If you’re looking for something fun to do on this gorgeous Sunday, come to the Apple Festival at Peddler’s Village in Lahaska, PA. While you’re there, stop by the Canterbury Tales Book Store between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. and say hello. I’ll be signing my books, and munching on everything apple (including the world’s best chocolate covered apples!)
My Turn
So here I am: Author of three books about relationships including one that specifically delves into the issue of mothers-in-law. From my very secure and confident perch I have given advice to women and daughters and sons since 2005. My wisdom has been discussed and considered by countless readers (or so I’d like to think). I’ve absorbed and then passed on the earnest suggestions of many experts in the parenting field as well as those from other moms and their children. Now, after six years, I get to practice what I preach.
Gulp.
I learned a few weeks ago that I will soon become the subject of my book. My daughter, the older of my two children, has become engaged and plans to wed next summer. Before you say to me, “Uh huh, let’s see how you feel now that the shoe is on your foot!” – let me just say the following:
First, I love my future son-in-law. He’s smart, hardworking, compassionate and, above all, adores my daughter. He’s made it easy for me to approve. I’m not sure he’s yet read Chapter Two of It’s Either Her or Me but he’s instinctively following the single most important piece of advice: Always, always, always put your wife first.
Second, I also love my future mechutonim (a unique Yiddish word that describes the relationship between the bride’s parents and the groom’s parents). Coincidentally, before our kids ever met the groom’s mom and I had gotten to know each other through some mutual friends. She generously attended the book launch for It’s Either her or Me and clearly understands how our kids are making a life for themselves. Plus, she loves my daughter.
Whew. Though what’s not to love…
Third, my future son-in-law has not one sister, but two. And from what I can tell they are fond of my daughter, as she is of them. Matter of fact, they seem pretty excited about their older brother marrying my daughter, who, having read the early, raw versions of It’s Either Her or Me understands her role in being a great sister-in-law to her husband’s siblings.
I know the road to wedding planning and thereafter is curvy at best and potholed at worst, but I’m hoping that after I have shamelessly just plugged my book, that I will, in fact, follow my own advice.
09
Oct
2011
Oct
2011
Bookstores: Lost in Time
I have nothing against technology. I love my iPhone. I appreciate getting more mileage from my car. I love being able to research obscure information in a matter of minutes (Did you know “actress who wore fruit on her head” does, in fact, turn up Carmen Miranda?). But technology has destroyed something that has given me, and no doubt many of you, countless hours of pleasure: The bookstore.
This is not just because I’m an author and bookstores are my stage, but I’m a reader, a lover of browsing, a toucher of paper covers. Bookstores are to me what candy stores are to sweettooths (though I’m one of those, too). And I have to admit to suffering a level of heartbreak with the closing of so many.
Of course, Borders, a place where I have done many readings and signings over the years, is no more. We can criticize them for not getting on board with the eReader like Barnes and Noble and Amazon did. We can say they had become more like gift shops and cafes rather than purveyors of literature. But really, they closed because we are no longer buying books in traditional ways.
Last week, I walked into Atlantic Books in Cape May, NJ, a shop where I have sated many beach reading desires over the years and where I have held my own book signings. I was assaulted by a STORE CLOSING banner. Like a vulture that comes upon that unexpected carcass, I went in and gathered up a pile of reads at a going-out-of-business discount. I may have been happy at my acquisition but I’ve been grieving over the knowledge that it won’t be there the next time I visit that town. In fact, there will be NO bookstores at the shore since Atlantic is shutting all of them– unless there’s some tiny, independent that is still surviving that I don’t know about. And if you do, PLEASE tell me.
How did we let this happen? After all, books have been around for 500 years!
I am reminded of that scene in the 1960 movie “Time Machine” which is based on the H.G. Wells novel. The main character “George,” played by Rod Taylor, flies on his time machine into the future to a world of apparent paradise, where everyone is healthy, youthful and serene. (The morlocks living underground are another story). George, desperately wanting to understand how their “future” developed, asks if they’ve written anything down, you know, like in books. “Books? What are they?” Then one clear-eyed young man has a vague memory. “Books!” And he brings George to what must have once been a library. The young man pulls back a dusty curtain and an ecstatic George reaches for one leather-bound book. It disintegrates in his hand.
The shame of all of this is that this scene is no longer farfetched. Books in our future will be as unfamiliar to our youth as phonographs and the Pony Express are to us today.
I’m trying, really trying, to understand that this is technology, and the price we pay for a better, safer and longer life is often at the expense of relinquishing something precious. But I can still mourn. I think you might even understand.
If not, then just read my lips…
20
Sep
2011
Sep
2011
Wedded Bliss
I used to think Salem, MA was only about witch hunts. Now I picture a gorgeous harbor teeming with gleaming boats, the house where Nathaniel Hawthorne was born, scrumptious and plentiful lobster rolls, and one glorious wedding weekend.
Lucky me. I got to attend the wedding of Morgan and Lindsay in the unique position of being a guest of both families. I’ve known the couple since before they began dating at 15, which was 11 years ago. My son, who was best man, his girlfriend, and all his old high school buddies were there. I hate to throw around clichés like magical and spectacular. But honestly, that’s what the wedding was.
It was very untraditional. A magnificent Vera Wang bridal gown in a hue between ivory and butter yellow, and belted around the waist with a long black sash. A multi-tiered artistically rich wedding cake that was cut and put out on plates without any cake cutting ceremony. No throwing of the bridal bouquet. No dancing until after we had finished our meals. (You could actually enjoy the food and talk to your table mates without screaming.) No tchotchkes on the table, just exquisite displays of yellow flowers.
With all the traditional wedding details avoided, the evening turned into one huge, outdoor party with a truly awesome band and a bridal couple that looked to thoroughly enjoy each and every minute, as well as each other.
Even the weather was perfect, and the venue remarkable. The wedding was held at the majestic Crane Estate. Picture a mini Versailles – maybe not so mini – in Ipswich, MA. The view from the slate patio where we partied for hours was of rolling green hills spilling into the ocean. It was dreamlike.
We boarded three big tour buses to go from our hotel in Salem to the estate so no one needed to drive. The party continued throughout the night with some hardy souls, most notably the bride and groom still dressed in their wedding attire, watching the sun come up. Amazingly the bride looked as gorgeous then as she did when she stepped onto the lawn with her parents.
I’ve spent much too much time today avoiding my work so I could look at the hundreds of pictures on Facebook and relive the wedding. I’m sure I’m not the only one doing this.
Morgan and Lindsay: I know you’re somewhere without Internet and still basking in the events of the past weekend. Just so you know, the rest of us are, too.
Love you guys.
02
Aug
2011
Aug
2011
Ethan at Area Code 908: I Owe You
The other day I was in Cape May, NJ for a long weekend. I got up early and rode my bike to the beach to join a yoga class I’ve taken before. The class was a bit disappointing but the experience was spectacular. The sun was still on its way up, the ocean waves were vibrant, and the sand was only randomly spotted with humans. I left the beach feeling rejuvenated and looking forward to heading home and making breakfast for my family.
I climbed on my bike, took a quick look at my phone to check the time, and rode home.
As soon as I arrived at my back door, I realized my wallet, which contained my brand new iPhone, my driver’s license, several credit cards and a little bit of cash, was missing. I ripped apart my yoga bag, reexamined my bike basket (it’s wire and see-through so that tells you the level of my panic) and nothing.
I spotted my boyfriend Jon on the front porch and asked him to give me a ride to the beach. We climbed in the car and drove the approximate 2 ½ miles to where I had practiced yoga. So much for any residual serenity.
When we arrived at the spot where I last remembered looking at my phone, and therefore had possession of my wallet, I jumped out of the car and told Jon I would retrace my steps back to the house and would he ask some of the local shopkeepers if anyone had turned anything in.
In my flip-flops I began walking in the street intently looking ahead and from side to side. I figured there were three possible scenarios. Some less than honorable person thought “Bonanza!” and was now enjoying a shopping spree at my expense. Some honorable but rushed person saw it lying in the street and moved it out of harm’s way, say to the curb (where some less than honorable person….) or some really honorable person picked it up and turned it into authorities.
The only good thing about my walking slowly back to the house – despite cursing my earlier circuitous scenic bike route home – was that I began to calm down and consider what needed to be done. First, I would call lifeguard headquarters and then the police department to see if anyone had found it. Then I would go online and check out PA Department of Transportation to report a missing license. Then I would go through my larger wallet and try to figure out what credit cards I had so carelessly thrown into my smaller one. And I would contact those companies.
My call to the lifeguard headquarters turned up empty but my call to the police was successful. Someone named Ethan had found my wallet and had left his cellphone number for me. Ethan’s dad answered the phone. His son – about 14 or 15 – saw the wallet lying in the street right by a parked SUV. Assuming it had fallen out of the car, they left a note on the windshield saying they had found their phone and wallet.
Those people called Ethan and said they had lost their phone and that the missing wallet and its contents belonged to them. But when Ethan’s dad asked them for the name on the license, they obviously didn’t come up with mine. That’s when Ethan said to his dad that maybe someone on a bike had dropped the wallet. Yay Ethan! My hero.
I met the family at a bagel shop less than a block from where I had done yoga. I was grateful but also so unsettled that I never got more than his first name and his dad’s cellphone number. So if you are out there Ethan, let me know, so I can give you a proper thank you.
It occurred to me after I left the bagel shop that if you hadn’t found my wallet, the guy in the SUV probably would have.
20
Jul
2011
Jul
2011
