I Can't Give You Anything But...

We spent the long weekend attending 60th birthday celebrations. The picture is mac-husband flanked by two of his college roommates at one such fiesta. The car (if
you can refer to a Porsche by such a common three letter word) was the surprise birthday present of the roommate on the right, given to him by his wife, who actually did the whole "I Love Lucy" hide-it-in-the-garage while he's-in-the-shower getting ready to go out to dinner thing.
Can you imagine? These things still happen in the alternative universe (New Jersey).

Our gift was a copy of the new book of yet another turning-sixty college friend and a photo from a ski trip in the sixties - all sideburns and Buddy Holly glasses.

Now I did get it together, last month, and pull myself out of the post-Christmas doldrums long enough to throw a small dinner party in honor of mac-husband reaching his hexacontal year but I didn't buy a present.
I would love to be the person who can find the perfect gift - the ohh-ahh-wow gift. I am so bad at gifts.

To be good at choosing a gift, one - you have to really know your recipient and two - you need to have confidence.
We've been together since before The Beatles broke up, you'd think "one" would be a slam dunk. It's not. And confidence? What's happened to me? I've lost it in so many ways.
Gifts are just things. Maybe some have meaning but mostly they don't. At this stage of the game the real gift is time - spent together, if possible.

Clare

My first granddaughter - this little peanut turned two weeks old today.
Born on Valentine's Day, she weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce and measured 21" -taller than her brother was. Everything is going smoothly as she quite enjoys sleeping at night, waking to eat once or twice but conking back out very nicely.
The past eight weeks have produced four new babes connected to our school crowd, starting with Mondale's, Henry, then Clare, then swim-sweetie's, Matteo, then grandchild of Helen's (of Ebbet's Field), Vanessa.
And there are more to come when Natalie Portmanesque & Unwellness deliver as spring turns to summer. What a fun preschool class this could be.

Gallery of Drinks Returns

I admit it. Sometimes I drink on school nights. I have been enamored of the
Cosmo, of late, but really, they are practically pure alcohol and they
are so good you can't drink just one, so I invented this "lighter fare"
– along the same lines – because I really can't be passing out on a
nightly basis. You know that as whacked the day has been, there's tomorrow to deal with and I've come to enjoy facing the music of each day, however discordant.
This is

The Cosmotonic.

2 parts vodka
1 part cointreau
1 part pomegranate juice
4 (or 5) parts tonic
a squeeze of lime

The New Year -Check It Out, Check It Off

Nothing much to say, of late. I haven't been hibernating, though.

Hired new staff member in IT... this could be a major improvement in my life.
Installed some Smartboards and scheduled the upcoming trainings...this could be fun.
Network upgrades - I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...this could be a great relief.
Grandbaby (girl) expected any day now...this could be lovely chaos.
Her parents are in contract on another house in Park Slope (though they have not yet completely unpacked into the house they moved into in December)...this could be exhausting.
I've gotten really good at mixing Cosmos...this could be oblivion.

Check these off the list for this month:

60th birthday party thrown for MacTech husband.
Grandest commission check deposited by MacTech husband.
Annual upper respiratory illness (short and thus already) recovered from.
Plane tickets purchased and villa and car reserved for March vacation in Anguilla.

Saw:
Dreamgirls, B-
Volver,B+
Notes On a Scandal,B-
The Good Shepherd B+

Don't Go There

This might have been my last ever trip to that snake-head of a peninsular chad-hanging state of Florida. Just flew back to NY about an hour ago. Though there were a number of mildly annoying things about this particular trip, none of them were so terrible, and the weather was hot, the ocean looked good (I say looked good because I could not bring myself to go into it. I could not take the chance that I might find it...fun.
So why could I not enjoy myself just one little bit?
The place is a model showroom of everything that's wrong with this country and how we attempt to live our lives in it. (I'm sure LA could be a contender but not the ENTIRE state of California, they do produce wine there, after all)
Conspicuous consumption, to the hilt – driving back and forth up and down Federal Highway from one hideous mall to another (the restaurants mostly reside in malls too) to buy useless crap to haul back to your place.
The state is populated by a most disconcerting collection of misfits and "ne'er do not well-enoughs" who swarm and grovel in minimum wage jobs below the styrofoam-trimmed and gated mansions of the rich. Those are the ones who work. The place is the Mecca of those trying to make it on Disability checks and or Social Security. Every foray into public space left me wincing in a sea of palsied slow-moving limbs, and worse, navigating motorized wheel-chair traffic (younger than me, people!)
I think the place just scares me – to death.

R.I.P.

Lest we forget. It wasn't always rising property values and high-fashion-high-life.
Click for article from 1975

Christmas Dinner 2006

It was my turn to do Christmas dinner this year.
Seven of Mac-Tim's eleven sibs were in attendance and one of mine. With the various spouses and cousins and friends and my mom, we were almost 30 people. Chicago Mac-son's girlfriend-who-could-not-get-home-to-Denver was a big hit with everybody and she was a good sport about the dumb questions.
"Do you think this spot could be cancer?"
"So skin is an organ, huh?"
"Did you bring any Botox or Retin A?"
(She's a dermatologist)
Mac-Tim cooked the three fillets of beef on the gas grill in the pouring rain. There were no leftovers.
I wasn't hungry for dinner but I think it was because I filled up on smoked salmon appetizers and the fabulous pitcher of cosmopolitans whipped up by Mac-son and mac-sweetie.