I was skimming my Google reader and I read the headline: “Dior Launches Scented Nailpolish” out loud and without missing a beat David turned to me and asked, “What does it smell like? Your finger?”
For the record, it smells like roses.
My friend Maria turned me on to these napkins that I think explain themselves.
They are sold out in Joss & Main where they are on sale for $19, but you can still get them at the Petit Coterie site for $35. Yankee swappers, take note.
At a 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Jobs shared the philosophy that drove him.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” Jobs said. “Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
I just got this invite:
The website reads:
Once reserved for cutting-edge medical care, our breakthrough stem-cell research now rewires the signs of aging. Developed at the world’s top stem-cell facility, CELLURE holds five patents and one secret: a stop at turning back the clock.
You and I both know that there is going to be a hefty goody bag at this event. The kind from the heydays of SWAG. I’m thinking about the Neiman Marcus Holiday Preview when the gift bag was so heavy you had to hail a cab because the pointy edges of the shopping bag nipped at your ankles. Unfortunately I can’t go because we have tickets to Elvis Costello at the Welmont in Montclair—a show we have been looking forward to ever since I sat out in the sun one July morning waiting for an hour to buy tickets with my friend Erin. We hung around with our phones sending work emails probably earning a few wrinkles in the process, with a bunch of Montclairians who looked, well, how else can I say it, weathered. I’ll go to the concert but now my heart will be in Soho.
Dash went to the dentist today. He was scared of the drill and so the dentist gave him nitrous.
He liked it so much he said he wanted to take it home. We all laughed, haha so funny, a kid has never said that before but inside it made me very nervous. It’s a little too easy to imagine him stealing Redi-Whip from Quickcheck to do whippits when he hits Montclair High.
After the gas wore off they gave him a token to get a present out of a gumball machine. He got a blonde mustache.
The visit felt a bit too prophetic for a drizzly Monday.
Its fall which means shopping and I have a new theme: I am stocking up my fashion and beauty pantry with cool effortless essentials because you never know who is going to send you a message on Facebook and come to dinner at your house, which is exactly what happened to me last Friday. While getting dressed to greet my old friend Gabriele, a guy I’ve only seen twice since we met in 1986 while spending the summer in Oxford, I realized that despite a closet full of pretty dresses, and makeup kits bulging with palettes I was missing the “I don’t try because I’m gorgeous like this all the time” pieces. My clothes are much too purpose oriented: party dresses, work cardies, yoga basics and my makeup is much to everyday. Even David who was whiplashed by the surprise visit and an extremely generous husband/host given that he had just arrived home from Dubai that morning kept looking at my dress options with a “Don’t you want to look more relaxed?” I got so annoyed with my closet I actually had to run next door to my neighbor in a lacy top DVF top and jeans ensemble that made me look like Leeann Rhimes and ask: Do I do thin and country singer or fat and trendy? Being transplants from Williamsburg they made me change to a peasant top (re: fat and trendy) and now when I see the photos I feel like I should have done thin and country!
All in all the night was fun even though I was kicking myself for not taking the extra time when I had it to buy that seamless liquid eye liner, or for having walked past those sexy heels when they were on sale, and to not have ordered that amazing blouse on Ru LaLa. The recession and a happy marriage has done in my desire to seek out the chachacha and I realize I need clothes and makeup that are full of possibility.
urbanoutfitters.com, $34
And even possibly this 2012 calendar from cuteoverload.com
Last week in the Sunday Metro section the NYT times featured a story about my grandfathers butcher shop in Flatbush. Its 80 years old and still going strong because my second and third cousins who continue to run it, long after the grandpa Mike died, have adapted with the changing neighborhood demands from Italian, Irish and Jewish to Carribean. I grew up my whole life with a first course of pasta and a second of steak or chicken or both, now maybe he’d be bringing home goat.
“At Michael’s, a woman carrying two shopping bags pushed open the door on a recent afternoon and asked, in a Caribbean lilt, for the price of the oxtail. It was $6.29 a pound, she was told. “Lord have mercy,” she said, backing out the door.”
I’ve been redecorating the boys rooms and while trying to find inspiration for their own personal man-caves I stumbled on this photo of Steve McQueen at home. I kind of love the idea of borrowing some of these looks for the boys and am now trying to sell one or both boys on a tiger rug. It’s also still really current–even the goofy lanterns–below are some quick ways to make this your own.
Couch: Crate & Barrel
Rug: Williams Sonoma Home
Coffee table: Restoration Hardware
Side table: Oly studio
Lanterns: Twos Company
Chair: Hero Eames Lounge
Candelabra: Pottery Barn
Foliage: Rubber plant
The other spot-on gift Dashiell got for his birthday was an EasyBake Oven. It was from our neighbors and us, and I picked it up at Target and while I was pretty sure he’d be down with the cooking, I was worried that he would be put off by the packaging that had a tween girl big bake-off meets sleepover scene on the box. Why they couldn’t make it gender neutral turquoise is beyond me, but anyway its all purple and pink and swirly. I wrapped it in Batman shopping bag and hid it under the barcart in the dining room. Earlier I had also told the boys that I was getting some girl toys for the house so that when their friends sisters came over for dinner they have other things to do than torture Asta by dressing her up in her winter coats. (It was an extra long hot summer for our dog where little girls were concerned.)
Before his birthday dinner I left the boys with Joshua our sitter. They were tasked with decorating the dining room but apparently while they were wrapping streamers around every table leg Dashy found the Batman bag and opened to find the Easy Bake Oven. When I came he ran up to and demanded to know why I got the girls an oven! I was so relieved he had snooped. I looked at him and said, “Maybe the oven is not for the girls, maybe its for someone else…” Later that night when he finally did get to open the bag he hugged the over as if it was teddy bear. Since then we’ve made two batches of red velvet cupcakes and a batch of chocolate chip cookies. The treats are mouse-sized and wonderfully tasty.
