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Mother’s Day, 2014
By
Published: May 06, 2014
Category:
Beyond Classification
Mother’s Day. Two fraught words. Loved ones, aging, not who they were. Loved ones, gone, the pain of that going nowhere. Or, as a friend once described her relationship with her mother, “like moose with antlers locked, can’t get closer, can’t get apart.”
My mother is 97. I’m starting, at last, to get a handle on this relationship. Maybe. One thing I have learned: Do not think this is a Hallmark holiday and doesn’t apply to you. It does. Hope this helps.
SMALL THINGS FOR A KIT
Perfetto Pencils The Perfetto pencil case and pencils makes me think of the Italy of the 1930s, the Italy of “The Conformist.” Very clean, very precise, very bold design: a sturdy case, with twelve double-sided, two-color pencils.
Timex Easy Reader Watch: The ultimate in simplicity. Costs $32, Looks like a million.
Portable Smartphone Compact Battery Charger This lipstick-sized device takes about 6 hours to charge and delivers enough juice for 1-2 charges of your phone. Bliss.
Zojirushi Vacuum Drink Mug: What is astonishing about the Zojirushi is how long hot stays hot and how long cold stays cold. Fill it with 16 ounces of steaming coffee in the morning, and six hours later, you can still burn your lips. Put ice cubes in a cold drink, and, six hours later, there’s still ice. Stylish? It’s sleek. At 9.5 inches, it’s just the right size for a tote.
Pu-erh Tea: Health buffs swear by it’s good for you. But the sweet clear taste is a sufficient lure. And the packaging! Four stars for presentation.
BEAUTY
T3 Bespoke Labs Ionic Ceramic Tourmaline Hair Dryer: No more bad hair days — ever. The T3 dries your hair 50-60% faster than your current dryer. The negative ions generated by the T3 add seal moisture in your hair. The negative ions flatten your hair, essentially eliminating frizz. What more do you want?
Anthelios 40 Sunscreen Cream with Mexoryl Fight off melanoma! Dr. Vincent DeLeo, Chairman, Department of Dermatology, Founding Director, Skin of Color Center, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt and Beth Israel: “It produces a product which gives us almost perfect protection against sunshine.”
BOOKS
The World of Madeleine Castaing You can’t really say she was a French decorator. “I can take inspiration from a scene in Chekhov as from a dress by Goya,” she said, and she wasn’t kidding. In one of her rooms, you could be in Russia, in another room London. Most of the time, the mood she created was timeless, poetic, a fantasy. As she said, “There is always beauty in mystery.”
What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-one Women on the Gifts That Mattered Mos Elizabeth Benedict collected essays from women not inclined to platitudes. A strong, smart, complex anthology.
The Jewish Daughter Diaries: True Stories of Being Loved Too Much by Our Moms: A Jewish mother would say she’s an extension of you. Or you of her. Or…but only one truth is common to Jewish moms: they adore you. (Ok, conditionally.) Rachel Ament gathers the real life tales.
D.V.: Diana Vreeland was a character-and-a-half. “Pink is the navy blue of India,” she said. “Wash your blond child’s hair with dead champagne,” she suggested. “The bikini is the most important invention since the H-bomb,” she announced. Here she tells her life story. Is it true? Who knows?
I’m On My Own and So Are You: Judy Resnick’s tough love, extremely effective guide to financial independence for women. How tough? “Rich or less than rich, the law of economics is the same: We all have to learn to live within our means. And we have to take responsibility for our own financial security.”
The Queen’s Gambit: A novel in which an orphan girl becomes a chess champion. If mom is like every other reader I’ve pushed this on, she won’t get up until she finishes.
A Sport and a Pastime Go on. Give her a “dirty” book: “She cannot be satisfied. She will not let him alone. She removes her clothes and calls to him. Once that night and twice the next morning he complies and in the faint darkness between lies awake, the lights of Dijon faint on the ceiling, the boulevards still. It’s a bitter night. Flats of rain are passing. Heavy drops ring in the gutter outside their window, but they are in a dovecote, they are pigeons between the eaves. The rain is falling all around them. Deep in feathers, breathing softly, they lie.”
MUSIC
Yamaha Micro Component System Reader review: “The Yamaha system is the best I’ve ever heard, and easy for a low-tech person such as myself to install. When my high-tech brother visited and said ‘What’s this?’ and popped his iPhone in to test it, his only comment was ‘Wow!’ Great system, great price for a boatload of features. Had to thank you!” A crazy bargain at $150.
Big Mama Thornton She lived in Houston, performing in clubs, learning to play drums and harmonica, drinking gin and milk, and being open about her sexuality decades before it was cool to be a lesbian. “My singing comes from my experience…my own experience,” she said. “I never had no one teach me nothin’. I never went to school for music or nothin’. I taught myself to sing and to blow harmonica and even to play drums by watchin’ other people! I can’t read music, but I know what I’m singing!”
Krishna Das it’s the weirdest thing. The music begins and, five seconds later, I feel like I’m… home.
And this:
