"Dali Really Melted the Clock on this Country"

I was invited to submit a guest travel story to Dwellable.com and it ran today:

...Spain runs on caffeine. It has to. Because everyone there walks fast, talks fast, drives fast, and takes high speed trains. Spaniards ignore the night and never eat dinner before 10 p.m. My son reported that clubbing goes on until at least 5 a.m. Because of its time warp, Spain is a great place for travel if you want to see five cities in eight days, and never feel rushed. We saw Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Cordoba, and Seville and had time to enjoy them all...

Madrid from above

Read the rest:
http://www.dwellable.com/blog/

Rozita Made Me Do It

Rozita snares customer

Last weekend I did something I never do. I had a makeover at the Lancome counter.

I have been wearing my makeup the same way since my mother marched me into the Fosi Modeling and Talent Agency in Tucson, Arizona.. I don’t know how old I was—10, 11, 12? But I must have been pretty young because I didn't know what the word “features” meant. On first evaluation, Miss Fosi told my mother I had some nice features to work with. I had to ask my mother what she meant. Miss Fosi  had enough makeup on for both of us. She told me that the most fattening thing I could put in my mouth was a grape. By this she meant wine, and I am still not sure why she was saying this to a 10/11/12 year old.

So I learned the drill: a couple of layers of mascara, eyeliner, foundation, blush and lipstick. These were the basics and still are and I don’t leave home without them. No eye shadow because my mother said it the invention of Satan.

When I was able to climb up from the Ponds and Neutrogena level, I chose the Lancome line, sleek and black and French and glam. But in recent years they betrayed me twice. They discontinued my favorite mascara and foundation. So, acting out like a girl who had been dumped by her boyfriend, I took up with someone else immediately—Christian Dior got both the mascara and foundation business. I wouldn't even look at the Lancome ladies as I passed. I would show them. Dior had a Diorshow Mascara (“a big show mascara inspired by models behind the scenes runway trick.”)

Mascara is very important to me...

Lancome pulled me back in me with a rival to Diorshow, the introduction of a big fat stick of Hypnose Drama mascara.  And in truth I had been monogamous with Lancome for so long that it did seem silly to have to go to TWO counters just for some foundation. 

I like my mascara like my humor, dark and black

Then I met Rozita at the Lancome counter. I was charmed by Rosita and she convinced me I should book a makeover. To my surprise I said yes, giving up part of my precious Saturday because Rozita is someone you can’t say no to.

I got to sit in the high chair as I had seen so many women do over the years, but then again, they probably had not enjoyed the childhood benefit of Miss Flossie. It was a bit of a bait and switch because Rozita turned me over to the make-up pro of the day, Odetta from Lithuania.

Odetta: "Questions?"

When I told Odetta I was in the market for white skinny jeans and didn't have much time left, it being mid-July and all, we talked about the ridiculous convention of not wearing white until Memorial Day and after Labor Day. The Lithuanians are not burdened by this tradition. Odetta took about a half hour to make me over, I learned that I must exfoliate, put on the Energy before the base, use a pencil instead of a liquid liner and use eye cream morning and night. At the end Odetta stood back in a very business-like fashion, looked at me and said: “Questions?”

The stuff I am supposed to use

I had fun at the makeover, and it pumped me up to do more shopping...a couple of skinny jeans and a Christina Maldonado dress that I got to model for all of my new Lancôme BFFs.

Rozita took my phone number and I will undoubtedly respond to her siren’s call, the next promotion, the next deal. She indeed has me hypnosed.

Wearing my new jeggings at the Nats game. Don't want to get the white ones dirty.

The Peabody Memphis has its Ducks in a Row

The Peabody Memphis built in 1925, originally in 1869

There is nothing like a stay at an old fashioned luxury hotel. We just experienced ours at the  Peabody Memphis Hotel. My son is going to Rhodes college in Memphis in the fall and as soon as I found out there was a Rhodes rate at the Peabody I booked it. The desk clerk asked if I would like to upgrade to a superior room. I immediately accepted, as I am wont to do. So we got a deluxe corner room on the 10th floor and could see the Mississippi River from our window.

            The beds felt like clouds with an excess of downy pillows; and the design of the room, well I am sure The Peabody won’t mind if I show you one of their photos.

Room at the Peabody

I just like elevators doors that look like this:

 I like hearing Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra in the breakfast room.  I like the exquisite service, with staff members greeting me every few yards and offering help. I like getting up in the morning, having the newspaper delivered in a special bag:

 

and heading to a deluxe health club. I like room service, especially when it rolls in on a cart between our beds.   

I am sure I could live quite happily in a hotel like this, become a modern day Eloise. I promise I would work out every day. There’s a spa where I could get my hair and nails done, there is food and drink and shopping and what in the world more do I need? The occasional trip to the rooftop to get some air and see the sunset over the Mississippi:

Sunset over the Mississippi

 I read that the Peabody's lobby is “the living room of the mid-south" which has been visited by “some of the most influential and famous people of the world.” A Southern historian called The Peabody “the Paris Ritz...the  London Savoy of this [Delta] region.” Well no wonder I loved it.

"The living room of the Mid South"

Just off the red carpet, vogueing

The Ducks

If you have ever heard of the Peabody, you have heard of the ducks. The expression “ducks in a row” may have started here in the 30’s. The duck procession occurs every morning at 11 where they come down the elevator and march in a row on a red carpet into the beautiful marble fountain topped by a flower arrangement the size of a washing machine.

Who gets this floral contract?

There is much pomp and circumstance leading up to the arrival of the ducks, there is a man in a red uniform who tells the legend and history of the ducks. Everyone must be seated in the lobby, no standing is politely enforced and then once the ducks splash in, it is photo opp time. The same ritual goes on at 5 p.m. when they return to their penthouse enclosure.

No Exit at the Gift Shop       

My son needed a sweatshirt so we popped into the gift shop. Let me back up by saying that my son has incredible blond curly hair that has drawn attention from strangers since he was a toddler,-stop-on-the-street attention. So much attention, in fact. that the tiresome question of “where did you get that curly blond hair” forced me to become a blonde. Here it is: 

The famous hair

But never has it attracted as much attention as it did by an employee in the Peabody gift shop who had her hands in my son’s hair in minutes, was raving about it and said it was so pretty she had to put a bow in it. She went behind the counter, cut a blue ribbon and and sat him down and fixed him up. Talk about your Southern hospitality.

Franky Bowed

I pledge my allegiance to the Peabody. I expect to be going to Memphis several times over the next four years and I will stay nowhere else. I will just pack, quack and go. I encourage you to do the same.

Are you Really in the Years? Sixteenth 4th in the Hood.

Accessorizing always important

When we reluctantly left the city to move to the suburbs, we thought we might as well go all out and get a Norman Rockwell kind of neighborhood. The kind that has The Great Pumpkin, Santa Claus on a fire truck, and our very own Fourth of July parade and picnic at the park.  We found it, Wood Acres, Bethesda, Maryland. We live on the very street the parade comes down, so just have to look outside to see if it's started and head down to watch. It isn't much of a parade, bicycle brigade, Boy Scouts, local  politicians, a decorated pick up truck loaded with kids throwing candy and our friend Margaret's husband dressed up as Uncle Sam reading the Declaration of Independence as he walks. Margaret always heads straight for us, takes a picture, and yesterday she turned over the archives:

2011

2012, when children still joined us

2013 (note: different sunglasses)

This year, 2014, pretty laid back

Better than fireworks--a visit from Joe Rhodes, Traipsmobile* King

* See August 2012 blog "Visiting Dignitary"