Lilly Pulitzer, my fair weather friend

I think we can all pretty much agree that Lilly Pulitzer looks best on thin, blonde, tanned Floridians, ideally accessorized with a sprinkling of towheaded children. Something like this:

Well, this is the story of a fair-skinned, dark-haired (thanks to the salon) northern girl (OK ... post-menopausal female) and her part-time, fair-weather, irrational love of Lilly.

When you live in Chicago in a small, elderly house with teeny, tiny closets, you spend more time than you'd like moving things in and out of your closet and drawers. And sometimes, in the dead of winter, when I'm all wool and black puffy jackets and purple tights and suchlike, I look at the neon rainbow of Lilly Pulitzer summer clothes, and a single thought passes through my mind:

WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?????

And then, lo and behold, summer hits. We get our first streak of eighty-degree days, and I'm rummaging around for the self-tanner and my white sandals and bag. And my Lilly.

This year I discovered that Lilly had--hallelujah!--actually produced some dresses with sleeves. And a chorus of angels started to sing as I discovered some of this seasons dresses aren't skin tight. They're loose, cool, and comfortable.

So I kind of went on a little bit of a shopping binge. And this week I went to a birthday luncheon for a friend of mine. Five of us baby boomers sitting around a table in a private room in a private club, talking, laughing, drinking white wine, and eating gazpacho, chicken salad, and coconut cake.

And I was resplendent in my Lilly Pulitzer blue Elina toile tunic (OK, it's really a swimsuit coverup, and maybe I looked like a walking swimming pool) with my white Michael Kors "Palm Beach" wedged sandals, and a cream-colored vintage Paloma Piccaso bag.

Then I went mattress shopping, where I took a picture.

Like youth, the season for wearing Lilly is short and sweet. And I plan to enjoy every moment!

Now is the month of Maying / when merry lads are playing / and ladies who lunch hold one damned lunch after another / Fa la la la

For a lot of people, May is a lovely month, but for me, May is the month when every non-profit, club, and board on the face of the earth holds its annual meeting.

Before I went to an annual meeting, I thought it would be a room full of guys in suits wondering what happened to this year's dividend. I pictured uprisings and gavels being banged and the kind of ruckus you see in those all-Springfield meetings they're always having on The Simpsons. That would have a certain charm.

Unfortunately, in my case, annual meetings are ladies' luncheons where everyone gets all dressed up, listens to boring reports, and eats too much fattening food.

And this week I had three ladies lunches on three successive days. THREE.

It's all an enormous strain. I'm a geek. I'd much rather be talking to the internet about eyeshadow. Instead, I'll be slipping on one of the three versions of this dress I scored at Old Navy and driving downtown to listen to rathah dull reports and eat too much.


(I got it in black, slate blue, and this Yummy Plummy color. Two were $25 and one was $12.95, can you believe it?)

But seriously, people, can you imagine serving lobster souffle and then having coconut cake for dessert? That's a week's worth of calories in a single meal.

Internet, I'd rather hang out with you. Granted, you end up costing me a lot of money (see above) but you're way less fattening, and anyway, I want to finish what I have to say about neutral eye makeup. I mean, let's face it; I'm one of the most interesting people I know. I like making the internet listen to me talk to myself. It's fun.

I also want to tell you about what I'm doing to get ready for my 30th college reunion. Yes, I said it. Thirty years.

I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and try some new things in a last-ditch attempt to impress my classmates with how fabulous I look for my age. I bought a Murad Resurgance starter kit ($119) and started using it on May 1st.

Murad Resurgence 90 Day Kit

I also bought the new five-minute Crest Whitestrips. And some absolutely enormous vitamins.

But I don't know when I'm going to find the time to post, what with all these luncheons.

(I might actually make a video, instead.)

A tale of two lunches

This was a hard week for me. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a jeans-wearing housewife with a bad case of blogger's butt and a closet full of clothes that are too tight. And yet, I needed to head into the city five times this week to go to some kind of glamorous event.

The strain almost killed me.

On top of which, two of the events were luncheons. As in ladies-who-luncheon.

Frankly, if you want me to have a rotten time, invite me to lunch and then call it a luncheon. I'll hate it.

Now, one of these luncheons was a program of a non-profit whose board I currently adorn. If not for that, I would have blown it off, and not just because of my enormous wardrobe challenges. It was one of those deals where there was a talk, then the luncheon. And the talk was going to be about 18th century furniture.

Here is a laboriously-produced Excel chart depicting my interest in antique furniture:






I knew the lecture itself would be less than fascinating and more of an opportunity for me to get into a Zen state and mentally alphabetize my spice rack. And I'm not whining about that. Advance notice does a great deal to mitigate the pain of 30 or 40 minutes of feeling bored, so my real problem was afterwards at the luncheon.

I think after sitting up straight and doing my best Nancy Reagan imitation, where I look like I've been paying all kinds of attention (and unfortunately, actually HAVE been paying attention so that I'll be going to my grave knowing way more than any sane person would ever want to know about the variations in carving on the feet of 18th century tables and chairs) I deserve to have a nice meal.

But this was just not my kind of meal. There was this salad of frisee (that bitter curly lettuce that doesn't appear to want to go into your mouth, and instead, wants to stick itself up your nose) with wobbly poached egg on top followed by huge plateful of salmon (which I don't like) and two tiny new potatoes and pureed butternut squash (which I do, but there wasn't enough of it. So I found myself looking hungrily at other peoples' plates, wondering whether it would seem really tacky to ask them whether they were planning on eating their puree.) And then there was a slice of some kind of awful dark chocolate tart flavored with orange, ew. And NO WINE. And then finally, blessedly, some coffee.

OK, the other luncheon was sponsored by Tiffany & Co. I have no idea how I ended up on the invitation list for this event, but this was the single most incredible luncheon I have ever attended, and not only was it free, but we walked out with all kinds of loot.

The Tiffany luncheon was to announce to launch of wowowow.com. It's a web site produced by Liz Smith, Candace Bergen, Whoopie Goldberg, Julia Reed, Judith Martin (a/k/a Miss Manners) and a bunch of other amazing women.

So guess who was at the luncheon?

I should say here that that at least in Chicago, if there is a big name on the invitation, there's a 95 percent chance that said big name is hanging around his chalet in Gstaad or his beach house in Malibu, or basically, is anywhere except at the benefit. And yet, at this luncheon for about 50 women, sponsored and paid for by Tiffany & Co., were

Judith Martin (Miss Manners), Julia Reed, and Liz Smith

And the tables were decorated with Tiffany jewelry. Diamonds? Check. Great big South Seas pearls the size of golf balls? Check. Those enamel Jean Schlumberger bracelets that sell for $18,000 each? There were piles of them on the tables for people to play with.

And everyone had a sterling silver "Return to Tiffany" book mark at their setting, as a party favor.

And the food was really good. OK, there was Caesar Salad and chicken with rice and sugar snap peas, which isn't all that exciting, but there were also individually-prepared chocolate souffles with crme anglaise and fresh raspberries.

And the authors were signing free books for us.

And it turns out that Miss Manners is a fan of Donna Leon, whom I adore.

More important, Miss Manners sat at my table at lunch, and just so you know, she rested her arms on the table. Which, OK, it wasn't her elbows, but still.

Honestly, people, this was heaven. I wish my wedding had been even half as luxurious and lovely. I don't even care that wowowow.com is a very slick website with high quality content that will keep readers away in droves from the penny-ante likes of this blog. That's how good this lunch was.

So, gentle readers, what have we learned? I can be bought. And don't make me sit through a slideshow of antique furniture again. I'm begging you.