Lazy Woman's Guide 99

Daisy and Van walked down the aisle to a scratch version of “Here Comes the Bride.”

2012-02-02T07:39:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago today I was in LA getting ready for Daisy andVan’s wedding.

The week before I had been in the hospital with Mike, whohad his appendix out in an emergency operation in San Diego.

Daisy had gone to the airport to pick up Jill and her familyand brought them to the hospital.

“Doodle, you have to get better. You have to walk me down the aisle. It’s the centerpiece of my wedding.”

Daisy had been planning this wedding since the previous NewYear’s Eve, when Van proposed to her. It had to be very stylish, because she was a stylist and many of herclients would be there. We werekind of hippies from Woodstock and didn’t believe in spending a lot of money ona wedding.

Daisy called in all her favors for that day. She got married in a mansion high aboveLA. A photographer that she workedwith did the photos and another friend did the flowers. Another friend sent away to be ministerfor the day, and married them.

She got her dress at a Richard Tyler sample sale for under $100. She had scared me a few monthspreviously by trying on $4,000 dresses at Barney’s.

Van looked cool in his white linen suit.

The two flower girls, two year old Natasha and seven year old Julianna, held hands as they walked down theaisle throwing rose petals one by one. The bridesmaids were dressed in outfits that Daisy hadsewn for them.

Daisy and Vanwalked down the aisle to a scratch version of “Here Comes the Bride.” In their vows they promised to love andcuddle for the rest of their lives.

Ten years later and it’s still the same. Daisy told me that her trick was to doeverything for Van and he would do everything for her. It works. Their two little daughters Starla and Roxy joined the magiccircle and they’re all doing everything for each other.

Mazel Tov Daisy and Van.

Thank you to Kitty for the photo.

We did only have to pay $48 a year tuition to Hunter College in the Bronx, a NY city college, as opposed to the over $25,000 that kids have to pay now.

2012-01-16T17:34:00.000-08:00

Oh the joys of a simple life.

My Lazywoman’s guide99 has taught me how to live a simple andpeaceful life.

It’s 8 degrees out, but it’s warm and toasty in front of myfireplace.

My life is an advertisement for the little by littlemethod. We were lucky to be born into the generation as Daisysays, “could live off the change you find in the couch.”

Not quite, but we did only have to pay $48 a year tuition to Hunter College in the Bronx, a NY city college, as opposed to the over $25,000 that kids have to pay now.

When we graduated college in 1964 credit cards hadn’t beeninvented yet. When we got ourfirst Mastercard we bought a color TV.

We were each earning a little over $100 a week and wepaid $145 rent for a studioapartment with a wood burning fireplace, a separate kitchen and a huge terrace(overlooking a factory) on one of the best blocks in Grammercy Park.

We were fortunate to come to Woodstock when you could buy anice house for $26,000.

We upgraded the house using the little by littlemethod. Of course, by the time wefinished upgrading everything it was time to start upgrading the upgrades.

Little by little we’ve been saving up for our old age. It’s hard to know exactly when thatwill be, and how long it will last.

I follow my own advice to live each days as if its yourlast, and one day you’ll be right. We had a peak experience on Saturday. Starla performed at the Saugerties Ice Rink. She opened the show ice dancing to thesong “Hello”. Her outfit wasadorable, but it was her smile, her spirit, that made it so incredible. The greatest joy in life—nachas.

25 Years After the Click!

2011-12-31T19:26:00.000-08:00

On New Year’s Eve in 1996 I wrote the following:

“25 Years After the Click!"

One of the first arguments I started having with my husbandafter the start of the Woman’s Liberation Movement was who should wash thedishes. He thought because he wasmaking the money, and working all day, I should be responsible for all thehouse stuff that goes along with having two daughters age four and one.

‘If you were bringing in money, I would help in thehouse.’ I told him I would thinkof ways to make money while he washed the dishes. And that is how Woodstock Trading Post came about. I thought of opening a store inWoodstock as a way to make a living.

Twenty-five years later, we own another store, WoodstockDesign, which is my dream fantasy of what a store and a career could be. There is nothing about it I wouldchange.

My daughters are both feminists. The older, Jill is a psychologist who just finished herdissertation on the role of journal writing in psychotherapy. My younger daughter Daisy lives in L.A.and works in an art gallery.

Looking back, I’m glad my marriage survived the tumult ofthe woman’s movement. I rememberreading the article in the Village Voice about all the couples that broke upafter renovating their brownstones. A few women I’ve spoken to, (by no means all) regret leaving their firstmarriages so cavalierly. Theyrealize now, which they couldn’t have known before, how hard it was on theirkids.

My husband still asks me why no one does his laundry and I haveto scream at him—“I am not your mother.” Then he’ll fantasize about how nice it would be to be married to someonewho would do his laundry and cook for him. At least I make the bed for him and load and unload thedishwasher. And make enough moneyfor someone else to clean the house. So that is how we worked out the Housewife’s Moment of Truth.”

I found this story this morning. My husband (who wishes to remain anonymous) looked it overand said he’s not mad anymore. “Noone has to cook, we just nosh around, and I don’t mind doing my laundry.”

My girls are married now, with two kids of their own. Their husbands were raised in the postfeminist battle years, and equality between the sexes is totally taken forgranted.

When Santa arrives, he is in a Steve Heller car with flames shooting out the back.

2011-12-27T14:43:00.000-08:00

It’s theday before Christmas Eve and I’ve completed everything on my lists—all thepresents are bought and wrapped, all the food is in the refrigerator or on theporch. The only thing left to dois pick up the bagels. I find thelist of what we ordered from Wok and Roll last Christmas eve. We are such a family of tradition, wewill all eat what we did last year.

What ittakes to complete my feeling of joy is for all the husbands of my customers atWoodstock design to show up today and buy their gifts. When they do, I can finally relax.

I go towork on Saturday and Jill and Jeff and the kids come down from Boston. Jeff and Natasha set up our Christmastree. At 5:00 they come to town towait for Santa Claus. Daisy, Van,Starla and Roxy come from Saugerties. Within a half hour the entire street is filled. People come into the store for the wineand cookies we are serving, but also to buy socks and hats, because it hassuddenly gotten much colder.

WhenSanta arrives, he is in a Steve Heller car with flames shooting out the back.

I callin our order for Chinese food. After the little kids leave, Natasha helps us put the gifts under thetree. She knows there is no Santa Claus, but puts out the milk and cookies for him anyway, then we light the Chanukah candles.

Christmasmorning is all about opening presents and eating bagels and lox.

We takea break from eating to take our annual walk around the block.

Next thekids bake a cake and make the pigs in blankets. AT 3:00 my Christmas present from daisy arrives—turkeydinner for 12.

Moreeating. At 4:00 my brother, hiswife, his son and daughter and the newest member of the family, Bethany’sfiancé Darren come. Much moreeating.

It’s notuntil the company leaves, that I realize what I forgot to do. I never brought out the giant bottle ofcherry coke, and the bottle of cream soda. We never made the chocolate croissants from the Pillsburycrescent rolls.

Theevening ends with Jill, Natasha and I watching “The Help” on TV. Jeff puts Luke to sleep and cleans upthe kitchen. Mike is upstairsprinting out the pictures of the day.

It’s all about peace and love. And presents.

2011-12-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

Lists, lists, lists. That’s what I’m all about the week before Christmas. I have a list that reminds me what all my lists are.

I try to keep it simple. I try to make everyone buy their own presents and charge it to my card. I have a list of who wants something that I can pick up in town.

I should have had a list of where I put the ornaments last year. I can’t find them. I have to remind myself to buy cakes pans.

I have a list of the food I will need for the weekend. I ordered the bagels and I have to remind myself to get the lox and tomatoes at the same time.

We have been celebrating Christmas big time, ever since we came to
Woodstock. It is after all, the town that Santa Claus comes to every Christmas Eve. When I hear parents teach their kids to say “we don’t celebrate Christmas” I feel sorry for them. Christmas is such a generic holiday these days. Is there anything wrong with assimilating into the culture you find yourself in? Chanukah is a fine holiday, but why do they have to be mutually exclusive?

It’s all about peace and love. And presents.

Writing about changing the closets

2011-11-06T09:47:00.000-08:00

Writing about changing the closets is something I seem to doevery six months.

This winter I have my winter closet right next to the summerone. I can easily go from one tothe other. I’m thinking of asystem I can use to make them look great, but also make things easier to find.

I can put all my black shirts at one end and then startworking my way through the charcoal grays and then finish with whites at theend. My few shirts of color couldhave their own section.

Or I can do it by a way to keep the things I wear the mostin the center. If every time Itook off a sweater I put it in the center, this would show which my favoritethings are. I always seem to wantto wear the same few things. Thischanges as the weather changes. This heavy grey sweatshirt has been winning hands down this time ofyear.

As the winter goes on the warmer sweaters will be in thecenter.

The changing from Daylight Savings Time always makes methink that winter is coming. Timeto change the closet.

How do you organize your closets? Send me the pictures of your closets. There will be a prize for the neatest;most organized one and also a prize for the messiest. This should be very interesting.

I’m sitting at my shrine.

2011-10-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting at my shrine. The center of it is not a chubby Buddha, but rather picturesof my children and grandchildren at different ages. I light the candle I bought at Candlestock after I saw it inthe window.

My desk is the place where it all happens. At the center is the calendar, there isthe cup of pens, scotch tape and stapler. There is a large pair of scissors. There is my phone book, Myjob this morning is to look through the reports to decide what needs to bereordered. There’s time to read mybook “Summer Reading” by Hilma Wolitzerand daydream at my desk.

Timing is everything. I know that by not having a baby when I was 19 I was able to offer somuch to my children, and they in turn to their children. When I watch Sixteen and Pregnant Ireally feel for those girls who think they have no options, but to have a babywhen they got accidentally pregnant.

Everything in its own time. At one o’clock I have to quit my musings and go to work.

“You can see all the way to Coney Island”

2011-10-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

Thurs. Oct. 6, 2011

Today the weather is exactly the way in was in October, 1970when we first moved to Woodstock from Brooklyn. The sky is that deep blue that takes your breath away. “You can see all the way to ConeyIsland” we’d say on a day like this in Rockaway.

I can’t help but look back and think about how things werethen and what it is like now. We’re living in the same house. The deck I’m sitting on now used to bethe back yard. So is thebedroom.

We’re still right behind the Woodstock Playhouse. It was built in the 1930’s and the manwho built it lived on our street. We’ve seen it burned to the ground, the site just ashes for years. We’ve seen it rebuilt without walls andstadium seating. We heard somegood rock and roll shows sitting on our porch. That was put to an end when a new neighbor moved from NewJersey and complained about the noise. We’ve seen the Playhouse go into foreclosure. Just this year we’ve seen it reopen, refurbished, betterthan it’s ever been.

We came to Woodstock with two little daughters. Mike got a job as a psychiatric socialworker at Hudson River State Hospital. I thought I would get a job as a secretary when my kids started school.

We had low expectations. Just living in the country was reward enough.

Now forty years later we have so much more than I could haveimagined. On the deck are a hottub and a hot shower. It’s stillquiet here, except for the rumbling of RUPCO in the background.

Instead of two little girls I have two grown daughters, twoincredible son-in-laws and four grandchildren.

Instead of working as a secretary opened a store selling used fur coats at first and then usedjeans.

That morphed into two stores on the main street that let melive the kind of life I want. Ican sit here on the deck because Laura and Tracy are working the stores.

Having enough money to go away for five weeks in the wintermakes Woodstock a wonderful place to live.

A day like today almost makes up for all the rainy dayspreceding it.

is likenow.

“Mike has found the relative contentment of a man who’s brought himself through a rough change and seen it come out good.”

2011-10-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

“Mike has found the relative contentment of a man who’sbrought himself through a rough change and seen it come out good.” Richard Goldstein wrote that in 1970 inNew York Magazine.

“Growth amid safety, the childhood condition we all seek toduplicate as adults and to provide for our own children, is the story of Mike’smove.”

We are described as “city people, having traveled a classicroute from childhood in the streets to collegiate bohemianism, to life amongthe young marrieds in Cobble Hill. They opted out of city life. They began to search for a place outside the city where there would beroom to grow, but still have that protective tolerance, that inner city glow.

They settled on Woodstock, having made the rounds of fadingCatskills hamlets, because Woodstock offered the best of two ways: traditionalrural intimacy and radical urban space. They made the same friends they would have cultivated in Brooklyn,except now they sit and talk on a small screened porch, and instead of busesand bongos they hear crickets and the distant whoosh of traffic on the road.”

Forty years later and I have to say Woodstock has been very,very good to me. It was a placewhere the kids growing up here were part of a special club. They found each other wherever theywent. Now a lot of them are comingback as they realize that this is the ideal place to raise children.

Childhood friends have position of power. It’s great to watch them become thenext generation.

Life here is so simpatico. I feel lucky and happy every day.

At age 13, when boys started going to bar mitzvahs, they had to get their first suit. It was the turning point, continental or ivy league.

2011-09-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

The other day I received in the mail along with my VanityFair Magazine, another magazine called RALPH LAUREN—Objects of Desire. It was full page photographs of 18Krose gold chandelier earrings, the Ralph Lauren 18K slim classique watch withpave diamonds, his 17 exceptional cars that were in the Louvre’s Musee des ArtsDecoratifs.

Ralph and I grew up in the same lower middle class Bronxneighborhood. If we were a littlemore stylish than most it was because there were a lot of people from thegarment industry living in our part of the Bronx.

At age 13, when boys started going to bar mitzvahs, they had to get theirfirst suit. It was the turningpoint, continental or ivy league. If you went with continental your pants had no cuffs and you were boundto do something slick when you grew up—the garmentos and the lawyers. If you got cuffs on your pants you wereIvy League, and that meant you were going to college.

Lauren says that growing up in the Bronx he was exposed toiconic cars, and the aura of romance and excitement. His collection includes Ferraris, Jaguars and AlphaRomeos. I like iconiccars too. When we moved toWoodstock we had a ’63 T-bird. I had a ’67 Mustang, a Mazda RX7 convertible and a VW Beetle. The difference between us is that I getone car at a time and drive it for14 years.

Ralph Lauren has a rich fantasy life. He pictures palaces and countryestates. His fashion empire is sohuge that he can have whatever he wants.

I went the other way. I moved to Woodstock. Isold old rabbit fur jackets for kids out of my living room. Over the years, I’ve expanded mybusiness. I now have two clothingstores in the center of town. It’sa modern store, far from the hippie attire we used to wear in theseventies. We had a t-shirt wesold, “friends don’t let friendswear tie-dye.”

Last night we saw the American premier of “Peace, Love andMisunderstanding”. It was shot inWoodstock and Jane Fonda plays the part of a hippie dressed in the Indian printskirts we used to wear then.

It focused on the old hippie element, which certainly doesstill exist.

It made me realize how much Ralph Lauren and I were on suchdivergent paths. I startedflicking through the pictures on my iPhone. I have something more precious than all of Lauren’s objectsof desire put together—grandchildren.

I’m reading The Happiness Project.

2011-09-16T19:10:00.000-07:00

I’m reading The Happiness Project. Thewriter, Gretchen Rubin, spent a year studying what it takes to make youhappy. She studied psychologists, philosophers, poets and spiritualleaders.

She decided that unlike Elizabeth Gilbert, who wroteEat, Pray , Love, and went to Italy, India, and Bali to find happiness,she’d find happiness at home. She divided her aspirations into 12 parts,and promised to learn different things every month.

I came about happiness through my DNA. Bothmy parents were happy. There was no nagging or blaming where I grewup. I didn’t feel that I had to get a gold star for the good things Idid.

One of the things I did learn from her was the oneminute rule. If something would take one minute to do, then do it, likehanging up your coat.

For years my friend Marcy has been telling me thatmy story is exactly the kind of thing that makes money. I’vebeen very lazy, and instead of writing a book, I been writing this blog,about an hour a week.

Gretchen Rubin spent a year trying to achievehappiness and then spent another year writing about it.

I feel like I was just living it. She endedup with a New York Times best seller. I ended up with 60 faithfulfollowers, who stop me on the street to say how my blog made them happy andtaught them something. So that makes me really happy.

She had to abandon her perfectionism,negativity, and worrying. She didn’t know about the prior investment trapand would try to finish every book she started. She had to overcome herimpatience. She had to learn to listen to music for pleasure. Shehad to find some groups to be in.

I had a problem with none of that. If she hadbeen reading my blog she could have found happiness more easily. I’m abig multi-tasker. I combine my groups with music, dance and exercise andget to spend a few hours a week just having a good time.

Another of her chapters was “Take Time forProjects”. This month I had two projects: a reading from my blog atMezzaluna and organizing the Woodstock Pet Parade for the fourteenthyear. Both things brought me lots of happiness. I’m sure mycarefree attitude made both these projects fun and easy.

When she started a blog she was anxious that peoplewould be critical of her . It never entered my mind that people would becritical. The most important lesson she learned was to be “Gretchen”.

I’ve never had a problem being Robin Kramer.

Frog ponding or worrying about things that haven’t happened yet

2011-08-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

In my familywe call it frog ponding. It meansworrying about things that haven’t happened yet. It comes from a story my daughter Jill told about hertime at Camp Rawhide Ranch. "Itwas like a scavenger hunt. We’dride around on our horses and someone would ride up to us and give us a note. It could be “find two nails” or the worse thing would be “go into thefrog pond.” The frog pond was thisslimy place that almost seemed to have sewerage in it. All morning I was worrying that I’d getthe note saying I’d have to go into the frog pond. Then I realized, I could waste all day worrying about it,and if I got it I’d only have to go into it for a minute—I could waste thewhole day worrying about it.” That’s when she learned the uselessness of worry.

Roxy will worry about the polar bear she saw onHalloween. Then she will say,“that was only Uncle Rock in a polar bear costume.”

Starla doesn’t seem to worry about anything. Whether she’s in a duet performing infront of all the parents and kids in Cahill Elementary school or ice skating infront of the crowds at the Saugerties Indoor Ice Rink Show.

When I was a kid my hero was Alfred E. Newman. Maybe it was because we both had thatsame goofy smile, or because I believed in his motto, “what me worry.”

My makatenasta calls me a Poilyanna. I always like to think everything willturn out OK, until it doesn’t. TheDalai Lama suggests thinking of someone worse off than you when something badhappens. So they’re building ahousing project up the street from my bucolic setting. Mike lived across the street from wherethey were building the Major Deegan Highway and he lived to tell the tale.

I’ve watched people who are pessimists. Whenever they project into the futureit’s always about the most dire consequences. I like to assume everything will work out for the best. As I’ve heard it said, “pessimistsmight be right, but optimists have more fun.

2011-07-30T06:05:00.000-07:00

Everyone is in their own movie.

In my movie I’m sitting on my deck, surrounded by pots ofpansies and impatiens. The weatheris perfect—kind of cool and overcast after a week of hot and humid. I’m listening to Pandora on myiPhone. I’m reading MichaelCunningham’s By Nightfall

Flashback: Mikeand I are two scrappy kids from the Bronx when we meet in college. We are both 19 years old. It’s love at first sight; it just takesme a year to realize it. He stillhas a tan in November. He’swearing white jeans and a red sweater. He’s a lifeguard at Orchard Beach.

In the next scene we’re in Miami Beach forintersession. I’m wearing a brownpolka dot bikini that was ahead of its time—it’s 1962. Mike teaches me about Bain de Soleil. I get the best tan I’ve ever had.

I wear the bikini under my winter coat to collegeregistration. I flash it open tofriends.

Mike doesn’t believe in PDA’s, but everyone at the ethnictable knows we are a couple. Everyone is talking about how we are being hassled by the “neckerchecker”.

The next scene takes place in Queens College. Long shot of the two of us alone in astudent lounge.

In the next scene we’re in Harlem, trying to hock my accordion. We get $25 for it.

Next scene: we’re walking out of a fancy building on the Grand Concourse. Cop cars surround the block. Cops wrestle Mike into one car and putme in another. They drive me to a gynecologistto confirm that I’ve just had an abortion. They are saying things like, “Why wouldn’t he be a man andmarry you?” I’d answer, “becausewe didn’t want to get married and have a baby now.”

Shot of me laying in my cell, with a box of Kotex for apillow, singing Joan Baez songs to myself. Mike sitting on a bench in the jail next to the doctor.

Court scene the next morning when they release us to ourparents.

A shot of my brother going around our apartment buildingpicking up copies of the New York Post so that our neighbors can’t read thestory, “HUNTER CO-ED’S CAUGHT IN ABORTION RING”.

Show a few months later when the charges are dropped againstthe doctor and us.

Flash forward to May 1, 1964. We’re getting into a VW Beetle with two friends and drivingto City Hall and getting married. Next scene is in London Terrace, an old fashioned luxury building inChelsea.

We’re getting into the elevator with the elevator operatorholding open the iron gate for us. Our apartment is old fashioned, with a Murphy bed in the living room anda separate kitchen. The next nightall our college friends come to a party in our apartment. We are the first of our friends to getmarried.

In the next scene we’ve moved to an apartment on E. 19^thSt., around the corner from Grammercy Park. We live in a fourth floor walk-up with a wood burningfireplace and a huge terrace. Wego out to brunch with our friends at Pippins on Third Ave. I give Mike a puppy for Christmas. Neither of us has ever been allowed tohave dogs growing up. We name himRover.

In the next scene Mike looks horrified, reading the headlinein the New York Post—MARRIED MEN NO LONGER EXEMPT FROM THE DRAFT.

We walk 19^th Street from one end to the othertalking about what we should do—have a baby or move to Canada?

The next scene shows me throwing away my birth controlpills, and 9 1/2 months later shows us hailing a cab to take us to NYU MedicalCenter to have the baby. I’m alonein the delivery room, as Mike and his brother Steve pace in the hallway.

Our baby daughter Jill is named star baby of the day andthey use her to demonstrate how to bathe a baby.

We come back to our apartment and the handmade cradle thatMike made. Our friend Paula Roth comesover to help us.

In the next scene Jill is one month old and we’re moving toa brownstone in Brooklyn Heights with an elevator. Shot of me in the park on the Promenade sitting with all thenannies.

In the next scene we’ve moved to Cobble Hill. The park is filled with young mothers,drinking coffee and watching our kids in the sandbox. Next, we’re all pregnant with our second child. Daisy is born in a hospital threeblocks from our house after 50 minutes of labor.

In the next scene Jill is four and Daisy is 14 months. We’ve sold all our furniture and movedto a rented, furnished house in Woodstock. We have a lease from October to May. We’re going to look for a house tobuy. Mike has a job as apsychiatric social worker in Hudson River State Hospital. I’m selling used kids rabbit coats outof our house, with pictures of our kids all around town. In February, after looking at all the housesthat are on the market, we decide to buy the house we are living in, eventhough the price seems a little high--$26,000.

I push Daisy in a stroller, with Jill walkingalongside. I’m wearing Landlubber bell-bottoms. We do the usual Woodstock things of theday: go to the Joyous Lake, eat dinner at Duey’s and swim at Swim-o-links.

We open a store in 1972, behind the Café Espresso to sellour recycled fur jackets. We sellused jeans, cowboy shirts, and Hawaii shirts. We name it Woodstock Trading Post. In 1974 we get a store on the main street. We open another, more upscale store in 1981and name it Woodstock Design. Wehave fashion shows in the Woodstock Playhouse.

The kids go to Woodstock elementary school and Onteora HighSchool.

Jill goes off to college, Oberlin, and when she’s 19 shebrings Jeff home with her. He’sher boyfriend from Brooklyn.

Then Daisy goes to Sarah Lawrence. Jill marries Jeff and they move to Boston. Daisy moves to LA.

In the mid-90’s a friend of mine calls and asks if I’d beinterested in telling my abortion story on the Oprah Show. I started jumping up and down. Of course I would love to be on theOprah show. Demi Moore, Sissy Spacek and Cher would be theretoo, to introduce their movie, “If These Walls Could Talk.” It was about abortion stories in the40’s, 50’s and 70’s.

I start writing my book “The Path of Least Resistance—theLazy Woman’s Guide to Life”. Igive a reading at the Woodstock Library and over 100 people attend. From then on people stop me in thestreet to say, “I’m taking your advice—I do everything in my zip code” or “Iwish my mother followed your advice not to have more children than you have carwindows”. I follow my own advice,and pace myself for the long run. My laziness prevents me from ever finishing my book, but I write a blogLazywomansguide99, an hour or two a week.

Jill becomes a psychologist and Jeff becomes a lawyer. They buy a house, and nine months laterthey have a baby girl, Natasha.

Daisy is a fashion stylist. She meets Van, a video director. They get married in a mansion in LA. We are vacationing in Palm Springs whenDaisy gives birth to Starla.

Five months later Daisy calls me and asks, “would youconsider me a complete loser if I moved back to Woodstock?”

“Are you kidding? We’d love it.”

They have been admiring ourlifestyle and want to start their own store. Mike and I are sitting in Saugerties at Stella’s Station andwe see a store across the street for rent. We email a picture to Daisy and she rents it sightunseen. We make a deal that wewill give them the clothes we have in storage and they can pay us as they sell.

They rent out their house in LA andship all their stuff in the back of their SUV that they have shipped toSaugerties. We let them live inour rental house on the Esopus Creek. They get to work painting their store orange and pink stripes. They cut a hole in the back wall, whichleads to the office where Starla will sleep and Van will DJ. They open the store, Dig in a month,with Starla in a T-shirt sling attached to Daisy. The store is an immediate hit. After one year Daisy says to me, “We don’t need your oldcrap from storage, we’ll buy our own stock.”

In the next scene Dig has moved upone block to a beautiful location that had been Café Tomayo. Beautiful old wooden bar is used todisplay makeup and panties. Dig isvoted Best Boutique by Hudson Valley Magazine.

Jill gives birth to Luke—the firstboy to be born into the family.

Daisy gives birth to Roxy, a littleredhead. In the next scene we’reall at Daisy’s new house on the creek for Thanksgiving Dinner, dancing aroundto “Take Me Home Country Road”.

The movie ends with me sitting on the screened-in porch,with my computer on my lap finishing up this movie of my life.

2011-07-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

God Bless Pizza

Pizza is the solution for any lazy girl’s dinner party.

You just have to count the guests, and figure how manypizzas you’ll need. You can getfancy by ordering pies with pineapple or pepperoni, or just go old school withall cheese pizzas.

This party works especially well if you’re having a mixtureof kids and adults at your party. And really, who doesn’t like pizza?

Yesterday my daughter Jill from Boston came to stayovernight with her daughter Natasha (age 11) and two of her friends.

Daisy and Van came with their kids Starla and Roxy. My sister Susie and her husband Raywere there from Queens.

Many mouths to feed. Jill, the daughter of a lazy woman, suggested I call for pizza and shewould pick it up.

We put the kids double-cut pizza on one table, and theadults on the other. The weatherwas perfect for an outdoor 5PM dinner party. I served club soda with ice cubes as the beverage.

For dessert there were Creamsicles I had in the freezer.

Easiest dinner party ever.

That Flax Girl

2011-07-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

That Flax Girl

I love the Flax girls (and you know who you are). You like clothes that feel really good whenyou wear them.

You know you aren’t going for fashion plate of theyear. You don’t like to pay a lotof money for clothes. You’re finewith how linen looks when it’s taken out of the dryer.

You are into comfort. You never wear stilettos whenyou are wearing your Flax.

You shop for new pieces for your collection, even thougheverything you have bought through the years is still good.

I know the Flax girls well; I am one.

"Cleaning is a meditation" the Buddhists say

2011-06-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

Buddhists say that cleaning is a meditation. I’ve just added a new part to my mind/body/housework exercise. While I’m emptying the dishwasher and thinking fondly of everyone who gave me every dish, I put on Let’s Move Ulster and listen to Drew teaching the dance and I do it in place in front of the dishwasher. Fun and brings my multi-tasking to new heights.

Today I spent an hour looking through many photo albums to find the picture of Jill in front of the house in her white dress for the sixth grade. She wants me to send it to her—she emailed a copy of Natasha picture at 5^th grade graduation.

I couldn’t find it. We have a million albums in no particular order. This is going to take awhile. I found my journal from 2003 and 2004. Reading through it I see the same themes—I want to write a book “The Lazy Girls Guide” with the same rules I have now, enjoying my happiness and the happiness of my children and grandchildren and trying to figure how much was luck and how much was good planning.

I find the entry from November 5, 2005. It starts off with two quotes from fortune cookies:

“Happiness is not a reward, it’s a consequence.”

“The course of life is unpredictable—no one can write his autobiography in advance.”

I go one to say, “I feel that is exactly what I have done/ In the beginning I laid out the ground rule for a simple, happy life and by following them I have achieved exactly the kind of life I wanted.”

I knew that when I was writing this that I would read it years later an it would bring back those feelings.

Grandma Kvelling Club

2011-06-10T18:09:00.000-07:00

Today I started my best club yet! I’ve been starting clubs since I was seven years old. The first was a mystery club, where the members would rummage through the storage room in our apartment building in the Bronx, looking for evidence to solve crimes. Not so different from what Starla does when she instigates Roxy to join her spy team.

The woman’s group I had in my house in the seventies was legendary. Thirty women would sit around my living room, bitching about society in general and men in particular. That’s when Mike started the Woodstock Trading Post, to get me out of the house.

Another famous club that I started, The

Eating Club, was in the mid 1980’s. There were eight of us, and we’d take turns hosting the Club. My kids still ask me to show them pictures of the club.

The club I started today was with my friend Charlotte. It’s the Grandma Kvelling Club. It’s a place where we can show pictures of our grandchildren without eyes rolling. We love bragging about our grandchildren, but we know enough to limit it in polite society. This will be a place where we can get together and do it.

We can also use it as a place to talk about the problems that the grandkids are having.

Last weekend there was the Grandma’s Invocation by the Indigenous Grandmas.

400 people gathered to the celebration in New Paltz.

In the seventies when we started, we didn’t know where feminism would take us. We thought if we stopped the girls from playing with Barbie dolls and tried to get them to play with trucks there would be more equality between the sexes.

Forty years later we see the fruits of our labor. Our daughter could be anything they wanted to be—they are doctors, lawyers and architects. The sons of feminists were taught to help around the house and split parenting duties. The granddaughters can take it all for granted. They can surround themselves in pink and play with their Barbie dolls to their heart’s contentment.

They’ve grown up with mothers who do it all—although they notice there is an underwhelming number of women auto mechanics and road workers.

In the Grandma Kvelling Club we get to look back at our lives, the good and the bad. When we started our women’s groups we didn’t know how the future would turn out.

Also we didn’t have the capabilities for an online club like we do now. Everyone welcome.

In 1992 I set my seven rules of life, if you want to live on the path of least resistance.

2011-06-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

In 1992 I set my seven rules of life, if you want to live on the path of least resistance.

Twenty years later and I see how these rules worked for me.

You can’t change another person, its hard enough to change yourself. Just realizing the ways of human nature makes life so much easier.

Decadence in moderation. I can only say that it’s worked for me. Healthy, Wealthy(ish) and Wise. People stop me all the time to tell me how great it was to think “What would Robin do?” to get themselves out of doing things they didn’t want to do.

The Prior Investment Trap. It’s amazing how many people are caught in this. Doing things (like finishing a book they didn’t enjoy] because they were taught to finish what they start.

Don’t have more children then you have car windows. I see two parents and two children the easiest configuration for family life. It’s nice to have a built-in companion for your kid, and someone there to help out.

Always wear black. Twenty years later and I think this more than ever. Black and charcoal, you can never have too much of these. You can always mix it in with white, or even a splash of color, but you can never go wrong with black for the same reasons I thought then; sophisticated, goes with everything and never goes out of style, easy to pack, doesn’t show dirt and last, but certainly not least, it makes you look taller and thinner.

Give into the one who cares more. I’ve seen this in action and it works in most cases, except for those guys who always want to have their way.

No frog ponding. My daughter, Jill, a psychologist taught me this. In means to stop worrying about things that haven’t happened yet. My other daughter Daisy reminds me that I told her “worrying is just a bad habit”. We remind each other if we forget.

Enjoy a Magazine Day. This is something I never get tired of. Take a shower, a hot tub, straighten the house and then lay back with a cup of coffee and read magazines. My favorite is still New York Magazine. I also love Los Angeles Magazine and Vanity Fair. The New Yorker is too dense and people that get it can never catch up with the latest issue. Reading Facebook is a new pleasure. I love seeing the latest posts and pictures. The video of Starla and Roxy lip synching to Sisters was incredible to watch. To be able to see a picture of Natasha standing by the painting she did that got accepted into a showing at Town Hall made me so happy. We never dreamed of social networking, but now that it’s here I find it one of the great pleasures in life. Writing my blog is something I could never have done twenty years ago. I always used to write in my journal and hide it away. Now I write for the same amount of time and it’s read in many languages. People stop me all the time to tell me something they learned from reading my blog.

A new rule I learned in the last few years is, “Keep your mouth shut and your pocketbook open”. This works especially in the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship.

My kids grew up with these ideas and it’s seems to be working for them. All the family units work together, and everyone is very happy. So as they say, “try it, you’ll like it.

My ten minutes of,,,,,,,,,,,,,, On Oprah

2011-05-25T00:48:00.000-07:00

Me and Ralph Lauren are homies together.

2011-05-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Me and Ralph Lauren are homies together. We were both brought up on Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx as kids. He talks about shopping at an army/navy store. I shopped there too..

Our lives are running on a similar path, differing only in degree. His first job was hanging the returns in a department store. My first job was standing next to the cashier and putting the clothes in a bag at S. Klein on the Square.

He says one of the ways he feels pleasure was going on the Oprah Show. I felt similar pleasure when I went on the Oprah Show about fifteen years ago. Of course, the whole show was about him and his family and thousands of acres ranch in Colorado, while I was on the show for ten minutes to talk about getting arrested and going to jail after an illegal abortion. But they did show a photo of my whole family

Ralph and I have the same things, but his are multiplied by a thousand. He loves his western house that has hundreds of acres; I love my land as much even though it’s only ¾ of an acre. We feel the same awe and love of nature. We love the comfort of home.

We’ve both been married 47 years. He says his family is his most important thing and I feel the same way.

His kids say he never tried to get them to be anything but what they wanted, he just wanted them to be happy. I’m the same way with my kids.

Ralph has the same philosophy about clothes that I do, “they get better with age.” While he was selling wide ties to Bloomingdales, I was selling them skirts made out of used denim and old forties fabric. We both like clothes that feel old and soft.

He says he got where he is today--stores in practically every country in the world, plus thousands of wholesale accounts, by hard work, although he made it a point to be home for dinner with the family every night. I got where I am today by being lazy. I have two stores right next to each other in a small town and two houses, one on ¾ acre and the other has even less land, but it is on a creek.

The main thing we agree about is love of family. And I think we both speak with the same Bronx accent

I was sitting on the couch in my apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, when my water broke.

2011-05-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

It was May 5^th, 1969. I was nine months pregnant.

I was sitting on the couch in my apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, when my water broke.

I called my friend Joel, who lived in the next building, to come babysit almost three-year- old Jill. Then I called Mike who was working at the Brooklyn Psychiatric Aftercare Clinic

in downtown Brooklyn, about 10 blocks away.

He came right home and we walked the three blocks to Long Island College Hospital. Daisy was born 50 minutes later.

In those days you couldn’t find out the sex of the baby until it was born. As soon as she came out the doctor said, “oh, another girl” sounding disappointed. Not me—I was so glad to be having another girl.

We’d picked out the name Daisy after seeing the Natalie Wood movie, “Inside Daisy Clover”. She was 7 and 1/2 pounds with lots of black, straight hair. She looked like a Kramer.

Daisy fit into our lives easily. Every day I would wheel her to the park on Verandah Place. It was a perfect park—a sandbox for the kids and benches for the mothers. There were no swings to push or monkey bars to worry about.

I had four other friends who just had babies, with an older child in the sandbox. The babies slept, while we drank our coffee and talked.

I did that until the summer, when we went to the beach in Rockaway. We had a bungalow that was closest to the beach. Every day we went to the beach; Jill played in the sand, Daisy slept and I read. The ideal life. All the families would use their charcoal grill to make dinner, and the kids would go around begging food.

The next fall we moved to Woodstock. It was like living in the country all the time, but with the same kind of friends we had in Brooklyn.

Daisy and Jill grew up in Woodstock. Jill left to go to Oberlin College, and never came back to live in Woodstock.

When Daisy graduated from Sarah Lawrence she went to LA to visit a college friend. She stayed for 15 years. She came back home with a five month old baby girl, Starla, and a husband.

Now they live in Saugerties. They have another little girl Roxy.

Orleans - Still The One -with lyrics

2011-05-01T06:29:00.000-07:00

ON OUR 47TH ANNIVERSARY

2011-04-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

ON OUR 47^TH ANNIVERSARY

After forty-seven years I think I’ve figured out the secret to a happy marriage—pick right the first time.

There’s nothing as satisfying as being married to the father of your children and grandchildren.

Mike says his motto is “I don’t like to make trouble.” Amen to that.

The things that drew us together-- I loved his sun tan and how handsome he was; he thought I must be really smart to be in college so young and he liked my legs, are still in our memories. I hoped that when we had kids they would inherit his eyelashes. That he was smart and hardworking was a bonus.

Having a family business means we can have business meetings at the coffee table, and we don’t have to go out on rainy days.

We were lucky that we got out of Brooklyn before the major renovations/divorces scenario began.

What kept us together is our feeling of loyalty to our best friend, and the fact that we are both kindhearted and easy going.

So, thanks Mike. Another great year.

MAY 1, 1964... Forty Seven years ago... In a way, we had to get married. As I said to Mike, “it’s better than getting your arms and legs blown off in Vietnam.

In June we would be graduating from college and Mike would lose his 2-S student deferment. At the time we didn’t know that you could get a 4F for wearing braces. I had no doubt that I really wanted to marry him, and he was really scared of having his arms and legs blown off, or getting killed. He also knew he wouldn’t do well with a sergeant yelling in his face. He wasn’t sure he could stop himself from punching the guy out.

At first my mother was going to make a wedding for us at Nathan Strauss Jewish Center. Mike offered to make the potato salad and find the band. Every night when Mike came to pick me up she would ask “did you find the band yet?”

Finally she said, “how about I give you $500 and you elope?” That sounded great to us. There was a lot you could do with $500 in 1964—like pay three months rent.

“Let’s get married on May Day,” I suggested. We didn’t need to wait until we graduated. Mike already had a job waiting for him—teaching swimming to preschoolers for the Board of Education recreation program. I was positive I could walk in to the NY State Employment Service and leave with a job.

We had no student loans. Tuition at Hunter College in the Bronx was $24 a term and our parents were able to pay for it out-of-pocket.

May 1^st was a Friday. Our plan was to drive down to City Hall after Mike took his first aid final. Our only friend with a car, Kenny Stern, drove us and two other friends in his VW Beetle. I had bought a bright blue two piece outfit from Loehmann’s for the occasion.

A few days before the wedding, I went to my family doctor for the required blood test for syphilis. The doctor warned Mike, “don’t be a bull in a china shop.

The waiting room at City Hall was full and they called each wedding party in one at a time. The official who read, “Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” took his job very seriously.

Afterward we went to our new apartment—a studio on W. 24 St. in London Terrace, one of the first luxury apartment buildings built in New York. There was an elevator man and a Murphy bed. The rent was $136 a month.

My mother had bought my troussau—two nylon nightgowns that she got at Alexander’s for fifty cents each. We spent our honeymoon night in our new apartment.

Saturday night we had a big party for all our college friends. We were the first to get married and the first to have our own apartment.

We were told we were the perfect couple. One friend said, “If you guys break up, there is no hope for anyone.”

Not to worry, we are still together.

Now I can look out at it and it looks like a Steve Heller Fabulous Tables sculpture.

2011-04-24T07:31:00.000-07:00

This is what I’m talking about. 74 degrees and sunny.

I’m loving nature. I’m going around the outside of my house, picking pansies and daffodils for all my little vases scattered around. The coffee table will get one, the counter in bathroom, and all the window sills.

I’m feeling smug again. With gas going to $4 a gallon, I’m glad I walk to work. That ten minute walk uphill is a great way to start the workday. (When the weather is like this.]

When I walk around the corner I see the beavers have made a swimming hole for me in the wetlands right across the street from my house. They’ve eaten all the trees and used them to dam up the watering hole. I have my own Little Deep.

There is a huge pine tree that knocked down, luckily not in the direction of my bedroom. Now I can look out at it and it looks like a Steve Heller Fabulous Tables sculpture.

Someone has to be the happiest person, it might as well be me.

“Surrender.”

2011-04-12T10:10:00.000-07:00

“Surrender.” This was Shirley Maclaine’s final piece of advice on the Oprah Show yesterday. It was like “take the path of least resistance”. It was about the only thing I agreed with her about.

In an hour long show it was amazing how many things I thought exactly the opposite about. Shirley sits on her deck in New Mexico and sees UFOs.

“They hover in the sky disguised as clouds moved by the wind.” Gee, I would have thought they were clouds.

She believes in reincarnation, and that we have all lived many different places in many different times and that is why we are so interested in other cultures. I believe we go around once and that’s why I can’t remember a damn thing from a former life.

Shirley was married for thirty years and had an open marriage, with many love affairs. I love a closed marriage; no other loves.

She loves to travel the world. I am happy to travel to Saugerties, and Florida once a year. My idea of a good time is to just stay home and watch Oprah.

Shirley believes that something huge will happen on 12/12/12, because there will be an alignment in the universe that hasn’t happened in thousands (millions?) of years that will exert such a gravitational pull that we might just start the world all over. To me that sounds like the Jehovah’s Witnesses declaring 1964 the end of the world. The date is close enough to see who’s right.

Shirley is spiritual and I’m not. I believe in the scientific method. I love Shirley Maclaine. She’s funny and spunky. It takes all kinds, and that’s why they have chocolate and vanilla.

THE INSTIGATOR

2011-03-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

THE INSTIGATOR

Starla and Roxy had a sleepover last week. In the morning Starla wanted to hear stories from my childhood.

When I told her we had four kids in the family and only one bathroom. She was horrified, “only one bathroom!!!”.

Then I told her the Cimmeron Dude Ranch story. I was about 11 years old and we were away in a bungalow colony in the country, for the summer. One day a few us kids were playing on the patio. The women were playing mah jong and they told us we were making too much noise, and we had to go somewhere else. We went down to the swings. The men were playing pinachle and they told us to go somewhere.

I left in a huff, and the rest of the kids followed me. I don’t remember how I convinced the other kids to run away.

We walked along the side of a country road for about three miles, when we came across the Cimerron Dude Ranch. We spent the rest of the day there and only started to walk home when it began to get dark.

We were walking along the road in the pitch dark, when a car came bearing down on us.

It was one of the men from the bungalow colony. We piled into the car and he told us, ”the cops are out looking for you. Your parents are going crazy.”

When we got back my mother was furious. It was the first time I was called an instigator (but not the last time). My mother followed me up the stairs, pinching my butt all the way up.

That was the worst thing I ever did, until eight years later when I got arrested for having an illegal abortion. That’s a story for another day, when Starla is old enough to understand.

I am lazy, but I like things to look as though I am a Zen master.

2011-03-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

Organizing

I am lazy, but I like things to look as though I am a Zen master.

I spent yesterday organizing my files. The pink Penda-flex files, with the categories printed by a label maker that Natasha, my 11-year-old granddaughter made, arrived in the mail. The cold, overcast day was perfect for sitting at my desk and getting the job done.

I have a file cabinet to the left of my desk for all my business files. On the right of the desk are my personal files. Here I put my writing, in no particular order whatsoever, the category is writing. I have a separate file for each of my grandchildren, Natasha, Luke, Starla and Roxy. I put their school reports and artwork in their folders.

There is quite a lot of artwork that comes my way. Some of it gets framed and put on the walls, others are brought to Print Express and laminated and made into placemats. The rest go into files.

There are two different philosophies about filing. Some people keep every bill for seven years in case of an IRS audit. Then there are those who throw out a bill the minute it is paid, thinking that if they ever need a copy of it they could request it. I’m in the middle of that spectrum. I save my copies for six months, and then I throw them away. I have a file labeled “problems” where I put the things that are in dispute. These problems seem to go away by themselves over time.

I am lazy, but I like things to look as though I am a Zen master. Not easy to do. With my files looking neat, it feels as though I’m on my way.

2011-03-07T16:46:00.000-08:00

Just believe in Daisy

Once again Daisy has pulled it off. The challenge was to completely renovate my bedroom-- take off the floor and replace it with a new maple floor, rip out all the built-ins. the closets, the bed, the desk and a cabinet. And it has to be completely done in 28 days.

This job began because Daisy wanted me to get a king size bed for when the girls were sleeping over. Mike and I had been sleeping on a double bed all these years without realizing how squished we were.

I wanted to keep the floor. It was wide plank pine boards which were new in 1974, but now it looked like those antique floors that people buy old barns for.

She pointed out how old-school my closets were. She showed me the new Ikea closets, with drawers instead of shelves, so that you can easily see what you have.

That’s what clinched it for me. I always wanted a place for everything and everything in its place.

She planned to move the fireplace back to make more room. She wanted the walls pale grey with white trim. I had been extremely happy with my spring green walls. But I also know I should listen to Daisy. She gives me things I never knew I wanted. That king size bed, with padded leather headboard is incredibly comfortable. To think I would have lived my whole life without knowing about this, if I hadn’t listened to Daisy.

I thought I was clearing a lot of clutter when I moved everything out for the job.

But when it came to returning things to that room after it was finished, I was able to be ruthless. If it wasn’t useful, or beautiful it didn’t make the cut. Unless if it was something the kids made, that just had to be cute.

Daisy and I talked about the concept. Then Daisy printed out a list of everything we needed from Ikea. The next day she brought her contractor, Mike from Saugerties. He had his tape measure and he walked around the room, inside and out. He told us he could definitely do it in 28 days.

“I have guys that are willing to work until ll:00 at night, because they like the money.” He was glad to have inside work for the month of February.

While I was on vacation Daisy called me and told me she wanted to curate my walls. She used to work at a contemporary art museum, with a hammer on a leather belt, to hang the paintings.

“I want to use just family photographs.

Put all your paintings upstairs.”

I always listen to Daisy. When I came home I was blown away. Like those people you see on HGTV after a makeover.

Daisy was so right. The new floors looked amazing, and it was lucky we did it, because all the underneath boards were rotting, and needed to be replaced.

The grey walls were so restful. The wall that held all my paintings and photos, now had four photos in acid green frames, one photo of each grandchild. As they say, less is more. Something I always believed in, but couldn’t live.

I had have been wanting to spiff up my files. I thought of my 11 year-old granddaughter. There is nothing she loves as much as getting a chance to organize. On Anna Maria Island she had picked tiny, perfect shells and organized them in a system she invented. And then was thrilled when I recommended coffee filters to wrap each one. Her mother, my daughter Jill, was always that way as well. She loved when it was time to copy all my phone numbers into a new phone book.

I’m paying Natasha and giving her a label maker to do all new pendaflex files for me.

I feel like I have everything I need. Daisy promised me this is our last renovation, that everything else is fine. Why don’t I believe her?

LAZY DAYS

2011-02-28T15:29:00.000-08:00

LAZY DAYS

Ahh. It’s the last lazy day. Our month on Anna Maria Island is over. We’re heading back to Woodstock tomorrow.

The people on this island are all incredibly happy. When they pass someone they know, the conversation goes like this,

“How are you doing today?

“Fantastic. I’m having a wonderful day.”

As opposed to the people in Woodstock who are saying to each other, “Can you believe this shit? I thought the Ground Hog said only six more weeks of winter. I guess he got that wrong.”

The winter in Woodstock has been one of the worst on record. Snowing or sleeting nearly every day. On Anna Maria Island, in the month of February there’s been one rainy day, and a few that were partly cloudy. Basically it’s been sunny, and in the mid-seventies the whole month. Is it any wonder that I’m not ready to come home yet?

Anna Maria Island is seven miles long and half a mile wide. The residents, of which there are about 7,000, like to remind themselves that they are on island time. The speed limit is 35 mph. We didn’t have a car. If we needed to go somewhere, there is a free trolley that goes up and down the island.

Daisy put up a picture on FB today of the pond that formed on the frozen creek behind her house. I’m hoping that all the rain has washed away most of the snow. I’m looking forward to seeing family and friends and getting back into all my routines.

When I come back, I’m the first robin, the one that shows that spring is coming.

I am up for a Shorty award for humor and politics

2011-02-04T13:57:00.000-08:00

ROBIN KRAMER (@LAZYWOMAN99 on Twitter) was nominated for a Shorty Award

shortyawards.com

See who voted for ROBIN KRAMER in the 3rd Annual Shorty Awards, the awards for the best of Twitter.

50 YEARS AGO—A SUNNY BEACH

2011-02-03T13:46:00.000-08:00

50 YEARS AGO—A SUNNY BEACH-2

It was 50 years ago this month that Mike and I had our first date.

We came to Miami Beach during intercession for three weeks, partly on the $25 my grandmother gave me for spending money.

We drove in the back seat of a car driven by two of Mike’s swim team buddies—neither of us knew how to drive. We were 19 years old.

We had a room in a rooming house four blocks from the beach for $35 a week. Miami Beach was the farthest thing from chic. All the little hotels on Ocean Avenue had beach chairs on the front porches where 80-90 year olds sat, watching people walk by.

We had very little money. For breakfast we each had a hard roll with cream cheese and coffee that we ate on the beach. Lunch was strawberries and cream. For dinner we went to a Chinese restaurant on Lincoln Road. One night we went to the movies and saw “Dr. No."

It was the first time I had ever left the Bronx to go south in the winter. It was the best vacation of my life—young love, warm beaches, what could be bad?

It’s fifty years later and we are at the beach on the west coast of Florida. Instead of one room, we have a two-bedroom cottage across the street from the beach, with TV’s in every room.

Our routine hasn’t varied much. We eat Cheerios and milk for breakfast and have lunch at a beachfront restaurant. Now we have a heated pool where we can swim.

As we sit on a bench, watching the sun go down, I like to think of all the years we’ve been together and all the winter vacations we’ve had.

We’ve gone away with our little kids. After they grew up we’ve gone away with them and our grandkids and now it’s back to just the two of us. We still have things to talk about.

LA PETITE VIE

2011-01-23T08:06:00.000-08:00

LA PETITE VIE

woodstockdesignwaterfront.com

I prefer a small life. I like a small house, a small family, small pets and a small business.

I started Woodstock Design the same year that Eileen Fisher started her business. Now she has accounts worldwide and a chain of retail stores. I have two stores and they are right next to each other. I have a ten minute walk through a town that is still so small that we don’t have a traffic light.

I moved into a small house in 1970. Since then I have added a dining room, a screened-in porch, a bedroom and a wraparound deck. My kitchen is the size of a postage stamp which serves its purpose—refrigerator to hold milk, the cupboard to hold the dishes and the cereal, and a microwave for anything culinary.

Gardening is something else I like to keep small. I read in amazement stories about women who have extensive flower gardens, and vegetable gardens as well. I like to have pots of flowers on my deck and by the front door. I like to pick a branch from each flower and put it in the little vases I collect. I buy my vegetables at Sunfrost.

I like having the same husband I’ve had since I was 22. I like being married to the father of my two children. It’s so much easier at holidays and events like graduations and births not to have to think about new husbands and wives.

I love my little vacation house. I love that it’s only 20 minutes away and I get to drive there in my little VW Beetle. I look at the pick-up trucks and giant SUV’s in my rear view mirror and I’m glad I don’t have to drive something like that.

I like to do all my business in town. I strongly believe in keeping the money local.

Shirley MacLaine calls it the “law of reverse effort.” She says, “You want to stay afloat? Relax. Don’t fight or you’ll drown.”

I like to write small things. I try to keep it under one page.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

2011-01-19T09:49:00.000-08:00

FIRST THINGS FIRST

First things first. Two cups of coffee

bed, while watching the Woody Allen movie “Hollywood Ending” on HBO on Demand.

Next a hot shower. Then charge my iPhone, and check the status of my Facebook buddies.

Yesterday’s power outage put me in touch with what I was missing—coffee, toast, microwave popcorn, hot soup. I missed TV a lot.

It also put me in touch with what I still had. Every quarter when I pay the extremely high town water bill I think it’s worth every penny to be able to flush the toilet when there’s no electricity.

I love my gas fireplaces, which provide heat and light during power failures. I was glad I had enough candles from Candlestock, to put one in every room, with matchbooks from the Bear Café. I was so happy that there was one flashlight with batteries so that I could read.

This is the second day in a row where the tree branches are covered with ice. We lost power on and off all day and night. Today looks like it could be a repeat.

The thing that fills me with the most joy is knowing that I only have a week to go until I can leave this all behind.

What’s a girl to do?

2011-01-14T18:29:00.000-08:00

What’s a girl to do? It’s my age-old dilemma--clutter-free or sentimental? I always admire the clean lines of places with no clutter. But in my heart I can’t bear to be deprived of all my photos in their various frames.

I have a picture of Jill and Daisy, about three years old and six, with the three of us wearing vintage velvet capes. I always had

access to prime rags because we were in the business. This picture is on the bookcase, along with pictures of Natasha and Starla playing, Daisy, standing next to me in her blush colored Richard Tyler wedding dress, Jill with Natasha when she was one week old, Mike holding two-year-old Jill in Cobble Hill, Daisy at one and a half on the beach at Rockaway with my mother. The bookcase looks cluttered, but there’s nothing I can do.

After encouraging me to purge myself of all books I would never re-read, or the small section for lending books, Daisy brings me three shelves of children’s books and games. It looks cluttered but I love having them.

The most angst is being caused by deciding what I’m going to ditch in the bedroom. Should I save every bag in my collection? Most of them are great bags, but who needs 40 bags. Same with the shoes and slippers. How do I decide how many must go, and how many can stay.

Then there are the sweaters. I’ve always picked the best ones from every season. If it was one of my favorites, I’d get it in two colors. I see I always gravitate toward the black and grey cashmere cardigans. How many zip-up cotton cardigans with hoods do I need? Maybe if I arrange them by style and color they’ll look like a collection, rather than a closetful of black and grey sweaters, along with the random white or turq.

I’m going through my files and getting rid of practically everything. I want to start fresh when the renovation of the bedroom is complete. Wish me luck!

CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS LIKE REAL JEWS 2010

2010-12-23T15:41:00.000-08:00

CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS LIKE REAL JEWS

This year we will be celebrating Christmas Eve like real Jews. It will start off as it usually does, with Jill, Jeff, Natasha and Luke driving down to Woodstock from Boston. The decision about real tree—fake tree has already been decided. Natasha wants to go with a fake tree this year.

When they get here, Jeff and Natasha will start off by setting up the tree, while I search the house for all our ornaments. I might or might not find them. I bought extra hooks in Houst this morning, just in case I can’t find those.

After a lunch of cold cuts we’ll walk up to the store, (Woodstock Design) help with the last minute shoppers. Jill and Natasha will do the wrapping. At four o’clock we’ll set out the drinks—wine and club soda. We’ll set out the rugulah and cookies and watch as the town fills up with last minute shoppers and people waiting for Santa’s arrival.

Since the Wall St. Journal wrote about all the daredevil ways that Santa arrives, the town is packed.

Daisy, Van, Starla and Roxy will come and the cousins will get a chance to see each other. Everything will stop and we’ll all go out to see Santa. It’s like homecoming day in Woodstock, as all the kids who ever grew up here get to see each other.

Last year 10 year old Natasha, “I don’t think that’s the real Santa.” She baked cookies

Here comes the Jewish part. Since Jill and Daisy were kids we’ve always gone to the Bear Café for Christmas Eve. Peter calls us right after Thanksgiving to see if we want to book our usual table. We’d always see the same faces at the tables around us.

Last year it was too hard, with all the toddlers in the family, who couldn’t sit still for the whole dinner. This year we’ll be

Doing the Jewish thing, having Chinese takeout at home.

PROCRASTINATION

2010-12-12T14:17:00.000-08:00

PROCRASTINATION

I don’t like to procrastinate. I like to keep everything up to the minute, so that if something makes me fall behind, at least I was caught up when it happens.

I pay my bills ten minutes after they come out of the mailbox. I start my dishwasher the second it is full. I do my laundry every few days.

I also like to have backup. Or as Mike says, “backup to my backup.” This means four extra rolls of toilet paper, an extra container of milk, an extra dozen eggs.

This week was one of those times that made me glad I was up to date on things. A cold laid me low. I couldn’t even walk to the end of the driveway to get the mail.

The only chore I had been putting off was wrapping Christmas presents.

I am cursing the day my official gift wrapper Nellie went to law school and became a federal lawyer and had a baby. She’s too busy to wrap presents for me. I have to find another kid to take over this job.

Now all that’s left to do is find my iPhone and take a picture of what it looks like out my front door today.

ENTROPY PART 2 or I was born under a lucky star.

2010-12-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

ENTROPY PART TWO

Kosco sent a team of two guys who looked really experienced and really smart. At the end of an hour they had the gas fireplace working as well as it ever did.

“We cleaned the pilot light and replaced one part. It should be fine.”

Yay!!! What a relief. My newest problem is the washing machine, which Mike has overloaded, and left too many coins in his pockets. It said “nd.” I looked it up in the service guide, which recommended checking the fuse or resetting the circuit breaker, straightening the drain hoses and when all else fails, call for service.

Rich, from Synder’s in Saugerties, and I are on a first name basis. He says he will be here today or tomorrow. I’m not the least bit worried. He’ll either be able to fix it, or he can order a new one that will be here in a few days.

So once again, things work out well for me. I was born under a lucky star.

ENTROPY

2010-11-29T16:12:00.000-08:00

krashkramer.blogspot.com

ENTROPY

I should be used to it by now, after 68 years. But I still get sad when something wears out. Yesterday it was the gas fireplace in my bedroom. Last year I thought it was done for when Vermont Casting told me that the part I needed was obsolete and couldn’t be found anywhere. A local welder came and fabricated a part. It stopped working this morning. When the Kosco guy came, he said parts should never be welded, that it was unsafe. So now I will finally have to get a new fireplace.

I am someone who greatly appreciates when everything is working. Many are the days that I lay on my couch, under one of my throw blankets, and feel thankful that everything is working: the car, the washing machine, the dishwasher, the gas fireplaces.

Now the fireplace is out in the bedroom, and I know this time of year it has hard to get a new one right away. At least we have the heat pump that we installed two years ago, so the room isn’t totally freezing. There were snow flurries tonight.

I console myself that it wasn’t a part of my body. I didn’t lose a tooth, or a gall bladder. Compared to chemo and radiation, losing a fireplace that I’ve had for 20 years is minor. But it hurts nonetheless.

Enjoy your turkey

2010-11-26T23:37:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

I HATE THE MORMONS

2010-11-16T08:15:00.000-08:00

I HATE THE MORMONS

When it comes to hating religions I don’t think there is one I hate more than the Mormons.

I don’t care if consenting adults want to practice polygamy—it’s when the old men start marrying the 14 year old girls and make them start having babies.

I hate it when they toss out the 16 year old boys so that they don’t pose a threat to them. Called “the Lost Boys”, they are thrown on the streets of Salt Lake City with no knowledge of the culture at large, no education and only the ability to work hard, which they learned as kids.

Historically, I hate how the Mormons attacked the pioneers going West, and dressed like Indians so that the Indians would be blamed for the massacre. (See Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer)

All of this would be bad enough, but when the Mormons pour millions of dollars into fighting to stop same-sex marriage in California is just makes me think about how self-righteous and stupid they are.

The Buddhists say that it is a philosophy, not a religion

2010-11-14T05:58:00.000-08:00

The Buddhists say that it is a philosophy, not a religion, a philosophy that decides that four-year-old boys are the reincarnation of a former Dalai Lama.

In the past two weeks I have heard and read about people giving up their religion. It started with Julia Sweeny’s one-woman show where she questions everything she was taught as a girl growing up Catholic.

That same night I heard Shalom Auslander reading at the Golden Notebook salon about how he gave up his Orthodox Jewish upbringing, because he found it hard to believe in a God that would do terrible things to innocent children as a punishment.

This morning I was reading New York Magazine and there was a story about Jay Bakker, the son of Christian evangelists Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker. He has a tattoo that reads “RELIGION DESTROYS”.

Is it a coincidence that all this anti-religion stuff is coming out now? If I was part of the hippie religion (for lack of a better term) I would say there are no coincidences, but I’m not, so I think there are always coincidences.

When I saw the Dalai Lama in Woodstock a few years ago, people were acting the same as other people act when the Pope goes by. His philosophy of peace didn’t seem that profound. But maybe that’s just me.

I was never brought up with a religion. Being Jewish was a way of eating and getting to stay home on all the Jewish holidays.

Shalom Auslander has a problem with all the 600 or so rules in the Talmud. Julia Sweeny questions the concept of original sin.

Jay Bakker posts signs around Williamsburg that say, AS CHRISTIANS, WE’RE SORRY FOR BEING SELF-RUGHTEOUS JUDGEMENTAL BASTARDS. He says, “I started reading the Bible for myself for the first time and I was just blown away by it. All the stuff I’d been taught my whole life didn’t seem to be adding up to what’s in the Bible.” They say Bakker is practicing “cafeteria Christianity”, picking only the parts of the faith that suit him. He picks through the key issues that rankle modern-day Christians: homosexuality, premarital sex, abortion, women’s rights, marriage and divorce. He argues that the word homosexual didn’t appear in the Bible until 1958, and that has been translated from a Greek word that could be referring to the sexual practices of pagan idol worship. He views “sodomites” as simply people from Sodom. “And Sodom was destroyed for a lack of hospitality,” Baker says.

Peter Rollins says, “the reason why traditional Christianity works so well is because it tells people that things happen for a reason. We don’t want to suffer; we want an easy answer. You can fill a stadium with that.”

As I finish writing this, I hear “Back from Hell—the Sam Kinison Story” playing in the background on the Comedy Channel. He’s another bitter ex-preacher. He was sick of hearing the televangelists begging for money to build Christian amusement parks. “Promise that you have the power to heal, and people will flock to you.”

All this wouldn’t be so bad, if it weren’t for the fact that the religious right seems to be gaining power. I don’t want them dictating to me what I am allowed to do or not do

“listen to Daisy. She’s always been right.”

2010-11-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

The New Bedroom

Now push comes to shove. Daisy suggested that I have my bedroom redone while we’re in Florida.

Every time I listen to Daisy about renovation, she’s always right. The first thing she did when she moved back from LA was to talk me into renovating the kitchen. She drew a picture of my kitchen and showed it to Leigh Crawford, a designer who worked at Country Cupboards. She said it had to be a galley kitchen. By moving the refrigerator against the wall with the stove, I was able to get a sliding glass door, which led out onto the deck, let in all this light, and have a mountain view for the first time.

My carpenter and I designed the bedroom as a add on to my 1969 contemporary house in 1972. With the money I was making selling recycled cutoffs for $2.50 I was able to pay Ron Hahne the $35 a day that he charged.

The one-year-old house we bought in 1970 was small. It had two bedrooms upstairs with a full bathroom, and a half bathroom downstairs. My father-in-law advised us to build our room as big as possible, because this would be our only chance and we would regret it if we made it too small.

I told Ron what I wanted. “Skylights, big windows, French doors, clerestory windows, and wide plank pine floors.”

He’d say, “Whatever you want.” The only thing we disagreed about was the placement of the windows and skylights. I listened to him and he was right. For the new bathroom I picked out a marine blue steeping tub. Very 1970’s.

We had three closets, two for me and one for Mike. I never had my own closet before, and I was in ecstasy. We got a deck leading off the French doors of the bedroom.

When the room was finished at the end of the summer and we moved down, I felt like we had moved into our own apartment. Jill and Daisy were upstairs; each with their own room, and our bedroom was downstairs, on the other side of the house.

We had a double bed built in, and a desk that wrapped around the room. We had a wood stove. It was warm and cozy.

Now in 2010, Daisy informs me that the room is totally out of date.

“They have invented all these things since 1972. Ikea has closets, with drawers instead of shelves, so that you can see everything you have. You have to get a king size bed for when your grandchildren sleep over.”

Daisy has renovated her house with the goal of a place for everything and everything in its place. That’s what I want. I want to use this time to get rid of everything that doesn’t have great sentimental value and that I’m not using.

This morning I threw out ten years of daily calendars. I flipped through them and noticed the similarities. Haircuts and hair color every five weeks. Dentist appointments four times a year, trips to New York to buy, writing group meetings, women's' group meetings, flights back and forth for our winter vacation. They were just collecting dust.

I’d like to get it down to bare necessities, so that when I move into my new bedroom, there is nothing that I really do not need. I will have to find a place for my 37 photo albums; I can’t part with my family story.
Before Pictures

I worry before any renovations. I just have to repeat my mantra, “listen to Daisy. She’s always been right.”

Robin Kramer invited you to the event "Eileen Fisher Trunk Show"...

2010-10-30T08:24:00.001-07:00

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Hi,

Robin invited you to Eileen Fisher Trunk Show.

Eileen Fisher Trunk Show
Saturday, November 6 at 12:00pm
Location: Woodstock Design, 9 Tinker ST.

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Miracles

2010-10-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

I live my life surrounded by miracles. Who would have thought they could invent machines that would allow you to get a photo of the French toast your daughter just made, showing up on a screen. Amazing! I’m still amazed by electricity, phone lines, fax machines. How do they do that?

And what genius invented the DVR, allowing me to watch my TV shows whenever I want. I didn’t even know that the Housewives of Beverly Hills started before I saw it on Prime Time on Demand. I love that.

I am amazed at all the things computers can do. Pandora—a music genome project can pick out songs I love, songs I didn’t even remember.

I’m to the point where I can pay my bills on line. I get my paycheck automatically deposited in my checking account, with all the right payroll tax deducted.

One of my favorite new inventions is the gas fireplace on a thermostat. What an improvement from carrying wood all winter, without the anxiety of starting a chimney fire. The best is the miracle of genes, that allow the same

smile to be passed down for generations.

Infertility-Fund Raiser for fire victims—saving Woodstock’s wetlands.

2010-10-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

Infertility-Fund Raiser for fire victims—saving Woodstock’s wetlands.

The Kramer Colman Bolle’s were all over the media this week. Jill was interviewed by the writer of the Sunday Boston Globe op-ed page as an expert in the field of infertility It is the 25^th anniversary of the first IVF baby, and the inventor won a Nobel Prize this year.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/10/10/the_world_of_fertility/

JOANNA WEISS
The world of fertility
By Joanna Weiss
Globe Columnist / October 10, 2010
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WHEN BRITISH scientist Robert Edwards, the creator of in vitro fertilization, won the Nobel Prize last week, the world marveled over how routine his procedure has become. IVF, once feared and reviled, is responsible for some 4 million births worldwide, a stunning expansion of families and joy. In Massachusetts, the first state to mandate health insurance coverage for fertility treatments, IVF and its offshoots have led to the conception of more than 60,000 babies.
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And yet, as anyone who has gone through fertility treatments knows, the process — more than 30 years after the first IVF birth — is still shrouded in a culture of silence. In the brief time I spent in packed fertility-clinic waiting rooms a few years ago, I discovered some clear, unspoken rules: Don’t make eye contact. Don’t smile. Keep your nose in your magazine. It seemed counterproductive, even absurd: a roomful of well-informed, pragmatic people, taking charge of their lives in a positive way, feverishly pretending they weren’t there.
But Dr. Jill Colman isn’t surprised.
“It’s that classic club that you don’t want to be a member of,’’ said the clinical psychologist, who specializes in infertility and other women’s health issues. Years ago, when she ran support groups for the infertility association RESOLVE of New England, Colman had trouble assembling enough women who wanted to talk. In part, that was due to superstition. Women in the midst of treatment didn’t want to jinx the process.
But partly, Colman says, the trouble was shame. Fertility problems touched on those classic measures of self-worth: sexuality, virility, vitality. And, as academics have noted, the stigma of infertility dates back to biblical times, when “barrenness’’ was cited as the will of God.
These days, our culture encourages women to fault themselves for a string of different reasons, equally unfair — for concentrating on their careers, taking “too long’’ to meet the right partner, waiting until they’ve reached a measure of economic stability before they start their families. The notion that infertility is self-inflicted is used as an argument against mandated coverage. Yet no one asks if pregnant women should subsidize physical therapy for skiing injuries, or heart surgery for people who eat too much fat.
And while women’s biological clocks are one clear factor, infertility can be caused by physical problems that strike at any age. Problems in men account for 40 percent of infertility cases. And men, Colman notes, are even less likely to talk about their struggles. (In 20 percent of infertility cases, the cause can’t be identified.)
Colman wonders what the world would be like if pregnant celebrities — the actresses who use IVF and deliver twins in their mid-30s, or turn up pregnant at 47 — would be more forthright about medical intervention. What if those glowing magazine spreads were used to demystify the process, to talk about doctors’ visits and subcutaneous injections, instead of just strollers and baby weight?
But then along comes Jennifer Lopez, who spoke out against IVF in an issue of Elle this year. “I just felt like you don’t mess with things like that,’’ she said, whooshing us right back to 1978, when Robert Edwards’ first success, the birth of Louise Joy Brown, was shrouded in dread about playing God.
Women today, it seems, will have to erase the stigma on their own. RESOLVE of New England has tried to tackle the problem of waiting-room silence, executive director Rebecca Lubens says. Volunteers sometimes set up tables and hand out doughnuts, offering support and advice.
And Colman says that in her hometown of Arlington — which boasts one of the state’s highest concentration of first-time mothers over 40 — knowing glances across the playground often evolve into open conversation.
There is strength in numbers, and Colman suggests there might also be strength in time. Just as adoption once went from being a source of shame to a widely-acknowledged, accepted way that families are made, today’s generation of fertility-clinic kids might come of age knowing their own creation stories.
Perhaps in school, when they learn how babies are made, they’ll also learn about embryo transfers and intrauterine injections and intracytoplasmic sperm injection, words that evoke science, marvel, and great happiness. Here’s hoping they learn about Robert Edwards, too.
Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com.

Daisy was quoted in this week’s Saugerties Times about the fund raiser she was helping to organize for the wine store that was in a fire a few weeks ago.

Mike and I were on the front cover of this week’s Woodstock Times in a picture of the demonstration in front of the Community Center to prevent RUPCO from hooking into the water and sewer lines of the town.

We are fighting to save the wetlands.

-@Woodstock Times

When I sent the link to the Boston Globe story to my sister Susie, she wrote back, “Wonderful! Our family continues to be a progressive force for good in this world!”

I had never thought of our family as being particularly progressive. We were FDR democrats in a neighborhood where most people were, except for all the Communists.

The main political thing my parents did was to vote in every election. They prided themselves in never missing one.

The first political act I remember my mother doing was organizing the women in our building to fight against the new refrigerators that the landlord wanted to put in that would have raised our rent controlled rent $2.

In college I went on all the usual marches, against the war, for the rights of women to plan their own families, “our position no tuition” to keep the tuition $24 a term at the city colleges.

As an adult, my kids saw me speak before an audience of 10,000 people in Poughkeepsie for woman’s right to choose, and Mike and I go on the Oprah Show in support of legalizing abortion.

Kids learn what they see. Jill has volunteered to work at Planned Parenthood. Daisy has organized benefits when she sees a need. The first was when her employee who had three kids had a husband who lost a leg in a snowmobile accident and had no health insurance. Daisy planned a benefit that the whole town supported. This week she help plan a race to raise money for the Cahill Playground, where Starla goes to kindergarten. She also organized a benefit for the wine shop that burned down in Saugerties. So even though we don't consider ourselves a political family, when the need arises, we're there.

“I always wanted to be the Irish American Woody Allen.”

2010-10-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

CUTER THAN DUSTIN HOFFMAN

It’s the last night of the Woodstock Film Festival. The first day I saw Client 9—The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Really good.

The second day I saw “Nice Guy Johnny”, written, directed and acted in by Ed Burns. Great movie. He was at the Q&A. He began by saying, “I always wanted to be the Irish American Woody Allen.”

He told us that he made the movie in 10 days for $25,000. The star, Matt Bush, is likely to be the next Dustin Hoffman—only cuter, and the co-star, Kerry Bishe will be the next Scarlett Johanssen.

Business was booming in town. I wasn’t surprised that I couldn’t get a reservation for dinner at Cucina, but Violette? Every restaurant seat in town was taken. I had to make a salad and eat home.

Anyone who was in Woodstock that day saw it at its best. After two days of torrential rain, the sun was shining, the sky a clear blue, and the leaves just starting to change colors. All the Industry insiders with their black outfits with their badges around their necks made Woodstock seem like the hippest town ever.

Sunday morning Daisy and I went to the Actor’s Dialogue with moderator Martha Frankel and guest Edie Falco.

From the stage, Martha acknowledged Daisy as her stylist. Daisy stood up and gave Martha the turquoise handbag I had promised to bring her.

Martha brought out the best of Edie, who was both natural and revealing. Everyone got a laugh when she talked about the outfits she had to wear as Carmela Soprano. “They always offered to give them to me at the end of the season,” She shuddered.

At the end Daisy stood up and said, “you have given my husband and I so many hours of pleasure in the Sopranos and as Nurse Jackie, that I wanted to give you a handbag.” She went over to Edie and gave her a magenta handbag.

Martha told Edie that Daisy had named her baby after a character in the TV show
“Arrested Development”.

Daisy replied, “I was in the hospital, high on percocet when I did it.”

Later Martha stopped into the store to tell me that Edie couldn’t believe she got to keep the bag. “Really, I get to keep it?”

“That’s Woodstock” Martha replied.

When I got home from work I lay on my bed and looked at my poster from the Pet Parade. I thought of all the time, money and coordination Meira put into organizing the Film Festival. The Pet Parade took me one week to get together. What different temperaments we must have.

FACEBOOK—A LOVE STORY

2010-09-25T08:12:00.000-07:00

FACEBOOK—A LOVE STORY

I first heard about Facebook last winter when I was standing on line at the Woodstock Post Office. I overheard this conversation, “I talk to my best friend on Facebook every day. We live around the corner from each other, but we never see each other. We don’t want to leave the house.”

Facebook in a small town is a really good time. We have friends that always give us a chuckle. Then we run into them in town.

On Yom Kippur I wrote, “I’m celebrating Judiasm today by thinking about a hot corned beef sandwich from Schweller’s Deli in the Bronx. Within minutes I got a few “like” and within half an hour I had four comments. My friend Susan came into the store later to say, “I’ve been thinking about that sandwich all day. My mouth is watering.”

Some people are against Facebook because they have concerns about privacy. By moving to Woodstock you give up all right to privacy. Everyone knows everything about everybody. When you’re introduced to someone at a party, you already know who all their ex-wives and girlfriends are.

With a few sentences and pictures a day we get to know each other really well. The iPhone and Facebook work great together.

Every morning and evening I get photos of what my granddaughters have been up to that day. Kerry Cubas and Catherine Sebastian keep me up to

date on what’s going on in politics.

People who know each other as acquaintances get to know each other very well through Facebook. You know if you need help you just have to reach out to your Facebook friends. Julie Powell got someone to lend her a car for the weekend, Abbe Aronson got a ton of people to help her with her ALL LOVE ALL WOODSTOCK benefit at the Bearsville Theater and Martha Frankel got all the handbag hoarders to donate handbags to her.

When people say they don’t have time for Facebook, I always think, “what else could they be doing that’s more important or more interesting?”

"THE BUNGALOWS OF ROCKAWAY" THE JEWISH RIVIERA

2010-09-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

"THE BUNGALOWS OF ROCKAWAY"

THE JEWISH RIVIERA

“The Bungalows of Rockaway” is a documentary that was shown on PBS tonight about the history and fate of the Rockaways.

It brought back memories of life on the boardwalk and Jerry’s knishes.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but we had a front row seat to the desecration of Rockaway by the misguided urban renewal plans of Robert Moses.

From Beach 29th Street we could see the site of the removal of 7,000 bungalows, down to less than 450 today. Historians look back with regret that it wasn’t considered

a historic district.

Up until the early 1960’s the one bedroom, combination living room-kitchen with a covered front porch bungalows that lined the Rockaway shoreline were known as the Jewish Riviera. There were about thirty bungalows on each block facing each other, with a wooden boardwalk separating them.

Our piece of the Riviera was 29th Street. We had the bungalow closest to the beach. We paid $500 for the season, which was Memorial Day to Labor Day. The beach was as beautiful as any beach anywhere, wide with white sand.

Mike was working in downtown Brooklyn, and was able to commute every day, as did most of the fathers. I stayed at the beach every day with my two little daughters, Jill and Daisy. Everyone cooked outdoors on charcoal barbeques. The kids were able to go from bungalow to bungalow, begging for food.

The women played canasta and mah jongg on folding bridge tables. It was a great life.

Rockaway was the first place where I came into contact with Orthodox Jews. I was the shabbos goy, and they used me to carry their kids sweaters to the beach on Saturday, because they weren’t allowed to carry.

In 1968 I read an article in New York

Magazine that Mayor Lindsay was planning to tear down the bungalows to build high rise low income housing projects in their place. I was incensed. Would he ever suggest knocking down the beach houses in South Hampton? There were lots of other places where low income housing projects could go. Why end a way of life for so many people who had come to these bungalows for generations.

By 1969 most of the bungalows were torn down. Some high rise buildings had been built, but mostly the streets were empty lots. It was after that summer that I vowed to move to the country, because I loved how the children could open the screen door themselves and be outside.

As it turned out, those projects were a mistake the city made. They were crime-infested and dangerous. I’ve heard they’re beginning to knock them down now. The life of the Jewish Riviera could never be replicated. It’s a sacred part of New York history to everyone who lived there.

The documentary showed people in the remaining bungalows fighting to stop the developers from building outsized buildings in their community. It is such a shame that so much has already been lost, but I am grateful that my family had a chance to experience this unique way of living.

DAILY RITUALS

2010-09-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

DAILY RITUALS

Every morning, for probably at least thirty years, our habit was to eat Cheerios and milk for breakfast, in bed, then drink two cups of Folger’s Instant Coffee, at the same time, watching the Today Show. I like knowing what is going on and I like to gloat over all those people stuck in traffic getting to work.

After breakfast it’s into the hot tub, followed by an outside shower. So relaxing. Then I come in and start running the dishwasher and washing machine, and sigh with contentment at the invention of these machines.

A new part of my morning is checking my email, then Facebook and then the stats of my blog. Always cute pictures of the granddaughters, always people reading my blog in India and Russia.

If it’s a Tuesday, Thursday or Friday I am on my way to dance class at 9:AM. Then out to brunch with exercise buddies.

And then I have the whole day ahead of me to do whatever I want.

I have been fascinated by the reality show “16 and Pregnant.”

2010-09-03T14:20:00.000-07:00

Planned Parenthood—I really believe in it.

I have been fascinated by the reality show “16 and Pregnant.” I You see how hard this is on these kids. Their parents are usually mad at them, the father either flakes or has nothing to offer the mother. The one couple that gave their daughter up for adoption was agonizing about it.

I would love to see a reality show at Planned Parenthood called “Sixteen and not Pregnant”. These are the girls who stopped to think, “I can’t handle this now.” I’d love to see them being accepted into college and able to hang out with their friends.

And then I’d like to see a follow-up show five years later. I’ll bet the girls who decided to wait until they were ready for parenthood are having an easier time of it.

I was nineteen when I had an illegal abortion. I got arrested and had to spend the night in jail. I’d do it again in a second. I’m so glad Mike and I were able to graduate from college with our class.

The two daughters that I have are benefitting from the idea we had that it would be better for us to have a family when we were ready. We were able to send them to college. The cycle of upward mobility continues. They were each able to plan for the children they had.

I cringe every time I hear a girl not even allowing herself to entertain the idea of an abortion. It is such a life-changer to have a baby, everyone should think about the consequences.

Decadence in Moderation

2010-08-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

09/13/04

Decadence in Moderation

For a long time my motto has been "decadence in moderation". I believe in doing all those pleasurable things in life that are bad for you, but only moderately, or semi-moderately depending on what it is. I love to sit in the sun; I love to smoke a cigarette now and then.

My favorite drug is coffee. I hope they never outlaw it in this country or you will see an uprising such as there has never been. Every time there is a power outage in town you can see coffee-love on display, as people form lines around the block waiting for the coffee.

I believe that everything has its dose and its overdose. Overdosing on coffee makes you jittery and makes it hard to go to sleep. The right dose and you feel euphoric and ready to go to work.

Alcohol is a great relaxer in the right dose. A glass of wine before dinner, watching the sunset is just as relaxing as a half hour of meditation. Although how would I know, I neither drink nor meditate. It's those people that overuse alcohol, drink until they start hitting their kids, or lose their ability to drive, that give it its bad name. In the right dosage it's even good for you.

I was very pleased to read this week in New York Magazine that Smithers Addiction Treatment and Research Center on Manhattan's West Side, has come out for "controlled drinking". They have broken with the AA model. They have a program called Moderation Management. They let the patients decide for themselves how to recover. Cut down, rather than quit, no problem. Want to quit crack but still use marijuana, fine. The patients prefer to have a choice.

Since the beginning of time, all species have found ways to get high. Whether it’s a brisk walk on a beautiful day, or a puff of marijuana sitting on the deck at dusk, who should be denied life's simple pleasures.

Probably the most common pleasure that is hard to enjoy in moderation is food. As the owner of a clothing store for almost thirty years I have watched the struggle women have with food. I've seen women go on strict diets, lose weight, buy new wardrobes, only to see them back again, not being able to fit into any of their new clothes.

There is something about us that allows us to deny our pleasures, but only for a short period of time. As I heard Oprah say on TV last week, "Isn't it true that the minute you start a diet you're starving by ll: 30?"

A customer of mine, Jane Hirshman, wrote the book "Overcoming Overeating" which makes the point that by denying ourselves what we want to eat only makes us want it more. By giving into desires, they lose their power over us.

A JOYOUS DAY!

2010-08-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

A JOYOUS DAY!

This has to be one of the most joyous of days. First of all, the weather was perfect—temperature in the low 80’s with low humidity.

The day starts off with a video from Jill. It’s her and Natasha and Luke playing with balloons after his birthday party. They all look so happy.

Then Starla and her friends Tess, Olivia and Katie set up a lemonade stand in front of Woodstock Design. Roxy is helping too.

They shout to all passer-bys “LEMONADE AND HOMEBAKED COOKIES!” They look so cute that soon they have a crowd around them to buy the lemonade and cookies. They each have a little purse, and the big girls help the little girls make change. A lot of times the customer says “keep the change” or “I don’t have time to stop, but here’s a dollar.”

Photographers stop to take their picture. There was one who spent the time to pose them for a bunch of pictures. I asked him if they were going to be in Life Magazine and he said, “maybe”.

Starla was wearing a dress that she designed herself. When people asked what the money was for she said, “so my friends can buy a sewing machine and make their own clothes.”

Nachas galore.

Then I worked in the store for four hours. It was moderately busy. After work Mike and I had dinner at the Landau and I came home to sit on the deck and enjoy nature. The reflection of the sun setting hit my birdhouses that sit on tree stumps. I’m writing in my journal and reliving the day.

I know that anytime I re-read this it will bring a smile to my face.

With a boy you just tell them to go out and play.

2010-08-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

It was five years ago today that the first boy in our family was born.

Daisy and I were walking into a spa in Palm Springs when Jill called us from Boston to tell us she was having a boy.

The lady behind the desk told us, “boys are so much easier. With girls there is so much drama. With a boy you just tell them to go out and play.”

Baby Luke was in breech position, so five weeks before her delivery date Jill was supposed to go to her ob-gyn so she could try to turn the baby. Instead, her water broke the day before the appointment.

When Jill got to the hospital, it was decided that they would have to do a C-section because Luke was wedged in so tightly. Jill heard the doctor say, “quick, I’ve got one leg.”

When it was over Jeff called me to say, “the baby is perfect.”

The next day we flew to Boston to see our new grandson. Jill was tired. Natasha was the excited big sister. Although he was five weeks early Luke was able to go home as soon as Jill was ready.

Happy birthday Luke!

IN 1964 WE HAD TO GET MARRIED. It was the only way we knew to beat the draft.

2010-07-30T18:32:00.000-07:00

Wed. July 30, 2010

IN 1964 WE HAD TO GET MARRIED. It was the only way we knew to beat the draft.

We could have gone to Canada, but then we would never be allowed back. I thought it would be cold. If I had known about Vancouver my whole life might have been different. Or if we’d known that Mike could have gotten braces to get a 4F.

Then in the fall of 1965 we heard that married men were no longer exempt from the draft, you had to have a kid.

We spent a night walking up and down 19^th Street, from Third Avenue to Tenth Avenue, trying to figure out what to do. Canada or have a baby? I hadn’t been thinking of having a baby, but there were a couple of little girls I thought were so cute, and I guessed that if it were mine I would think it was cute,

I threw away my birth control pills and six weeks later I was pregnant.

I was working as a secretary in the Graybar Building in midtown Manhattan. Every day for lunch I had two poached eggs on whole wheat toast and a glass of skim milk.

I walked to my doctor’s office on 33^rd. Street once a month. If I hadn’t gained too much weight ( the maximum was 25 lbs.) I’d reward myself with a fried egg roll.

On the evening of July 29^th, I was sitting on the terrace of my 19^th Street apartment, reading Five Smooth Stones. I noticed I was having a contraction every five pages. We started timing them. They said we could come to the hospital when they were five minutes apart. We knew if you came in before 12 AM they would charge you for the whole day. We waited until midnight to hail a cab to take us a mile up Third Avenue, to the hospital.

Jill was born at 2:20 AM on July 30. I stayed in the hospital with her for four days, as was customary. Me and a doctor’s wife were the only women who were breastfeeding.

The men weren’t allowed in the room when the babies were there. They had to look for them through the glass.

At home Mike was carving a cradle. Now it would clearly be labeled a choking hazard.

They hadn’t even coined that expression. We carried her home on our laps. This was in the days before child car seat laws.

This was also in the days before disposable diapers. We had diaper service twice a week. A year later we rejoiced when they invented Pampers.

Jill was such an easy baby that I vowed I would always do whatever I could for her, and I’d like to believe I have.

I just never knew that sixty-eight would feel this good.

2010-07-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

Sixty-eight. What can I say about that, but that time goes fast when you’re having fun.

I know we spent three summers when the girls were very young in Far Rockaway. I remember all the summers they went to a horseback riding camp, Rawhide Ranch at the end of Mink Hollow Road.

I have pictures to prove all of this. And yet it feels like no time has gone by. Long ago I had vowed to pace myself for the long haul. I’m off work from Tuesday thru Friday, and those days fly by. Saturday, Sunday and Monday I work in the store. The weekends fly by as well.

I went from being the mother of two little girls to being a mother-in-law and grandmother to three girls and a boy. The grandkids are like reincarnations of their mothers.

Satchel Paige said, “you’re only as old as you think you are if you didn’t know old you were ” By that standard I would think I was 45, with bad knees.

They say time marches on. I just never knew that sixty-eight would feel this good.

Every birth story is different........

2010-07-14T06:10:00.000-07:00

Roxy -- July 14, 2008

Every birth story is different, but of all my grandchildren, Roxy’s was by far the most dramatic. I blocked out a week to stay at my Saugerties house, so that when Daisy went into labor I could get there quickly to take care of 3 ½ year old Starla.

Daisy was impatient for this pregnancy to be over. Her due date was July 14, Bastille Day. Daisy had been born on May 5^th, Cinco de Mayo. The doctor promised her that if the baby didn’t come naturally by the 15^th he would induce labor.

Daisy and Van planned to have the baby in Vassar Brothers Hospital because that was the only place that would guarantee an epidural, because it was the only place that had a anesthesiologist on staff around the clock. It was worth it to them to drive the extra 20 minutes.

It was 12:30 in the morning when Daisy called and told me her water broke and the labor was very heavy. I got there in five minutes. They ran out the door, and I fell asleep in their bed. It was a stormy night. “There were frogs jumping all over the road. It was like a horror movie” Van told me.

“I kept telling him to drive faster. I was screaming in pain,” Daisy said. On the way to the Thruway there was a train track and a very long train was coming by. Daisy called the hospital to tell them to get the epidural ready.

“Do you feel the urge to push?” the doctor asked. She did. “Go to your local hospital” he said, and if the baby starts coming out, pull over and call 911.”

Van turned the car around and sped to Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck. It was hard to find the Birthing Center and by the time they found it, the baby’s head was starting to show. Daisy and Van were put in a room that was labor, delivery and rooming in all in one. Daisy was screaming her head off. The nurses told her to stop screaming, and Van told them, “she’s not going to stop screaming.” From the time Daisy left the house until Roxy was born was exactly one hour. She was a big girl. She weighed 9lbs,14oz. Her head was small, but her shoulders were big. Her collarbone broke on the way out. That’s exactly what happened when Daisy was born.

They called me at 2:30 to tell me the baby was born. In the morning I told Starla she was a big sister. When I brought her to day camp she proudly told everyone, “I’m a big sister.”

After camp I picked her up and brought her to the hospital to meet her baby sister. She was still in her bathing suit. That’s when one of the classic family pictures was taken, Starla offering Roxy a cookie.

There’s no accounting for taste.

2010-07-11T16:56:00.000-07:00

There’s no accounting for taste. That’s the motto I live my life by.

It’s never been more apparent as I sit on my deck and gaze at the flower pots—half-filled with weeds. I don’t care. It’s peaceful and quiet—except for the hum of the hot tub and the chirping and pecking of the birds. It’s the simple life. I could go in and make a cup of instant coffee to enhance the experience.

Yesterday I was at Tom and Patty’s for the Garden Tour. This is what Andrea has been working on for the last few years. Beautiful flower beds (the word bed doesn’t do them justice), a rainbow garden, shade gardens, sun gardens, vegetable garden.

There are lily ponds and a stone quarry swimming hole. Among the gardens is a spiral stone house, made of all hand-cut stones, stone walls and sculptures. Just writing about all this makes me tired.

I think what I am doing is excellent for good health. They are finding out how important relaxation is to staying well.

It’s like the Woody Allen movie where he finds out that chocolate is good for you.

Now everyone is saying “learn to relax”|. Hey, that’s what I’ve been practicing for years, but I was calling it laziness.

COLOR At work (Woodstock Design) I am all about black, white and grey

2010-07-05T06:31:00.000-07:00

COLOR

At work (Woodstock Design) I am all about black, white and grey, but when I get home I like to see color. My walls are painted a green that is the color of early spring leaves. I have walls in aquarius blue, the same color as my VW convertible.

My dining room chairs are red. I have pillows on all the couches and chairs. My favorite is a forties housewife holding a pot of mac and cheese saying “Every night I give my family two choices for dinner—take it or leave it.”

I like the way the sun comes through the window wih the little rainbow that Starla painted on a coffee filter. I can put my Norah Jones playlist on the IPOD, put my feet up on the couch and just enjoy life.

I love the painting I did in red and oranges, with one line of blue, inspired by the painting in Ari Gold’s office. I have painting of a blue heart in a field of red that my granddaughter Natasha did. The photo that I love is me walking on the beach on Anna Maria Island; turquoise water, blue sky and two baby seagulls following me.

More color comes from the little blue cobalt vases filled with the flowers from my window box and pots on the deck.

Daisy convinced me to take out the stained glass window that came with the house. Now when the sun sets in the West, the shaft of sunlight electrifies everything. The house looks less 70’s.

I aspire to have a very zen feeling in my surroundings.. But I can’t control the magazines, photos and kids toys’ that make their way into the house on a daily basis. It’s like the monks that build sand castles on the beach, only to have them washed away every night. No matter how many toys and magazines I try to get rid of, new ones always pop up in their place.

My goal is a simple life. I’m trying.

FAMILY REUNION THE LAZY WAY

2010-06-30T05:51:00.000-07:00

Photo krashkramer.blogspot.com

FAMILY REUNION THE LAZY WAY

My sister Marcia, her husband and her 16 year old daughter were visiting the East Coast from San Francisco for the first time in two years.

A family reunion was called for and we invited all the relatives from New York to come on a Sunday. The guest list kept expanding and contracting so that I had no idea how many people to expect.

My usual trick for such an occasion was to have my sister from Queens to bring authentic Jewish deli from the city. She wasn’t coming this time, so I was on my own. I’ll usually do bagels and lox and cream cheese, but this was too late in the morning, 12:30 pm.

I decided on an Israeli theme. I got the hummus, baba ganoosh, stuffed grape leaves, and pita bread at Hurley Ridge Market. I also got a whole watermelon and half a pineapple. I knew more desserts would come from the properly brought

-up Jewish people from Brooklyn.

I ordered 35 falafel from Joshua’s along with sprouts. They gave me some tahini sauce.

For beverages I had lemonade spiked with pomegranate juice, (a trick I learned from Lucia Reale-Vogt), tap water laced with slices of cucumbers and lemons ( trick I learned at Primp Beauty Bar) and straight seltzer. There was also a bottle of vodka.

It was 90 degrees. We had a cooler, shaded area where I put out the buffet. People shifted from outside to in, where it was air-conditioned.

The party really took off when Daisy, Van, Starla and Roxy got there. They brought their own flour and rolling pin and started rolling out the five bags of pizza dough I got at Hurley Ridge. They brought their own toppings: salami, olives, cheeses, tomato sauce and more. Van started turning out the pizzas on the grill. Everyone stood around in amazement. They had never seen pizza on a grill.

The reunion was fun. Everyone had a good time. I threw away the paper plates and plastic cups, and cleanup was a breeze. I’m ready for the next reunion.

“KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND YOUR POCKETBOOK OPEN’

2010-06-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

“KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND YOUR POCKETBOOK OPEN’

“Keep your mouth shut and your pocketbook open” was the best advice I ever got from a customer at Woodstock Design about how to be a good mother-in-law.

“I bite my tongue until it bleeds,” another customer tells me.

If your children want your advice they will ask for it. They know how they want to raise their kids, how to spend their money and where they want to live. Giving advice that is not asked for is a sure way to create friction in the family.

Children learn by watching what you do, not what you say. They will either vow to be just like you or to make sure to be just the opposite. You don’t have to say anything, you just have to be.

If it were up to him, we'd be living in a trailer in California with very low overhead.

2010-06-17T19:45:00.001-07:00

Photo
-Krashkramer

If it were up to him, we'd be living in a trailer in California with very low overhead.

June 17,2000

"My job is to make you happy. To make you and Jill and Daisy happy," Mike tells me this morning. It is the most explicit he has ever been about what he considers his priorities to be. "I try to get up and exercise for an hour in the morn ing and keep the family on an even financial keel.. I figure if I try to make you happy, it will come back to me."

"That's called karma", I say. "What goes around comes around."

Every morning when I wake up Mike says to me, "I'm here to protect you, I watch over you, I watch your back. You don't even know all the ways I protect you." He was a lifeguard for many years, and this lifesaving streak is very strong in him. It's a very comforting way to wake up.

He knows very well the things it takes to make me happy. Sometimes he'll recite them to me, as though it an endless litany. "You need Woodstock. You need to be in California in the winter. You need your convertible, you need your friends, you need your store. You need your chatchkas. You need the TV on all night and a bedroom with seventeen windows and no window shades." He's got that right.

If it were up to him, we'd be living in a trailer in California with very low overhead. Unfortunately, it would take more than that to make me happy, and Mike knows very well that if I'm not happy then he won't be happy.

There are a lot of things we have in common and then lots of other things that we are polar opposite about. We've been together since we're 19 and we're both very sentimental about old friends. We consider each other our best friend. We know we can trust each other. In our thirty-six years together this trust has never been broken.

The thing about us as a couple is how lucky we have been. Are we really lucky, or do we just happen to know what to do when we get in the right place at the right time. The very few times we ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time {like the time we got arrested for an illegal abortion because the doctor's phone was tapped) we managed to turn around to our advantage, (like getting to go on the Oprah show and meet Cher, Demi Moore and Cissy Spacek and almost be a part of history.) Sometimes I entertain the notion of good karma and think it accrues to our family because Mike saved so many lives when he was a lifeguard, and even a few others just as a civilian. But maybe good luck is in the eye of the beholder. I know I feel really lucky.

The first man who ever loved me was my father. He was the most devoted father I have ever seen, and I've seen many. I didn't have to come up to any standard to earn his approval. The first story ever told about me was that when he was coming down in the elevator at the hospital after I was born, someone said in yiddish that I looked like a plucked chicken. My father said, "I thought you were beautiful." I felt he would love me no matter what I looked like. Looking back I see that my parents had no competition between anyone for love. It was not overt, ours wasn't that touchy-feely type of family, but it was understood. My father bought little presents for us every night. We'd run to the door to meet him and see what he bought us. He and my m other would kiss in the doorway of the kitchen. I never gave a thought to these nightly rituals, but looking back I see what a secure childhood I had. When Mike first said to me, "I love you, I think," I thought to myself, he loves me.

Growing up, I was a tomboy. I played mainly with boys and got to learn about them. It's also given me an ease around men that lasts to this day. When it comes to mechanical things, and things that are high up there is nothing like having a man around. Mike can always figure out how to get the clicker working, and when I get stuck on the computer he can always get me to where I need to be.

But there are certain conversations that you can only have with your girlfriends. There is some of that men are from mars thing. Women are much more cooperative with each other. Men have that comp

etitive edge. It's a basic different orientation toward life.

Mike and I work as a team. He can do the things for the business that I would have trouble with--anything to do with math and bossing the employees around. I can easily do the buying and working the store. We plan the ads together. We've divided up the housework to the things I do--load the dishwasher, buy the food, and make the bed. He does the cooking and mows the lawn. The things that neither one of us wants to do we hire someone to come in to clean, and someone else to do handyman work.

The things we have ongoing battles over are the things that can't be compromsed. I consider myself in charge of lifestyle. He would like to sell everything out so that he'd never have to work again. This would mean cutting down on lifestyle and I'm not ready to do that, but I know that in a few years, when I feel that we have enough money to live for the rest of our lives without working, I'll be willing to do that. As for now, I like having two houses, a two month vacation in California, and money to get as many magazine subscriptions as I want without having to count my pennies.

I appreciate what a good father he has been to our two daughters. He has never said anything to them that I would not want him to say. He's helped them to grow up to be strong, independent women. The only fights we ever had about them was when Jill was going to be a foreign exchange student in Isreal the summer they were in a war with Lebanon. I argued that driving on route 28 was as dangerous as living in Isreal, and I won that fight. When Daisy was going to Mexico with her seventh grade class in an alternative school, he fought to prevent the trip. I fought to allow her to go, and I won that fight as well. Later, Daisy told us that her teacher was driving the kids around drunk on narrow mountain roads. If Daisy had been killed that would have been the end of our marriage. Luckily she came home without a scratch.

Mike will go to a movie with me that is a romantic comedy, but if its purely a tearjerker like Beaches then I go with my girlfriends.

I am easy about socks on the floor and clothes strewn on chairs. Its not a bad trade-off for not having to cook.

THIRTY YEARS AGO TODAY SEPTEMBER, 2000

2010-06-11T06:10:00.000-07:00

THIRTY YEARS AGO TODAY

SEPTEMBER, 2000

It was thirty years ago today that we moved to Woodstock. It was just this kind of September, the sky a blue that you never see in Brooklyn, and the air so clear, as we'd say in Rockaway, "you can see all the way to Brighton Beach". On the CD player is The Band, the very same album they were rehearsing at the Woodstock Playhouse then. I'd sit outside and listen to the music, and look up at the sky and think, "I've died and gone to heaven."

Thirty years later and I still feel the same. I came to this town as a 28 year old girl with two little daughters and a husband who worked in Poughkeepsie, in a state mental hospital, and here I am, a 58 year old woman with two grown daughters, a granddaughter, two clothing stores in the center of town. I write about lifestyle for the Woodstock Times, and basically live an easy-as-pie life. Mike was able to quit his job with the state, and now we're even getting a $247 a month pension from it. In March our mortgage will be paid off. We've added on to our little house.--great bedroom with French doors onto a wrap-around deck with hot tub and outdoor shower. We've landscaped our place to be totally work-free, and it's definitely reap what you have sown time in our lives. A day like today is the reward for a life well lived.

The photo that Mike took of the kids that first fall in Woodstock is now a best selling post card, sitting on refrigerators with magnets, all over the country. It shows Jill and Daisy, hugging cheek to cheek, Jill in a fringed leather vest.

Woodstock has more than fulfilled my dream of finding a place that was a simpatico community. I love walking up the hill to work with my headphones on, listening to the soundtrack to Hope Floats. I stop and talk to the many acquaintances I have. There is a whole generation of people I have grown up with. There are many who couldn't make a go of it here, or chose to live in Hawaii or other such places, but the ones who are still here are the survivors. Woodstock has been very, very good to me. It has allowed me to develop my path of least resistance. When I gave a reading at the library and there was standing room only and it was one of those peak experiences.

In Woodstock I've been able to have long time exercise classes, with coffee at Heaven afterword, a writing group that has kept me writing every week as well as getting to know people on a level that could never happened as quickly in another forum.

I've just started working as a mediator in Woodstock Family Court and last night I had a successful mediation. The parties told the judge, Richard Husted that I was great. Richard called me back into his chambers, and said, "this represents a hug and a kiss. Thank you so much. You saved me so much time and hassle."

My friend Jay Cohen was in court for a speeding ticket and I sat down next to him. He sounded in awe "you're the rabbi." I do think I've found my calling.

I'll never forget the first time, I was thrilled. It was at Bloomingdale's.

2010-06-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

Excited about clothing

12/29/02

After thirty years in the clothing business, I have to say I've grown blasé to clothes.

I see other women my age are not as excited about clothes as the teenagers are. I'll never forget the first time, I was thrilled. It was at Bloomingdale's. Mike and I were newlyweds and we were shopping with our gay friend, John Kramer. I put on a tan pea jacket with a crepe lining. It was like the pea jackets they sold at the army and navy store, but so much finer and so much more expensive. I don't remember how much it was, maybe $145, which was much more than I had ever spent. "You should get it", Mike said, endearing him to me for life, and John Kramer concurred. I wore that jacket with a raccoon hat that tied under my chin and felt as chic as anyone in New York.

Now I get to watch other girls get excited about clothes. I love the look when someone with a perfect young body puts on a Betsey Johnson dress and either her boyfriend or her mother buys it for her. The pleasure that everyone is taking in the transaction is so much fun to watch.

This summer I went shopping at the flea market with my two and a half year old granddaughter Tashy. She only wore dresses that swirled. I knew the syndrome well; her mother had been exactly that way at her age. We found a stall selling tie-dyed rayon dresses. Tashy tried on a dress and twirled around. The dress didn't swirl. The man running the booth offered her another dress. She put it on and twirled. This time the dress swirled around with her. She felt the excitement of finding new clothing that met her criteria.

Finding clothing that fits well, that is comfortable, and makes you look better than usual, is always a happy experience but the first time will always be the most exciting.