I want to treat myself to a new bag for my birthday…one for everyday wear.  I’ve narrowed my selection down to three, which would you choose?

LanvinI like the simple design on this one — business appropriate yet noticeable.

FendiPretty, slightly pimpish but oh so pretty.

Ferragamo A little bulky, but it’s appeal is no one can get in your way when your wielding this big boy.

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, my mind is completely focused on slightly drunken dysfunctional family feasts, going from house to house, in-laws to cousins, spreading good cheer as family secrets come to light over turkey carcasses. Take a look at what I won’t be drinking…..

Johnnie Walker Blue Label 1805 Edition. At US$27,000 a bottle, it is a pretty safe bet that it will not show up anywhere between the bottles of Southern Comfort and pickle jars that will grace my table. With it’s smooth, smokey finish, I’m sure it will be missed.

For those who celebrate…Happy Thanksgiving. For those who don’t, enjoy your Thursday.

For the second time in my life I am pressed to make one of the most difficult fashion decisions women worldwide face….the wedding dress.  I’ve made my choice and today commissioned someone to make this dress for me:

This simple yet elegant cowl neck dress has lower draping in the back and will be made of double sided liquid silk.  I’ve chosen ivory because ivory is more flattering than white on my complexion and with five children following me down the beach to my ex-husband, new groom, white would be uh laughable. 

This week I will hire a personal trainer who has absolutely no compassion or tolerance for excuses I have some serious arm work, and who am I kidding, ab work to do. 

Occasionally I can be swayed.  This was one of those times.   I first noticed spectator shoes about two weeks ago on the feet of the autumn eager, I was unmoved.  But I woke up this morning with an eagerness to own.  I was probably exposed to subliminal branding, maybe on the subway — who knows.  So, compliments of Zappos my frenzied state will be eased on Monday.  Say hello to my new friend Stuart Weitzman.

Personally, I can’t think of a better shoe to go with my oversized tweed menswear trousers….can you?

This weekend I celebrated my 11th and final anniversary with my husband.  For our final anniversary weekend we had romantic dinners, sex marathons and I received this:

We have been seperated for some time and the divorce is already in progress.  But life has a way of twisting and turning and we have found the path back to each other.  So now we are divorcing and committed to remarrying each other.  This time on a beach in St. Marteen — attended by our children, friends and family.  So without obsessing much, I am on the hunt for a wedding dress for my second marriage.   Designers anyone?

If you are anything like me with autumn comes with fourth quarter work related stressors, the start of logs crackling in the fireplace, blanket cuddles, apple picking and the flu.  So my original weekend plans of picking apples at the orchard with my baby, will be modified slightly…

cocktails anyone?

Apple Brandy Hot Toddy

INGREDIENTS:
2 oz apple brandy
1 tsp sugar
hot apple cider
lemon wedge for garnish
cinnamon stick
2 whole cloves

PREPARATION:
Coat the bottom of an Irish coffee glass with honey.
Add apple brandy.
Fill with hot apple cider.
Stir well.
Garnish with the lemon, cinnamon stick and cloves
Get out your favorite blanket, put on some Marvin Gaye and add a loved one.

Enjoy your weekend!
 

As you’ve probably heard Marc Jacobs showed up 2 hours laste for his 9pm show.  Took the stage at 11:05.  So here is my favorite picture from the Marc Jacobs runway:

Anna Wintour (Vogue editrix walking out):

Last night, on Day 4 of Fashion Week the Man himself closed the show to mulitiple standing ovations.

Ralph Lauren.  Ahem, fellow New Yorker Ralph Lauren.  His show stopping 40th Anniversary Collection left not a dry panty in the house.  Trust.

Here are a few of my favs:

The Man Himself:

And while Ralph Lauren closed the show last night….we still have 4 more days of runway left!  Squee

I was not as thrilled with day 2 of Fashion Week as I thought I might be. Miss Sixty — please God no. Color blocking and polka dots — personally I do not find that particularly flattering. Here are my favs from the runway:

Badgley Mischka — I love this one, because every New York woman deserves a Sunny Day Trench

This Karen Walker creation grows on me more and more as I look at the photo. Completely impractical for the City, but it’s megacute

The house that Bill Blass built knows a party dress. Yesterday’s collection is reminescent of a Robert Palmer video

Hopefully something spectacular will jump off the catwalk today.

I’m not sure whose designs are being reported as stealing the show on Day 1 of Fashion Week, but I can say that Kati Stern did her thing and stole my heart. Here is my Venexiana fav:

and I must shout out Nicole Miller and her consistently feminine design:

and a special thank you to BCBG Max Azria. I was struggling with a paint choice for my living room — I now know that metallic silver and a cocoa brown can work — if the brown is minimized:

Well day 2 of fashion week began about 10 minutes ago — I don’t know about you, but I can not wait to see the designs popping off the runway. Tomorrow night, I will attempt to get into the Cellar — and discreetly photograph — ok, at 5′10″ discreet is not my forte, the fashion goobersnoopers.

I believe if you live in Manhattan and are over thirty, you have a ninety percent chance of being in therapy. The other ten percent are simply learning disabled or in deep denial. Or so I tell myself every Saturday afternoon.

After my Saturday ritualistic mind cleansing, I will participate in The Big Draw at the Winter Garden. Everyone’s invited — so if you find yourself in Manhattan this Saturday, swing on by.

Afterwards I’m going to a Martini/Manhattan party — to celebrate my children returning to school. I guess that makes me a martini-loving, single-sorta, knitty-gritty, uptown-all-the-way housewife chick.

And because I’m cool like that and we chill like that — here’s a gift just for you:

Crazy in da Coconut martini

Ingredients

6 ounces of freezing Van Hoo vodka.
1 fresh Mexican vanilla bean. If you can’t find the Mexican variety, use Madagascar
1 tablespoon of cream of coconut.
1 teaspoon of fresh coconut flakes

The mix:

Add a few drops of the cream of coconut to 2 freezing martini glasses, and put them back in the freezer until called upon.
Carefully slice the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the insides into a shaker 3/4 full of cracked ice. Drop the vanilla bean into the shaker.
The remaining cream of coconut goes into the shaker.
A good full minute of shaking (stirring is not an option here - is it ever?).
Strain your martini into the glasses in which you’ve added the cream of coconut.
Top each glass with a few coconut flakes.
Put on the reggaeton, get a hot papi and enjoy.

Kitten heels may be cute, but the spill I took this morning crossing 7th Avenue certainly was not. While the fall itself was not graceful, the leap back up had catlike qualities. Although my dignity was crushed, my cigarette remained lit. Now, I have to wobble across the street to purchase a new pair of pants and a bandaid.

I called him a few minutes ago and he said yes, before I finished the invitation…that’s because I am a

cougar: A woman in her sexual prime who prefers to hunt rather than be hunted. A cougar’s victims are usually under 25, as cougars prefer to mate with men who still have hair. Cougars generally feed and then continue hunting, as they enjoy role reversal.

or keep your pimp hand strong, sits with me wrong. My feeling on the matter, if a woman, man or transgender can womanup/manup/bitchup and state their opinion without worry or concern of censorship then they have a unique sense of style. And more importantly, they are secure within their own skin.

Sometimes, although rarely, you run across a branding campaign that captures the essence of a noncensored ideal

Kudos to Manhattan Mini Storage.

Sometime a few years ago, not long after a new episode of Sex in the City, American women were presented with a new representative standard of beauty buzz word:

Brazilian. Brazilian butt lift, Brazilian extensions, Brazilian sugaring, Brazilian keratin treatment, Brazilian threading, Brazilian pedicure, and the infamous Brazilian wax.

Having participated (ahem, visually) in my share of Carnival, I happily agree that Brazilian ladies are lovely, but you know what? A butt lift is a butt lift, no matter what the name.

Just to be different, this weekend I believe I’m going to ask for the Venezuelan pedicure.

As August nears an end the New York tans are getting deeper, a testament to the weekends spent in the Hamptons, barbeques along the Palisades, the required kiddie trips to Florida or the 24-hour convenience of tanning beds.

So imagine the horror I felt when I noticed a fellow commuter on the uptown #1 whose face was colored like this:

A dayglow orange creamsicle. Obviously a tan like this was neither a creation of the sun nor tanning bed. This is what happens when you decided the bronzer at Sephora is too damn expensive and buy, oh, I don’t know, Jergen’s body self-tanner and slather it on your face like it was antioxidant cream.

*Obviously the picture is not the woman I saw on the train — but the color is exactly the same. Can anyone tell who this face belongs to?

I just walked into the duplicating center of the law firm where I am employed. My friend was putting on his ‘business’ shirt as I entered the room and I was able to get a delicious whiff of his intoxicant and I had to ask…

What are you wearing?

With a knowing smile he replied…Envy for Men

As soon as I walked back to my office I googled it: fragrances notes are Opoponax, Incense, Patchouli, Amber, Musk, Cedarwood, Cardamom, Anise, Ginger, Nutmeg and Pimiento

Yes that seems about right ’cause I could have definitely could have taken a few bites. It looks like Gucci figured out how to put sex back in the bottle.

What’s your scent today?

I’ve discovered Kenneth Cole is love. Kenneth Cole at 50% off is orgasmic love.

I was a little down earlier today….moments before I hit Fifth Avenue as I found myself standing on the second floor of Kenneth Cole purchasing pants, cardigans and boots because more than any other man

he knows the length of my arm
the shape of my legs
the skim of my calf
and how to gently hold my hips

well, maybe not more than any other man.

Knit one, purl two, drink. I was chatting with my good friend M the other day and mentioned how incredibly hip knitting has become in New York. Especially for the 20-30 something crowd. I take a look around me, young women and metrosexuals everywhere are doing it – on the subway, in Bryant Park, at bars, coffee shops, movie shoots….New York is being taken over by zenned out knitters one stitch at a time. And I’m part of the craze.

Recently I took lessons and honestly, at first, I wasn’t feeling it, being a bit (ok a lot) hyper and in constant need of instant gratification, I found knitting at a click, click pace completely out of tune with my character. Until my knitting instructor Rahshida (see, I told you it was hip) informed me I would become a better knitter if I would just relax, light up and have a glass of wine. I skipped the weed, but reached for the wine and suddenly I got it. I had entered the knitting zone. That zenned out place you reach as the click of the bamboo needles rocks you into a sense of security as you weave your issues into the Alpacan softness and create your masterpiece.

Knit one, purl two, drink. Knit one, purl two, drink. My favorite places in knit? Booze and Yarn – where knitters and drinkers unite, Knit New York – where knitters and coffee/tea drinkers unite (I also run there when I’m stuck on a pattern), on the subway and of course, Central Park. My current project is a Ruana in a green/brown cashmere mix….it’s in my bag right now, locked in my desk….but I can hear it softly calling my name.