Pump Boys and Dinettes ... or the global travels of one pair of Brooks Brothers patent leather formal pumps with grosgrain bows

Lesson learned. UPS is better, faster, more reliable (hands down) than its closest competitor who coined the generic overnight delivery term. But noooooooooo. Not this time. Took nearly a week for the white package with the blue and red logo to wend its way from our nation's capitol through Newark to southern Maine. Boo hoo on them. Yay, UPS!!

But the shoes. Charlie's precious shoes. The ones ordered from Brooks Brothers in November made it in time. The nick of time, I might add. But in time. Thanks in part to the diligence of his lovely chestnut haired Mama (c'est moi) and the ubiquitous brown trucks and planes that fly through her hometown in the deep blue grass and whoosh ... across the earth. Made a special compensatory nod to Charlie's dilemma, and delivered them with hours to spare. Around the world in a nano-second. So he could dance, Fred Astair had nothing on my boy, into 2011.

Santa's route, indeed.

The jolly bearded man in the red suit belted with a wide black cinch belt and spiffy high top black well polished boots looking oh so courant could make the trip around the circumference of the globe in the twinkle of his eye and a twitch of his pug nose.

But not the FedEx-express. Nope. It's UPS all the way from here on out. No choice. Not unless requested specifically by the recipient.

I should be so lucky. To travel from the east coast of the United States, through the rolling hills of Kentucky, pop up to Alaska, over the Pole and then wend my way to southern China and the new Hong Kong home of my darling son.

But ... ah ... I am. Fortunate. I, too, will be following that route through Newark, over the pole (hey there Santa, pooped ol' man) and into the booming island metropolis where my sweet Charlie has taken up residence.

In February! In celebration of my 60th. Wahoo!

Cheers to safe travels ... to me ... dancing shoes ... and the new year!

Knocking the Doors Down

Curled up and leaning on the trapunto stitched blue and white toile headboard on a lazy Friday night, my darling Grandma Alice, for whom I was named, would rub my back and tell me that all good things were in store for me.

We spoke of boundaryless travel and thousand-count boudoir linens and entertaining at home ... and of course, romance.

She was a restless romantic.

I inherited that from her.

We wear our hearts on our sleeves and turn a blind eye to faults and warning bells and red flags. And, flames. Wow, have the Alices been burned. But rub on the salve, cover the wound with cotton gauze and with a flip of the head race in for more.

I'd listen intently, soaking up her glamour. Her femininity. Her siren songs. Lost in the Rodeo Drive and I. Magnin wonderment of what was to come my way. The gold cigarette holders dangling gracefully from a turned hand while men in Packards sped me to a candlelight supper where the Los Angeles (that's a hard 'g') lights twinkled through the windows onto her dreamy world.

Ooops. Did I say me? I wanted, with every fibre of my being, her word would portend my future. That my darling Grandma Alice was a soothsayer about my future love life. The deep, dark and alluring matinee-idol eyes which would peer into my hazel green eyes glistening with wonderment ... and who would wine and dine me and line up down the block waiting to take me ... oui moi ... out on the town.

Ha!

Not on match.com ... nor jdate ... nor baddate.com. Sadly, not in the Harvard personals or an exotic airport lounge halfway around the globe ... nor the boardrooms of Manhattan ... a friend's dinner party. Nope. No line of eligible, drama-free, emotionally healthy males waiting for little ol' me. Much less clamoring and teetering to get past the butler through the portal to my lair.

But I know in my heart. I truly do. Every time it flutters with hope and knowledge. That my guy is out there. The one who will make my spirit sing and my soul giggle. Who gets me in a way that is natural. Who lets me be me. And, I him.

That we will connect inspires me. Motivates me. Ignites the fuel that will connect the two of us in some unimaginable way.

Cheers to my lover ... I am getting better with age ... and so is he!

Lost All My Baby Fat ...

... it has been over 22 years. And I finally did it. Yep. Shed those unwanted pounds that accumulated when I gave birth to my 9 pound 10 ounce bouncing baby boy.

Wahoo! It took more than two decades, but I have arrived back at my fighting weight.

And surprisingly I feel great. Am not a major biatch. In fact not one at all. Haven't wanted to chew off my leg or arm. Amazing.

Again ... loudly and proudly WAHOO!

So wanted to slide into my sixties with elegance and grace and slender. My old self. Physically and mentally. Shed the excess ... be free. Really free to move forward.

And I have done it. Lost the last five pounds. Doubled. Just to dare myself to be myself again. Lighten the load.

All would be well 'ceptin' my Mama ... in her most honest phase ... did mention that I look fabulous but might need to do something with my neck. So you know what? For the first time ever I am not going to pay her any heed. Sorry Mom! Love you dearly. But this girl's gotta do what this girl's gotta do!

Cheers to shopping in my belt drawer ... and all that jazz!

Organic!

Somehow I backed into organic food.

Me!

Imbiber of eight TaBs a day. User of dozens of those pink Sweet 'n Low packets on everything from grapefruit to oatmeal to vinaigrette to hot drinks and cold ones, too.

Oooh, I love fake sugar. In fact I adore sugar. Am a processed food lover extraordinaire.

Apparently.

Ersatz low fat or better yet non-fat cheeses, sour creams, half and half. Kind of defies the laws of nature.

So how did I back into this reader of labels and purchaser of foods sans chemicals?

Well, the simple truth. A diet recommended by my good friend Gayla.

I have been wanting to detox. Nope. Not from martinis ... I drink them rarely. Not from Newport Lights ... I stopped puffing my two packs a day almost thirty years ago ... not from a lusty Cab or a sexy, smoky Malbec. No overindulgence there. I never sip alone. So that leaves me sober as a granite stone.

Then what? you are asking.

So if you really care to know. Drumroll ...

Chocolate chip cookies. Baking almost every night to be able to eat the batter (I know, I know salmonella lurks between the blades of the beaters). Brownies. Blueberry crumble. Banana bread. I swear I only buy fruit to see what I can bake it in with a streusel topping. Oh yes and candy. Most kinds. But M&Ms ... peanut ones ... by the bagful are my fave. Or coconut patties handdipped in dark bittersweet chocolate. The ones from Florida in the rectangular box. And, yep, that ubiquitous saccharin sweetener that I sprinkle on or stir in everything.

You'd think I wouldn't be able to fit through a door. But I manage. Although there have been times when I bump into the refridgerator bacause my sonar is off and I underestimated my hip girth. I am the lightest I have been in over two decades.

Ah, but I digress.

So now I find myself marching up the aisle at the supermarket looking for almond butter, forsaking Skippy's reduced sugar highly processed creamy that has forever been a staple in my larder forever. Or, looking for virgin pressed coconut oil. Arteries be damned. Stevia in green packets replace the Pepto Bismal pink ones that litter the bottom of every purse from every season.

I read labels. Pass by all things white. Rice, bread, flour sugar, potatoes, pasta. Gheesh. Forego anything that ends in -ite ... or -ose ... or is difficult to pronounce and makes me feel as if Mrs. Wimp, our 11th grade chem teacher, is spraying her words re marble chips and Hcl as petry dishes bubble steamy.

What's a girl to do? Gotta slide into my seventh (OMG) decade in style. Svelte. Healthy. Glowing skin. And speaking of skin ... in black skinny jeans and ballerina flats.

Cheers to getting through the holidays with nary a sugar plum fairy hovering over my sweet chestnut mane whispering naughty things in my ears. Ever the temptress.

Feng Shui and the Far Corners of My Home

Yesterday afternoon my new friend Jessica came over for tea. At 4 o'clock. A rather proper tea I might add. Unusual for this dyed in the wool New England village.

Nonetheless, I dusted off (rinsed out really) my underused blue on grey porcelain Royal Copenhagen Tranguebar tea and coffee service schlepped by my parents on the plane from their wintertime visit to Denmark in 1969. Gifts for each of their three girls. Not sure what Willy received, but I am confident it wasn't a tea service.

Mom disembarked into the International Terminal at JFK in New York wearing a most gorgeous pin seal coat from Berger Christianson ... (which incidentally hangs four decades later in my closet lengthened six inches from its original style when dresses and skirts were Mary Quant short-short never to be worn again for fear of someone throwing red paint in my direction protesting the murder of innocent endangered Scandinavian sea mammals). Not sure what Dad's souvenir was ... although I do remember some Aquavit on the bar when I was home that Christmas.

Jessica is my cohort at the cavernous 12,000 square foot antiques shop where I dally on a very very limited part-time basis ... and she works regularly.

Jessica, the self-proclaimed Obama Mama hales from a Nordic line herself and has the lemon white locks and azure eyes to prove it. She is an interior designer who needn't rely on workrooms because she can slipcover and make curtains like no one's business. A bona fide pizza oven is nested into the wall of her study next to the fireplace where her organic flatbread creations utilize only those ingredients grown in her five-acre yard replete with pond and cat-tails in the country. The whole wheat flour ground by her own hand from select crops across our country. She is most talented. Knowing Jessica is like having a jack-of-all homemaking trades at my disposal.

But one of the most fascinating parts of Jessica's not-so-hidden allure is her ability to commune with nature spirits and, using herbs and tinctures grown around the pond in her lush vast gardens, make concoctions that heal what ails you. No. Not the psychedelics. But real remedies like the Native Americans or early pioneers.

So when she appeared at my front door she first regaled in my home. Its lovely accessorized and wallpapered rooms, an eclectic mix of antiques and hand-me-downs from my grandmothers with a pink flamingo lamp or a contemporary brass sculpture tossed in casually. She loved my home. And that made me smile.

But then she wanted to know which door (I have five leading to the outdoors. Imagine five in an 1800 square foot home!) I use to enter and exit the house.

We share an eclectic spirit, adventuresome sensibilities (read: wanderlust) an insane Dolphin energy.

Cheers to my new friend and local cohort!