city girl
snow place else
While LA is certainly home sweet home to this self-professed California girl, this time of year brings a certain fondness for my early years in New York City. There really is no place else like it during the holidays – at least in my growing-up memories. Back then, New York City in December had a […]
love notes
When asked which city I prefer, New York, where I was born and bred, or LA, where I’ve lived for the past 26 years, my answer is San Francisco. I’ve been in love with San Francisco from the first time I visited it at age six (I even grew up to write a novel that […]
animal quackers
Remember that childhood game of duck, duck, goose? For the uninitiated, here’s a quick explanation. A group of kids (the more the better — an entire kindergarten class, for example) sits cross-legged in a circle on the ground. One child walks around the circle, tapping each seated child on the head, saying “duck” each time. […]
counter point
As a single working woman in New York for many years — many years ago — one of my favorite lunch-hour pursuits was to browse those big, beautiful department stores, some of which no longer exist. Stores like B. Altman, Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s (the last two are still there) offered something […]
out on a limb
So there’s a bunch of things that apartment-dwelling city people don’t take to naturally — driving a mini van for one; clearing snow from a driveway that we don’t have for another; and trimming trees for a third. And it’s this last one that came into play just this weekend, as the overgrown (read three-story) […]
how to open doors with just a smile
It’s funny the kinds of things that change as we age. When I was in my 20s, I remember being able to do exactly what Glenn Frey and Don Henley wrote about vis-à-vis city girls in Lyin’ Eyes — I knew “how to open doors with just a smile.” And they were right. In those days, […]
one girl, two cities
A lot has been written about New York; even more has been said about the city that has given Chicago an inferiority complex, Los Angeles a cultural arts complex, and San Francisco, well, honestly, I think that San Francisco is too busy dealing with its LA insecurities to worry too much about New York. To […]
rice on your head 