Happy Birthday, Sue!

Mom's Weekend Is Upon Us

Okay Moms, the big kickoff is almost here. We're going with the oldest first, so please report to The Bridge Cafe at 8pm on Thursday with your child in tow. Bridge Cafe is the oldest restaurant in New York City, as you may recall, and hopefully our old friend Adam will be there tending bar and telling stories.

See you there!

Bridge Cafe
279 Water Street
Near the Brooklyn Bridge

So you wanna dress like a New Yorker...

Ok, ladies - it's time to get serious about a very important issue: what to wear in New York. One of the greatest things about the city is its diversity, which translates into a huge variety of eclectic attire, from chic to shabby to shabby-chic and everything in-between. I think the best dressed New Yorkers are the ones who invoke their own personal style and look comfortable in what they're wearing. So perhaps that's a good starting point for packing for the weekend: Don't forget to dress like YOU!

A few more precise pointers:

• There will be some walking to be done during the day, so be sure to throw in a comfortable pair of shoes to trek around the city.
• Our evenings will be spent dining/drinking/partying at hip-yet-informal spots (so you can leave the evening gowns at home and will fit in perfectly in skirts or jeans and heels). When in doubt, I like to err on the dressier side - if for no other reason than because it's fun!
• It might be nice to wear something extra special for the first night, as a great way of kicking off the weekend and announcing your arrival.
• There will be time to change between daytime and evening activities, which means you can save your spiffier, less comfortable footwear for stepping out at night (when we will be doing considerably less walking) - but make sure they're dance-friendly!
• The skate circle is a fashion free-for-all, where personal flair and individuality reign supreme.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to contact Anna or Sarah directly. Afterall, is it really possible to ever tire of discussing what to wear??

Happy packing!

Pamper, Refresh, and Renew: A holistic facial

As if you moms are not already beautiful enough, you will receive a spa treatment to refresh yourself during your time in NYC. A few years ago, I had the great fortune of stumbling upon Adeline, a certified practitioner of Burnham Systems Facial Rejuvenation and a licensed massage therapist/foot reflexologist - and I've never wanted to stray back to a traditional spa again. Fed up with the clinical approach and impersonal atmosphere of most spas, Adeline started her own practice out of her very cool east village apartment (she's been living there since the 80's, and she and her husband have worked over the space in a most innovative way).

The hour-long holistic facial is a truly divine experience. Adeline creates a calming atmosphere with mesmerizing background music, candles, and essential oils. The facial involves a hot towel scrub, facial massage, organic products, and even foot reflexology while your mask is on. (Jean can attest to its euphoria-enducing capabilities, as she received one of Adeline's facials during her visit last May.) Your face will glow, and your insides will feel equally effervescent when she's finished with you!

Check out her website for more info on the treatment and to see what other clients have said about her magic touch.

Anna

Meet the Moms---Sara Levy!

Sara Levy was born in Atlanta Georgia at a hospital with the very Southern name of Crawford Long. She grew up in a small brick house on a small hill in the now fashionable, then unfashionable, neighborhood of Morningside, where she knew all of her neighbors. In fact, in true 1950s fashion, the neighborhood kids separated into gangs, The Medallions and The Blue Devils and had rumbles where they threw sticks and rocks at each other.

Sara’s father owned a woman’s apparel manufacturing company and spent a lot of time working (though he did play baseball with the kids every night when he got home); her mother was, as custom at the time demanded, often getting her hair done. This meant that Sara, her 2 sisters and one brother (who spent most of his childhood waiting to use the bathroom) were raised by a nanny named Minnie who was only a teenager herself.

(While this may sound very Gone With The Wind, it was still the way things worked in Jim Crow Georgia. It has since changed and as the Jerry Springer show so helpfully attests, most Southern children are no longer raised by anyone at all.)

Sara spent her high school years hanging out with football players, going to rock-n-roll clubs and switching clothes with her identical twin sister in order to confuse teachers and boyfriends.

After high school, she became a surgical technician at an Atlanta hospital, which always amazes Darren and his sister since their Mother is averse to blood.

Darren isn’t quite sure how his mother and father met, but he knows that they were married early in 1970. Darren’s father and uncle owned a successful clothing manufacturer, which claims to have been the very first company to use scrubbed denim and the first to make bell bottom blue jeans.

Sara's description of herself during this period is as follows: “In my early years with your father I traveled extensively in the US and Europe and lived the life of a rich, Studio 54 going, jet-setting, spoiled, child-bride ( Probably not for print).”

[Luckily for our readers, the internet is not print.]

In 1970, Darren was born and within a few weeks had started annoying his family with extensive questions about Watergate. In exasperation, his parents, in 1972, gave him a sister, Kailey, to annoy instead.

Late in the 1970s, maybe while listening to the Bee Gees, Sara discovered that she had an incurable muscle disease called Myasthenia Gravis. She was told that it would be dehibilitating and that she would have to start taking it easy and get used to a limited schedule.

Sara promptly started jogging, ran numerous 10K road races and, in 1980, won the silver medal in the Atlanta Masters Race. (So much for the expertise of doctors.) She also started the Atlanta Chapter of the Myasthenia Gravis foundation, which is still going.

Sara and her first husband divorced in 1979. She met her 2nd husband, Pierre, at a Halloween party that same year. He was wearing a Jimmy Carter mask. It’s a good story and one of the 5+ people reading this should ask her to tell it.
Since I should speed this up...in the 80’s she went into the antique business, the hair roller business and made various forays into the food world.

Once her two kids had both gone to college, she and Pierre moved to England where they lived in Surrey and Gloustershire. Though she liked living there, she also missed her family and she and Pierre moved back after a few years.
Back in Georgia, she started working as the kitchen director for Nathalie Dupree and doing freelance food styling jobs, eventually becoming a full-time food stylist. She’s also a food writer doing articles for numerous Atlanta-based Southern regional magazines. She recently had a feature in Flavor’s Magazine about South African cuisine that she also took all the photos for.

She lives in an extensively redone Federal style house built in the early 1900s in Norcross Georgia with X number of dogs (Darren can't quite keep up with how many), her husband Pierre and a room and a half of cookbooks.

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Nothing better than wine and cupcakes...

Milk & Honey House Rules

House Rules at Milk & Honey (posted within the bar and strictly enforced), where you will soon sip the best cocktails known to man:

1. No name-dropping, no star fucking.

2. No hooting, hollering, shouting or other loud behaviour.

3. No fighting, play fighting, no talking about fighting.

4. Gentlemen will remove their hats. Hooks are provided.

5. Gentlemen will not introduce themselves to ladies. Ladies, feel free to start a conversation or ask the bartender to introduce you. If a man you don't know speaks to you, please lift your chin slightly and ignore him.

6. Do not linger outside the front door.

7. Do not bring anyone unless you would leave that person alone in your home. You are responsible for the behaviour of your guests.

8. Exit the bar briskly and silently. People are trying to sleep across the street. Please make all your travel plans and say all farewells before leaving the bar.

The Photography of Darren Kaminsky

Ladies, a taste of the karaoke superstardom that awaits you...

See more here: http://bigbagoftricks.com/akdola2/

Spotlight on the Moms -- Sue Stodola!

Sue Stodola was born Sue Jorgensen in the overalls capitol of the world, Oshkosh, Wisconsin. She grew up in the same yellow house on the same tree-lined street that her father had grown up in. In the third grade, she met and became best friends with Linda, who remains her best friend to this day.

Sue attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison for one semester before being lured back to the campus in Oshkosh by parental promises of a car. She graduated in 1966 with a degree in Social Work, and after a brief stint in a small Wisconsin town that her daughter can’t remember the name of, she moved to Milwaukee with her new husband, Ed (“Eddie and Susie,” as the folks back home called them). In 1972, her son Justin was born. Several years later, the young family caved to a sense of adventure and moved to the Adirondack town of Lake Placid, in upstate New York. Not long after, her daughter Sarah was born. While in Lake Placid, Sue became an avid volleyball player and developed a severe distaste for endless northern winters. She mostly avoided work during this time in order to care for her two young children, although she did subject herself to serving as a high school study hall monitor at one point.

While spending a year in the early 1980s living in Boone, North Carolina, in a glass house on a river often featured in Mountain Dew commercials, Sue earned her Master’s Degree in Counseling. She subsequently returned to Lake Placid for a couple of years, and then moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where she worked in social work. Then one year, she quit her job in order to “take the summer off.” One might say that turned out to be one long, hot summer, as it has not yet ended!

Sue has become a dedicated tennis player in recent years, and prides herself on routinely defeating women half her age on the court. She’s an absolute sucker for cats, and currently lives with four of them. Sue frequently visits best friend Linda in Columbus, Ohio, and makes her unbearably jealous about her upcoming New York Mom’s Weekend.

Meet the Moms! Spotlight on Jean Neibauer

Jean Neibauer, Anna's mom, was born and raised in the Iowa cornfields in the late 1940's. The eldest of 5 children, Jean was a shy girl who enjoyed reading and playing with her cat. She majored in Spanish at Detroit Mercy College (where she regularly played tricks on the unsuspecting nuns). In the late '60's, Jean spent time living in Mexico, where she worked at an orphanage and took 200 girls under her care (she makes a mean Mexican breakfast!). She acquired her M.A. in teaching English as a second language, a degree which took her around the country and the globe, teaching in Michigan, Florida, Texas, and Iran. In 1978, Jean moved to Waterloo, Iowa to raise Anna in a bustling, colorful townhouse apartment complex in which Jean's sister, Liz, also lived.

For nearly 25 years, Jean has worked as an academic advisor at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa (adjacent to Waterloo). She counsels students on their majors and career choices, empowering the students to follow their passions by pursuing nontraditional paths, studying abroad, and generally breaking free from hovering parents - Go Jean!

Jean enjoys reading (especially fiction, politics, and fantasy), movies (she's a hopeless romantic, and is particularly enthusiastic about the Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Star Trek series), travel, meditation, all things food-related (and is a wealth of information on nutrition and health), and she's a self-proclaimed news junkie. Unable to sit still, Jean is proud to have walked a marathon in 2005. In the last few years, Jean has taken up slightly less physically-demanding activities like pottery.

Jean loves NYC and is extremely excited for our weekend together!

More mom bios to come.........

Skate Scoop

As you know, we plan to visit the Central Park skate circle on Sunday. Skating is not mandatory, but should you want to rent skates, we can stop by Blades Skate Shop near the park. They rent all the gear you could ever want for a day of disco rolling:

Blades Skate Shop, 156 West 72nd St. (between Columbus Ave. and Broadway), Manhattan

The skating runs from 2:30-6:30, with professional DJ accompaniment. We like to arrive around 3:00 and skate until 5:00ish, then slip into some sneakers and do some serious dancing until we collapse in exhaustion or they turn the music off - whichever comes first. We think you'll agree that the skate circle is truly one of the most inclusive, welcoming, fun-for-all-ages-and-skill-levels places around. We think you will feel right at home amidst the colorful chaos.

As for attire: think comfort, with a little flair (if you have the inclination). Nothing is too outrageous to flaunt in the circle, so if you have something a little too glittery or flashy for your everyday life, feel free to rock it that Sunday - it is sure to be appreciated and complimented. Ed's Stride Zone offers an in-depth glimpse into the visual scene that awaits you.

One of the greatest "features" of this skate community is the abundance of willing and able individuals just waiting to instruct, guide, hold up, and encourage. You will have dozens of teachers and physical props with enviable patience at the tips of your skates....

Rock n' roll!

Welcome

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