July, 2014 | This is authentic

July 2014

Yesterday, at some point…

A couple of weeks ago we had some time to kill in SoHo before a doctor’s appointment, so when my daughter suddenly expressed the urgent desire for a sun hat, we headed over to J Crew just to see if they had anything there that was reasonable. And lo and behold, 15 minutes later, we walked out with the perfect hat: wide brimmed, easily foldable, and blue (one of her two favorite colors.)

As you can see from the above photo, it is in high rotation.

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Yesterday, at some point is a series of photographs that describe a moment I experienced during the previous day. The posts are meant to be stand alone images, though at times I can’t control myself, and I end up expanding the caption into a more lengthy bit of text. Hopefully the extra information is useful, or at least interesting. If not, feel free to ignore it.

Monday, Monday– or more links about the USA, getting organized and staying cool

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Woops, guess computers aren’t better at everything. Check out what happened a couple of years ago at at July 4th in San Diego when the computer decided to set off all the explosives at once!

Now that the search for the perfect red, white and blue napkins is behind us, I am suddenly finding myself reflecting more thoughtfully about important stuff like what America is all about. Frederick Douglass had some interesting things to say about that back in 1852 (13 years before the abolition of slavery) and James Earl Jones reads some excerpts.

While we’re on the topic of our fair nation, here are !3 facts about the USA that conservatives would rather we all forgot…

And speaking of altered realities, here’s one person’s honest comparison of their real life vs the version they put up on Instagram.

My pretend Instagram universe, if I had the energy to produce one, would be filled with all sorts of organized cabinets and NO CLUTTER. Here are a few tips personal organizers use to help turn that fantasy into reality. (Oh and Apartment Therapy has some other tips worth checking out too…)

And while I was visiting Apartment Therapy, I couldn’t help but check out the House Tour called Claes and Melinda’s Natural (and Beautiful) Chaos. Any couple who lovingly describes their home as chaos are my spiritual brethren. Looking at their place gives me hope. Maybe I don’t need to aim for emptiness, just a bit of order…

And lastly, a propos of nothing except the heat… here are some great ways to cool your body from the inside out, using the ancient practice of ayurvedic medicine as a guide.

Happy Rainy America’s Birthday!

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This has been the view out of my daughter’s room all day today. The rain has been relentless, but at least we know that no bad dreams will get in…

Thanks to tropical storm Aurthur (or hurricane Aurthur, depending on where you are and who you are listening to) our July 4th has been pretty much washed out. Not that we had any real plans.

Our day has been filled with friends, puzzles, fairy tales, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, an impromptu kids gallery show, a family viewing of Galaxy Quest (quite possibly the funniest cult movie ever made, starring the unspeakably brilliant Alan Rickman) and an upcoming BBQ, made possible by the abatement of the rain.

I cannot imagine a more appropriate way to celebrate our nation’s 235th birthday.

Have a great weekend everybody…

Hippie candy

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A practically guilt free candy to slip to your kids (or yourself) in an emergency. Which we all experience at one point or another…

Ok so we’ve been to the ice cream parlor. But sometimes we are in the car, or on the train, or at the bank desperately trying to keep the kids’ eyes off of the pot of those solid pieces of blue high fructose corn syrup disguised as lollipops. And for those times, I give you St Claire’s Organics’ Lemon Tarts.

Yes, they are slightly sweetened, but more by the molasses than by the organic cane sugar. And at least it’s just straight up sugar, like what’s in homemade cookies, and not syrup, like what’s in marshmallows and snickers bars. And they are tiny, but full of that sweet/tart dichotomous flavor, so a little goes a long way.

In my next life, I’m coming back as a No-Sugar-No-Screen-Media style parent (hopefully with a trust fund and a driver too, while I’m fantasizing.) I have read about how sugar is essentially poison and how TV before age 2 can really impede brain development. And I’ve already thrown out the plastic food storage containers and the non-glass water bottles, so I’m already half way there, right?

But in my current reality, I am choosing my battles, going for moderation rather than extinction, and hoping for the best. Every once in awhile, my kid gets some kind of candy. I have decided that watching old Wonder Woman episodes and sharing the occasional sweet with my daughter is too much fun to pass up completely. And if that makes me some kind of selfish parent, then so be it.

A cure for what ails you

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When all else fails, get in your car or on the train (or walk, if you are lucky enough to live nearby) to the Brooklyn Farmacy for some old school ice cream fountain goodness.

Summer is here big time. My brain is already wilting with the heat and the haze and the unplannedness of it all. But I am doing my damndest just to slow down and enjoy it, rather than fight through these absolutely-no-time-to-myself days.

I have decided that it’s ok to let my kid watch a movie a day if that is the only time I have to get anything done for myself. It’s also ok to let bedtime slip back to 9:45 (or 10:30 as was the case last night) if that means she sleeps in till 9 am. It’s like living in Spain without having to travel.

And above all, it’s ok to have ice cream for lunch… it just is. Especially if you make an adventure out of it and head over to Carroll Gardens (What?? Leave Williamsburg?) to the stupendous old fashioned perfection of a soda fountain called the Brooklyn Farmacy. So named for it’s location in a former pharmacy and decorated with all sorts of ephemera from said establishment, this place is an egg cream lover’s dream. And a mac & cheese lover’s, and and ice cream sundae lover’s and a grilled sandwich lover’s… In fact there is something for just about everyone here. Check out their current menu– it changes seasonally– if you need more evidence.

Located in a former pharmacy, the place feels more like a genuine old neighborhood spot than the Disney-esque tourist traps that seem to be sprouting up like weeds all over Brooklyn these days.

We started a recent visit off with a mountain of their mac and cheese, steaming hot with the most perfect crust on the top. Plenty for the three of us to share and then feel less guilty about the main course… the star attraction… the ice cream.

I stayed super traditional and went for the homemade vanilla with chocolate cookie ice cream sandwich, though they (of course) have all sorts of other combinations to choose from. It is one of my all time favorite forms in which to ingest ice cream and I will almost always order one if the opportunity arises. (And if you’re really feeling ambitious, here’s how to make your own!)

Josh had a good old straight up chocolate egg cream, that was ingested too quickly for me to photograph.

But the piece de resistance, and leave it to my daughter to order it up, was the divine Pink Poodle, an ice cream float made from their homemade hibiscus soda topped with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream.

By the time we left the place, it was as if nothing bad had ever happened to us ever and we lived in a universe filled with sunshine, sweetness and light.

And who doesn’t want to feel like that?

This is authentic - "

July 2014