• Sweetbriar in NOMAD (Manhattan) Billed as upscale comfort food, it hits the mark. Using “live fire” cooking to enliven the dishes. Maple Duroc ribs were a standout!
• Menkoi Soto is a little hole in the wall ramen shop in the village. If you like your broth chicken based, totally worth a try!
• Molly’s Cupcakes in the village is clearly my fave cupcake in the city. Peach Cobbler for the win every time.
• Arturo Sandoval guested with Orpheus this week. I love that man! First of all: talent. Secondly, he was just so fun. He had Carnegie Hall swinging.
• Brooklyn Coffee and Tea Festival- SO MUCH TEA. The problem with festivals like this is that I start to lose my ability to distinguish taste after the first four cups…I did get a bunch of samples and bought some gorgeous purple tea which was sourced in Africa and is supposed to have antioxidants and such. Also black tea from Nepal and ginger from India
• Had to go car shopping with my Mom- when she asked which one I’d buy I went with the sportscar from the Ford dealer next door…I did like the doggie ramp though…
• Pete’s Tavern is one of the oldest establishments in NYC- it had been closed for the better part of COVID, so glad it’s back to live another day
• I know- another Jacques Louis David- and I didn’t really like this one either…
• Museum at FIT- always does a lovely fashion exhibit, and it’s free!!!

I was at book club the other day. I said the word “Plantagenet” as I was describing a book I was reading for another book club.

Apparently, I mispronounced the word…

The look of horror and anger from a member of the book club…I’m surprised she didn’t call for twenty lashes at sundown…

I read somewhere that you shouldn’t get angry at someone who mispronounces a word because it means that they learned that word from reading…and we should never mock those who are reading things that they previously knew little about…

I am grateful that I didn’t slap the woman for trying to make me look foolish…

FYI- after five minutes of research I found that my way of pronouncing it was acceptable as well…

Mindfulness prompts:

Community

Enjoy the Ordinary

My Work is loving the world Mary Oliver

One of the wonderful things about being alive is that it’s never too late Phyllis A. Whitney

On Sunday I attended the memorial for my daughter’s former classmate.

It was brutal.

I stood on the line with my friend S, who is also the Mom of my daughter’s best friend, and K, my daughter’s other bestie and former classmate. We stood and hugged people that we haven’t seen in years, and cried and shook our heads because we just didn’t know what to say.

When I got to the Mom, a Mom I sat next to at many a school event, a Mom who is funny and smart and sweet and lovely, I couldn’t actually say anything. I just hugged her.

What do you say to a woman who just lost her son?

The event was surreal- all these parents who my only relationship with was through our children. I am bad at small talk under the best of circumstances and this was the worst of circumstances. What do you say to people? I couldn’t think of anything that merited the situation…how do we ask about one another’s children when someone has just lost their child?

Of course some of my daughter’s classmates were there, the ones who go to college close by or who are still hanging around the neighborhood. To look into their faces…to see the pain…to know that they have not quite grasped this situation…

Because really, is there a way to understood this brutal scenario? I can’t make sense of it… How is a twenty year old supposed to understand?

One of the Dad’s said to me- “I hope this is a wake up call to some of them.” and while I scoffed at the inappropriateness of whispering this in my ear, all I could think was that he was right…

Some of the kids were getting high outside the funeral home…

And I cried a little bit for the lost souls that can’t see what is right in front of them, and I am one of those souls because I just do not know what we do, how we combat the crisis of reliance on substances to get us through the day…

When will we learn?

There is a Mom and a Dad and a brother and three grandparents who only have memories…

There are kids who have stories and anecdotes and snap chat pics…

But we all lost a person to substance abuse…

And I’m afraid of how many more we will lose.

Let’s fight this together.

Let’s save our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters.

When I went to DC to visit my daughter, we happened upon this quote:

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are

As to the attribution, I wrote down in my planner Anais Nin. I even remember this quote being on the wall of the museum we were at, and I remember seeing Anais Nin up there on the wall as I argued about it with my daughter. But, when I googled it to make sure I had the quote right, it turns out that the quote originally was said by Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani. BTW, also can be attributed to an elocution professor at Harvard, a 1914 newspaper article, H.M. Tomlinson, and Steven Covey (quoteinvestigator.com) You can attribute the quote to whomever you wish…

So there’s your history lesson for the morning…

My daughter thinks this quote is “oppressive”. That this gives the person the fact to explain away their actions regarding any situation and gives them license to do whatever they want because they think it’s justified.

I think the quote is “accurate“. I think people bring their own baggage to every situation they encounter, and they can’t help but see the world as they do because it’s what they know.

I even argued with my daughter that my interpretation bares merit because we are both bringing ourselves into meaning of the quote…(FYI- when you have a pedantic argument about semantics with your daughter there should be a winner to the debate…)

What words would you use to describe this quote? What do you think about when you read it?

Why do you think the Renwick Gallery in DC would choose to attribute the quote to Nin as opposed to one of the other sources? Is this their own way of saying that they see the quote as they are?

Discuss any aspect of this that you choose:

• I know I call myself a fan of film, but I’d never seen Rashomon. Finally got to see it as part of a Mifune retrospective. What a film! Talk about he said she said…
• MOMA is presenting a film series- “Dames, Janes, Dolls and Canaries Women Stars of the Pre-Code Era”. I caught “Bad Girl” which was sort of a romantic comedy from 1931- Woman assumes she knows what man is thinking, man assumes he knows what woman is thinking- blah blah blah. I always like seeing the progressions that film has taken from its early days…
• I saw off Broadway play Sandblasted– very well written, beautiful monologues, but somehow I didn’t feel the play quite came together. But, an enjoyable afternoon…
• For my Gilded Age fans- a picture of the Henry Sinclair House, now home to the Ukranian Society, at Fifth Ave and 79th St. The building was build between 1897 and 1899, so it is an example of that time period.
• OK- I’ve never been in Gallery 170 at the Met because it’s up its own staircase, but if I’d known there was a chariot there I would have gone ages ago!! So many treasures in galleries 169 and 170!! I began touring the galleries which will be closed later in the year- some beautiful things and I look forward to what they will do with this space. Also saw special exhibit on Year of the Tiger. Very small but interesting pieces!!
• We’ve been watching “Reacher” on Prime- my husband and I like it. Not too deep, but fun and much chemistry amongst main cast.

I was emailed recently by a newby blogger who was looking for some tips on blogging. First I told her that I have no idea what I’m doing every day- I’m just winging it and figuring it out as I go along…but I told her why I started blogging and how I go about my day to day but I reminded her that I have little to no computer skills, I don’t really use social media and I don’t edit…

All in all it was a nice conversation!

I am grateful that people actually think that I know what I am doing each day…because really, I don’t have a clue what is going to come out once I open my laptop…

This blogger also mentioned that some writers are very reluctant to share, to give advice etc….

I’m grateful that she considers what I do “writing” because some days I’m not quite sure what I’m doing….

I’m also grateful that I have been lucky enough to have met a lot of really nice writers along my journey, willing to give advice and help out and all that sort of stuff. 99% of my blogging journey has been wonderful- we’ll just skip over that other 1% for now…

Mindfulness

One word: POSITIVITY

Focus: Straight back, Soft belly

“Why Not?” is a slogan for an interesting life.” Mason Cooley