Archive for the ‘Culture Junkie’ Category

I’ve been so discombobulated lately that maybe I dreamt this (or nightmared it), but I’m almost positive Jill Zarin said something borderline brilliant on last week’s episode of RHONY.

It was during the bit when she actually hoofed it over to Brooklyn – eek gads! – to make nice with Alex McCord. Trying to give ol’ Al props for her new white-blond hair and overall spiffy appearance, La Z said something to the effect of: “You can do the kids thing and the hot thing. Or the work thing and the hot thing. But you can’t do the kids thing, the work thing AND the hot thing.”

Were truer words ever spoken? I think not. It was if I’d stumbled upon the master key to the mommy universe.

Looking great takes major effort and organizational skills, for sure. But here’s what it also takes: zero tolerance for stress. Once you start freaking out about work, your face automatically scrunches into a tight, ugly little ball and you instantly look 10 years older.

I know this because freaking-out has been on my daily agenda for the past several weeks now, and I do in fact look older. Okay, let me qualify that: I’ve been looking my age, which I’m not used to.

As soon as my sched lightens up, and I go back to just doing “the kid thing and the hot thing,” I’ll be okay. Especially since I’ve booked a consultation with a veddy veddy well-known anti-aging guru. I’m gonna have the dear doc give me a To Do list, and then I’m going to systematically check off each item.

The kid thing and the hot thing. Sign me up.

Q: How do you know when you’re totally sleep-deprived, over-worked and out of it?

A: When you hop in the shower, wet your hair, and apply conditioner BEFORE shampoo.

The above scenario just happened to me five minutes ago, and it must be because I overslept while dreaming of another lifetime: Me, the Nineties, platinum blonde hair.

At the time, I had an intense fixation with the late, great Carolyn Bessette, who often wore her dyed-white waist-length locks scraped back in a super-severe, minimalist bun.

So so did I. For years. Most of my 30s, in fact.

More recently, however, I’ve worn a gorge honey blonde concocted for me by my loooong-time colorist, the so-cute-you-could-just-squish-him Anthony Gianzero. I get tons of compliments on my color, and the great thing is that it looks like it’s highlighted when it’s it actually just an easy, breezy 30-minute single process.

So if everything is so hunky dory on the hair front, and it totally is hunky dory on the hair front, why I am fondly lusting after my old bright white? Maybe it’s because it’s really short now, and I think going a lot lighter could spin in it a less boyish, sexier direction.

Oh, who am I kidding? It’s because of the creepily phantasmagoric new HBO series Game of Thrones. Hubby and I watched the premiere on Sunday night and I’m still thinking about it.

It.

Is.

Insanity-ville.

I don’t have time to do it justice right now, but I will in an upcoming blog post, because there are tons of kids in it, which is somehow heart-warming and terrifying at the same time.

Anyway, the good folks at John Frieda are obvi reading my mind, because they just sent me a new product I’ve been completely and utterly craving: Sheer Blonde Go Blonder Controlled Lightening Spray. So now I can pretend I’m the platinum princess in the show, whose weirdo prince brother is trying to sell her off to the highest bidder.

I just totally doused my hair in it. (So much for “Controlled”!) Evidently you can also ramp-up the lightening effect by applying a little heat via a flat-iron.

Maybe I’ll try that tomorrow. Right now, I have to scoot off to drop-off and dive into my day. Grrr. But at least I’ll be a little blonder, and a little more Game of Thrones.

Yesterday – on my big weekly date with Hubby – it was all about mixed messages for me. But in the spirit of putting the cart before the horse, I’m gonna tell you about the second part – the stylish thriller Limitless - before I tell you about the first.

If you’ve already seen the movie, feel free to skip on down to the bit about – spoiler alert – my trip to the psychic.

Okay, so the movie. Basically, and implausibly, Bradley Cooper plays a dirtbag wannabe novelist who has a book deal but has not yet committed one word to page. (I say ‘implausibly’ because I mean pleeze, have you looked at Bradley Cooper???) And early on, after his hottie girlfriend dumps him because he’s such a loser and she is so very, very together, he is sad-sacking his way home to his crummy Chinatown apartment when he runs into his former brother-in-law.

In short, the creepy former bro-in-law supplies Bradley Cooper’s character with a drug that instantly makes him wildly productive. He’s learning languages! Playing the piano! Day-trading his way into millions with his newfound knowledge of complex algorithms! Starting and finishing his novel – brilliantly – within four days!

Oh, and of course he physically morphs into the real Bradley Cooper, i.e., stunning with nary an ounce of body fat.

Although, after seeing the flick, Hubby and I both said we’d like to procure a stash of the Limitless drug so we too could reach our full potentials, I couldn’t help but dial-back to the chat I’d had earlier in the day with Judy Turner, my beloved psychic of the past 15 years.

Now that my big life questions have been answered (the ones about whether I was ever gonna get hitched and have a baby), I only go to see Judy about once a year. But it’s always great, even when she has sad or scary info to impart, as she most definitely has had in the past. She’s a no-nonsense mom of three, warm and friendly but completely a BS-free zone. Despite a roster of famous clients, there isn’t a pretentious bone in her body.

(Speaking of bodies, she helps the New Jersey police find ‘em. Dead ones. Spooky.)

Anyway, here’s the net-net of what she had to tell me yesterday, which is a happy twist on the Limitless message: This time of my life is all about slowing down, and enjoying my kid, my hubby, my house and my life. Yes, there are work opportunities – probably more than I can even handle. But, unlike previous pre-Momover Lady lifetimes, career stuff isn’t what defines me anymore.

Instead, Judy wants me to dive into cooking and driving, and to build my confidence around both of those core mommy-competencies. And trust me, she isn’t reading this blog, so she doesn’t know how much I whinge about my poor cooking and driving skills.

For the next 10 weeks, I have an insane amount of work to get through. But then Hubby and the Wee Lass and I are taking a massive cross-country roadtrip to visit relatives in Tulsa and St. Louis.

I’m living for that road-trip. And the cooking, driving and mommying that will follow. So yes, Limitless productivity – but in a very, very different way.

So I’ve been reading the new issue of People, the one with Jennifer “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” Lopez on the cover. Please, I’m in full agreement. Just ask Hubby. At one point, during the auditions for Idol, I kept grabbing the clicker and rewinding to one particularly jaw-dropping clip of her.

“I kinda can’t believe how incredible she is,” I said, while realizing the folly of drawing one’s husband’s attention to the extreme beauty of another woman. “I mean, it’s almost not human.” Shocker: He was very much on board with this notion.

Anyway, the entire issue is a fun read, with a cute little piece on the number of hours of beauty sleep some celebs get. Because she hits the hay when her kids do, hot mama Heidi Klum clocks in at 10 hours. Jon Hamm says he logs 12, but broken up into four-hour chunks. Um….okaaaay. But far be it from me to quibble with success. I’d be hard-placed to find a yummier male specimen than Hamm tricked-out as Don Draper, so whatever’s he doing is obvi working for him.

And here’s what’s working for me: My gorgeous new Branché sleep mask. I am so in love with this little number. Faithful Momoverettes already know that I’m a huge fan of sleep masks because they block light that can prevent the release of much-needed melatonin. But this one goes above and beyond the call of beauty duty.

Why? Because they’re crafted from premium silk, which, according to the Branché snooze experts, contains skin-repairing amino acids and copper. Also, when your face isn’t being smushed into crinkly cotton sheets, you are far less likely to wake up with crinkles yourself.

When it comes to sleep, silk is your your face’s – and your hair’s – BFF. That’s why Branché also makes pillow cases in the same delish fabric – to tamp down those dastardly frizzies and keep the hair-breakage to a bare minimum. And guess who’s also supposedly a fan?

None other than La Lopez.

I don’t know about you, but the news that the freakily stunning (and talented, grrr…) Catherine Zeta-Jones has been diagnosed with bipolar II disorder, and recently sought in-patient help for it, has hit me a little hard. Especially since, from what I understand, it’s a mental illness that can take root at any age, is characterized by heaps of depression, and is often precipitated by a highly stressful event.

I’m pretty sure watching one’s beloved movie star husband dealing with advanced throat cancer qualifies as a stressful event.

For years, I’ve been fascinated by this woman. To me, she represents pretty much the epitome of having it all. First we’ve got the looks, and then we’ve got the unimpeachable acting | dancing | singing chops, and then we’ve got the Hollywood royalty spouse and the adorable kids.

Oh, right – and the Oscar. Remember how cutely preggo she was when got up there to collect her little golden guy?

Still, in all lives, even one as blindingly sunny as CZJ’s, a little rain must fall.

Because perfect strangers sometimes approach Hubby and tell him he looks just like Michael Douglas (thank you, cleft chin!), and because Mr. D happens to be one of the best actors of all time (if you haven’t seen Solitary Man, you must must must Netflix it immediately), we were both tracking his bout with cancer pretty closely. And we were so relieved that he got through it, and is on the mend.

Now, with this turn of events, I’m again rooting for this gorgeous couple. She’s super-brave for putting it out there for public consumption, and without question, she’s throwing a much-needed spotlight on an ailment most people (including Yours Truly) didn’t know much about.

I’m wishing her all the best. Team Catherine. Big time.

Though I’m a happy little clam to be hopping on a plane in the morning, I’m sad that I’ll be missing an event that promises to be both yummy and heartwarming: An intimate vegan press lunch at Pure Yoga to celebrate the straight out of the gate success of animal-lover Kathy Freston’s incredible new book.

Faithful Momoverettes know I have a massive girl-crush on Kathy, and her new effort is only making me love her more. I really believe that her truly do-able “lean into change” stance – which gently coaxes rather than clobbers one over the head – will inspire literally millions of people to embrace a bit of veganism here and there.

Would Kathy love all of us to stop eating meat and dairy lock, stock and barrel? Yes. And would she also like to see us bag leather and fur? Totes. But she also gets completely psyched when we take baby steps, and just cut back.

As I sit here blogging in my navy Fuggs, I’m making a pledge in honor of Kathy: I am hereby committing to at least one vegan meal per day, and I will also – drumroll – cook a vegan dish from scratch twice a week. If you’re rolling your eyes about now, know that cooking is so not my wheelhouse I can’t even tell you.

Which is why I’m going to set the DVR tonight for yet another critter-friendly media happening I’m missing tomorrow: Martha Stewart’s first-ever vegan show. My buddies at Farm Sanctuary gave me a heads-up about it, which I’m in turn sharing with you:

Wednesday 3/30, Hallmark Channel, 10 AM ET/9 AM C

Martha, whom my readers know I’m also mighty enamored of, will spend the entire hour on the topic of veganism, including whipping up seitan bourguignon and chit-chatting with Farm Sanctuary president and co-founder Gene Baur.

Okay, signing off to pack for the beach. Viva la veganistas!

I have no idea what this says about me as a person, but I put way, waaaaaay too much stock in Groundhog Day as a predictor of my future happiness. Every year I wait for it just as eagerly as the Wee Lass anticipates the magical truckloads of prezzies that arrive on Xmas and her birthday.

Will Punxsutawney Phil see his shadow? Will I be on the verge of slitting my wrists for weeks and months to come?

For you Momoverettes who live outside the States (and there are quite a few of you…hello Phillipines and Denmark!), allow me to frame this all-important event: There is an extremely adorable groundhog named Phil who lives in the bustling metropolis of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and possesses the psychic ability to predict the arrival of spring. Every 2 February for the last 125 years (which would lead one to guess that there is not one Phil, but a series of such), he is trotted out and placed on a tree stump in the town square of Gobbler’s Knob.

If he sees his shadow, we’re in trouble: Six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t, break out the Champs! An early spring is headed our way! (FYI, Phillipines and Denmark: Groundhog Day is also the title of perhaps the cutest movie of all time, starring Bill Murray whom I worship like nobody’s business.)

Yesterday, after an especially brutal stroller trek to the Wee Lass’s school across the icy bridge separating Jersey City and Hoboken, I was of course obsessing over the Phil sitch. The weather has been horrible for quite some time now, and it’s really starting to impact my mental state.

It’s also messing with my P90X mojo, causing me to “bring it” with less intensity than I need to completely morph into a mom-babe.

Happily, I think, ol’ Phil didn’t see his shadow. So that means, in theory, a much-needed meltdown is on its way. But look at the Debbie Downer language I just used to describe this momentous occasion. I’m all “I think” and “in theory.”

I sound extremely – cliché alert – “cautiously optimistic.”

But at least cautiously optimistic is a better frame of mind to be in than the will-it-ever-end gloominess of recent weeks. And I’m doing everything I can on my end to get to my mental happy place,  like booking four nights at Jakes in Jamaica for the little lady’s upcoming spring break.

By then I’ll be bikini-ready and totally clamoring for an umbrella drink.

I know, I know: I swoon over this, I swoon over that. So much so that “Swoony” is quite quickly becoming my middle name.

But this time I mean it.

In recent weeks, when I’m not doing my bit upstairs in the family room – huffing, puffing and stopping just short of a heart attack executing one of the grueling P90X workouts – I’m sneaking downstairs to my boudoir to watch DVRd episodes of two wildly divergent slices of pop culture: Jersey Shore and Downton Abbey.

Actually, the “upstairs / downstairs” reference is the perfect analogy for these two shows. I spend a great deal of time literally screaming (“Oh. My. Effing. God.”) at the television set during Jersey Shore, primarily because it’s so hard to believe that these guidette and juicehead kids can be so sweet and so funny and so incredibly trashy at the same time. The mind boggles.

Suffice it to say that Downton Abbey has the polar opposite effect. But yet, it’s fascinating to see how the household staff, who conduct much of their lives in the nether regions of the spectacular titular estate, interact with the rich-but-about-lose-everything Grantham family.

The entire cast is amazing, but of course I’m zero-ing in on Elizabeth McGovern, who plays Countess Cora and mama to three daughters who are in need of wealthy hubbies ASAP. I’m old enough to remember her early 80s heyday in films like “Ordinary People” and “Racing With the Moon,” and it’s so much fun to see how beautiful she still is – and not in a surgeried, Botoxed into oblivion fashion.

Plus, her Edwardian-era costumes are to die for. Trust me when I tell you that this pic doesn’t do her wardrobe justice.

The Countess is warm and fuzzy with her three spoiled chicklets, but she just wants them married already. Especially the eldest, who is willful and headstrong, and exhibiting a disturbing penchant for potentially ruinous trampy behavior.

Not Jersey Shore-trampy, mind you; that won’t surface for another 100 years. But tarty nonetheless.

And lucky for me, I get to see both. The  entire upstairs / downstairs, high brow / low brow, swoony / scary spectrum.

I wouldn’t call it the biggest mistake of my life, but it was damn close: On Sunday afternoon, in an attempt to de-clutter the DVR queue, I accidentally zapped the season finale of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Before.

I.

Even.

Watched.

It.

To say I was beside myself is an understatement. Coming on the heels of the oh-so-stressful Barbie birthday bash, it was almost more than I could bear. But for some reason, Hubby wasn’t really feeling my pain. In fact, I think he was secretly psyched to be able to watch the football game instead. How could he be so insensitive to my plight? Grrrr times a million…

So of course you won’t be at all surprised to learn that I spent a good chunk of yesterday trying to piece together whatever clips I could from Hulu. Though it’s a bit patchwork quilt-y to watch it that way – a snippet here, a snippet there – I think I saw most of the scrape-your-jaw-off-the-floor highlights.

And even more importantly, I also saw a few sneak peeks of the explosive upcoming reunion episode.

I won’t play spoiler by telling you what’s coming down the pike. (And I’m actually even a little mad at myself for sneak-peeking.) But I will say this: They all look g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s.

For a split second, I couldn’t figure out why they all seem approximately 10 times younger and fresher on the reunion than they did when they were trotting through the season double-cheek air-kissing and making mincemeat out of each other.

But then it hit me:

Seriously dialed-down eyeliner.

If I had to hand out a Most-Improved award, it would have to go to Kim, followed closely by Adrienne. With soft blush and lipstick – and no raccoon eyes – they both are so much prettier. Of course, Pinky looks amazing. Despite all the fan love for Kyle, and the undisputed fact that Camille has the body of cellulite-free 16-year-old, I’m totes Team Pinky.

Giggy I can take or leave. But Lisa of the Louboutins? Pure glamour.

I boldly traveled out of the city yesterday (all will be revealed in tomorrow’s blog post), and I have to say that after literally running through Grand Central to catch my train, it was impossibly lovely to plop down in my seat, crack open my iPad and read all about the Bennet girls and their hubby-hunting for the ninetieth time.

When I got my luxe little gizmo for Xmas, I promised to part company with my Luddite tendencies and embrace the 21st century. And I kinda have. Still, it’s a tad ironic that one of my favorite things to do with it so far is to devour a cherished novel written in 1813.

Personally, I love the juxtaposition of toggling back and forth between centuries at random – in all forms of media. Take my television viewing this week, for example: I jumped up and down when the hottest Fitzwilliam Darcy on the planet accepted his much-deserved Golden Globe award for The King’s Speech; I rode the emotional rollercoaster that is the fifth and -sniff- final season of Friday Night Lights; and much to Hubby’s chagrin, I discovered a new piece of PBS Masterpiece mini-series brilliance – the costumed period drama Downton Abbey.

If you’re anything like me, you will agree that Downton Abbey is all that and a massive bag of Kettles. (Which I haven’t been eating, btw, ever since I started P90X – hurrah!) It’s set a little later than Pride & Prejudice – right around the time of the sinking of the Titanic – but it still embodies all those highly constrictive Brit customs and societal values that we, as modern-day Super Mamas, can hardly relate to.

I like my life now, and the freedom it affords me. Like picking my own hubby, for instance, and not having one thrust upon me by a Mrs. Bennet type. But there is just something so swoony about dipping into these other lifetimes – even via iPad. A corseted, horse-and-buggy mommy time-out.