I’ve been excited to reveal the location of my mini trip this week as it unfolds in real time, but due to a technological hiccup, I am unable to upload pictures to the blog right now. Suffice it to say I will be keeping copious notes on my Blackberry and taking tons of photos and then come back here in a few days to put the trip together for you, once I’m back home in LA with better tech support. No one is more disappointed than I am because the whole point of this blog is to write live from the road.
But no worries, when technology fails I go shopping. I know, that comment makes absolutely no sense but if I can’t blog about travel or fashion, I might as well hit the shops for research material…while on the road. Sale season has kicked in like a spooked horse and all this week I’ve been fielding calls from breathless sales associates anxious for clients (well, me) to come back into their stores for “deals.” I’ve my lists ready, categorized by designer, occasion and priority; it is all I can do to hold out as long as I can for the next round of markdowns. Only a few impossible to find items will make this first cut for me. This fashionista is practicing the recessionista chant (if it’s meant to be it will make it to final markdown) with every call enticing her to the clothing racks. Now if only there were such a chant for shoes.
OK, this is the second time in a row that I’ve teased you about shoes. I swear there will be a whole blog dedicated to the magic of shoes. My shoes. Several readers have asked specifically about my shoe addiction and I promise I will tell the story of how it all came to be.
See you in a few days.
I’ve been blogging recently about my niece A in NYC. Today I’ll blog about my 15-months-old niece M who lives here in the LA area because I’m all about equal time. We’re all spread around this country (well, around the world) so this blog is actually a nifty tool for the rest of my family to check in on the kids until there’s a chance to synch up everyone’s schedules and get us all under one roof.
Parents tell me that before kids get to school age, children virtually grow overnight. Even if you see them every day you can see their changes. In fact, a friend of mine recently told me that it’s not so much the changes in her toddler that she sees but that she hears. She sees his physical changes from photos and videos, but even in the weeks and months that blur from daily life, she can clearly mark his growth by his increasing grasp of the language. I call this the human science project.
While telling me this, she lamented the fact that raising a child full-time can sometimes feel unrewarding because there are no concrete, immediate goals that can be checked off as at her previous workplace. Yes, successful potty training can be as important a milestone for a stay-at-home parent as achieving sales quotas for an exec, but there’s no white paper or strategic plan that can take a parent from beginning to end. And definitely there’s no recruiter who can bring in a replacement CEO if you get tired of managing the team.
So anyway, my California sister’s second human science project began in January 2008.
Just as with my other niece I documented this one’s hands and feet for future reference–what reference, I don’t know; but reference nevertheless:
By the way, I’m a huge fan of the artist/photographer Chuck Close who leaves his subjects zero excuse for having a human face, so I try to take as many portraits as possible of people who’d let me. And at this point, my nieces are too young to object to my showing their portraits untouched! With the ease of technology today as well as the accepted norm of having one’s life splattered across the Internet, I simply want to witness my nieces’ lives through photography (even in these few 15 months you can see how much she has changed)…
…because who knows how many days we get to revel in their innocence during this wonderful project?
PS: since this blog is about fashion (sometimes), I have to make a note here about the fashion (or lack thereof) in my pictures. As you can see I like black t-shirts, but I promise I do wear other things. And hopefully I can redeem my fashionista status in the next blog. One hint: shoes.
Remember when I wrote that the stealth bomber flies over my house for the Rose Parade each January 1st?
This year I wasn’t fast enough to film it, but today, for Memorial Day,
I catch something just as cool flying over head: vintage war planes.
So for all the mudslide and fire and earthquake dangers, it’s pretty neat to live hillside in southern California. Imagine waking up to these sights and sounds over the pretty palm trees outside my living room…the planes make the same sounds as what you hear in movies about WWII, but how amazing do they look over a peaceful sky instead of going into battle:
Hope your Memorial Day was as memorable as mine.
Tags: Memorial Day, Pasadena, Rose Bowl, vintage war planes
I always know when I’m sick because my ears pop and then I get strange cravings in spite of a missing appetite. So that explains my lapse in blogging. Luckily I come around to feeling human again just in time for a fun lunch at Pizzeria Mozza (http://www.mozza-la.com/ ) at the corner of Highland and Melrose. This is what you also see on Melrose:
Mozza is one of Chef Mario Batali’s joints and it’s always hopping. For the best thin crust pizza go here. I order the clam pizza to the waiter’s enthusiastic delight but next time I’ll get something else. Clam is music to my ears but too…clammy even for my taste. I can’t get rid of the aftertaste even if the crust is now a happy memory.
This restaurant is right around the corner from the Hollywood & Highland Center (home of the Kodak Theater where American Idol and the Oscars are taped) and I decide to stop by and see if there are any photo opportunities. Here are some views from the top–and yes, that’s the famous El Capitan Theater in the second picture:
Let me take you down to street level on Hollywood Blvd where all the tourists are; we’re right at the Mann’s Chinese Theater:
All told, I see Superman, Wonder Woman, Snoopy, Sponge Bob, and Snoopy on one block. Then some Gene Simmons impersonator in full KISS gear comes up and sticks his tongue out at me. The clammy aftertaste comes back. I think it’s time to go home.
Tags: Hollywood, Hollywood Highland Center, Kodak Theater, Mann's Chinese Theater, Pizzeria Mozza
A couple of years I got to spend a week in NYC completely unplugged. No business meetings, no family obligations. Zero agenda. It was glorious. A week of roaming the island at leisure was one of my most memorable trips anywhere. I’d wake up and decide on an Uptown day for visiting Museum Mile and strolling through the posh neighborhoods. Central Park made a perfect muse for my photography.
On another day I’d hang out in Midtown to take in all the sights and sounds of the touristy Chrysler Building or Empire State Building. After grabbing a quick lunch I’d loiter around Saks Fifth Avenue near Rockefeller Center and work my way to Bergdorf, leaving a trail of destruction at shops in between.
But as much as I loved the serenity of the Upper East Side and the buzz from Midtown’s daily grind, it was not a complete NYC trip until I got in some Downtown time. Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Meatpacking District, Soho, Tribeca…all these neighborhoods–each with its own funky, hip vibe–were exactly what I loved most about this town. If I were a New Yorker, I’d definitely be a downtown girl.
This time around, I take a day out of diaper duty and hop on the 1 train downtown from 96th to Houston. I pop out on the street and head for the shops…
I have to confess that I do think about trading my LA home for one of these while walking through soho:
I make a quick stop into Kidrobot; I know I am much too old to like toys but I have a thing for cool packaging, and if there’s a bird of some sort involved then I’m definitely in! So I make a small contribution to the economy:
The little birds stay on her hat from the magnet:
At Prada I meet a charming sales associate who offers to stash a couple of dresses for me till sale hits in a few weeks. At Chanel another nice person takes an hour to go through all the new buys with me. I know for a fact the economy is still a stinker from all this attention. Is it wrong that I get the same high from shopping as from running a couple of miles? I tell myself again that I’m just helping the economy.
Sometimes the last thing you want to do is have a long, laborious lunch when you’re just hitting a stride somewhere. So when in NY, I grab a fast lunch at a chain called Così (http://getcosi.com/), and I believe I have been in all of its locations. The bread is that good. On this day I have the grilled salmon salad at the location near NYU:
On my way to work off lunch this is what I see…
But what stops me dead in my tracks is this Strand Bookstore–they’re not kidding about the 18 miles of books. You could just lock me up in the store and throw away the key:
Their art section is nothing short of amazing. I still can’t find the book on Francesco Clemente that I’ve been looking for but I make out like a bandit anyway. I’m not sure how far I can walk with a bunch of heavy books but I can’t help myself. Today I am a one-woman stimulus package!
Tags: Bergdorf, Cosi, Downtown, Empire State Building, Manhattan, Midtown, Rockefeller Center, Saks, Soho, Strand Bookstore, Uptown
