July 2010 Archives

Yadda yadda yadda… Christopher Columbus arrived at the island of Trinidad, BIG DEAL! The first tie in All-Star Game major league baseball history was recorded when it was stopped in the 9th inning due to rain at Boston’s Fenway Park, CRYBABIES! …. The cornerstone of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, PA, was laid, WASTE OF TIME! …. Marilyn Bell, at age 17, became the youngest person to swim the English Channel, GET OVER YOURSELF! …. MGM’s Leo the lion roared for the first time, SO WHAT! …. and Nicolas Cage received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, WHO?!?

Given all of this useless information about WHATEVER,
obviously the only universal, noteworthy fact about
today is that it’s my Mom’s Birthday…

Happy Birthday!

I stopped short of posting something rather unpleasant yesterday…

And it’s a really good thing that I ended it when I did because today is July 28th, which is Annie’s birthday. As we all chime in … HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOOOOOO YOOOOOUUUU… And this is the birthday time of year… because my Mom’s birthday is in a couple of days and then my other sister, Kate’s birthday is the day after… But that isn’t the point, because despite today being someone else’s day, I’m going to be THAT sister and write about me first... Because today is also Jackie O’s birthday (thanks to the birthday girl for that little factoid)…  And what would Jackie have done had she been me yesterday?

I’m not a mean person… And this blog is certainly not a forum for me to vent about my inability to forgive and forget… But after bumping into someone that wronged me long ago, I did not hesitate to abuse the power of the internet. I think I was able to hold off for about 3 hours after the spontaneous reunion before I started shaking and grabbed my ipad– making it all too easy to log on… my fingers were haphazard and typos were being flung about like the grunkle in my gardens. I was upset… confused… deranged. And, had my son not demanded that I get on the floor and build the world’s largest block gas station, IMMEDIATELY, you would have all sat back and read my little fit of rage and thought to yourselves… WOW– She REALLY needs to GET A LIFE.

Because what happened years ago was really horrible. I was thrown under possibly the largest dented and dirty, inner city-dun broke garbage bus imaginable by someone that I thought was a friend. Granted, I was suspect about what was going on at the time, but being the somewhat-naive-to-what-people-are-capable-of person that I was… I didn’t see it coming. And yesterday, in the hours that passed where I didn’t finish the post about my experience… I started to actually hear the knives… ranging from pocket-sized to kitchen to machetes… that have been lodged in my back for 2 1/2 years hitting the ground. And with that, I find it breathtaking and symbiotic that my Sister and Jackie O’ shared this day on some level… because there is no way that Annie, who was born in Washington DC on the hottest day in the history of the world until this year, would have even lifted a finger when faced with the enemy. Happy Birthdaaayyyy Toooooo Youuuuuuu……

But once I put it on it was simply demure…

And as I entered the market, it was clear that I was unexpected.
The clerks had not paid notice to the unkempt shelves.
Apparently restocking was not a priority.
Clearly, I had missed the mayhem.

And as I glided through the aisles, I hummed Shoplifters of the World Unite,
thought about making pesto, and tossed bogos into my cart with glee.

Ai-je vous offenser?…

Because that is the only explanation I can think of for this weekend’s cover story. Because… Really? I mean REALLY? This is the topic of the Sunday Style Section? And before I fly off the handle of my newly purchased stainless steel WOK– Let me assure you that I did, in fact, read the article. People saw me reading it… They commented that I was reading it. I even allowed James Gandolfini into my head to narrate while I was reading it. So, having a vast knowledge of said article, and if I may be so bold….. Why did you bother writing it?

Because, life isn’t getting any easier for any of us. There’s stuff that has to get done each and every day… Important stuff– like turning hand cream bottles upside down to ensure that every drop of lotion is accounted for… Avoiding the ice cream truck that strategically parks itself at the beach upon exit, drying hydrangeas, tomato ripening….BUBBLE CATCHING…. You name it, and it was worth more of my time than reading this article. And, to add insult to the injury that was already oozing with assorted variations of noxious slime, it wasn’t even really about anything. It basically said, this woman is doing this and she doesn’t have any talent — even her own DAD agrees that she’s no big deal. And then — not to shed bad light on the subject matter, but you take her and place her at her Father’s house, next to a pile of rubbish, on the front page. In color. I know you weren’t dealing with a brain surgeon on this one, but you could have at least given her a chance, right? Unless you were trying to make me feel sorry for her… in which case, you should have put her in Congress or a room of polygamists or something more… unique.

But whatever. I’m not harboring ill against this person. She might be very nice and I’m sure would LOVE to give me the time of day… but really. New York City is a fashion mecca… and, I know, it is the middle of the summer when most of you city folk are here where I live, making for all too interesting fun and games. But, really? There wasn’t anything else STYLE related going on–IN THE WORLD–that you could think of? Because I know you’re not Vogue or W or MARTHA — but what the hell, TRY. I expect more from you, AND I just bought 2 semi-identical little black dresses.. one designer, one knock off and SUPER cute shoes… THAT is WAY bigger news than this.  Not to mention my vintage lady glove collection and the fact that I have designed every other third brand in the Hamptons… YEAH THAT’S RIGHT. ME. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT ME. But what did she have to lose here? Letting you write an article telling the world that although she really isn’t anything to WRITE about, you were doing it anyway… because she’s playing the fame game and seems to be winning? Maybe. And maybe she’s standing out from the pile of rubbish…  Just one more step for womankind… Because those of us that try really hard should start to consider the alternatives.

So, for whatever I did to make you feel that I needed to know all of this stuff about this woman that really turns out to be a big hat box full of nothing much, I’m sorry. Hopefully you will consider this sincere and on bended knee. Maybe next week, as I sit to relax with family and my oh so soothing cup of ginger peach green tea with the slightest bit of lemon…maybe you’ll take it upon yourself to write about something that I can walk away thinking about. Because obviously, this article had no reaction from me.

XOXO
Ry

But it’s better than no house at all…

I’m shovin’ over to WordPress, catch you on the other side. See you NEVAH MovableType — Because HOROLOGY is just a big ol’ complication that refers to any feature beyond the simple
display of hours, minutes, and seconds in a timepiece… suckers.

From:     jonburns10@btinternet.com
Subject:     [High Scoring Spam] Re: Once In A Life Time.
Date:     July 15, 2010 11:04:44 PM EDT
To:     undisclosed-recipients:;
Reply-To:     jonburns2010@californiamail.com

Dear Friend,

I write to you as a matter of uttermost urgency in respect of a business transaction which I trust will be of interest to you.

It pertains certain accounts which in the wake of the September 11 attacks were “MARKED” by the Counter- terrorism unit of the FBI, these accounts are belonging to key Arab businessmen and influential players in the middle-east, these accounts have been a subject of investigation and has since been cleared by the FBI and I have been entrusted with the duty of returning these account to the rightful owners but unfortunately a lot of these people are nowhere to be found.

Should you be interested, my proposal is for you to be the sole beneficiary of these funds which is running into $126,000,000 USD. This partnership is to be on 50%-50% basis.

Pleases contact me immediately if you are interested with your name, address and relevant bio-data on this email address: burnsjon@myself.com

Yours faithfully,

Mr. Jon Burns.

I know, an unprecedented 2nd post in 24 hours… whatever -  I’ve been jonesing!

My dear friend Gina (who happens to have a giant smiling sun as her profile picture) posted this on Facebook this morning and I just had to share… I wasn’t having the best morning and this pretty much smacked my neurotransmitters into permagrin status…. call it hormonal overdrive but I think it’s just old school sweet! Thanks G!
 

Wow, almost 5 entire days of not blogging about myself…

And I know that image is weird right… it’s me (!) standing behind my son looking into a magic mirror with a waving NASA astronaut… and while Will keeps hitting the button to make it reappear, saying “Hi Hi Hi Hi” back to the static image… I’m all like — this thing is F’ing CRE-EEE-EPY. That’s right… That’s FEAR behind my eyes — don’t let the fake smile fool you… I was about a half a second short of grabbing the boy and launching the next kid to run past me into this thing. It’s all… you are getting sleepy… you will keep hitting the button.. you will keep waving… you will be an astronaut… you will tell Obama to bring back NASA… You are the future… You will have to carry me on your shoulders… And then I realized that maybe this was just that annoying astronaut that the space shuttle forgot to mention and then left in space to fend for himself during their LAST MISSION EVER. He must have found a worm hole in the vectosphere and transported himself here to us… And then I started waving.

I spent the better part of this week attempting not to write blog posts about anything. Which… as you can see with the lovely guest posts, I had to add something about myself to each one… HOW ANNOYING AM I? But while I wasn’t attempting not to post, I designed a few things, cooked a few things, thought about organizing a few things… I took Will to the Children’s Museum of the East End (aka CMEE) — which is always a good fall back on rainy days if you can stand the wild screams of about 250 kids of all ages in an enclosed space with OTHER MOMS that are all looking at you in equal bouts of confusion mixed with terror. It was fun though… Here’s Will trying to stand still:

And when this was all said and done (about 45 minutes later… come on people, even I have a THRESHOLD) we headed on over to Banana where I spent a short mint while Will attempted his first heist and got caught stealing via door alarms. I dove to catch him as he grabbed the ugliest floral scarf he could find and shot like any ordinary escapee would… only I caught him on my way out the door holding an armful of overpriced crinkle prints, thus setting off my own set of store wide panic… Good times.

But at the end of this week of nonstop, I really want to thank Elly, Mandy and Kenny (you guys really should start a band called the Ys) one more time for paying us a visit… Because aside from working, playing and stealing, I also took the time when I would ordinarily be sitting at the computer (by choice mind you) to go out and appreciate some of the blooms that we have been waiting for…

I asked Kenny to be a guest this week because of a line that he wrote on his blog, in what I assume was his first post… “And I want it to be known that I’m super excited about being a
father…but kids kind of freak me out.”…

Which pretty much sums up the way I have always felt about kids… Because I know a lot of people that have decided to not have kids… and I can understand that too… while I also know some that have or want and shouldn’t…. but we aren’t changing the universe today, now are we? He also, unknowingly, took the following guest post to express a feeling of panic which I experienced two days ago when my 2.5 year old told us he was going to jump into the deep end… and then JUMPED INTO THE DEEP END with no floatation device present… he was and is fine… I, however, am still learning to walk with rubber legs… Now I’m all, “Hey you NO FEAR… Who the hell told you to THINK FOR YOURSELF!?!”

And with that juxtaposition… Thanks Kenny…

Amanda, or Mandy — as I like to call her, and I went to college together.
We went to a women’s college on the Main Line of Philadelphia where we sat on pedestals while hummingbirds bouffanted our hair and talented monkeys ironed our tops… Men were slaves and there was a constant rainbow overhead… And we basked in the never ending sunshine…

When Ry wrote me asking if I’d be interested in guest blogging on For the Birds this week I became totally and completely overzealous and did jumpy claps of excitement. Would I be interested in guest blogging?  Would I?  Would I EVER!  

You see, I am a newbie to all this blogging business.  Before I began my blog in May I used to skulk silently around the interwebs reading other blogs, For the Birds was and is one of my favorites due to Ryan’s ability to tell it like it is and make a seemingly everyday observation interesting, thought provoking, and often hilarious.  I would check in via facebook whenever I saw she had a new post up.  I’d read For the Birds and blogs written by other friends and acquaintances of mine and think to myself, “How do they do it?  How do they find inspiration?  Day after day they come up with something engaging to write about.  I could never do that.  Could I?”.  I still ask myself that question on an almost daily basis.  Does anyone really care what I have to say or am I just shouting my ideas, musings, and thoughts into the echoy cavernous abyss of cyberspace?  For instance how can Ryan make a recap of a Southampton town meeting such a good read?   For me the fact that she had been writing a blog for so many years, and was still managing to keep me, and numerous others,  coming back for more was awe inspiring.  I mean MARTHA reads her blog for crying out loud!  So Ry is sorta my blog hero, she’s kind of a big deal.  So yes, I accepted the invite whole heartedly!

Then  I panicked.  For two reasons, the first being that people actually READ her blog.  My blog is mostly frequented by my Mom and my sisters.  If they don’t comment I harangue and verbally abuse them at family functions.  And I have 5 sisters so that helps hike up my traffic quite a bit.  Sidnote, sister number one, why are you STILL not following me? I am not buying the whole “Your blog won’t let me follow you” bit.  Save it. Just DO IT!  But I digress…Oh, yes, so I was a little unnerved to realize people would actually be reading what I wrote and even more unsettled when I pictured them mumbling to themselves, “Who the hell is this hack and what has she done with Ry?”  And secondly, in the the last week I have hit the proverbial wall.  After 2 mere months of blogging I felt like I had nothing to say.  So I did what anyone would do, I made excuses.  ”I have no time….this week has been insanely busy…I am working non-stop…I’ll get back to it Monday”.  In my defense, my sister was in London on business so I was taking care of my little Terr-bear round the clock.  (Big ups to all the Mothers out there who manage to both parent and blog, I don’t know how you do it).  Add in a freelance wedding makeup gig on Saturday and a birthday party on Sunday and stick a fork in me I was DONE.  As the weekend wore on I started to look towards Monday with apprehension and anxiety.  I HAD to come up with something to write after a weeks silence!  It’s only been two freakin’ months!  Pull it together woman!  Must…find…inspiration.  Write something! Anything!  There were no more excuses, and as Monday loomed closer my angst grew worse.  What will I write?!!  

Then Sunday night I logged onto the computer and there was this little beacon of light, a message from Ry asking me to be a guest bird.  But whatever shall I write I thought?  This week, of all the weeks, when I seem to have lost my mojo, NOW she wants me to guest blog?  So, screw it I thought to myself, I’ll write about the fact that I am freaking out over not having, uhm, anything to actually write about.

Well, will you look at that!  I actually just wrote something. It may not be amazing, but hell at least after six days of nothing I got SOMETHING.  Thanks Ry for the opportunity, for being a pioneer, and for nudging me out of my dry spell.

If you’d like to check out my blog about spending my days with an amazing little man while I figure out what to do with my life please stop by here: http://thebutterflyandthebear.typepad.com