Archive for July, 2011

Grrr…my pretty little ‘hood on the Hudson is being “discovered” by the masses. How do I know this? Because of the incessant jack-hammering around all the new condos and rentals going up to accommodate the many like-minded peeps who want to ditch Gotham but still keep it in their sight-lines.

In fact, there’s so much construction goin’ on ’round here that it reminds me of Battery Park City, which we fled three years ago because of all the…

…incessant jack-hammering.

Okay, snapping out of Whinge & Whine mode now to report on a phenom that I positively adore about where I live: the multi-culti morning rituals I see when I go for a rog (i.e., my special blend of not-really-jogging-and-not-really-running.)

Take yesterday, for instance. As I trucked along the marina, I saw my neighbors:

1. Sitting on park benches engaged in alternate nostril breathing.

2. Moving gracefully through a series of tai chi moves.

3. Lying face-down on a beautiful embroidered rug, grabbing ass cheeks. (Okay, it was just one guy, and maybe he was a big perv, but it certainly looked like part of some super-serious, elaborate routine.)

4. Power-strollering the mama-weight off. Yay yay yay! Way to go new mommies!

5. Twisting into pretzel-esque yoga positions on the lawn by the so-cute-you-could-just-squish-it miniature lighthouse.

6. Sculpting the booty of their dreams by doing leg lifts with resistance bands.

7. Huffing and puffing through jumping jacks and other flab-busting calisthenics, in a group class in the Town Square led by a fiercely barking fitness guru.

So inspiring, right? Just writing all that has made me jones for a little rog right now, before our big Sunday-morning breakfast and mandatory afternoon viewing of The Smurfs. And I’m off like a prom dress.

I was not a happy camper after filing yesterday’s gloomy blog post about all the damn (white) meat and dairy I’ve been gobbling lately. But then a bolt of lightning – or at least a way to assuage some of my guilt – arrived via the U.S. Postal Service.

Cracking open my WWD, I headed straight to the story about Alexander McQueen’s will, and the masses of money he left to his own pets, as well as several UK-based animal welfare organizations, including Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and The Blue Cross.

I was really touched by that. So much so that it emboldened me to rip open another piece of mail that arrived in tandem – a donation solicitation from Dogtown. The woof-woof arm of Best Friends Animal Society (that ginormous no-kill critter kingdom in the Utah desert that my sister and I intend to volunteer for when we’re old and gray), Dogtown looks like a pretty fun and wonderful place for these poor rescued pups to chillax. A “real” home would be better, of course, but at least they seem very well taken care of.

And I want to help. So that’s why I just cut checks to Best Friends and the following other groups:

Farm Sanctuary

Defenders of Wildlife

The Jane Goodall Institute

Granted, they aren’t Alexander McQueen-sized donations. And they’re just a fraction of the organizations that reach out to me with heartbreaking solicitations every week.

But I feel a little bit better now. Every nickel counts, even if it’s from a fallen vegan wannabe like me.

Gads, I’m wracked with diet guilt. Not only have I been eating chicken and turkey lately (why? why? why?), but I’ve also been a big ol’ dairy queen. In fact, I think we may have actually dined at an actual Dairy Queen during Road Trip 2011.

As someone who loves critters, I am not thrilled about this situation. Even the dairy, which is theoretically a byproduct, has put a massive guilt-bee in my bonnet. Although I’d like to believe that there’s such a thing as a humane dairy farm, I don’t think one really, truly exists. As I scrutinized the Horizon egg carton in our fridge the other night, I was hoping the fact that they say they give their chicks plenty of room to roam means they do in fact do that.

But how could I know?

Anyway, I figure that if I can’t critter-guilt my way back to my vegan-wannabe ways (and I’m sure I can if I read enough depressing chapters from my vast library of vegan cookbooks and such), I can definitely health-guilt my way into more optimal food choices.

Allow me to connect the dots in my usual round-about, mind-racing-at-a-million-miles-an-hour Momover way:

Because it’s summer, I’ve been slathering the Wee Lass with sunblock. Which led me to thinking about my own multiple skin cancer scares, which led me to thinking about redoubling my efforts to balance my pH level.

Although there’s debate about this in the medical community, a balanced pH level is considered – by many health gurus and holistic practitioners – to be one of cancer’s worst enemies.

Soooo…I fired off an email query to Dr. Susan Blum, one of my Mama Gurus and my unofficial integrative wellness mentor. Are there any easy, do-able shifts I can make to tilt my pH level in a more alkalinic / less acidic direction?

“Eat less animal,” Dr. Blum shot back, “and more vegetables and vegetarian proteins” such as beans and legumes (and even some grains and fruits).

Grrr…had she installed a hidden camera in my kitchen???

There was more to our conversation, which I’ll share with you tomorrow, along with other tips. But right now, I have to go pick up my little meat-lover from day camp.

Even casual Momoverettes know that I’m a massive fan of spa-ing. Day spa, destination spa – you name it, I want to be there. I love everything about them: The scent of sandalwood wafting through the air, the corny Enya soundtracks, the slippers and 500-ply terrycloth robes that are always about 10 sizes too big for me.

And because I’m a die-hard crunchista, I’m also into all the groovy wellness treatments. Sure I dig a good facial – it’s always fun to have some perfect stranger scrutinizing your pores and laugh lines under a 50x magnifying mirror – but I like the wackier stuff too. Like reiki, which basically entails having a practitioner hover hands over your bod while simultaneously channeling good old-fashioned positive vibes into your beleaguered, stressed-out soul.

If that last sentence had you muttering “Bulls–t” to yourself, then do I have the site for you!

Dubbed SpaEvidence, the new portal picks apart 21 of the most popular spa-oriented wellness modalities – from Acupressure to Yoga – and scrutinizes them from every conceivable angle. What studies have been done to support their efficacy claims? How do they really rate in terms of their ability to relieve stress or combat the effects of illnesses like diabetes or Crohn’s Disease?

It’s incredibly in-depth, and I’m guessing that it’s actually geared more toward aestheticians and spa owners than massage-loving mama bears. And its primary purpose is to support the growing shift away from traditional Western medicine and pill-popping to a more holistic, top-down, “let’s get to the underlying causes of what’s ailing you before we whip out the Rx pad” mindset.

I, for one, am utterly down with any source of information that helps us build our case for taking primo care of ourselves. This new website should go a long way in doing precisely that.

I’ve never paid much never-mind to the idea that beauty products “expire” the same way foods in our fridge and pantry do. Let’s put it this way: I once used a custom-blended powder blush for seven years. Sure, I’d misplace it for months at a clip. But I’d always re-find it, and then just dab it right back on again with nary a care in the world.

With the exception of liquid foundation and mascara, which do in fact need to be tossed-out on a regular basis, many beauty products can last a super long time – especially if you haven’t even cracked ‘em open yet. And that accounts for probably 90 percent of the contents of my Beauty Armoire. It’s just stuff that I figure I’ll get to eventually.

But most of the time, “eventually” never quite morphs into “now.”

Perhaps because I can feel work tugging at my skirt hem (translation: potential clients are reaching out to me, and I may just actually have to stop summering and commit to new projects pretty soon), I’m feeling a sense of urgency. I just want to throw out everything I own and start with a clean slate.

You know what’s really helpful when you need to go on a massive purging spree, but can’t begin to part with all your (allegedly) precious possessions? Watching an episode of Hoarders.

Oh my lordy. Recently, I listened to the endless rationales issuing forth from some poor lady who couldn’t bear the idea that all her started-and-abandoned crafts projects would be better off in the 50 dumpsters parked outside her home on the big day of reckoning. “Oh, I’m gonna make a coat for my dog with those carpet remnants,” she’d say to the hapless A&E crew assigned to liberate her from all her crapola. Or, “I really don’t think 40 boxes of buttons is too much.”

I’m paraphrasing, but you get the drift: It was the sound of someone who just couldn’t let go.

Of course I had mixed emotions as I watched the show, particulalry since I recently did re-start crafts projects of my own that I’d abandoned. (My knitting, which I’m completely ga-ga about now…) But I’m talking three or so little yarn kits; not the 3 million projects Hoarder Lady had tucked into every nook and cranny of her about-to-be-condemned California home.

I don’t want to be the beauty-product equivalent of Hoarder Lady, even though I’m sure she’s like the nicest broad on the planet once you get to know her.

Nice is great. Crazy-organized and nice? Even better.

Weirdness: After we returned from Road Trip 2011, and I slid slooooowly into my first few weeks of not-working/part-time Wee Lass-watching, I was sleeping really badly. Like wake up in the middle of the night for HOURS badly.

Grim. And completely mystifying. Why, with zero stress, was I having such a hard time staying asleep? (That’s the kind of insomnia I’m prone to – the staying-asleep variety. I have no problem initially drifting off.)

Of course what I did when I rocketed awake circa 2 a.m. didn’t help matters: crack open my iPad and start downloading Vogue Knitting e-books.

Bad move. Here’s why:

During one of my snooze-less stretches, I came across a très excellent website, Helpguide.org, packed with great info about insomnia and other stress-y conditions. And ironically, it’s on that site – which I was reading on my iPad in the dead of night – that I was advised to “avoid screens of any kind – computers, TV, cell phones, Kindles, iPads – as the type of light they emit is stimulating to the brain.”

So in other words, you’re much better off reading a good old-fashioned book- with actual pages to turn – than a new-fangled contraption that blasts white-hot light beams into your eyeballs.

Of course, the piece also included some more obvious tips, including the avoidance of caffeine. And the timing couldn’t have been better. One, I’m not on deadline on the moment, so I don’t need to be that mentally dialed-in. And two, our Keurig coffee-maker konked-out and needed to be “de-scaled,” so I couldn’t ply myself with endless cups of high-test Newman’s Own. That means I had to dust off the Cuisinart and – gasp – make a pot of the old-school stuff.

Since I’d also been reading no fewer than three books that heap major abuse on caffeine…

Veganist by Kathy Freston

Revive by Frank Lipman, M.D.

The Beauty Detox Solution by Kimberly Snyder

…I decided to take advantage of this probably very short window of jobby-lessness and scale back. To do so, I nabbed the low-test version of my much-beloved Chock Full O’ Nuts.

Bingo.

I’ve been sleeping brilliantly ever since I made that shift. Even when Thunder and Lightning wake me up in the middle of the night for a little kitty snicky-snack. I just stumble out to the kitchen, give them their grub, and sleep-walk right back to bed. No iPad, no knitting e-books, no nothing but snoozing. Happiness.

Earlier this week, at the end of a tasty lunch at Café Cluny in the West Village with my friend Maryellen (the one I’ve blogged about before with the ice-blue eyes), she mentioned that she was zipping off to the Malia Mills store in Nolita as soon as we’d settled l’addition.

“May I zip with you?” inquired Momover Lady. “I need another bikini.”

After last summer, when I squeezed myself into my trusty Vicky’s Secret “slimsuit” for our family treks to the town pool, it’s a relief to get out from under all that industrial-strength shaping. Don’t get me wrong; that’s a great suit. It’s really flattering, and I especially love the deep purple shade.

But happily, all my P90X-ing (and running, and jumping rope, and sweets-avoidance – grrr…) is giving me the gumption to wear a two-piece for the first time in years. So now, in addition to the black number I nabbed before our jaunt to Jakes this spring, I wanted to add to the coffers.

So I did. This time in a relatively more upbeat shade – Baroque Blue. (One of the things I love, love, love about Malia Mills is that it’s a Day Glo-free zone…)

I stuck with the halter-y Raquel top, which is perf for those of us who – ahem – need a little help in the lift and separation department. But for the bottom, I rather gamely opted for the Summer of Love style.

I’ve kinda got a set of you-know-whats, because it’s considerably skimpier than my It’s A Cinch, which you can adjust according to how many sinister Dora the Explorer ice cream treats and grilled cheeses you’re scarfing at said town pool.

Because these suits aren’t cheap, and I’m technically not even working right now, I figure I need to maximize my investment with several rounds of Ab Ripper X.

But it’s not just about the dough. I want to look like a mom-babe when I’m cheering the Wee Lass on as she leaps from the diving board. I always want to look like a mom-babe.

Bon weekend, my lovelies.

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse (Worst. Expression. Ever.), but I’m still not completely over my near-needle experience at Dr. Brandt’s last week.

Of course it didn’t help that when I went to see my beloved colorist, Anthony Gianzero, he seriously questioned the wisdom of my bail-out. His stance, basically, was: “Oh babe, don’t kid yourself – you still need shit.”

I’m putting words in his mouth, but after 15 years of hanging out with him on a monthly basis, I feel at liberty to do so.

Here’s what he actually said: “Why not treat yourself? What do you ever do for YOU? It’s all about your kid. Maybe just a little around your eyes. That’s all I do, and look at me. Go to my new guy. I’ll give you his number.”

And here’s what I was thinking when he said all that: What do I ever do for ME? Have you met me? This entire website is devoted to me and my cockamamie self-obsessions. In fact, the Momover mommy-festo is one of high-powered self-care and pampering. I’m all about us, not the tot-lets.

Anyway, I’m getting off point here with my ranting, and I really wanted to tell you what New York mommy-socialite Marina Rust is doing to stave off a sagging jawline.

In a new piece for Vogue (the August “age” issue again, which I blogged about over the weekend), Rust writes about the rather elaborate measures she’s taking to tighten up sans scalpel.

In essence, she’s got a fleet of facialists on speed-dial, all of whom deploy electricity and/or some type of manual manipulation to zap and push drooping skin back into place. She regularly gets a “Platinum Lift” from aesthetician Mary Schook, and pays twice-monthly visits to Face Place New York for Galvanic Facial Treatments.

Oh, and she avoids booze.  Which can’t be easy given the fact that she’s rush rush rushing from one swanky soirée to the next every night of her glam life.

I’m intrigued – about the Mary Schook and Face Place bit. (The steering-clear-of-Champs bit is not music to my ears.) For years I’ve been meaning to try a facial by Tracie Martyn, who was way ahead of the curve on this whole electricity jazz. Tracie’s a fave of such gorge surgery-avoiders as Diane von Furstenberg and Susan Sarandon.

Inspired by Marina’s tale, I’m also going to crack open my vast library of facial exercise books. I’m not kidding; I have like 5 of them now. I even nabbed an advance copy of Ultimate Facercise by Carole Maggio during my guest-editing gig last month. Think I’ll also dust off my trusty NuFACE and Neckline Slimmer and rev those puppies up again.

Scrunch, zap. Scrunch, zap. Me, me, me.

UPDATE: I’m hounding Latina mag for the web link to this essay. As soon as I get it, I’ll insert it. In the meantime, I just blew it up, jumbo-size, below. And you can always hit your local newsstand to buy a copy of the August issue!

You guys have “met” my friend Patricia Reynoso before – in multiple blog posts about our shared Disney obsession, and our mutual admiration of Dr. Brandt (she co-wrote his first book with him). Plus she’s all over my Momover book; seriously, her voice is peppered throughout the whole frigging thing.

Oh, and she’s the Director of Public Relations for Lancôme, and bestower of uh-mazing goodie bags over chatty, gossipy lunches.

But most importantly (I’m sorry, I know proper English dictates “But most important…” but it just sounds wack), Patricia is a fantastic writer. Always has been. Even when she was my itty bitty beauty assistant at W a lifetime ago. Awwww…

Don’t believe me? Well just you read this here essay she penned for the August issue of Latina magazine. It’s all about shedding her hyper-protective Hispanic mommy tendencies, and going with the flow.

Love.

Recently, on behalf of Cosmetic Executive Women, I had the good fortune to interview several brills ladies who are running some of the biggest beauty brands around. Intimidating, yes – they’re firing on all cylinders in a brutally competitive business. But what a treat. I learned so much from chatting with them.

And one of my interview victims, who happens to be the U.S. president of the much-beloved Kérastase line, sent me packing with a fat bag of Chroma Riche products. Ultra-hydrating, they’re specifically formulated for colored locks like mine.

If only…I knew how to use them. Because now, more than ever, I really need them. After I don’t know how many years of straight-up single-process blonde, I decided to throw highlights into the mix on Friday. And already, I can tell that my hair is going to be much more dried-out.

So I’m determined to figure out the exact sequence of my new Chroma Riche regime. What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, for starters, I was gifted with both a shampoo and a Cleansing Balm. And now, in reading the website, I see that I’m supposed to use the Cleansing Balm for the first three washings post-color.

Oops! I already used the shampoo this morning. But of course it’s really high-quality Frenchy French stuff, so it’s not like I dumped a box of Tide over my head.

Actually, this website is really helpful! Who knew? There are three basic steps with Chroma Riche: Cleanse, Treat and Protect. I’ve got the cleansing thang firmly under control. So all I need to do now is dig into my trusty stash of loot and figure out which are the Treaters and which are the Protecters.

I can do this. I am a brave, smart, highlighted and single-processed Mommy Person.