Hotel St. Regis, New York City

This week I had a work event at the Hotel St. Regis in New York.  This was the kind of event where super-wealthy (and super-generous, and super-committed - I do respect these guys) 1% bankers come to do good with their money.  It's not all bad -  despite my snarky edge. I'm psyched that they will give their time to hear a young woman activist from Pakistan talk about her organization - Aware Girls, founded when she was just 16 - that empowers the body, money, and voice of girls aged 12 to 29.  Go Gulali!  And if it inspires our uber-wealthy friends to open their minds and their wallets, while steak tartare with quail eggs is passed about, all the better.  I call that win-win - pass the prosecco!






But I captured this signage on the marble hallway wall:

<

Versailles

LouisXI

Library

>

Rambouillet

Matignon

Fontainebleau

Restrooms 

Coat Check

...and can't help but gag.  So pretentious. So contrived. So bizarre.  Are we in XVIIeme siecle France or 21st century New York?  Get a grip.  I love to get my fancy on. And you know I'm a francophile (the good parts). I enjoy my swank as much as the next girl, but this is not my kind of luxe.  Non merci. 

I [HEART] my new Orla Kiely bag!

My big Xmas present this year - my long, longed-for Orla Kiely bag.  Sometimes stuff does bring happiness.

Procrastination

This is viral 'round these parts.
So. True.
Love. It.

What a life!

There is nothing like finishing a breakfast meeting at the Tabard Inn, and hopping on a CaBi bike in a pencil skirt/tall black boots with heels/pea coat, and riding a few blocks to the office on a clear cold January day. 

It's the little things that can give me such pure pleasure.

Everything's gonna be alright.

Sometimes the most difficult time being a mom is when saying everything is going to be ok, and there is nothing to worry about, when you're not so sure yourself.  The brave face, coupled with the whispered assurances, and the air of confidence - at times, it's all such a front.

So tonight, as I cuddled and coddled at bedtime, and quieted worries about strong winds and metro doors shutting a millisecond too soon, I was preoccupied with the scope and cost of some structural work that I will need to do on my house.  And not all that sure that the wind wouldn't in fact huff and puff and blow the house down.



  

The 45 Places to Go in 2012

Bali:  Eat, pray, love.

Another favorite annual feature in the New York Times, "The 45 Places to Go in 2012" gets the juices flowing with some enticing travel destinations to go to now and why.

Of those, I've already been to Panama, London (UK), Tanzania, Glasgow (UK), Florence (Italy), Wales (UK), Vienna (Austria), and Uganda.  Lucky me!

Of the others on the list, there are several that are especially appealing.

Helsinki (Finland) -  for the design and architecture, but not for the herring.

Havana (Cuba) - because one day its gonna be just a bunch of beach resorts with a faux Cuba backdrop.

Chatttanooga, TN because that sounds, tastes and feels like the Deep South, and I'd like to make a go of it.

and Dalarna, Sweden - Midsommer!  Need I say more?  Nordic countries really appeal to me for so many reasons - the design, the quality of life, the natural landscape, winter nights, and summer joy.  I have a friend in Copenhagen to visit on my list!

The real travel plans of this year for work and for play might end up quite enviable, if I do say so myself - New York (of course, and in multiples), London, Paris, Massachusetts, Senegal, Thailand, and Bali (!).  If I pull it off, it will be a minor miracle, though all are in the works in some capacity.  The Thailand-Bali trip is starting to look and feel a little like the idea was hatched among two friends drinking too much prosecco at a bar at Christmastime - and it was!

Me & Demi Moore

Good grief.  I don't really give a crap about Demi Moore, or her divorce from the young and restless Ashton, or her astonishingly skinny body, but I stumbled upon this quote on the Web today and I felt tremendously sad for her.

"What scares me is that I'm going to ultimately find out at the end of my life that I'm really not lovable, that I'm not worthy of being loved. That there's something fundamentally wrong with me...and that I wasn't wanted here in the first place."

My dear, I (still) (sometimes) have a long way to go - and I'm certainly not rich or glamourous or famous - but I do know for sure, it starts with self-love.