Blackbird wanted to know what I was wearing during my trip to England

After singing seven services in as many days? Mostly choir robes.

And a tired smile.

Buxoms 1; Looters 0

Just a quick note to let you know that we're fine. We traveled to Canterbury last Monday and have been busy with rehearsals, services, and short day trips every since.

Also, I've been chaperoning an extra teenager in addition to my own kids. It's obviously a question of the blind leading the blind, but there you are.

Naturally, I've done some shopping--my motto is, after all, Dum spiro, shoppo. But a lot of it has been in gift shops or places like TopShop for my daughter. Not for myself. Damn it.

I've got my eye on a Boots, though, and as God is my witness, I'll be there today.

Trip report: England; Day 2; The Tower of London and St. Paul's Cathedral

OK, let me get this out and then I promise I won't whine much more: what is with hotels that don't offer wireless internet? I don't even care that much if they charge a little something for it. I think charging for wireless internet is ridiculous, too, but not as ridiculous as charging 20 pounds a day for high speed internet access via ethernet cable. Come on, Marriott--get with the program!

I have to use my husband's work laptop to type this, and it's balky and uncomfortable. And I can't get pictures.

Instead, I'll tell you what I wore, and what we did.

I wore

pink Eileen Fisher 3/4 sleeve cotton t-shirt

J. Crew City Fit Cafe Capris

tan Prada driving mocs

black 3/4 sleeve Nordstrom rain anorak

under the rain anorak, my Chanel wallet-on-a-chain

I also carried my idiotic Coach Poppy tote for things like bottled water, my umbrella, sunglasses, the guidebook I broke down and bought, etc.

What I Did

Our first stop for the day was the Tower of London. Can I just say how ... weird ... it is that I've only been to London once before, and this choir trip's itinerary is duplicating so much of what we did 20 years ago? Luckily a few things were different or I'd start to feel ossified. The crown jewels are displayed differently; the Tower is more Disney-fied (every attraction exits into a gift shop) and this time, we have teenagers with us. So that was interesting enough, I guess, and it was a lovely morning--sunny, but mild. Good weather for exploring.

We ate lunch at a sort of outdoor food court area in a newly-developed area just west of the Tower (for newly-developed read "after 1991".) There were lots of tourists of different stamps, and the food selections were OK; the teenagers could chow down on hot dogs with fries, but I could go to Paul and get a ham baguette and a bottle of Badoit.

(I love Badoit SO MUCH but they don't sell it in Chicago. I bought three bottles.)

After lunch we went to St. Paul's Cathedral. I was ready to give it a quick walk through and bail, but the teenagers insisted on really exploring. So we walked up the 200-plus steps to the whispering gallery and another two-hundred steps through some very steam-punk looking metal stairways to the dome. There we had great views of the London Eye, and the London Eye had great views of us.

Afterwards we hit a bookstore for a little browsing (and the purchase of a much-needed guide book) and then the teenagers insisted on going back to the cathedral for evensong. The choir sang a setting of O Nata Lux that our choir has sung, and the teenagers just loved hearing it.

Sitting in St. Paul's--site of the previous Royal Wedding (Charles' and Camilla's doesn't count) listening to gorgeous music and watching the sky darken through the clear glass windows while the setting sun illuminates the gold in the mosaics? Is well worth the blisters those Prada driving shoes gave me.

Packing, packing, packing.

People, I know. I start blogging again with a bang, then ... radio silence.

The thing is, between the house being painted, the basement being flooded, and my entire family heading to England on Thursday, it's been busybusybusy around here.

See, we're not just going to England to visit the Tower of London to drool over the Royal Jewels. Although that's definitely in the itinerary.

Will you get a load of this? And this is the stuff that isn't locked up for tourists to gawk at.

We're also going to be spending the week in Canterbury, being a visiting choir at the cathedral. And the preparations are dizzying.

First of all, we had to watch Becket.

Richard Burton is OK, but Peter O'Toole leaves him sitting in the road.

Because it would be remiss to visit Canterbury and not understand why the characters in the  Tales were journeying to the cathedral in the first place.

Also, I'm very busy trying to plump up my family's flat American vowels so the tourists who hear us sing won't realize we're from Chicago.

Not that we won't sound good, but if I were a tourist at Canterbury Cathedral, I'd be a bit disappointed that the extremely professional-sounding choir (complete with angelic, soaring trebles) was actually American. I feel it only polite to disguise my Colonial origins. At least, while I'm singing.

The other thing keeping me busy is making sure we're all stocked with sufficient choir clothes. It is not, unfortunately, enough that we'll be wearing floor-length choir robes topped with knee-length surplices. We also have a dress code to adhere to as cathedral musicians: black skirts or pants topped with white blouses or shirts. Closed-toe black shoes. Neutral, white, or black hose. Or--thankfully--no hose.

Having done this before, I've managed to accumulate a significant stock of black pants (God bless Eileen Fisher)




















sensible black closed-toe shoes,

Chanel Cambon ballerina flats--way too logo-y, but INCREDIBLY comfortable

Haute Footure wedges by the very clever Taryn Rose

and a nice collection of blouses.

Lafayette 148 is a favorite for these.

Dear Fashion Gods: Enough with the ruffles. Those of us with a lot on our balconies would appreciate it. Thanks! Love, Poppy

The gem of my blouse collection is one by Samuel Dong that I swear is made of the earth's supply of petroleum by-products. If I spill spaghetti sauce on it,  I could probably clean it off with Windex. Which makes it perfect for travel.

Let us not forget a stylish pair of wellies, should the weather prove inclement.

Getting the children properly kitted out has been A Mad Scramble, let me tell you.  Young Master Buxom is 16, and in the two years since we last went to England (and tried to trick American tourists into believing we were an English choir) he's gone from wearing a boy's size 20 shirt to a 15/33. Which makes for a lot of shopping.

And of course, there's the girl. Who is wont to declare that everything she once liked is now Woefully Out Of Style.

So while I get ready, do me a favor and come up with suggestions of fun, frivolous things to shop for in London. I plan to visit Boots and Top Shop. What about Mango? And are there any fabulous products for aging English complexions that I need to buy and bring back to the States? Any products that are imported to the U.K. but don't make it to the States?

My iPhone wrote this post

I like to think that my particular blogging forte is Deep Thoughts on Shallow Subjects, but I'm a little short on fashion and style thoughts these days. (This will no doubt please the two or three weirdos readers who would rather hear about my life.) Therefore, the following is a version of My Life in Pictures. With commentary. And a minimum of whining.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Buxom and I drove out to Hancock, New York, to watch our kids in a production of Les Miserables.

Here they are being peasants. Miss Buxom's cheeks are extremely red, partly because of the lavish way I applied Chanel's Rouge (from the Fall 2011 Byzantine collection.) But also because she was coming down with walking pneumonia.

After two days of driving from New York, we were greeted by the news that our house, which had been full of painters for five days, was going to be full of painters for Quite a While Longer. The painting, it took much time. The patching, it went on for many days. Only to be followed by the sanding, and the depositing of lavish amounts of plaster dust.

Please notice the lovely soft celadon/light avocado green in my dining room. Also note the Chinoiserie curtains. (Honestly, someone with such Old Lady taste in interior decorating should shut her pie hole about fashion, don't you agree?)

See the trim over the sideboard? It used to be two asymmetrical white rectangles. I asked the painter to make it one big rectangle. Now I can hang art. Or a mirror. Or sconces! Maybe all three! What joy.

Wow, I really need to polish those candlesticks. And put everything back where it belongs.

Study in chocolate

Mr. Buxom's study used to have navy blue wallpaper with a pattern of stars. Now it's painted chocolate brown. I hope bird approves, as Mr. Buxom's study doubles as bird's guest quarters. Please note the dramatic effect of the super dark walls only partially illuminated by the afternoon sun. That, my friends, is Style.

OK, now we're up to a week ago.

On our way to take Miss Buxom to the doctor to hear the bad news about the walking pneumonia (which I've decided to call La Pneumonie Marchante out of free-floating Francophilia, and because she contracted it while she was being a French Peasant, and also because the French pronounce the "P" in "Pneumonie," which amuses me to no end) we discovered that the previous evening's torrential rain storms had caused flooding in my basement. And some destruction of drywall and such.

So. Disease, dust, disaster, distruction ... somehow I'm not doing a lot of shopping.

Thank goodness I'm still in deep, deep love with the bag I bought last April.

I've also fallen down on the grooming front. 

Faux Fuschia, please note that it's not chipped, per se. But it's still revolting.

Ooh-la-la! Those nails are misérables! I desperately need a new Shellac manicure. I've put  off my re-Shellacing due to zee Puh-nee-mo-nie, the painting, and the flooding, but I'll be dealing with it very, very soon.

Because? On Wednesday, we're flying to London.

p.s. The house is still at sixes and sevens, but Miss Buxom is just fine.

Blog365 Fail and other updates

• On Monday evening, I returned from my second out-of-town jaunt in two weeks. This time it was a choir trip to NYC. (Frankly, I don't know how you road warriors do it. OMG the laundry alone is killing me.)

• I'm a Blog365 wash out. We had a group registration with the hotel, and the front desk was always so busy that I didn't register a credit card with the hotel until Sunday. This means I couldn't access the wireless until Sunday night.

• Also, we were incredibly busy. The kids and I sang services at the Church of the Heavenly Rest (5/90th) and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (113th and Amsterdam Avenue.)

• After rehearsal on Saturday, the four of us ate lunch at Centolire. Then my daughter and I got our nails done and shopped our way down Madison Avenue, with stops at Olive and Bette's and Betsey Johnson.

• That night we went out to dinner and then to Lincoln Center to see South Pacific. Which was fantastic.

• My daughter looks adorable in her new loot (black puffy satin skirt from Betsey Johnson; black Uggs from Olive and Bette's)

• I look far less adorable in my Betsey Johnson loot:



• Yet I'm wearing it even as I type.

• Makes you wonder how I have the nerve to dish out advice on beauty and style for baby boomers, doesn't it?

• But I'm going to, anyway. More of that anon.

backfromoutoftownjusthaveaminutetopost

I always think I'm going to do a real trip report, or actually, you know, discuss something I've been doing in some depth. I mean, when was the last time I was in a synagogue listening to someone chant the Torah? It's been 40 years, people. You'd think I'd have something heartfelt and meaningful to say. An observation or two. But actually, I don't.

Anyway, since we last spoke, I've been to Princeton, New Jersey, New York City, and Rhode Island. I've hung out with my husband's extended family, whom I last saw in 2008 at the hippy wedding in California. I've seen my husband's first cousins once removed become B'not Mitzvah.
(I've seen a squillion 13 year old girls in spaghetti strapped minidresses and platform sandals reading congratulatory letters and squeeing.)

I've eaten in the Yankee Doodle Tap Room at the Nassau Inn, where the painting over the bar is by Norman Rockwell, and Michelle Obama has been added to the Princeton notables on the wall. Which kind of balances out the Donald Rumsfeld picture, if you ask me.

Princeton is the prettiest Ivy League campus I've ever seen. And the town has fabulous shopping.

Then there's New York, and again, I should have something to say about that, but here you go: Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, Times Square, The Lion King.

For food there was Sarge's delicatessan, Markt for Belgian beer and frites, Moco for great sushi and yummy cocktails, Fagliolini, and Sardi's for supper after The Lion King.

I had raw tuna at Markt and steak Tartare at Sardi's. Two raws in one day. And yet, I live.

We bought a couple of bottles of wine at The Wine Shop on Lex. It was a tiny hole in the wall stuffed with racks of wine. The owners were Asian and the only other customers were burly Russian construction workers buying nips of vodka. There was classical piano music playing in the background. We stopped into Winfield-Flynn, too--this time to get a present for my husband's father. Their stereo was playing jazz. (Honestly, the liquor stores were so civilized, I could have shopped for booze all day.) Anyway, they turned us on to Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur.

After that we drove to Rhode Island for Thanksgiving with my husband's parents, and give my father-in-law his liqueur. We stayed in a hotel that is trying really hard to be hip and chic, but let's face it; it's Rhode Island. When a groovy loft-style hotel throws a pajama party and people show up practically naked, it doesn't seem fresh and unexpected; it just leaves Mr. Buxom wondering whether prostitution is legal in Rhode Island. After all, prostitution always seems to be legal in places where nobody would otherwise want to go, like Nevada and Amsterdam. And Rhode Island.

And then today we flew home and I have a mountain of laundry to do.

But I also have a mountain of Buffy disks to watch, so once again, it balances out.

Lighting Candles

Life has been all kinds of busy, Internet, hence my lack of verbiage.

And because I could get Carpel Tunnel Syndrome trying to fill you in, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Last Saturday we realized school was about to start



and we felt pretty ambivalent about it,



so we went to Warren's in Kittery, ME for one last big-ass dessert



before packing up the car and heading back to Illinois.

On the way we spent the night in Chautauqua, which is all kinds of adorable



what with the porches bedecked with vases of gladiolas



the pedestrian-friendly streets,



the cultural offerings,



and a really good bookstore. (If you haven't heard of the Chautauqua Institute, you could read this interesting Wikipedia entry or get the brief version from me; it's a resort for intellectuals, where the focus has always been adult education.)

So that was fun.

Then it was home to inspect the damage from the big storm that struck the Chicago area while we were eating ice cream in New Hampshire. So I bid you welcome to my back yard




and you can see what my first order of business was.

It was obviously not to get my son a haircut, so he went off to school somewhat on the shaggy side but relatively cheerful about the start of the school year.



Unlike his mother, who vacillates between full-on nausea and a sense of impending doom



because my next tasks were: 1. to get the building permits that will make it legal for the construction people to rip out the kitchen and two of the bathrooms;

and 2. To join Weight Watchers. Where I got weighed in. Shall we see that again?



So now, I am figuring out this whole Weight Watchers Flex Plan Jargon Thing. And Tracking Points. And keeping the Supreme Dieting Icon candle lit:



All I need now are two more candles: St. Jude Pray for Me as I Oversee Homework and St. Joseph Watch Over My House as It Is Remodeled.

"This is such an elegant evening--such fun--more with you there. Hope you can make it!"

In case you've been wondering--that's what I've been writing. Not blogs. Enclosure cards for fundraiser invitations.

Over and over and over again.

Sometimes on the massive card stock provided by the Music of the Baroque. Sometimes on the tiny card stock provided by the Chicago Branch of the English-Speaking Union. Sometimes on the envelope itself, because the idiotic printer sealed the envelopes.

And over and over and over, always customized for the recipient. Is he or she a music lover--a party lover--an English major?

*...---+++###+++---......---+++###+++---......---+++###+++---...*

And in other news, on Sunday I booked a trip for the four of us. To Paris!

Why it never occurred to me that my children, who at 10 and 12 are long out of diapers, could actually handle an overseas flight--not to mention a vacation that did not revolve around waiting in line to get Minnie Mouse's autograph--escapes me. I mean, hello? They're out of diapers! The stroller is history! You can actually have a conversation with them now! Sort of.

So anyway, when a friend mentioned that's what she's planning for the summer, ze light bulb, she went off in my tiny brain, and I thought--hey, why not?

Well, there's the expense. That's one reason. And it's a pretty good one. As it turns out if you wait this long, airlines charge lots of money for round trip tickets.

But then there is the little matter of airline miles. Of which that Stud Muffin I Married had accumulated not a few. Methodically. For years. Like since 1991. And I think--honestly--we might have cashed in, say, three domestic coach round trips in all that time. So, free flights.

So, Paris in June! Sound good? Zut, yeah. Maybe more "with you there," as there are many readers whom I think it would be great fun to travel--but fun, anyway.

Not to mention how hard they must be to parallel park

When I drive to Florida I see a lot of things I don't see in Chicago. Too many to list, so I'll just talk about one of them, OK? Recreational Vehicles, otherwise known as RVs.

You see a ton of these bad boys on the highway--enough to wonder whether there are fads in RV design, the way there are with automobiles and trucks and such. I mean, it stands to reason, right? Except that I wouldn't be able to tell a brand-spanking new RV from one that was 25 years old, unless the old one was all rusted out.

Yes, the sight of these behemoths fills the mind with many questions. Like: how many miles to the gallon can they possibly get? I'm betting seven or less. And: when someone else is driving the RV, can you just sit around normally inside it, or does it get really bumpy and unsafe, so you have to wear seat belts? And: do they have bathrooms? But the big question is: Where the hell do you keep them when you're not driving them?

Because I've heard there are people who camp out in Wal*Mart parking lots, but these people are already on the road. What I want to know is where do you keep them when you're at home? I mean, I can barely fit a minivan down my driveway. Where the hell would I put an RV?

Does everyone who has an RV live on a farm or something? No, wait a minute--that doesn't make sense, either. Farmers never get to go anywhere. They have to stay on the farm so they can milk the cows and chickens and stuff.

So basically, who buys these things? No one I know. So I'll probably never find the answer to any of these burning questions.

Still--and I'm sorry to report this, but it's the truth--pondering these and other road-trip inspired mysteries (which is better--Waffle House or Huddle House?) really makes me feel alive.

Super Size Us: The Prelude

So we just got back from Walt Disney World. This involved driving a rented minivan from Florida to Illinois. I must say, I'm feeling pretty smug right now. This is not something designed for pussies to do, no sir. I feel all macho 'n' shit.

On first day, we drove through appalling traffic (the entire state of Georgia is pretty much one big parking lot--also it poured rain a lot of the time) to Chattanooga, Tennessee. During the second day, we made it all the way back to the Frozen Nawth, a/k/a Chicago. Home of Jay's Potato Chips and not a Goo Goo Cluster or sack of White Lily flour to be found.

Not surprisingly, I spent a lot of time driving (when I wasn't watching DVDs with my kids or playing Tetris on my huzbin's Palm or camped out in the way-back seat reading P.G. Wodehouse short stories). Driving brings out my contemplative side (when it isn't turning me livid with road rage.) Not surprisingly, during two days of driving, I thought many deep, meaningful thoughts. Which I will be happy to share eventually.

But right now I have to get used to Central Standard Time before it changes to Central Daylight Savings or whatever they call it. All I know is that I expect to be suffering from time-change whiplash any second now. Plus I truly need to finish drinking this glass of wine so that I can bask in the sensation of knowing that if I want a refill, there's a bunch more of it downstairs in the refrigerator of my very own kitchen. It's not all that great, so I probably won't bother to get any, but just knowing it's there gives me a warm glow.

Home ... good.

I know that my Spring Break liveth

Here in the frozen north, we were greeted this morning by the sight of fine fat flakes of snow tumbling softly through the leaden gray sky to land gently on the sodden ground, where they either melted or chose to accumulate in small, slushy mounds, according to their whim.*

This is apparently the way people in these parts know to go out into the garden and hide Easter eggs. Not me, though. I know better. This is no time to hide Easter eggs. Unless you want to get frostbite.

Yes, Spring Break has finally arrived! I know this because it's almost Easter and it's 35 degrees.

That means it's time to head to the AAA office and pick up new, updated trip books about every state between Illinois and Florida. (This includes Indiana. Even though That Stud Muffin I Married grew up there. And even though, because of this, I've spent way more than enough time in Indiana. He and I realize that there is nothing to see in Indiana except Steak and Shakes, cornfields, a city with a race track, and a college town. But one must be fair. And, apparently, obsessive when it comes to accumulating an assload of maps and AAA guide books. So we get the Indiana book.)

We get all these books in order to read about all the sights of extreme historical and cultural interest that we will completely ignore while we barrel down the highway on our annual Spring Break trip to Walt Disney World.

It goes like this: we get up at 5:00 a.m. on Good Friday, bundle the kids into the rented minivan, and start driving. The scenery starts to perk up in southern Indiana, and from there on, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia are pretty damned gorgeous. Also kind of scary because of the BIG ASS trucks on the road, not to mention many, many tourists with license plates from Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, not to mention HUGE signs advertising XXX porn video places. Thank you very much for keeping the truck drivers of America happy in what I shall chose to call their "down time," but I hope and pray we make it past all those billboards without having to take a single question from the offspring. Did you hear me? NOT ONE.

We spend the night in Atlanta, and the next day, after tucking in heartily to the free hotel breakfast, we take off for Florida. Lower Georgia and Upper Florida are very weird indeed,which is all to the good, and I start to get all giddy and happy when I see signs about oranges and alligators and such.

Then we peel ourselves out the car at the Polynesian Resort at Walt Disney. And start to have big fun, beginning with a glass of wine that is about [_____THIS BIG_____].

So anyway, now I've got to get cracking with the packing.

*Yes, I was an English major. So what.