and reminded her of all the good times we had, or perhaps I would have just been reminding myself. The times would have been sent out in the ether and  it didn’t matter to me if she knew me, at least I would have seen her.

I told Glenn literally two days ago as soon as we get back from Spring Break I’m going up to Rochester.  He even said I could fly back the same night, it was an easy trip as long as it’s not snowing.

She died this morning. I don’t know of what. I guess the diabetes.

David had said she could live for years. I never knew there was any sort of time limit at all.

The talk was always how to keep her in the home for as long as possible, that was the goal.

She was funny, she loved life and theatre and teaching and directing. She had many talents but I think directing was her favorite activity. She was a take charge, you could count on her for anything kind of gal.

She was a gal in the real sense of the word. She wasn’t curly, girly, girl yet she could be almost kittenish if she wanted though it was more of a role than her character.

She would wear hair bows and hiking boots. She dressed to say I get the joke, do you?

Her character was no-nonsense; afraid of nothing, if it had to get done she would do it no matter what it was.

She was the first person I knew to live in Brooklyn. This was thirty years ago mind you.

She used to head home to Brooklyn and I thought that was the bravest thing.

She loved to laugh and go to the theatre.

We used to eat veggie plates at DOJO in the East Village. It was just a  given.

“Wanna eat?”  ‘OK, meet ya there.”

Like that great scene between Holly Hunter and James Brooks in BROADCAST NEWS, “I’ll meet you at the place, by the corner near the thing.”

I think in fact if someone were to play Barnetta it would be Holly Hunter.

She would quite like that. She was from Tennessee.  When she got tired or had an extra glass of wine the roots came out in her twang.

I think one of the best things you can say about someone in life is they never let you down.

I can say that about her.

I think in our friendship, I hope at least, she would have been able to say the same thing.

I feel like not getting up there before Spring I did.

Her partner just emailed me and said I didn’t. It was very fast, so fast there was no time to tell anyone.

I can’t even cry because of my eyes, so I just keep typing.

That would make Barnetta laugh so hard, she would tease me mercilessly.  “I die and you can’t cry because you just had your eyes done, so you Tracey.”

Selfishly, I hope it’s not for some time, I have a lot of living to do and children to raise; but if the universe is the way we like to think it is, when the time comes,  I’ll meet ya there Barnetta.

In loving memory of Barnetta Carter

Any way, I still look a tad raccoony – I’m going to see Jon Turk at one and see what he says.

I really, really wanted to go to the REAL LIFE HOUSEWIVES OF NEW YORK PARTY tonight.  The real PW is obsessed with the Orange County ones, another thing we have in common.

So I just went in to talk to Salva, who asked if I would be cooking this evening. And I said I might be going to a party. And she looked at me like I said I was going to man the next Shuttle to the moon. She raised her eyebrows in this way only Salva can, and said,  Paaaaarty Tracey????”  So I might not be going. Which kind of sucks cause I’m thin as I have been home and not eating much and I really wanted to go and I want to take Kelly who wants to go, Glenn like so doesn’t’ t want to go. But I will look so lame in glasses, like I’m so hot I have to cover my eyes, or I just had plastic surgery and so wanted to come I figured what the hell. I’m not crazy about either option.

I sent some photos to a few friends yesterday who hadn’t seen me. One friend (male) wrote back, “that is very disturbing, hope you are alright.” I think that is the subtext of Salva’s raised eyebrow.

You guys think I should just shove myself in an Herve Leger dress and put on some shades and go drink skinny girl Margaritas with the housewives or stay home and make PW chicken fried steak, eat all and never fit into another Herve Leger dress again?

The whole PW blog yesterday caused quite the surge of comments. Not all comments btw appear on the comment section.  I get lots of emails and FB messages.

Though my friend Kathy in Arizona wrote in that the only blogs she follows are PW’s and mine. I was so honored.

Kathy and her husband Andre live in Arizona where I’m going next week and bummer, bummer, bummer they are going to be in California.

I went to school with them and was dying to see them.

Kathy, did you see PW made apple fritters yesterday?

OMG – they looked so amazing. I so love apple fritters. Kathy, if you were going to be home next week I would be at your house so fast and I you and I would whip a batch of those fritters and sit down with Andre and catch up on the last two decades. And then we might even make another batch cause that’s what PW does. Even if we couldn’t eat them we could stare at them, photograph them and post them.

Maybe in May!

The thing I want to know is, does she, PW wake up and go in the kitchen and just whip up apple fritters for MM and the kids?   That’s a mom, that’s a wife, that’s a boat load of work and a lot of fat and sugar to start off the day.

If Lucy Horowitz woke up and walked in the kitchen and I was standing there making her a batch of apple fritters before school I think she would pass out cold. I do.  We would then have to take her to world’s best pediatrician Barbara Landreth who would say “of course she passed out she is suffering from shock, did you happen to bring along any of the fritters?”

Depending on what time Lucy wakes up she sees me in one of two ways – in bed, drinking my Nespresso while on my Blackberry or in my gym clothes running around the house yelling “ Has anyone seen my keys?”

Not many moms I know get up and make apple fritters.

I at least do make dinner every night. almost every night, five nights a week. I do! Before PW.  Always.

My step-mom is from Texas and she makes biscuits.  When we go out to see my dad, Lucy walks in the kitchen and Grandma Carol is whipping up a batch of biscuits from scratch in full makeup at six-thirty am –  this blows Lucy’s mind. Whenever the topic of Grandma Carol comes up the word biscuits from scratch in the morning are attached.

And then my oh-so-sophisticated, worldly and gorgeous friend Justine  in London said she was going to go trolling Notting Hill for the Notting Hill version of MM. Which I think Justine is either Hugh Grant or Eric Fellner.  She was making a joke, of course, I think – see her website below and you will get what I mean. And if you have like ten extra dollars you might want to help her cause in Kashmir.

So I sent PW my blog and we will see if she responds. Lucy wants to go to the ranch. Even though my dad has a ranch, a ranch in Santa Ynez in a gated community is different than a working cattle ranch drowning in sugar glaze and chocolate sheet cake.
I have attempted to do some PW things here over looking my ranch aka Central Park.

On Valentine’s Day – the goofiest holiday Hallmark is yet to come up with, I decided, well Lucy and I decided that we would have someone we loved over for dinner and that was Joan Kron aka Mamaface and we would cook for her and Glenn.

We thought about various dishes and then said wonder what the PW is cooking MM for Valentine’s Day?  I thought it would be something steaky and cheesy and hard to do in the middle of winter here.

But, alas, it was my favorite meal, caesar salad and this linguine with shrimps you bake in the oven.  My favorite dinner is pasta and salad. If I were on death row it’s what I would request. I didn’t know before PW about the linguine with the shrimps in the foil.

There was also a chocolate molten lava dessert that looked a tad beyond my skill set. So blessedly Mamaface brought her famous apple crumble.

The recipes are all on PW’s website.

The Photos for the most part are taken by Lucy.

The bad ones are taken by me.

Since to be a real PW one needs a real recipe, I’m enclosing Mamaface’s apple crumble. It’s the kind of dessert PW would really understand.

So this my attempt at being the PW of CPS.

Oil and garlic in the pan for the croutons.

Croutons on the baking sheet. I usually make them in a skillet and eat half before I put them in the salad. These cook for an hour.

Chopping parsley- duh

PW of CPS in the kitchen, a little frazzled. To be honest this photo was taken by Guru Larry the week before when I made another dinner. The thing about the photo is it's dark and since Larry gets on my case about being out of focus, Larry you might want to deal with your flash?

Pioneer Duck

Completed Caesar Salad. Notice the bowl, hot pink lacquer purchased in Cambodia. I will put up link to shop when I finally do my Asian hot spots blog next week

Another shot of the bowl. The salad was great! Lucy ate it. I actually made the dressing in the cuisinart and not in a mixing bowl.

The pasta. The thing about this pasta is you start it on the stove but finish it in the oven. You wrap it in foil..Oh go on the website and make it yourself and see

Admit it, you're impressed. You didn't know this side of me. I'm full of surprises. With a little help from PW

Ready to eat! Italians you may know have a real thing if you put cheese on pasta with fish in it. It's like insulting the Pope or something or you would think by their almost violent response when you ask for cheese. But I can't eat pasta without cheese so I don't care and all the snooty waiters in the world can be put off, but I like cheese on my pasta. Lots of cheese. And I bet PW does too.

Heads in bowls always a good sign. Kind of looks like I was using Larry's camera to take the photo.

Joan Kron's Apple Crisp. Joan is a PW in many ways.

Joan’s apple crisp adapted from Betty Crocker Boys’ and Girls’ Cookbook

Preheat oven to 375

TOPPING

1 cup granulated sugar (I mix ½ cup brown sugar with ½ cup white sugar)

¾ cup sifted flour

1/3 cup butter (a little soft)

Combine in a bowl and Cut in together till crumbly like sand.

APPLES (I use 8 granny smith)

Peel, core and slice apples thin

Arrange  in 8 x 12 metal pan or pyrex  dish (no need to butter pan)

In a measuring cup mix ¼ cup of water with 1/4 tsp salt…

Sprinkle  over apples

Shake a thin coating of cinnamon all over  apples

(some people add raisins—I don’t care for raisins)

Cover with topping

Bake for 45 min to 1 hr,  till apples are bubbly and topping is toasty colored.

(You can make topping in advance and freeze for weeks or months if sealed tightly in plastic container.)

Serve  warm with vanilla ice cream or  vanilla-flavored whipped cream,  or plain…

After Joan makes this she goes and writes about ten articles for ALLURE, takes a class in documentary film making, answers hundreds of emails. Total PW!

http://www.justinehardy.com/pages/aid_projects/healing_kashmir/intro.asp

Check out what Justine does it goes beyond Pioneerdom

The Pioneer Woman Cooks

My idea of the perfect looking cookbook. I have never opened it.

Stop laughing. It’s possible, not probable but possible.

The truth is I’m not really talking about me, well, I am, but more as an ideal and not a reality. You see I’m obsessed with the real Pioneer Woman; yes there is one and she has a blog and it’s the only blog I actually read everyday, aside from badly proof-checking my own.

I imagine many of you don’t even know who she is;  my guess is most of my readers are urban animals and a hunk of her enormous following is in the middle and South of the country. Though I’m sure she has groupies up North too. This week she appeared on both Good Morning America and Fox and Friends so I imagine her snowball of celebrity has gathered many followers as she rolls towards her newfound stardom. I think they are grooming her for her own TV show, but that is just between us.

So by now many of you are asking who is the Pioneer Woman and how did I leap frog from narcissism and eyelifts to this in one day?

Maybe I really do need to get out of the house.

She is a fellow blogger – well – she is far more a blogger than I am. And she is far more than a blogger period.  She is an author, a photographer, a mom and a wife and within a certain circle, a wiiiiiiide circle, like four million people she is a phenom.

She came into my life back in December thanks to Sarah Palin. Not like Sarah called me up and said “Hey, Trace- you got to check out this Pioneer chick.” I imagine Sarah thinks she is America’s first and only Pioneer Woman  -but we won’t even go there.

I was having lunch with someone who works with my publishing house to talk about my book Between a Rock and a Hot Place (it’s been quite a few days since I dropped that in). One of the perks in publishing– besides the fact they ask you about yourself–  is they bring you other books they publish. Before the economy tanked and Kindle started munching into their profits they brought you many, but now they at least bring you one.

So my companion said “Do you want Sarah Palin’s book or a cookbook?”

Without missing a beat I said “Cookbook,” not even bothering to ask what kind. It could have been a cookbook about two hundred ways to marinate gopher balls and I would prefer that to having to read about Sarah Palin. Now I am alone as her book is a huge bestseller so they don’t need me to read it for free and I’m sure it’s great and you should all go out and buy it, really you should. I just don’t want to read it as she gives me the creeps.

So I got a copy of The Pioneer Woman Cooks. At first I thought Sarah Palin did a cookbook too. Five hundred ways to marinate moose.

Clearly, by the way I looked at the book I gave off a “what is this?” vibe. My companion said, “It’s selling off the shelves. She has a blog that is read by millions.”

Blog read by millions?????

Well, ladeda I hadn’t heard of her, but my companion was right. At first glance the cookbook turned me off. It’s orange and yellow and green and busy, busy busy. It has horses and decals and flowers and vines and it kind of looked like a well-done school project. Or perhaps The Pioneer Woman had taken one too many scrap booking classes.  But at the top it states
“#1 New York Times Bestseller”.

Clearly many people like birds and butterflies and vines and ponies. And maybe, just maybe, I’m a stuck up, snobby, less is more, mid-century loving cliché of a New York City girl.

I don’t think I thought that at the moment.  I think I thought the book looked cluttered but I could re-gift it. Not sure to whom, but it was the holidays and at least I didn’t have to lug Sarah Palin around all afternoon.

So I took it home, yet stuck in my mind were the words “four million followers” and “thousands show up to see her.” I was moving into the land of blog envy, celebrity envy, my curiosity was in overdrive. So instead of throwing some Innsbrook wrapping paper on it and giving it my sister I sat down and read it.

If I thought there were decals on the cover that was nothing compared to the inside, it was decal city.  And full of pictures of food and ponies and puppies, and cherubs– boy, it had a lot going on.

I must admit some of the recipes looked tantalizing. Though she cooks with a lot of white flour and butter and sugar and things my obsessive, NYC, thin competitiveness tries to stay away from, but diet be damned I earmarked some pages. I don’t think I can get Glenn to eat potato skins but I do like them and the macaroni was right up Lucy’s alley.

But mingled in with the recipes are snippets of her life story, her family life and her kids and I kind of liked that. This was a real person talking to people about food and her life and I liked that too.

I liked it enough I put the book on my shelf. It was a keeper. I liked it enough I decided to check out her website, now she would have four million and one.

So I typed in www.pinoneerwoman.com and then, my friends, I was hooked. I fell in love with the Pioneer Woman and I understood why much of America has too.

The thing I loved most was she tells you exactly who she is, we know I love that.

CRIB NOTES

She was a Lucky Duck who went to USC who was on her way to a big city life in Chicago when she fell madly, passionately in love with a cowboy she calls Marlboro Man. Instead of moving to Chicago to a lovely apt filled no doubt with Crate and Barrel furniture (I have Crate and Barrel furniture) she moved in with MM to his working ranch in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma and there she made her life; had four kids and in 2006, started a blog about her life and adjusting to life in the middle of nowhere when she thought her life would be in the middle of Chicago. She tells the good and the bad, but it’s all laced with love and insights and food and decals. Yet by the time I had spent four hours reading about her I forgot about the decals.

What I really liked about her is her self-deprecating wit. We love that.

She is not afraid to point out her faults – we adore that.

She is self-aware of her own foibles and owns them. Fabulous.

And the thing I found vastly impressive is she intrinsically understands or she is just much brighter than “the aw shucks” persona she puts out for her readers, she understands the power of certain type of storytelling and mythology.

On her blog (which is vast, I will get to that in a moment) she tells you her life story and she does it well. She’s not John Updike, but she doesn’t pretend to be. She is her and that is good enough.

And she knows how to blog. The woman has one of the best blogs on the net and I have learned more about blogging from Ree Drummond in Oklahoma than anyone else on the net and that is just by following her.

In her big ole, decal filled blog she has tapped into the essence of the American mythology of damsel headed for the wrong life being saved by that great American icon – the cowboy. And her case it’s true. But she tells the story, this great love affair in many parts, and it taps into the hearts and imaginations of people in the most primal and romantic of ways. And she is not manipulating, I can spot that a mile away, she is for real.

So I was really taken with not only her understanding of narrative structure but her ability to  squeeze it into the template of the daily blog.

Me, big city girl, screenwriter for twenty years, teacher for ten, me learning how to write for the web from this woman I didn’t know who I felt needed a lesson in de-cluttering. That impressed me, plus I was hooked on her story and all the rest of the things she was serving up daily.

Her blog is broken into sections: she has her daily “Confessions” where much like me, but  often times softer and  less arch, she tells her life story or what’s on her mind, or what her kids are up to or silly things she does. I can see her posting her eyelift shots. Or perhaps I would just like to see someone else do it.

She has her “Cooking” section which I think is what really put her over the top as she takes photos of each step and not only makes it look fun, but actually makes it fun and a family event. She got me back in the kitchen. Lucy and I have tried some of the recipes.

I went out and bought white flour and didn’t use spelt for a change. Lucy and I made her Chicken Parmigiana one night.  Glenn had seconds. Lucy is hooked on her too.  I told her we would make the chocolate sheet cake with M&M’s.  This is big for a kid whose household treats are Tofutti bars.

She has a “Photography” section, she takes decent photos – really good.  Between her photos and Larry telling me mine were all out of focus and my kids showing me up in Angkor Wat, I have made a concentrated effort to stop excusing my lack of photographic skills with the “I’m a verbal not a visual person.” I bought a new camera, as we know and I’m working at using it. I’m not there or anywhere near there yet, in fact I’m so far from there, I don’t know where there is.

She also has a “Gardening” section. I must admit, I haven’t checked that out, I hate gardening.  I’m the only person in the Hamptons who every summer has no hydrangeas; they hate me, they bloom for one day then die. I am not a gardener. But she is. And she’s probably really good at it. Of course she’s good at it.

She also has — get this– a “Home Schooling” section. I checked that out. I didn’t know most of the questions. I moved on.  It’s like when Lucy plays that “Are you smarter than fifth grader?”  with me and I find out I’m not. I have a hard time with that. Dead hydrangeas I can live with, being dumber than a fifth grader is deeply disturbing.

So here I find myself tuning in daily to witness this woman’s life.

On my Safari master page you find my own website, my bank, my Twitter, my gmail, my WordPress home page, Jon Turk’s site, Joan Kron’s site, my Facebook and The Pioneer Woman.When you think about it the only people’s sites up there aside from my own are my plastic surgeon, the woman I want to be my surrogate mother and Ree Drummond. She made the big final cut, decals and all. Today she has photos of puppies, and cows and they actually make me smile.

And the thing is on paper or in life, it looks like we would have nothing in common, or certainly not enough for me to put her in my top ten. She lives in the middle of Oklahoma. I live in the middle of Manhattan. I’m a minimalist; she’s a bit cluttery.  She cooks with more butter in one day than I admit to consuming in a year, but she has sort of changed that.

She home schools her kids, I cry when Lucy presents me with a fraction and according to Lucy I’m dumber than a fifth grader.

She loves a man who spends his days with animals doing hard labor with his hands, a man who runs a tractor, works a ranch, can erect a barn no doubt and drives a truck. I love a man who spends his days with books, lives in his head and does deals. He can’t work the remote and drives an Audi wagon badly. When something breaks he calls downstairs for someone to come up and fix it.

She is a devout Christian, I am a confused Jew-Bu – or is that redundant?

She really knows her way around a camera, I still can’t figure out light speeds.

She doesn’t seem to like to travel much; I would rather be in a transit lounge in the middle of the night in Asia than almost anywhere.

I have been a working mother my whole life; part of her work is being a mother. But she is a self-admitted happiest at home gal. This week is the longest stretch of time I have spent in the house since I was four months old.

She seems to be close to her whole family – I’m like the poster child for the kid from the dysfunctional family. She started her blog to be closer to her mother – I spend time on my blog talking about how far apart I am from my mother.

But, in the plus column we both love our families and seem totally willing to make them the center of our work and sometimes the butt of our jokes. And we take the attitude they are along for the ride whether they like it or not.

We both talk about ourselves with total honesty and lack of regard for other’s judgments.

We both seem on the path of figuring out life and the how’s and why’s of things on a daily basis.

We both love dogs.

I do love butter, even though I have a hard time admitting it.

At the end of the day, I think people just like being let into other people’s lives.

They like the access, they like to peek in the windows and when you let them do that with humor, honesty and a great recipe for home made croutons (yes, I made them with white bread)  they will show up, in her case by the millions.

Certainly why they show up differs. Some people show up because they think they want to be you. Some people show up because they just want an out from their own life. Some show because they want to experience something so different than what their days deliver or they want to connect to someone whose life resembles their own. Some are just curious crazies. Some want to come and learn how to do things better. Some want to be amused. And some like to come and sit in judgment.  Ree and I don’t care if they do that.

I think one of her secrets is that she is so out there, so honest, so unapologetic, so forthcoming, you feel like you know her, you feel like you could show up at her door and she would take some cupcakes out of the oven and pour you a cup of coffee and you would have a fine ole chat. And I think online many people are looking for an honest friend. Forget the bells and whistles and decals– Ree Drummond delivers that.

Hey, she had me at Howdy.

FRESMAN MOM

http://thepioneerwoman.com/