Melancholy and Marvelous

Our mother loved FOOD- shopping, unpacking, organizing the refrigerator,preparing, cooking, eating, wrapping leftovers, eating, cleaning out the refrigerator. Sara Lee and Entenmanns cake boxes were scotch taped closed. She studied food and became a dietItian.
Studied some more and with her masters degree was titled nutritionist. Then got an M.S.W. In social work at the age of 50. We think she wanted to figure out through research why food was always top of mind.

We relied on radishes cleaned and in Tupperware with French dressing as an after school snack. Sometimes we opted for Buitoni Raviolis, yum as we think about it now.

We waited around and did homework until dinner. We came to expect something breaded, something fried with Le Seur Peas and a baked sweet potato. We looked forward to broiled baby lamp chops- We still do. Snowballs, hostess cupcakes, twinkies, drakes ring dings, yodels -yum and yum. Euphoric gastronomic recall. She saved the Lindt Chocolate for her card games.

As the culinary seed was planted we waited for it to sprout into our type of cuisine. We too love food. However, everything else around it feels equally as appealing. We have an extensive salt and pepper shaker collection.
Varied, and meaningful. Collected from places we’ve been, antiquing and given to us as gifts. Some are antiques, several glass, some ceramic. Betty Boop and Harley Davidson sets hang out in my cabinet together. Dishes, silverware and amber glass represent our treasured items.
Flowers and table settings add to the allure of our meals. Our collection of soupcons (fancy serving ladles) makes us smile.

Shopping for the ingredients and researching who has the best mozzarella and filet mignon a past time. Aligning the seats for comfort and space adds to the canvas. We make sure the creases in the napkins are well pressed
and the water glass is properly situated. We light candles and get dressed. We then set up the ice on the bar and cut lemon slices. All the time this is going on we have the oven on, the flames on low and check our “something” breaded, something fried.” We learned from The Best. Miss you mama especially today.

Please hand me a tissue. We just watched the novella -Breakfast at Tiffany’s again. Truman Capote fan here. Southern Socialite, brilliant, clever and raconteur extraordinaire. Often invited to dine with The Cafe Society Set and was seen having “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” with Jackie O. And I quote Truman- Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act. Ok, then.

He lived a dichotomous existence. Recluse by day as a writer and Studio 54’d it by night. From the tables at Côte Basque and Grenouille, dinner parties at the 720 and 740 buildings on Park Avenue he, charmed the pants off Babe Paley and her CBS husband Bill.

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music that words make.” Truman alchemized the condiments of life and lived it spicy. His writing was fluid and lyrical. He killed it with a Mockingbird. He surrounded himself with glamour and beauty- he brought clever to the party, The nexus of entertainment doesn’t vary in the writing but leaves us with our own inner voice. His devastating childhood served as the motivation for his “Cold blooded” approach.

Let’s get busy. Make whatever act you’re in count the most. Add an extra plate to your table and invite that interesting person you met to dinner. Take out the easel, finish the sweater you started knitting. Compile your musings and write your memoir. Get the catalog for the 92nd Street Y of your choice and learn something you never knew before. In 4 months it will be 2023. We are still processing 2019. Let’s do it Friday. Flip an old behavior that has kept you stuck and open up space to experience “the good stuff.” Bh

This is what’s right with this world!

First Day of First Grade!

A good friend of mine unexpectedly lost his wife. A couple months later we were golfing together, chatting about nothing. He asked what my dinner plans were and I told him wifey wanted my homemade chili and cornbread, but I didn’t feel like stopping at the store. We golfed a few more minutes when he quietly said, “Make the chili.”
It took me a few minutes to realize we were no longer talking about dinner. It was about going out of your way to do something for someone you love because at any moment, they could unexpectedly be taken from you. So today I’m sharing with you that wisdom handed to me by my dear friend, that I’ve thought of many times since that day. Next time someone you love wants you to go for a walk or watch a football game or play a board game or just put your phone down and give them your undivided attention, just do it. “Make the chili”

Lin-Thank you for hosting with Love! Here’s to forever friendships Celebrated through the Circle of Life. Life is just a Bowl of Cherries- along as skillet brownies lead the way. We remember through memories and today we added a very special one. Love you all and then some- 🀄️

Leave your troubles on the door-step. Wondered why he got so many smiles throughout the day. No Joke (ers) #justhavefun

Hi Nancy,
Hi Hillary,
What’s the story morning glory?
Have you heard about the boxes he stole?
Hi Marla,
Hi Melania,
What’s the tale nightingale?
You wed the consummate A- hole.
Hello Mr. Garland,
This is Your America,
We’ve being waiting for this day,
You signed off on the warrant.
Confiscated evidence.
Now heavy on the pedal,
Please cart the A- hole away.
Hello Letitia,
It’s Liz Cheney,
Please hurry and show us what you got.
What’s the story morning glory?
What’s the tale nightingale?
Tell us more about President kim jong un-
Hello Jared and Ivanka,
Go Wipe the egg off your face,
So much for love and devotion.
When you’re praying to Hashem.
Bow your head in sheer disgrace,
Divide your deceptions,

Zero virtues.
Just go hide your botoxed face.
Did he really get caught?
Could this just be a dream.
Yes, America our land may still be Free.
One step toward the slammer.
Sorry no ice cream.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats!

Our lower school memories of the sugar cube vaccinations, TB skin tests, when a small amount of tuberculin was injected into the skin, (as we waited a day or two to see the results on our arms) and finger prick blood tests were what we knew. Our children and grandchildren have a much heavier load as masks, mandates and deleterious effects of the Pandemic are incorporated into their hopefully fading memories. The days of you can’t hug your grandparents from the waist up because you could transmit “corona,” behind us. bh

Where were you when Kennedy was shot? Our young, formative, developmental years were spent during the 1960’s. Knee socks, tennis sweaters, madras blouses, crinolines, helancas, mary janes patent leather and capezio shoes, loden coats, pea jackets and wrangler dungarees comprised our garb. We were taught to take the right action and let go of the results. Respect your elders, do unto others, lend a helping hand, sell girl scout cookies, collect for The March of Dimes. Basic adages that started on our front lawn in front of our white house.

Destroyed norms of human behavior were unimaginable as we stood stalwart and pledged allegiance with presidential reverence. Our battery operated toys, playing clue, monopoly and the game of Life excluded the possibility of getting carpal tunnel, tendonitis, age appropriate hearing loss, ( whatever that means,) or suffering from the results of social isolation. So for today let’s professionally clean up our own acts, stop pointing fingers and make sure the days of leaving someone out are professionally cleaned from memory. If there is food on the table, there is always room for one more.Shabbat Shalom.

And then one day the sky fell down.
No chicken little warning- the house fell on the witches legs and just like that the emperor had no clothes. Cinderella lost more than her slipper and the three blind mice could no longer run. Mother Goose stopped singing nursery rhymes to her grandchildren- and stood by as women prisoner’s exercised around the “mulberry bush.” There were no rainbows and cloudy days were here again. Severus Snape knew that “the dark arts are varied, ever- changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many- headed monster, which each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before.” Even though Tom (Tom and Jerry) was the antagonist, all of us felt for Tom. “After all what good is a cat if he can’t get the better of a rat.” From our own little corner in our own little chair- uh! oh! we spied with our little eye a black cat crossing our path. And to quote Elmer Fudd in his garden of evil- “Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits. Only in that case, the hunter gets hunted always. And then we ran into Mary Poppins who offered us a spoon full of sugar. It helped the medicine go down. We began to believe again and just like we know pruning our flowers helps them to grow bigger and brighter the prince of tides helped our ship sail in. We turned the beat around, stopped playing victim, ran from villains, and got behind the literal wheel to claim our power back. If you believe in magic, follow toto down the yellow brick road, and know that somewhere between a curtain and the wizard is a place called Home.