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I Danced on a Broadway Stage!

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:03:13 -0500

Matthew and I got to dance on a Broadway stage yesterday! And today I am still on a Hair high – still euphoric from this amazing theatre experience.

My parents’ Hair album was the very first music I listened to as a child, and although I had not a clue about the lyrical part of things back then, even the tiniest nuances of the music have stayed in my heart all these years. Talk about setting myself up for crushing disappointment...

Instead, the show had me captivated from the very first note of Aquarius til the moment Matthew and I galloped triumphantly down the steps from the carpeted stage after joining the cast and others from the audience in a joyous singalong of Let the Sunshine In.

The direction, the artistic quality and the sound were flawless. The voices, the set, the lighting –transcendent. The audience interaction and the humor were inspired. And I left with a real daisy in my hair. It was all like a huge hug.

I can’t help but think that the moon was in the Seventh House and Jupiter was aligned with Mars – because despite the ominous forecast, it was barely flurrying when we left the theatre after the matinée. Although we had planned to dine in the city, we decided it was wiser to head home, and the six of us had a fabulous meal and bottle of wine at our favorite place in Southport. And lo and behold, as we peeked out the door of the restaurant, our bellies warm and full, there at last was the beautiful fluffy snow falling from the night sky. Days like that don’t come ’round often...and I will savor the memory of every moment!

Life Really IS Good!

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:06:44 -0500

Just had to update the story about my experience with Life is Good...

I had mailed back the other customers’ orders and forgotten about the whole debacle when my dear friend, SueClegg, suggested on the blog that I contact the corporate office and let them know what had happened with Jakes Good Newport. So I took a few minutes yesterday to go on their website and send a short email to their customer service folks. It says that you’ll get a response within 48 hours.

This morning I got an email that said:

Hi Andrea,

I'm so sorry for what you experienced with your order from Jakes Good Newport and I
want to thank you for taking the time to let us know. I will definitely forward this
information and have someone look into this. Bad service from any Retailer carrying
our products will not be tolerated.

Again, I'm truly sorry about this.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season
Donna
Life is good

I have such absurdly low expectations for customer service that I was pleasantly surprised that anyone gave a rat’s ass. I was satisfied to have brought the issue to their attention, and I thought I was done with the whole episode. And then two hours later, this popped into my inbox:

Hi Andrea,

I wanted to let you know that I forwarded your email to the Director of Retail Sales
and she is forwarding it to the VP of Retail Sales and our Legal Department, they will
contact Jakes Good Newport. I have also emailed you a gift certificate that can be
used on our website www.lifeisgood.com at any time.

Again thank you for contacting us and for your honesty.

Donna

Whoa!!! Like magic, two $50 gift certificates appeared! I am overwhelmed at the kindness and generosity of this company. This is wayyyyy above and beyond what was necessary – hell, I was impressed just to have someone from customer service acknowledge my note!

I simply had to pass along the good karma and wax about what a nice company Life is Good truly is. They made me smile today – and SueClegg, please pick out something at Life is Good and share in this windfall!

Fiddle Me This

Thu, 3 Dec 2009 10:09:33 -0500

What’s better than eating Magnolia Bakery cupcakes? Eating Magnolia Bakery cupcakes right after a dazzling performance by classical violin superstar Itzhak Perlman with the NY Philharmonic.

The master violinist played a special concert at Lincoln Center last night as a fundraiser to end polio, which afflicted him as a young child, and we couldn’t think of a more exciting opportunity to bring the boys to their first live Philharmonic show. We were all enthralled!

The two pieces that the Philharmonic played without violin solo (“Les Préludes by Lizst and “Capriccio italien” by Tchaikovsky) were captivating and powerful, with a vibrant horn section. Watching Conductor Daniel Boico was fascinating. The 39-year old is engaging and expressive – magnetically charismatic – and to tell you the truth, I was giggling in my head much of the time because he totally looks like Andrew Dice Clay. And picture Dice conducting a world-renowned philharmonic. Or any philharmonic. OH!

And though it’s stating the obvious, there’s simply no other way to say it: the brilliant Mr. Perlman plays a breathtaking solo violin. He is one with his instrument, and the boys were positively enraptured at how the music seems to flow from his very soul right through the violin. He played three pieces with the philharmonic. I didn’t particularly like the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Bruch – Perlman’s playing was transformative, but I didn’t find the composition itself satisfying. He also played the Theme from Schindler’s List by Williams, which I thought would dissolve me into a puddle. It didn’t. Compared with the orchestration of the Lizst and Tchaikovsky pieces, the Williams piece didn’t come across so much evocative as manufactured. The final piece, “Tambourin Chinois” by Kreisler, a familiar tune to me, was playful and sparkling – the perfect ending to a truly memorable evening.

That is, of course, if you don’t count the cupcakes!

Life is good...and I guess so am I

Wed, 2 Dec 2009 12:47:55 -0500

Sighhhhhh. Why do ethical dilemmas seem to fall into my lap so often?

Over the weekend I went online to order some Life Is Good stuff – a couple pairs of flannel pj bottoms and some cute t-shirts to wear with them (oops, now I’ve shattered the illusion that I sleep in sizzling lace-and-mesh teddies). I searched around for inventory with the best pricing and shipping, and settled on a place out of Newport (my feelings about RI notwithstanding). The stuff showed up yesterday by USPS in a squishy mailing envelope, which I finally got around to opening last night. Inside was a plastic bag from the store filled with my purchases, and sticking up through the top of the bag was what I could see was a license plate frame. I left all the clothing in the bag so I could take it upstairs to unpack, but I immediately pulled out the frame and smiled, assuming it was a free promotional gift sent by the store. It was chrome and in addition to the Life Is Good logo with the smileyface, it said, “Do what you like. Like what you do.” Cute!

Now if you know me well, you know that I have a thang for license plate frames, although I almost always have something PINK surrounding my tag. If there’s a way for me to personalize my stuff, I usually do it, and having a fun frame is my way of distinguishing my little white SUV from all the others zooming about town.

Matthew promptly snatched the frame from my hands and headed out to the garage with a screwdriver, eager to replace the pink-and-white polka dot frame holding my rear plate. I grabbed the bag and headed upstairs, and eventually I unpacked the contents. What I found was that while my stuff was all there, so was other people’s stuff.

Aha! The license plate frame was not, in fact, a complementary gift, but rather had been ordered and paid for by someone else. There were also three extra t-shirts in the bag – two in my size and one slightly smaller. After quick consideration, I decided that I would keep the stuff that some dumbass had obviously been so careless and incompetent to send to me. I mean, had it had been from a local store, I wouldnt’ve batted an eyelash about bringing the stuff back when I was out and about (c’mon, say it with a Canadian accent: “oat ’n aboat”). But the thought of buying appropriate packing materials, going to the UPS store and paying the shipping for someone else’s oh-shit seemed fairly inconvenient and like an awful lot to ask. Hey honey: You snooze, you lose.

I went to bed and didn’t dream about my license plate being eaten by a big furry green monster or wearing one of the illicit t-shirts in a parade and having it magically disappear and leave me naked, so I knew my decision wasn’t troubling my conscience in the least.

This morning I went to move the pile of stuff and put it away in my closet, and noticed that there were invoices separating each order. What must’ve happened is that whomever picked the orders stacked them all up and stuck the whole pile into my envelope. The invoices each contained the customer’s name, address, phone #, email address and the last four digits of the credit card used. Except for one customer. Her initial credit card had been declined, so someone from the store had handwritten her entire Master Card number on the invoice, along with the expiration date.

And that’s when I went ballistic.

How inexcusably careless. How awful for the poor lady in Daytona Beach whose credit card I could now go on a shopping spree with. And what, I thought, if the store is owned by some really nice guy who has a dumb bimbo doing his shipping? Shouldn’t he know? Yeah, I know. Deep down, I’m a good doobie.

So because it was early, I marched into my office and emailed the guy, telling him what had happened. Within minutes my phone rang, and it was the very lady who had done the packing. She cursorily thanked me for letting them know, and then had the audacity to ask if I would just pack everything up and ship it back, and they’d refund me the shipping when they got it.

Excuse me? I was positively horrified that the lady on the other end of the phone wasn’t tripping over herself with gratitude that I would be so honest on all accounts! Had I just kept the stuff, they would’ve gotten calls from three customers who never received their orders, and they would’ve had a shipping mystery on their hands. Plus, I could’ve bought airfare for my family to St. Barts over Christmas and brand-new iPods for all my blog readers using Celine’s Master Card!

I was so taken aback, I was nearly speechless. Finally I blurted out that I could sent it back, but that I didn’t know when I’d be able to get around to it. I mean, screw you, lady. You messed up, and now you expect me to save your stooopid ass?

She put me on hold, and when she came back, I thought I’d have some fun playing with her, so I told her that I hoped my housekeeper hadn’t taken the shirts and stuck them all in the washing machine.

Again, on hold.

She came back and said that they would send me a shipping envelope with a prepaid label. My, how gracious of you! I told her that I had caught the shirts just in time before hitting the laundry, but reminded her that the license plate frame, as I had explained in the email, was already on my car. They couldn’t exactly send it out as new.

Please hold. Oh, hi again. I could keep the frame. Isn’t that swell? She reiterated that I could just stick everything in the envelope they were sending and put it into my mailbox so my mailman could take it. Golly gee, so convenient!

I paused. I waited. I gave her the opportunity to “tell her what she’s won, Johnny!” but nothing. No gift certificate, no credit against some of my purchase, nothing. Again, I was incredulous. So before she hung up, I managed to casually slip in that this would be making a great story for my blog. I wished I could’ve seen her face because that comment, at least, elicited a nervous chuckle.

A few minutes later, I got an email from the owner that said:

Andrea,
Thank you very much for being so honest-not too many people would have done what
you did. Enjoy the License Plate and have a very happy holiday season.
Thx Rob

End of story, though there’s still a little piece of me (as if any piece of me is little these days!) that wants to email Celine in Daytona Beach and tell her about the breach with her credit card. I just wasn’t feelin’ enough contrition from the folks at Jakes Good Newport.

Which is all a groovy counterpoint to my order from Zappos that I placed late Sunday morning and arrived at my door early Monday morning, less than 24 hours later. I don’t know how they do it, but that’s why Zappos has had my repeat business for 10 years, and why Jakes Good Newport can, frankly, bite me.

Tuesday, Bluesday

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:55:46 -0500

I’m feeling both thankful and wistful today.

For today is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. For years I was the luckiest girl in the world to have a beautiful tradition on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. You see, my mother and my sister (and many times my Nana) would come to my house on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. They would bring their ingredients, I would’ve already bought my own, and together in my kitchen we would each simultaneously cook the Thanksgiving dishes we were responsible for. Many years we had four generations together in that kitchen, preparing our family feast! Even the times my sister was spending the actual holiday with her in-laws, she still cooked with us beforehand, and though we weren’t together to eat turkey on Thursday, we divvied up our dishes and the food gave us a connection so we felt like we were indeed together.

On those Tuesdays, I would play great music throughout the house, and Nana would sing along to Sinatra and Bennett in own her – ahem – unique style. I would proffer cooking tips in my best Dan-Aykroyd-does-Julia-Child voice. We would decipher recipes together, calculate measurements, sharpen knives, figure our how to use kitchen appliances, hunt for errant Tupperware covers, chop, sauté, knead, preheat, mix, fold, blend, blind bake, chill, peel, dice, boil, blanch, slice, crimp, roll, melt, wash, sift, whip, crack, marinate, pour, trim, and simmer for most of the day, breaking to enjoy a glamorous lunch (with wine of course) that I always made the night before – French onion soup or endive salad or goat cheese tarts. And eventually I had kitchen aprons made for my mom, my sister and me that said, “Helen, Queen of the Kitchen” – an homage to the name we picked for our domestic alter egos.

The tradition ended four years ago, yet for some reason this is the first year I’ve really felt all alone. I’m ecstatic that my sister and I will be spending Thanksgiving and the rest of the weekend together with our families in Amagansett, but we couldn’t arrange our schedules to cook together today. My gang all left the house bright and early for school and work, and even my puppies left for a grooming appointment. I headed out, too, for my own grooming appointment – I had actually booked a 9:30 mani/pedi, knowing I didn’t have all that much pre-cooking to do for the 10 of us, and thinking how nice it would be to relax and sit quietly for a while, contemplating all the wonderful Tuesdays-before-Thanksgiving I got to treasure with those amazing women, as well as everything else I am grateful for. I drove to the salon, but alas, found no lights on at 9:27. I waited in my car watching traffic whiz by on the Post Road, and at 9:45 when the nail techs still had not shown up, I gave up and drove home. To an empty, silent house. Not even my cuddly puppies wagging their tails, awaiting my return. And after four years, I finally cried.

I grew even more wistful that I let it disappoint me that the nail appointment didn’t happen. I mean, I have the most bountiful life to be thankful for! Who am I to feel anything less than unmitigated gratitude? How petty and shallow and pathetically sad.

But then I pulled myself together enough to finely chop some shallots. I softened them in a ton of butter, made bread crumbs out of nice sourdough loaves and baguettes, chopped chives, tarragon and parsley, added some Cognac, and tossed it all together as the base for my stuffing. Frasier, Niles, Roz, Daphne and a much-appreciated laugh track kept me company. Through my kitchen window I saw this enormous crazy-ass hawk swoop into a tree and frighten all the cute little tweety-birds, who fluttered away nervously.

As I tucked the container of stuffing into the fridge, I realized it wasn’t the actual mani/pedi I was looking forward to. It was the sweet contemplation I had planned to commemorate the day. And sharing these treasured memories here has helped me do just that. Now I can barely contain my excitement for my merry men to walk through the door so we can pack up the car with our food and our clothes and our clean, pretty puppies and head out as a cozy family to celebrate and spend quality time together.

Remember every little thing you are thankful for. Not just at Thanksgiving, but every day. Enjoy the spirit and traditions of the holiday – family, football, feasts. And if you’re fortunate enough to be spending time with your mom or your grandmother this week, give her an extra squeeze. From me.