Suzy Says

I think the fabulous Kathleen is tired of me not posting, so she tagged me to fill in the blanks. Fortunately, it’s all about my favorite subject – Me!

Available/Single or Taken? Taken (very taken, with Self and Dog).
Best Friend? Rita the Wonder Dog. Girl’s best friend!
Cake or pie? Pie – cherry, key lime, coconut cream, lemon meringue…
Drink Of Choice? Champagne, preferably La Veuve.
Essential Item You Use Everyday? My aging but beloved iBook.
Favorite Color? Pink.
Gummy Bears or Worms? I am not going to put anything gummy or wormy in my mouth. Not now, not ever.
Hometown? San Francisco.
Indulgence? Way more than there should be.
January or February? February – it’s located closer to spring.
Kids & Their Names? Not now, not ever. One niece (Cat) and one nephew (Ben) is plenty.
Life is Incomplete Without? I have to copy Kat on this one: Family & friends.
Marriage date? December 24, 1990. Divorce date pending.
Number of Siblings? Three – two sisters, one brother. All wonderful (see “L”).
Oranges or Apples? O so boring.
Phobias/Fears? Apparently, transportation, since I hate flying and driving, and avoid public transit at all costs. Oh, yeah, and getting old and ugly.
Quote, Favorite (movie)? “Don’t you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn’t marry a girl just because she’s pretty, but my goodness, doesn’t it help?” Marilyn Monroe as Lorelei Lee, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Reason to Smile? Do you need a reason?
Season? Spring or Fall? Fall – I love the blazing colors.
Tag 3 people?
Ben
Lisa
Mike
Unknown Fact About Me? It’s a secret.
Vegetable you don?t like? Mushrooms. Fungus should be cleaned away (by someone else), not eaten (especially by Me).
Worst Habit? Procrastination, among many others.
X-rays You?ve Had? I think I had a chest x-ray once.
Your Favorite Food? Dad Food – I still make his recipes, even though he’s gone.
Zodiac sign? Gemini. What else?

The pretty side of patriotism

New year’s news flash: my always reliably-informed older sister informs me that our grandmother was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, just like Emily Gilmore. So I’m classier and more patriotic than previously thought. Maybe I’ll join up so I’ll have an excuse for looking down on people.

Speaking of looking down on people: my always reliably-informed friend K informs me that there is a reason why truck drivers always seem to be looking down on you as they pass, rather than at the road, the way you think they would when seated in a huge piece of heavy machinery hurtling through space. K’s bro is one of the trucking brethren himself, and according to him, if a trucker notices a pretty girl, he radios it (“Great rack in the silver Mazda! 10-4!”) so his fellow drivers can check out the passing scenery. Really, you can hardly blame them, what with the long hours and the monotony of staring at the highway. Next time a trucker looks down on you, smile and wave!

So now you know about the DAR and truckers, all in the same place. How educational is that?

Dear Dolly, please save us from bummers in the new year. Amen, y’all.

It may have been one of the worst Christmases ever, but it was also one of the sparkliest ever.

Dolly would approve.

Thankfully, some things never change. Wishing you all a safe and joyful holiday (and lots of presents, of course)!

1. Buy a box of those ubiquitous and delicious holiday clementines (I get “My Darling” brand, because it’s just so cute).
2. Take those darling clementines and juice them. Just think of all that vitamin C!
3. Add vodka and sip until relaxion is achieved. For extra orange-y deliciousness, use Absolut Mandrin. Good-bye, holiday stress!

When I woke up dazed from my odd, dream-filled sleep (the only installment I can remember is staying with Rita in a hotel in Hollywood owned by Heather Locklear*. Heather & I were trying on each other’s shoes. Hers were better), I decided to just stay dazed and confused and get those blood tests out of the way once and for all.

With an agonized look at my coffeemaker, I left the house and grabbed a cab to Chinatown. Arriving at the lab, the sign said, “Number being served: 89.” Pulling off my number, I saw a disheartening 5. But I figured, I’d come all this way (again) without coffee, and I was damn well going to give the people all the blood they wanted.

After awhile, I began to feel like I was at the airport, waiting seemingly endlessly in uncomfortable chairs to get into yet another uncomfortable chair and be slightly or very horrified by what follows after you’re strapped in, depending on temperament.

When my number was finally up, my veins weren’t. The technician kept strappin’ and tappin’ but my veins were hiding coyly, possibly looking vainly for caffeine. I expected her to call the lethal injection team any minute: “We need a cut-down here in Room 2”, but she finally settled on a rather unsettling area about halfway down the inside of my forearm, where it’s more sensitive than the elbow area.

As she merrily bled me (6 vile vials!), she said that my tiny veins came from my mother. I never noticed if Mom had small veins. I mean, you don’t say, “Gee, Mom, your veins are so small! I hope mine are that small when I grow up.”

After she put the little cotton ball and Band-Aid on, she recommended two nearby coffee shops. “You look tired, ” she said. I always think that’s code for “You look like complete shit, my friend,” and should only be said to someone who has run a marathon or given birth. Maybe not even then. Maybe under those circumstances, it should be, “You look radiant.”

I went home and had some coffee.

*Note to self: Must you always dream about such B list celebrities? Aim a little higher. Maybe a Nicole for a change? Or a real Dreamgirl?

What a way to start the day. Woken up fifteen minutes before the alarm was set to go off by the hideous combination of my cell phone bleating that its battery was exhausted plus the unmistakable and agonizing onslaught of GirlGrossness?.

You think I’m a baby? Try my cell phone. Its battery gets exhausted almost instantly, whether I use it or not (and I mostly don’t, except when I travel), and then it whimpers mechanically until I plug it into its electric bottle. I think it knows I don’t like it and is getting revenge by depriving me of much-needed beauty sleep and trying to drive me crazy (or crazier). I can see where Stephen King got his idea from.

When I tried to blow-dry my recently acquired bangs, I tangled them in the round brush so much that I may never get the hair out. The brush is stuck in my hair, just hanging there until I figure out how to extricate it.

No wonder I’d rather think about the lovely past instead of the irritating present. While I go and make coffee (no blood tests for me today!), you can read part two of my trip to Monet’s house and gardens at Giverny. Definitely the more civilized option.

Saturday, August 24, 1991
Giverny & Paris

The house was truly charming, but beginning to be very crowded. All the Monet paintings in the house are reproductions, and most of the pretty pink stucco house is decorated with Japanese prints and drawings. I was especially taken with the cozy yellow dining room and blue kitchen. The house is very unpretentious and just delightful.

[Monet was as good a cook as he was a gardener. Years later, my father gave me Monet’s Table: The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet, full of delicious recipes and photographs. My copy is very well-used!]

By the time I left, the place was packed and the lines were unbelievable. I was lucky I had gone early. My visit there was so magical, I almost felt as I had made a pilgrimage.

Back in Paris, I visited the Square des Batignolles. It’s a pretty place, with waterfalls, duck ponds, and a carrousel. I felt quite at home reading Le Figaro on a green park bench in the early evening. I wonder about the people who say Parisians are rude or unkind. Everyone has been quite the opposite to me, from the elderly lady amused by the fact that we were both reading the same paper to the man who invited me to admire his dog. No-one has refused to help me when I ask for help or directions (such as: where to buy stamps on a Saturday) & some people (such as: the man on the train from Mantes-La-Jolie to Paris) are even too friendly. I think it’s all in your own attitude.

I may not have decked my halls with boughs of holly*, but I have decked my window boxes with holly bushes. Also tiny juniper trees. Aren’t they cute? And a wreath for the front door,

with a couple of
Charlie Brown-ish cedars on either side.

You already know I have the tree up and lit, so let the holidays begin!

And don’t hate me because I have my Christmas shopping done. There are much better reasons.

Here’s how I do it:

• Buy things as you see them through the year, instead of waiting until the week (or day) before Christmas. At a craft fair in the summer and see something your Mom would love? Buy it and put it away in a box or bag with the other gifts-to-be (so you can find them when it’s time to wrap them).
• Buy as much as you can on the net, to avoid the horrror of malls, which are too hot and too full of other people.
• Get everything gift-wrapped if you can. Leave it to the professionals! It will look better, and so will you, bein’ that you’re less stressed and all. You can limit your part of the task to addressing the little cards on the (beautifully wrapped) presents and taking the credit.
• If you can’t think of a gift to give, make it alcoholic, even if the recipient isn’t alcoholically inclined. He or she either has guests/friends who are, or is hiding something. Make it cute, like this fab little gift from our amis at Veuve Cliquot, the merriest and most welcome widow in the world. Once the champagne is gone, you’ll still have the glasses to break and the purse to carry (with or without champagne). The gift that keeps on giving!

  While you’re there, get some for yourself and your guests. As with almost anything, better to have too much than too little.

I feel like a less larcenous Martha Stewart!

*When I was a kid, I thought Boughsofholly was a person, since I knew a girl named Holly. It just seemed to make sense. Of course, I also thought mincemeat was made out of mice after seeing a Tom & Jerry cartoon where Jerry was threatened with being made into, you guessed it, mincemeat. Feel free to laugh. My father certainly did, when I tearfully confessed why I refused to eat my grandmother’s mincemeat tarts.

When I finally went to see the doctor, she didn’t tell me anything about the tests, other that “sluggish heart muscle” thing and “it wouldn’t hurt to take a baby aspirin every day for now.” When I replied that I might as well get a grey poodle ‘do and housedress and get it over with (feeling, as I do, that I’m far too youthful & immature for such potentially serious health issues), she retaliated with anecdotes of patients younger than Self who had worse heart problems.

See, this never works for me. I don’t care about the other people. I only care about Me.

So I have to wait yet again (you’d think I’d be better at this with all the practice I’ve been getting lately, but no) to see the cardiologist* on the 20th. Happy holidays, indeed.

To amuse me in the meantime: more blood tests!

I happened to not eat the next day before I went to the gym, though I kept this secret to myself and nothing untoward happened. The closest bloodletting facility is in Chinatown, so I made my way there after the gym, feeling all virtuous. I worked out! I’m getting the damn tests done! I’m trying not to worry!

I get there, take a number, and wait, my latest hobby. When my number is called, I give the receptionist my list of tests, and she asks me if I ate that day.

“No, ” I say, smugly.

“Coffee?”

“Well, yes.”

“No test!”

“But I had it black.”

“Clear liquid only!”

“Black coffee is clear.”

“No! No coffee!”

For emphasis, she takes off her glasses and stares at me.

“No test! You waste your blood!”

Not quite able to believe this, I stand there, irresolute, until she orders me to “Go home! You go home now!”

I did.

Tests are still not done.

*Really, once the specialist has reared his ugly head, isn’t it just a mtter of time until the poodle ‘do and housedress?

It’s been almost Christmas tree, it inspired me to remember trips of the past.

To recap: I was in London visiting my father and went to Paris on my own (after 15 years, I can’t remember why he didn’t join me).

Now we rejoin our heroine’s past adventures:

Friday, August 23, 1991
Paris

Sitting by the open window of my room in the H?tel des Batignolles. Not surprisingly, it is in the rue des Batignolles, a neighborhood that’s new to me [the 8th arrondissement]. It is not at all touristy, though quite close to Montmartre. At the end of the street is a lovely, quiet square.

After tidying up, I walked to the rue de Rome, full of music stores, to the Gare St-Lazare. Once at the station, I bought a return ticket to Vernon, the closest station to Giverny, for the trip tomorrow. Then I walked down to the Champs Elys?es & changed some travellers’ checks. Had an omelette and a glass of wine at Fouquet’s, watching the people go by. It really is magical to be in Paris again.

Saturday, August 24, 1991
Paris & Giverny

Slept quite well on my down pillows. Walked to the Gare St-Lazare through quiet streets (it was early, Saturday, & August, the traditional holiday month). While waiting for the train, called Dad & bought some stamps. Pleased to have figured out the crazy French phones!

I must remember for future reference that there are no direct trains to Vernon on weekends. So I took an almost empty train to Mantes-La-Jolie and then changed to a train to Vernon. I am most impressed by the punctuality of the trains – mine was slated to leave at 10:37 and arrive at 11:33 and it really did!

You can take a bus from the train station to Monet’s house, but I took a taxi [some things never change!]. The driver was really kind and arranged to pick me up a few hours later. He also pointed out a 400 year old mill on the way, and said that his father had attended Monet’s funeral. Apparently Monet wished for no pretension, and his coffin was carried on a cart, like all the villagers.

I was quite surprised by how few people there were whe I arrived at the Monet museum. Entrance to both the house and gardens was 30 francs, or $5. I was enchanted by the beauty of the gardens. they are separated by pink gravel paths and often have voine-covered archways, but the overall effect is wild, uncultivated. A slim black cat lounged Cleopatra-like on a stone bench, disdaining the passers-by. [Unfortunately, the photos I took on this trip, including the cat, are in storage. They turned out great.]

The garden was a riot of color, filled with roses, hydrangeas, black-eyed Susans, sunflowers, and countless others I couldn’t name. The waterlily pond looked exactly as it was painted, and it was amazing to stand on that bridge and look at those flowers, especially since I had it all to myself. I had time to stop and think, to take it all in.

To be continued – hopefully in less than two months!

Twenty-five years ago today, my twenty-year old sister got married. Her husband suggested that she try him out for 50 years and then decide, a very generous version of the test drive.

Halfway through the trial period, I am pleased to announce that they are still married. They have weathered many storms together, but the strength of their love and the courage of their natures prevailed over every obstacle thrown in their path.

They have two wonderful children, my fabulous niece Cat and my adorable nephew Ben, who will be the first to tell you how great their parents are (and how wonderful their aunts are!).

Here’s to the next twenty-five years, you two. May they be filled with love and happiness.

San Francisco is a city. Los Angeles is a city. New York is a city on crack*.

It’s speedy, speedy, speedy all the time. It’s insanely crowded. It’s not just the city that never sleeps, it’s the city that never stops. New Yorkers must be an incredibly tough breed to cope with all the craziness every day, especially all those chicas racing past the sky-high buildings in their sky-high heels.

The traffic is a constant dull roar (as my father used to say, usually in the context of telling his children to quiet down, as in, “Keep it down to a dull roar”) in the background. Car horns are not, as you might expect, the exclamation marks to the traffic sentence; they are the commas, listing each car. Car, honk, car, honk, and so on. The exclamation marks are the police and ambulance sirens, and good luck pulling over to let them pass.

Apparently, there is something to my “city on crack” theory. As reported in the ever-classy and reliable New York Post, New York City is number one in cocaine use in the entire world. It all makes sense now.

Imagine my relief when I hauled my exhausted, NY-battered self to Laguardia on Friday morning and found that there were no lines anywhere. If the day before Thanksgiving is the worst travel day, the day after is the best. I didn’t even have to wait for my bags or get hassled by security. I was thankful indeed.

*Remember this public service announcement? When I was young, it kind of made me hungry, and now it just makes me admire the guy’s egg-breaking technique.

Q: How does a girl who’s 3,000 miles from her family spend Thanksgiving?

A: In a more or less traditional manner. This morning, I read the papers in my bijou hotel room with the 80th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on the flat-screen TV, while sipping room service coffee and feeling really quite thankful.

Holiday shopping starts early in New York, and when in New York, go shopping. My hairdresser told me of a mythical place called Century Twenty One (no, not the fashion-challenged realtors in those dreadful gold jackets), where designer clothes and other delightfuls are drastically on sale. Think $450 cashmere sweaters for a paltry $60.

I was a little hesitant to go at first, when he told me it was right near Ground Zero. I had no intention of going there. A place like that should not be a tourist site. (In my opinion, they should have the two blue beams of light there forever, and not rebuild on a gravesite. Of course, I also believe that every single flag in the entire US of A should fly at half-mast until every single soldier is home from Iraq, but that’s just me.)

In the end, I could shop without gawking, and after all, shopping is a New York tradition, especially this time of year. I have to say, the city looks so pretty in its holidaywear that I can hardly wait to get home and put up my tree.

Tonight, I’ll head on over to PJ Clarke’s, the delightfully crowded and friendly 120 year old saloon nearby. Johnny Mercer wrote “One for My Baby” there, and Buddy Holly proposed to his wife-to-be there, saying prophetically, “I don’t have time” when she asked to think it over. I’ll have dinner at Frank Sinatra’s table (Number 20), and think of all of you, my family and friends, who I love, and who, more remarkably, love me back.

It’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery!

When the day’s duties were done*, my colleague Ken and I repaired to the charming village where he lives. It’s just 30 minutes by train from Grand Central Station, but a world away. It’s also where Washington Irving had his delightful cottage overlooking the Hudson (and now overlooking the train tracks; apparently Irving traded his peace and quiet for unlimited free train rides and the ability to flag the train down like a taxi, instead of going to the station, which is less than a mile away).

In addition to Washington Irving, other dead local celebs include Madame CJ Walker, Stan Getz, and the cast of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. Turns out Irving bagged the names for Katrina Van Tassel, Brom Bones, and Ichabod Crane from the graveyard of the Old Dutch Church (it really is old: built in 1685 and still in use).

While looking at Katrina’s grave (with its cheery, yet accurate, inscription “Death Conquers All” – and you thought it was Love), the groundskeeper approached.

He was from Central Casting, with a weathered face, long white beard, matching hair, and teeth looking much like the tombstones he attended to. He said, “Young lady,” (I immediately felt like I was in trouble) “do you know what happens at 1:15 every afternoon?” Not surprisingly, I didn’t, so he filled me in. “If you sit in front of the grave, the light makes her face come alive! And that, ” he said ponderously, “is exactly what happened to the 15 year old Washington Irving!” And with that, he got back on his John Deere tractor and drove away.

*This reminds me of a Gilbert & Sullivan song from The Gondoliers:

My father used to sing it, usually when he wanted us to do our homework. Despite the fact that he was tone deaf, he loved G&S and he loved to sing around the house.

It’s Suzy!

Starring the Not Ready to Get Up So Damn Early to Work Suzy!

“Hmmm, these bagels are good, though.”

Spent the day yesterday having meetings and doing my off-Broadway performance of Faux Adult.

“Despite countless repeat performances of “Grown-Up”, Suzy’s most famous role by far, there is still something lacking. She is not very convincing in this role, despite the excellent wardrobe, hair, and make-up. She should go back to acting school and prepare for this, her most challenging role.”

— Anonymous Reviewer

The hair part is true, anyway. I had it cut and highlighted last week (making me late to meet up with my nephew and his pal, whom I hadn’t seen in two years – clearly I made the right choice in assessing my utter lack of parenting skills), and it looks so great I’m almost tempted to post a photo.

And cleavage and heels do help a girl to get a cab, even at rush hour.

When the day’s work was done, I rewarded myself with something rare, and legendary (no, not Suzy doing housework): Mr. Bob Dylan, live and in person (he’s the little dot on the left. And you can’t tell, but he’s wearing pants with a sparkly stripe on them, just for me). I can now tell you from personal experience that being in the next-to-last row at a Dylan concert beats the hell out of being in the next-to-last row on the plane it took to get there. And total strangers, including a visibly pregnant woman, danced with me on the precipitous stairs of New York City Center.

I &hearts New York!

At first, I thought the construction site across the street had decided to get up close and personal. Turns out the purpose of this endeavor is to find and correct the leaks that cause my kitchen floor to mildly flood whenever it rains. The workers have been at it for several days, and the rain is still taking a leak in my kitchen.

They’ve been applying concrete to the edges of some bricks, removing others and replacing them, which sounds something like a massive cavity drilling (though much less painful). The best part of the whole irritating and pointless (so far) procedure is that I can eavesdrop on their conversations without even trying.

So far, discussions have included: the exorbitant price of coffee at the doughnut shop; the cheapness of the building’s owner, and surprise that Aaron, whose glass-blowing workshop is next door to me, got upset when he discovered that they had removed his air conditioner and bricked up the hole without asking or telling.

My favorite so far is two of them ganging up on the other and telling him he’s a “fucking old lady”. They start yelling “Granny” at him, and he chases them up the scaffolding.

I think I better pull up a chair and supervise.

Well, my results weren’t quite as good as these. I expected the wiretap to reveal that my heart was about the size of a pre-reformation Grinch’s and as lazy as the rest of me. Turns out that my heart is the only overachieving part of my slothful self, racing away while the rest of me idles.

The abandoned sofabed on my street, missing its cushions, is opened to a bed this morning.

A young man calls to a girl on a bicycle, ?You have to finish telling me about your drugged out professor!? as she rides away laughing. She waves as she disappears around the corner, perhaps promising to tell him the ending of the story, or perhaps ending the story.

In a window at the side of my building, a beautiful white cat with black spots sits serenely, gazing at me with calm amber eyes. ?I?ve seen better,? she seems to be saying. She?s right.

A woman in her car, idling at the red light, rolls down her window and calls out to me, ?Your dog is beautiful!? I smile, acknowledging this drive-by compliment. I think so, too.

My Italian neighbor stops to say good morning. He doesn?t speak English, but with the way he clasps my hands with both of his, he doesn?t need to.

A small boy skips across a busy intersection, unafraid because he is holding his father?s hand tightly. He looks up at his father, not the traffic, his face glowing with happiness and trust, his father?s with utter love.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about you!

While I’m away, why don’t you play? I’m curious about you readers. When I check out the locations of readers on sitemeter, I can identify friends and family, but some locations mystify me completely. Sutton Coldfield is where my late aunt used to live, but can that be the connection? And what about the deliciously named Feasterville Trevose, Pennsylvania? And what’s with all those Canadians?

Enquiring minds want to know!