Morocco: and a tale of Winter coping mechanisms, Part 3: routine beauty

In winter, especially in winter, routine beauty - everyday loveliness - is what the doctor should order. Little luxuries that boost your mood when the days are short and cold {and the nights are long and even colder}.

Ah, new towels, pretty plates, a good hairbrush, cloth napkins, lemon soap, patterned pillowcases, a fluffy robe....

Invest in something for everyday -- just for you or to share.  

Yes, something like the beauty of delicate Moroccan tea glasses.....So nice for sipping tea in mornings and evenings. {Those Moroccans....oh so clever.} 

What elements make up your routine beauty? Do tell....

{Feel Better Campaign, brought to you by Me.}

See Part 1 of the Feel Better Campaign right here and Part 2 right here. 

Manhattan: and a tale of food and marriage in a relationship's August

I was with her in a Manhattan restaurant, named August.

The kind of restaurant with beautiful girls...

and martinis made with the vodka of your choice and...a twist.

 She sipped her drink.  And then she told me.

He asked me, she said.  He asked me to marry him.

Oh, I replied. Oh!

You see they had already been together, lived together, for 12 years.

Her ring twinkled like a star -- like a star so very close in the sky.

The waitress brought us the menus.  My friend took her time before she ordered.

Mussels, perfectly broken open, the tender insides exposed.  Fresh greens, just wilted.  Toast, so comforting.

Of course.  Of course.

I wondered then what it would be like to marry someone you had already been with for 12 years.  Past the time of the racing heart, past the time of the first and second and 497th passionate kiss.

After the blush had worn off and there you were, with no make up.  And he knew you, really.  And you knew him, really.  And there was no point in pretending.  No point at all.

To marry then, yes, to marry then... not in the Spring of your relationship

but in the August.  

 PS Would love to hear about your August or non-August wedding.

PPS New beautiful stock of Moroccan Beni Ouarain carpets in my shop, Red Thread Souk.  

New York: and the tale of the MIH Marrakesh Skinny

Is it right, I ask you, is it right to buy a pair of jeans because they are called the Marrakesh Skinny?  Why of course, it's not right.

But oh, if they fit you in a way that pulls everything in and smooths everything out and are so comfortable that it's plain old suspicious, why then it's quite right.  Especially, when they're called the Marrakesh Skinny. 

And so I did.

PS I also bought this and this (velvety, love) and this.  And I bought 3 pieces from this designer and the perfect sunglasses from this designer. On the home front I bought this silk cushion {so much prettier in real life} and Pantone toothbrushes from here. :-) 

Manhattan: and a streetwalker's tale

Before Marrakesh, before Windhoek, before Kathmandu, before Dhaka, before Dakar, before Bologna, before Washington, before Paris, before Wellesley...

there was Chappaqua. At least for me there was.

Chappaqua, a town with good roads for bike riding and excellent bake sales. A town not yet made famous by resident presidents. A town where the neighbor's bathroom bidet was the source of much intrigue and "talk" (but I digress).

Yes, Chappaqua. That's where I spent years growing up. 

But on the weekends, there were visits to my grandmother in Manhattan.  It was during walks in uptown and downtown that she taught me about everything that was important.  About things that were right side up and upside down and knowing what mattered most. 

I'm back walking those streets again.  (Perhaps the very streets where my father walked Eleanor Roosevelt's dog, a task for which he was handsomely paid 25 cents.)

Exciting things are happening, and I'm sorting out the right side up from the upside down.  Sometimes, it's trickier than it seems.

 Image found here.