Baby Feet

I have a thing for Mary Jane shoes. Always have. Can't explain it.

Spotted these little beauties on one of my frequent flea market jaunts.
I imagine some little person really loved these shoes. So sweet.

Los Colores

When things start to seem a little drab in my neighborhood,

 I head just south of San Diego to the National City Swap Meet in National City, California.

It's like a colorful trip to Mexico without the long wait at the border.

Pan Am

Do you watch this tv show? I do. And I LOVE it because.....True Confessions: I was a Pan Am Stewardess! I was not a spy but I certainly had a lot of adventures.
Sadly, almost all photographic evidence of my career was lost during one of my many moves...the result of the peripatetic flight attendant life-style. Oh well...I have my memories...sigh...

However, an old friend recently sent this picture of ME on a layover in Montevideo some time in the 1980's. Love the famous Adolfo uniform. (I was PRETEND smoking.)
Anyway, I had wanted to become a Stewardess since I took my first airplane flight ~ at age eight. And when I grew up, I did it. And I loved it.

So of course I am in ecstasy over this ADORABLE safety video for Thomson Airlines. Enjoy!

Vignettes

How can I, a confirmed francophile, have lived in San Diego this long without having visited Vignettes???? Incroyable!

So here it is in the Ocean Beach neighborhood.

Chandeliers.

French music playing. A tribute to Chanel.

Some crazy cool stuff.

This chalk poem totally got me.

http://www.vignettesantiques.comTres francais. Tres amusant. Merci, Vignettes!

Rosy Cheeks

Antacids, pain relievers, antibiotics, chemotherapy, radiation...yikes..the list goes on and on. Sometimes in life you might find yourself having to take advantage of the miracles of modern medicine. And a big cheer of gratitude to all the super smart scientists who work hard to develop all sorts of things to keep us alive and well. Merci MILLE fois!
But after all this, why? WHY???? put more chemicals on your skin if you don't have to? Why?

I am so happy that I discovered Weleda. Such a super cool company. Check them out here:http://www.weleda.com

My favorite Weleda product is the Wild Rose Smoothing Night Cream. I feel so virtuous when I slap it on my face at night. It smells wonderful. I feel like I'm sleeping in a bed of roses. Hmm...maybe I am. This rose popped up in my garden today...in JANUARY! Oh So Cal...

Elegance and Grace

We live in a wonderful era. So many interesting things going on. But sometimes I long for the sartorial elegance of times past. I'm currently watching DOWNTON ABBEY Part II. Do you LOVE IT?!! And... I'm re-reading THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton, one of my favorite novels of all time. Poor Lily Bart.

So of course I'm swooning over this Patrick Demarchelier photo shoot styled by the BRILLIANT Grace Coddington in the November 2011 issue of Vogue.

The next time I go to the beach I'm going to dress like this.

The Nature Conservancy

I have had the great good fortune in life to have grown up in the oh so BEAUTIFUL state of MONTANA. Even though I have spent most of my adult life living by oceans, both Atlantic and Pacific, I still consider myself un vrai fleur de montagne.

This is Morell Falls near Seeley Lake, Montana. We used to hike here when I was a kid. This past year I finally took my own two California kids on the same hike! So Fun. So Gorgeous. Then we stopped for huckleberry milkshakes on the way back to town... just like we used to back in the day.
So this year for Christmas I gave my mom and my siblings a unique gift: I adopted several acres of land in the NORTHERN ROCKIES in their names. I did the adoption through The Nature Conservancy. This organization does amazing cool things to protect our EARTH. Check it out at http://www.nature.org/
Where is your favorite nature spot? 

A Day At The Races

On Saturday mornings I wake up to watch the Food Network while I make breakfast. But this weekend, while I was channel surfing, I noticed an old film, a ballerina spinning around and around. Well of course, I HAD TO WATCH. It was The Marx Brothers' "A Day At The Races." Hmmmm... Normally I don't have a lot of patience for Marx Brothers movies...a little too silly. But this one! So glad I stuck around (sorry Laura Calder) because it just kept getting better and better. In addition to the spinning ballerina it had Chico doing his cool piano thing and Harpo turning a piano into a harp - genius - and Groucho dancing a happy little jig and some astoundingly adorable children and THIS: Whitey's Lindy Hoppers performing one of the MOST JOYOUS DANCE NUMBERS I'VE EVER SEEN!!! And, yes, I dig the clothes. What a great way to start the New Year.