Maybe its because I’m up in my attic and I get bored with just me and the dogs and miss having coworkers, or maybe its because I always regret not buying that series of portraits of the Golden Girls our dear friend Tiffany painted, but lately I want to collect portraits of women. Not any women, ladies I’d like like to hang out with, maybe work with, perhaps start some cool new online magazine with, maybe one about life in the suburbs…. I have two though they are not exactly what I’m after. The Gibson girl was my grandmother’s and there’s so much sentiment in that one it can’t count, the other my mom was selling at her antique booth and I just tiptoed away with one day, I know, childish (but then I’m her child). The blonde with the fluffy hair in the second row is a painting being sold on OKL and I’m 99.99% sure it was painted in the 60s by my mom’s best friend Ann Reiger, it looks exactly like her style and signature (and is signed/listed as A.Reiger portrait). The rest of the thumbnails are paintings I’ve spied around and am considering for my collection. I can see these ladies getting along, and then not, and then bitching about each other and then maybe even bitching about me when I’m not hanging out in the office—and now I’ve either stumbled on some amazing thread for a scary ass novel or I’m on the verge of my own “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Dashy turned 6! And I don’t know about other families who have kids who are the same sex and close in age but the younger kid seems so hard to buy  for. Even Dashy senses this. For weeks family members have been asking him what he would like for his birthday and he kept saying, “I have to think about it.” But as his big day drew nearer he wasn’t any closer to figuring it out.

Even all the good themes seemed to be already played out in Conrad’s 8 birthdays. When I asked him what he wanted for his party theme, Pokemeon or Batman,  he said, “We’ve done all that. I want a money theme birthday?” No. He pushed it. “We could give money in goody bags, tie money to balloons and you could make me a money cake?”  No.

Then the Oriental Trading Co catalog arrived and he started carrying it around and circling items he wanted me to order for Halloween. Watching him carefully draw rings around the glow in the dark teeth reminded me of one of my favorite gifts. When I turned seven—a year before my dollhouse—my mom gave me a box filled with streams and streams of hair ribbons, grosgrain, double-faced satin, organza, silk, even ricrac. She had made a special box for me to keep them in covered in pattern of oversized flowers. It was a pony-tail wearers dream come true.

I realized for Dashiell when it comes to gifts we need to give him the very thing he didn’t know he wanted most. Conrad is always going to beat him to the punch—he already has in the world of Lego. We needed to splurge on a whole lot of nothing to give Dashiell his version of ribbons: a secret freaky treasure chest. I called OTC and chatted with a lovely man in Mumbai who made a number of helpful suggestions and ordered a gross or I should say grosses of plastic glow in the dark teeth, fingers, spiky bracelets, bugs, snakes, skeletons, windups, hairy monster fingers, jeweled rings, glow in the dark stars and gargantuan tarantulas. When the package came Conrad helped me fill the chest we found at AC Moore and had coated in varnish. It looked fun but I was surprised that all the plastic didn’t add up to a whole lot, and thought I must be crazy if I think I need to go to a toy store after all this. Then, Conrad said, “I can’t believe this but it looks like the chest needs more, like coins or necklaces.” Clearly we were headed to Target.

The next day I added jeweled necklaces, an Angry Bird stuffed animal, Star Wars patches, duct tape with Jolly Rogers on it and a few rubber snakes and a boa for dress up. Later that night Conrad helped me put everything in the chest and when he looked at it, he said, “I have to say, I kinda wish I was Dashiell.” Finally, a gift that was all his own.

Erin and I spied this bamboo Knoll-inspired chaise at Ikea. The kids took to it instantly but I wonder if it its worth $499 price tag when you still have to put it together?

The Missoni launch at Target was a success if you measure success by being surrounded by lots of tan ladies with Van Cleef clover chains blatantly trying to cut you off from the melamine tabletop display with their carts. Bergen, Clifton, Livingston, Ridgewood are all sold out. By the time I arrived at 9am the Clifton store shelves were as barren as the water aisles before Irene. I fully underestimated the Jersey-Italian Missioni relationship. Of course its a sell out in Clifton and the lack of stock made some customers competitive if not down-right Chanel sample sale bitchy. I asked two women carrying bedspreads if they knew where there were home accessories, they said no and when I turned around I heard one say, “Run to towels!”

Lucky for me I saw the stock girl unloading some and I politely asked her if I could take the last turquoise two out of the box. How could I have been so naive? I tracked down a manager who told  me there were many more customers waiting outside at 8am for Missoni than for Liberty or rising star designers like Thakoon. They expected crowds but the speed, intensity and triple digit instant purchasing was unlike anything they’d seen in a while. But its not just Jersey. Another customer told me the site crashed at 4am and its still not working. Here’s the best of what was left.

Bike, $399. Bra, $20. The towels ($13) and notebooks ($3) I snagged.

A few fave pics/post from Fashion Week S/S 2012.

The Fug Girls on ingenious seating at Carolina Herrera

Solange Knowles fashion controversy on femail. I don’t mind the outfit but I do wish she wore a bra.

Beer trumps bubbly. DVF worked up a thirst but is it me or is the can dented? The cut.

That was their fashion week. Mine starts Tuesday @ 9am. I’ll be in the first in line for the launch of Missioni at Target.

Its true! I’m writing a story for the December issue of Health about overrated and underrated places to have sex, like the shower is overrated because someone is always half out from under the warm water and politely freezing their butt off. But a powder room is underrated because its usually small so you can wedge yourself up against the sink or cabinet, it’s on first floor away from sleeping children or visiting in-laws.

So anyway I have to come up with 8 of these underrated overrated situations and I need “expert” quotes to amplify why they do and don’t work. It’s due this Wednesday and by Friday no one was calling me back. I tried Em&Lo, the ladies at Babeland in San Francisco and Dan Savage. Nuthin! So I went ahead and emailed Paul Joannides author of The Guide to Getting It On. He’s a psychologist who has nice, earnest take on how to do it. I was looking for someone with a bit more attitude, but like I said time was running out. I sent him an email requesting he be our expert. His response follows.

Dear Francesca,

If you need to feature me as your expert on this story, you must be desperate indeed! I’ll do my best for you. However, I would need for you to explain to me what you mean by “sexual set ups.”

Thanks,

Paul

——

Dear Paul,

You are very funny—and right! I am desperate but my editor just asked to me to hold out for a woman because it will be more comfortable and girlfriend-y if our expert is a female. Anyway thank you for responding so quickly. If you know of any women sex therapist who are funny and smart please send them my way. The premise of the story is coming clean about overrated and underrated sexual situations, like the beach is overrated and the woods are underrated. Airplane lavatories are overrated, powder rooms are underrated.We would want the experts to explain why one is better than the other.

Thanks again!

——

Francesca,
I am so very relieved you require a female expert! I’m of the old school where getting sex of any kind regardless of the situation is a sign that the heavenly father above and Zeus from his lofty mountaintop are smiling kindly upon you–powder room, coat closet, woods, beach, where ever, it’s all good. So I would be useless for your story.

Best,
Paul

My mother-in-law Christine is a real estate agent but she has a Ph.D. in Home Economics. Her cookies are so delicious she gives them to clients every Christmas and I suspect people list their houses with in the hopes they’ll get another batch every holiday. She can identify unusual birds as if she is bumping into an old friend. The other day she told me she saw a Gila woodpecker at her feeder. (Apparently Gila’s have the red cap head, Downy’s don’t.). Her garden beds are lush with lavender, Montauk daisy, hydrangea and autumn joy and her mulch is as manicured as her Berber living room carpet. When I was younger her talents intimidated me. Now I just try to watch and learn as fast as I can.

There is a natural precision to the Moore family that never fails to impress me [see previous post] and having been voted clumsiest camper six years in a row at camp Chinqueka I pray the boys are more Moore than Castagnoli when it comes to the arts.

Her craftiness has been a comfort to her in these past months. Next week on the 17th, it will be three months since Tony died. It will also be his birthday. It was not an easy summer, for her or for any of us, but mostly for her. She has good days and bad and she is trying to keep herself busy. Her latest project was to paint the attic staircase in a pattern that was a replica of an elaborate knit afghan her grandmother made. She was going to do one step a day but being a Moore she did it in a week. The results are below and they are amazing.

I am not naturally crafty. But David is. I’ll go as far to say that because I’m not crafty I don’t give him the opportunity to make stuff. For instance, around this time of year he starts talking about making the boys Halloween costumes. But a week or two later after making a trip to a Party City to get plates and cups for Dashiell’s September 15th birthday we happen to also come home with a couple of pre-made synthetic-half-leotard-half-Jedi Star Wars costumes. He’ll see the shopping bag and get a look that is a mixture of surprise, defeat and good sportsmanship. “It’s what they really want,” I’ll say with an eye-roll because I know I’ve stolen his thunder—again—and I feel guilty.

But this past Sunday I managed to get out of David’s way. I started purging the playroom—and since sometimes its best to purge alone (how else can you throw anything out?) I asked David to distract the kids. For the next seven hours, David, the boys and some friends who stopped by created elaborate armor from our recycling pile. It all started when Dash told David he wanted to battle in a armor. Had he said that to me, I’m pretty sure I would have taken him to Toys R Us  to buy some. But because David is so talented and careful, he’s like Marty Stewart, he was able to craft cardboard armor suits that were authentic, intimidating and loaded with personality so much more than anything we could have bought in a store. They smythed, they forged, they battled. It was impressive. But I am sure the proudest moment of the day was when Conrad turned to Dash in the middle of a sword fight and said, “Dashiell don’t hit my armor so hard. This is totally going to be my Halloween costume.”

It begins….

Miraculously all the water in our yard drained in 24 hours. Monday I was able to get out there and clean it up and when I was done it went from this…

to this. But other friends were not so lucky, our pals Stacie and Aly lost two big trees. Apparently a healthy looking tree can have its own kind of cancer where it looks sturdy on the outside but is actually hollow on the inside. Their seemingly green leafy trees were actually filled with sawdust rather than solid oak and they both came crashing down. The tree first fell at 2am. They heard the cracking, Stacie ran downstairs to see what had happened, she flicked on the backyard light and she said it was like a scene from Jurassic Park, the fallen tree looked like a huge monster mangled and strewn all over her yard. Fortunately it slid between the neighbors houses breaking a fence but not much else.

The second tree fell twelve hours later at 2:00 in the afternoon. It fell across the street crashing into her neighbors fence. Again they were lucky in that it missed their neighbor’s house but Stacie said the trauma and fear of seeing them crash was overwhelming. Both of them are  pretty cool-headed but she started screaming and crying when she realized a big gust was bringing it down and she had a complete flashback to the second tower falling on 9/11. She ran into her neighbor’s yard to tell her to get out of the way, grabbed her neighbor and the two of them held onto each other and sobbed as branches and leaves fell all around them.

The yards are almost clean now that it’s Wednesday. When things calm down a bit, I am calling a tree guy to come have our enormous oak checked, though I’m sure I’ll also get busy and forget until the next storm.

Our backyard at 8:30 am. The driveway.

The basement flooded but David was a total champ with the shop vac. One branch fell off our big tree. It was scary to hear it rattling down and not know where it was going to land. It eventually came crashing down past the kitchen window. I screamed but it didn’t do any damage other than crush a few shrubs. Now the sun is coming out. Perhaps we can have dinner at the beach club?