Me Me Me

I always read the editor’s note in magazines and I was amused to see the editor of House Beautiful declare in the January issue that he doesn’t know any adults who like New Year’s Eve. Well, here’s one! Maybe it’s because we have spent them for 15 years or more with dear friends and our collective kids until they got too old to hang out with us. Maybe it’s because I loooove champagne. And I love to dress up. Anyway, even snow and blowing winds can’t keep me from feeling festive tonight, as we get ready to go to what’s supposed to be the best restaurant on the east end of Long Island.

In 2005 and 2006, we were with church friends in Buenos Aires on New Year’s Eve, which was just great — because it was SUMMER there. I believe I have mentioned how much l love summer (much more than snow and blowing wind).

Last year, we were back in the city with our pals, making the BIG mistake of going to Tavern on the Green. We thought it would be fun and kitschy, and a good place to watch the fireworks at midnight. OMG! Eurotrash nightmare, service nightmare, crowded, horrible — but it’s funny to look back on now. Hence, the restaurant on Long Island, far from the craziness of New York.

The only bad thing about New Year’s Eve is feeling worse for wear on New Year’s Day, but a nice pot of black-eyed peas and cornbread and a steady diet of football make everything okay again. Cheers to all — and may 2009 be a year of happiness, peace and good health.

From the minute we arrived in Manhattan more than 32 years ago, I knew THIS was the place for me. No suburbs, ever. Suburbs looked too much like the small town I grew up in, and I wanted the opposite of that. Nothing has made me rethink that basic decision, and my attitude is reflected in my favorite TV show Mad Men and the trailer for Revolutionary Road (not that I would actually see the movie because I can’t bear movies or novels about married couples who hate each other). In any case, once I got addicted to theater, the suburbs weren’t an option.

But — and this is a BIG “but” for me — New York can be a lonely and tiring place to live. Just the everyday stress of the subway and picking your way through crowded streets. So many ambitious people. Tired of your job? Don’t worry, 20 other (younger) people would love to have it. Even in a recession, it’s hard to find a genuinely friendly clerk in a store. You can easily go through the day with very little personal interaction other than your co-workers.

Luckily for me, I arrived here a newlywed and never had to try to meet someone special. I think that would be SO hard. I just Netflixed the movie Broken English starring Parker Posey (she’s from the south but was playing a native New Yorker!) about a lonely, anxious single woman who’s good at her job but doesn’t love it and can’t find happiness with a man. Such a sad movie.

It makes me laugh that my adorable daughter is settling down in Atlanta and can’t be sweet-talked into moving home to live near her mama. “I don’t want to come back here and see the same people from the same schools in the same places,” she says. Manhattan is a small town to her!

It’s Christmas morning, and the kids are still asleep. (But we aren’t – thanks to an ancient cat who yowls every hour on the hour beginning at 6AM in hopes that someone will take a shower and she can drink water from the tap. Don’t get me started!) Christmas should be the happiest day, even though I wish my mother, the amazing Mary, was still with us to see her precious grandkids today. I think of her whenever I hear “Silver Bells,” her favorite holiday song.

But…happy! When you’re tired and busy, it’s important to take time to appreciate the little things So, here are a few (very) random things that make me happy.

Waking up to a day with no responsibilities. I can sit on the bed and read a book, or take a walk, or work on a photo album, or do nothing.

Browsing at a store where everything is enticing and not necessarily expensive. Ikea. Whole Foods. Sephora. Barnes & Noble. Just about any outlet store.

Going to a museum with time to wander through a special exhibit using the audio guide, then buying the thick and pretty art book of the exhibit as a souvenir.

Sitting in Yankee Stadium and watching the bleacher creatures do the “roll call” of players before the game starts. (Will this happen in the new stadium? It better.)

Walking on the narrow stretch of beach across the road from our house and picking up scallop shells to wash and put in a basket. Heck, walking on ANY beach.

Doing the backstroke, slowly, for 30 minutes in any available pool, humming Frank Sinatra songs to pass the time.

Sitting at the dining room table with my adorable son on my right side, my adorable daughter on my left side and my darling husband on the other end. And HE cooked the entire delicious meal!

Merry Christmas!

I may be a liberal politically, but in the movies I like manly men who pull a gun on the bad guys and leave no doubt that they’d be perfectly willing to pull the trigger. We just saw Gran Torino, the super-fabulous new movie starring the incredible Clint Eastwood. Oh boy, I’ve loved Clint forever. Play Misty for Me? Ay-yi-yi, so scary. Dirty Harry? Loved him. I even enjoyed the silly comedies he did in the 80s with the monkey and Sondra Locke (from whom he parted unhappily; sorry Sondra).

Since winning the Oscar for Unforgiven, Clint has been unstoppable as a director, and I was so happy that my dear church friend Margo Martindale had such a wonderful part as the worst mother on earth in Million Dollar Baby. “They hate YUUU!” she said to poor dying Hilary Swank. Margo says that Clint is a sweetheart in real life. Of course he is! He even shut Spike Lee up, but that’s another story.

Anyway, the programmers of movie trailers must have realized that I was in the audience at Gran Torino, because they managed to show previews of four different movies starring four more of my favorite manly men: Russell Crowe (who is apparently NOT a sweetheart in real life, but I love him anyway), Christian Bale, Daniel Craig, and Clive Owen. MANLINESS!!! Who needs Tom Cruise strutting around in a Nazi uniform when you can wait for the latest from Russell, Christian, Daniel and Clive. And Christian’s movie is a new Terminator! Bonus, bonus fun.

Clint BETTER get a Best Actor nomination for Gran Torino. Nobody ever wins an Oscar for playing a regular person, so I’m quite sure Sean Penn or Frank Langella will win for their expert impersonations (just as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Capote beat Heath Ledger, who should most definitely have won for Brokeback Mountain). Whatever — Clint, you are the MAN.

Here’s a true sign that I am a southern girl at heart: I hate snow. HATE IT. It’s snowing outside now, huge puffy white flakes that make children giddy, skiers thrilled and me mutter OY. I don’t ski. I don’t skate. I hate cold weather of any variety, but wet cold weather is the worst. Rubber boots? OY. Wet wool coat? OY. Slippery sidewalks? OY. Airline delays when my baby girl is trying to come home for Christmas? Triple OY.

I could be the person who invented SAD — seasonal affect disorder, or something like that. It means that I like light. The longest day of the year is my happiest day. Light outside till 9 PM? Yes — let’s have a cocktail on the deck at dusk (8:30). Beautiful! I feel sure I couldn’t live in the northwest or even San Francisco — not enough light. My mood starts to drift downward after Labor Day and only begins lifting in March, because March leads to April leads to May leads to SUMMER. 

Summer means heat, which I love. I’d rather it be 90 degrees than 50 degrees. Although I complain about almost everything, you will never, never, never hear me say that it’s too hot. If it’s 98, I might complain a tad. But not like I complain about snow, which I hate in all circumstances. The only thing worse than snow is ice — and often, snow leads to ice. (What a meteorologist I am!) How do people in Buffalo or Green Bay survive?

Now that my children are grown, never again will I have to pretend to enjoy taking them sledding in Riverside Park, smiling at their joy while inside I am thinking, “Get me the HELL off this hill!” When snow was predicted last night, my adorable 6 foot 2 son said, “Oooh, I want to go sledding!” And I said serenely, “Have fun, sweetie — I’ll be home watching Oprah.”

Caroline Kennedy has declared her interest in replacing Hillary in the Senate, and the press has gotten busy scratching its collective chin over the burning question, “Is she qualified?” Um, YEAH. She is BEYOND qualified, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that she wants to put herself out there and serve our state (which is not overflowing with inspiring political figures, to put it mildly) and haul herself to Washington to take the seat held by her Uncle Bobby. In fact, it’s the best news I’ve heard since Obama decided to run for President. Appoint her tomorrow, Governor Paterson, before she changes her mind!

All of this harrumphing over Caroline’s “qualifications” makes me laugh. She would be a fabulous and inspiring Senator. “She hasn’t proved herself.” Excuse me — who SHOULD get the seat, some hack who has traded political favors for a dozen years in some obscure town in Westchester or upstate? Some semi-corrupt member of the useless New York City Council? Here’s who should be a Senator: Someone really, really smart. Someone with a record of public service. Someone progressive and strong and independent. Someone like Caroline Kennedy.

Do I have a soft spot for Caroline because I remember her hugging her daddy in the Oval Office and riding her pony Macaroni and standing with her sweet little brother before JFK’s funeral? Yes, I do. Now think about how Caroline might have turned out after losing her father at age six. With all that money — the Kennedy money and later the Onassis divorce money — she could have become the ultimate New York socialite, hopping out of limos and concentrating on her wardrobe as she made the scene here and all over Europe. A glittering (wasted) life, fawned over in Vogue like so many other shallow, vain people with famous last names.

Caroline didn’t do that. Quietly, she went to law school, wrote a series of interesting books, administered an award for public service attached to her father’s library, raised millions of dollars for New York public schools (including a $50 million donation from Bill Gates), spoke out for great organizations like Human Rights First, and raised three kids out of the spotlight. She never cared about appearances. She hasn’t had a facelift. She is one of the most famous people in America and yet she seems to have lived a normal, productive life in spite of all the tragedies she had endured. She would be an outstanding Senator. Yes, Caroline!

I seem to have touched a nerve with my meditation on cellphones (which, as I mentioned, I seldom use or even turn on) and BlackBerries (don’t get me started…again). But what of Facebook? My adorable children have banned me from Facebook, which is perfectly fine because in my opinion, nobody over the age of… okay, I’ll be nice… 35 has any business on Facebook. And no one who is married with children. Writing on someone’s “wall”? Drawing an etch-a-sketch-style flower or kitten? “Poking” someone? These are not suitable activities for a grownup. Nor is spying on your college-age child’s online photo albums like a member of the secret police.

Now, I’m as nosy as the next person, and when granted access to Facebook by one of my children, I enjoy sitting with them and looking at drunken pictures of their high school friends. (My kids, of course, are as sober as a judge in all of their Facebook photos. HA HA.) It’s amazing, and a little alarming, what’s available on Facebook for anyone who cares to look, as Rudy Guiliani discovered when his daughter joined the “Friends of Obama” group. Okay, that was funny! And it’s nice to hear that 50 people sent my child a happy birthday message without having to buy and mail a card.

What of the “networking” possibilities inherent in Facebook and LinkedIn and MySpace and so on? Just the thought of that is tiresome. When is a “friend” actually a friend? Luckily, I am past the age of having to job-hunt or social-climb on the internet. And it’s a tad hypocritical of me to turn my nose up at Facebook and then start a blog! But so far, at least, my kids have been okay with this form of expression — and I haven’t posted any pictures here that could embarrass them.

When I think how quickly basic forms of communication have changed in the still-young 21st century, I feel like I have just emerged from a cave. Here’s where I am technologically: I spend my workdays communicating via e-mail, which doubles productivity and is wonderful for folks like me who hate wasting time on the phone. I write and edit everything on the computer, which quadruples productivity from the dark ages (um, the early 90s) when I wrote articles on yellow legal pads. (Whaaaa?!) In other words, I can do the work of three people because of computers. That’s a good thing.

But cell phones? BlackBerries? Electronic calendar thingies? Ha ha ha. I have a circa-2004 cell phone that I never turn on unless I am traveling or need to call my darling husband and inquire how late he will be at the restaurant where I am invariably waiting for him. I do not know my own cell phone number. I write my appointments in a pocket-size leatherette Manhattan Diary that has handy street maps of said borough in the back.

Meanwhile, my adorable daughter can work magic on her beloved iPhone, whizzing through e-mails and typing 70 words a minute on that tiny keypad as she texts her 500 closest friends and colleagues day and night. My adorable son uses his always-active cell phone as a de facto watch.

And my DH? I joke — actually I am dead serious — that if the BlackBerry had existed when our children were little, we would be divorced today. That BlackBerry?! OMG. To say that it is an addiction, an obsession, an object of adoration, is underestimating the power of the Berry. It is truly a way of life — and clients know this, so they don’t hesitate to keep in touch and make demands 24/7. Some people (my DH) embrace this, and happily respond to three e-mails at intermission. I don’t want to be in touch with anybody 24/7. Basically, I want to be left alone. 

Okay, my DH just came in and cheerfully called me a Luddite: “British workmen who, between 1811 and 1816, rioted and destroyed textile machinery in the belief that it would diminish employment.” Huh. I don’t think rioting would make him put down the BlackBerry. So I grit my teeth and wish them both a great day.

My standards for behavior in a theater are high. Stratrospherically high. Just ask my adorable children, who could sit in a Broadway theater without moving a muscle for more than two hours by age five. That’s the basic rule: Sit still. Sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Not according to a huge chunk of people who go to shows and concerts. I had time to think about this last night when I accompanied my darling husband to hear Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony at the Philharmonic. People tend to behave better at classical music concerts — until they fall asleep, that is, and begin to snore, as the lady next to me did. Anyway, I came up with five simple commandments that should be carved into a marble pillar and posted outside every theatrical venue:

THOU SHALT KEEP THY HANDS STILL. Don’t conduct the symphony, as the man next to the snoring woman did last night. Don’t twirl your hair. Don’t rub your face. Don’t jingle your bracelets. Don’t flip through the program. And for heavens sake, don’t crack your knuckles.

THOU SHALT NOT TOUCH PLASTIC. Oh lord, this is a big one with the tourists, who insist on holding (and therefore rustling) their Macy’s bags through a show. Or their giant bag of M&Ms. Or their Snickers wrapper. Or the random contents of a Duane-Reade bag. I have become proactive about plastic — I don’t hesitate to tell someone sitting near me, “You’re going to have to put that bag under your seat when the show starts.” And they obey!

THOU SHALT REMAIN IN THY PERSONAL SPACE. Yeah, it’s crowded. No leg room. But don’t wander, with hands or legs or belongings, into the two feet of space that is allotted to ME. Hog the armrest you share with your companion, and let me have mine. And if you’re in front of me, take your hat off.

THOU SHALT KEEP THY MOUTH SHUT DURING THE SHOW. It’s simple: You are NOT in your living room! Don’t murmur the names of the actors as they come onstage, like Bert Parks at Miss America. Don’t share your opinion of Katie Holmes’ costume while she’s uttering her first line. Don’t ask your companion, “What did he say?” (Get the hearing aid thingie.) HUSH.

THOU SHALT NOT LEAVE DURING THE CURTAIN CALL. I don’t care if you’re rushing to the catch the 10:48 to Mamaroneck. STAY until the curtain call is done. Don’t turn your back on the actors as you wander up the aisle. They did the show for you, now stay and clap until the curtain falls for the last time.

Michael Buble is a musical Rorschach test, a living inkblot of one’s taste in singers. And I am willing to stand up and say, loudly and proudly, “My name is Kathy, and I am a Michael Buble fan.” Many, many people do not share my opinion and are quite willing to tell me so, often with a snort of laughter. Guess what? I don’t care what they think. Michael Buble’s voice makes me happy happy happy. 

I’m discussing my favorite Canadian because I saw him at Madison Square Garden this weekend, my third time experiencing Mr. Bubbly (as I affectionately call him) live and in person. He was sporting his usual skinny black suit with a vaguely unattractive roosterish hairdo. (He recently broke up with pretty Miss Emily Blunt, who probably gave him better hair advice than he is currently getting.) During the show, he did his usual herky-jerky motions around the stage; Mr. Bubbly is not a dancer, but he’s so precious nobody minds. It’s the voice, people!

Oh my gosh, I love to hear this man sing, and so do several thousand other middle-aged women from the tri-state area, who swooned over Mr. B as their husbands (including my darling one) sat indulgently at their sides — payback, no doubt, for the wives sitting through an Eric Clapton songfest or some dull sports event. Secretly, many men like Michael Buble too, but it’s not macho to admit that, as Michael himself acknowledged during the show.

Now that I have worn out my three Michael Buble CDs (I am the one person in the United States who still buys CDs), I was thrilled to hear my man sing two numbers from his NEXT recording, “Stardust” (stop laughing!) and a Dean Martin song that I’m blanking on. He can recycle the Rat Pack’s greatest hits for the rest of his life as far as I’m concerned! I left MSG smiling smiling smiling, and managed not to buy a sparkly Buble T-shirt on my way out — even I have my limits.