My Curtain Call

My name is Rebekah Sager and I’m an acting addict.  

When I was fourteen years old I began attending a high school for the performing arts called Duke Ellington.  I was in the theater department.  Ellington saved me from the horrors of public school. Here you could be different and it was rewarded. I loved everything about my Fame-like experience–academic classes in the mornings, theater classes in the afternoons, play rehearsals late into the night. I loved pretending to be anyone but me.

When I was a senior, I applied to two schools to further my acting training. Julliard was my first choice and Carnegie-Mellon University was my second.  My audition for Julliard was a complete failure.  This would be a hint of things to come.  Thankfully, I was accepted to Carnegie-Mellon.

After graduating, I moved to New York.  I got the first of many theatrical agents–getting those was never hard for me. Getting a job would be a different story.

The first, and most important step in being an actor is surviving the audition.  Auditioning, (for me), is like marrying a man that beats you. You know it’s not good for you, but you get something out of it.  He says he’s sorry every once in a while, so you keep going back.  You walk around with bruises defending him saying, “it must be me…what did I do wrong?” You hope he changes, but he never does.

Initially, most actors’ first meeting is with a casting director. Pass that blockade, and you get a “call-back”, where you meet with the director.  Lastly, you see the producers. I made it to the call back phase but never further.  

In fact I was the  “call-back queen”.  I met Spike Lee four times but never booked a job. I met the director of an HBO movie about the life of Josephine Baker. I auditioned for the movie “Queen”, an Alex Hailey mini-series about a “tragic mulatto”. I lost roles to big names: Jada Pinkett-Smith, Halle Berry, Lonette McGee, Janet Jackson.

In the end it always came down to my “type.” I was too ethnic to play Caucasian, too light to play Black, too pretty for character roles, and not pretty enough to be a star.  I had lived on both coasts, moving from NY to LA. I got close, but I never booked a job worth mentioning.

I eventually left LA and quit for–the first time.  I moved back to DC. I got married. Worked out and didn’t sit around waiting for my agent to call. I was happy.  For a little while.

Was my lesson learned?  No. I was compelled to keep trying. I did a little theater.  I performed a small role in a play at the Arena Stage.  I was an understudy, but the woman I was understudying broke her ankle, so I went on for the entire run of the play.  The members of the Arena Stage company were a hateful and spiteful bunch. These talented and lucky-to-be working actors turned my novice actors triumph into a horrible fucking nightmare.  Actors. Never trust ‘em.

I vowed to quit for good again. It was the second time.

Then I had my son.  I found my calling as a mother.  I was happy.  We moved to San Diego.

After settling in and getting our son into pre-school, I had some free time again. I decided to pursue what I was trained to do—theater.  I was sure acting wasn’t what I wanted, so I made the decision to teach theater. Why not?  It wasn’t acting.  Maybe I could find my love of acting through those I taught.

I worked for the La Jolla Playhouse, teaching acting, play-writing, improvisational theater, and directing plays for dis-advantaged kids. I thought I’d found my calling this time. But one production of Macbeth at a local middle school too many, and it was clear that I’d lost my passion and my patience.  Theater, even teaching it, wasn’t good for me.

One more time I quit. I put it behind me.

Until two years ago. I decided, I’m older now, it’ll be different

this time. I’ll try acting again. I got head-shots taken and found a local San Diego agent. In my second week out I booked a job.  It was as an on-camera spokesperson for a car insurance company, not exactly what I was trained to do, but for once, acting gave me something back. I made a record salary of $8,000 for three days of work. I was able to take myself to India.  I was back in the game. Getting the money from the agent proved to be harder than getting the job. I continued to audition around town.  All the humiliation and abuse came flooding back. What the fuck was I doing? I began questioning and hating everything about myself.  Again.

Until one year ago, in January, at my husband’s suggestion, I began writing this blog.  I think my husband was tired of hearing my various tirades, and hoped that the blog would channel my ideas into something creative.  It was the greatest gift anyone has ever given me.  I never would have known how much I had to say and how much joy I could get from saying it.  It has truly changed my life. 

My husband has said that creativity is a mighty stream of water running though a hose—you just have to find the right nozzle to best direct your raw energy. For my whole life, I’d only tried one nozzle, acting. It never really worked very well for me, but it never, ever occurred to me to try something else. Find the right nozzle and you’ll find your salvation. I guess, every once in a while, my husband says something worthwhile.

I’d like to say that through all this, I’ve finally learned that acting isn’t healthy for me. This is my curtain call. I’m done.  Like all addicts, I know this won’t be as easy as it seems. I have to take the first step and admit that I have a problem. This is my admission.

I’ll take the rest of it one day at a time.

Shmy Way or the Sweatshop

People who know me know that I’m somewhat obsessed with all things Indian.  I travelled to Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur, and can hardly wait to return to explore different regions of the country.  I read books about the culture, tried to learn a little Hindi, love the food. If the movies Slumdog Millionaire, Gandhi, or Water pop up on TV I can’t stop myself from watching—even though I’ve seen them countless times.  I don’t know why the Indian subcontinent it holds such fascination for me, but it does. Perhaps in my previous life I was Indian. Who knows?

So, the question is: how would my shopping habits change knowing that so many products are made in sweatshops in places like India, where the working conditions are horrible, and children are often employed to make all the wonderful stuff that I covet?
         

While liberal Americans like me cry foul over third world conditions, the notion of the sweatshop was actually born in anti-bellum New York, the center of the nation’s garment industry, with workers in sweatshops making clothes for slaves on Southern plantations.

Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, most Americans made their own clothes at home.  If people were wealthy, they were able to purchase “tailor-made” clothes. Tailoring was an immigrant profession. You didn’t have to speak English. If you could sew, you could work. You could support your family—that was the “opportunity” in the whole Land of Opportunity concept that was America in those days.

As the century turned, and the tide of Irish, Poles, Italians, and Jews continued to flood into America’s ports, the new immigrants took whatever jobs were available. “If the average American woman is the best-dressed woman in the world; the Russian Jew has had a good deal to do with making her one,” said Abraham Cahan, a Lithuanian-born American newspaper editor, novelist, and politician.

In 1910, nearly 70% of all women’s clothing and 40% of men’s clothing sold in the United States was produced in the garment district in New York.

The decline of the industry began in the seventies and eighties. Rents in the garment district increased, American workers were unionized and expensive. An over-seas workforce was a cheaper alternative. So began “outsourcing.” Today, 97% of clothes sold in the US are made in other countries.

With manufacturing moving out of the country, so did the monitoring of how employees are treated.  A US Labor department lists more than 80 countries that employ child or forced labor. The list is alphabetical, beginning with Argentina and ending with Uzbekistan. The products include cotton, garments, gold, sugar cane, tobacco, coffee, leather, electronics… and even pornography.

So what to do? 

Buy clothes at American Apparel?  I’ve never shopped there, but I’m beginning to think that maybe it isn’t such a bad idea. Everything in the store is made in Los Angeles.  The company supports  immigration and health care reform and Prop 8. The cotton is organic.  They pay their workers well, offer on-site medical facilities, and give health care.  The only problem–the CEO Dov Charney and his penchant for sexually harassing and wrongfully terminating his female  employees.  Making it hard for me to support this company despite the “made in the US” label.

Reduce the amount of new clothes that you buy.  Probably the easiest thing you can do.  Simply purchase less clothing. Most of us don’t need or wear all of the clothes in our closet, so if we can curb the impulse to purchase another new piece of clothing, we don’t even need to worry about the issue of supporting sweatshops.

Stay out of department stores, especially big ones. Much of what is sold there is produced overseas, probably in sweatshops. If you don’t see “made in the US” on the label, it’s safe to assume the product was produced in a sweatshop.

 Shop online and look for retailers that make a commitment to using fair labor practices.  One website that I found helpful was sweatfree.org.  Check out the “shopping with a conscience” consumer guide. 

As it turns out, in India, the country I love so much, a 14 year old can begin to legally work. But nearly 22 million Indian children under 14 are forced to work. Fifteen million kids are sold into slavery every day. Think of that the next time you see that six hundred dollar pair of boots you just have to have. Think to yourself: How many months could an Indian family live on $600, and how old was the tike that stiched them together?

Lean On Me

I used to think my mother was weird for treasuring her friends on such a deep level, these women she spent so much time with, particularly after I left for college. But it dawned on me recently that my friends, who are all women except for one, have become more and more important to me as I’ve gotten older. 

I have a good number of friends and they fulfill different roles in my life.  Obviously some are closer than others. Some I’ve known longer; the well is deeper. Some I’m becoming closer with all the time.

I thought I might list what my friends do and have done for me, and how much it means to me.

 

• Listen to me when I’m having a problem with my husband or my son.
• Recommend: books, boutiques, restaurants, travel destinations.
• Cook amazing meals for my family and me, usually for Jewish holidays.
• Tell me when they’ll be at the beach so that I can meet them there and have someone to talk to when my kid has left me for other kids and/or the ocean.
• Support my ridiculous purchases. (Which are never really as ridiculous as theirs, I think they’ll agree, but I still feel that way.)
• Let me sleep on their couch. (This is an allusion to visiting friends in Brooklyn, not fighting with husband. We’ve never done the sleep-on-the-sofa-mad thing, though I think we’ve both pretended to start to do it at least once. We love each other too much to sleep apart in anger. Neither of us I don’t think wants to ever send that message.)
• Share an apartment with me and teach me how to be an adult. (This could be my husband too!)
• Tell me to get off my butt and walk harder, to join a campaign, to admit when something is my fault.
• Listen with patience and answer my inane questions about iphones, ipods, and computers over and over again.
• Bring me smoothies when I’m constipated after surgery.
• Walk with me…which really keeps me in shape.
• Talk to the nurse when she calls on my cell phone to deliver the horrible news that my mother has died.
• Tell me their problems, ask for my advice, and let me help them.
• Send me some of the funniest emails.
• Call…just to check in.
• Let me horn in on their date nights when my husband is travelling.
• Read my blogs.

I didn’t have a lot of friends as a kid.  Maybe because I didn’t know how to be a friend, maybe because we moved around a lot. Who knows?  I think I’m a pretty good friend now, at least I try to be. 

I don’t know what I’d do without my friends.  I’m not sure they always know that, but it’s true.

 

Do you have enough?

How much is too much?  In the age of a bad economy or even a good economy for that matter, how much do we really need?  I’m not talking about the Buddhist concept  of giving up everything, just the practical question of having as much as you need and not more. 

My husband and I recently did some re-modeling.  When it was finally done, I looked at it and said to my husband that it was “fancy”.  He promptly countered, “No it’s not.   Fancy means over-the-top or ostentatious.  Our house is clean and under-stated.”

Now, maybe growing up with an OBGYN for a father, meaning that his family wasn’t rich, but they always lived in new, large and well appointed houses.  To him, it wasn’t fancy.  Growing up with a professor/scientist’s and then a nurse’s income; fancy is all relative.  My mom would have seen our house and thought it was very very fancy.  She grew up in the east end of London in a cold water flat.  My father picked cotton in a rural farm in Louisiana.  One person’s under-stated is another’s fancy.

What do we really need?  What do I think I need?  Ok, I need my health.   First and foremost. But, I always say that and in the next breath, I think things like, I need some new work-out clothes, a new facial cleanser, something to make my skin less wrinkly, a fall handbag, a spring handbag, new boots, comfortable platform shoes, a new cell phone,  whatever some stylist says I need, a new book, a trip somewhere, anywhere…I could go on. 

I write a column about shopping.  I’ve been spending a lot of time in boutiques.  I have made a pact with myself that I will not buy from a store that I’m writing about. But there are a lot of boutiques in the world, and I can’t write about all of them.   So, I rationalize that buying something that’s unique or one-of-a-kind is worth it.   I’m like a bird watcher, spying the rare breed.  Only in my case, I hunt and kill the bird, stuff it and take it home.  What is it that makes people, particularly women, want to shop?  Experts say that 90% of all compulsive shoppers are women.  Instead of taking pleasure in the things I’ve got, I too often obsess over the things I don’t. 

When I buy something new, I give away something old.  That way, I’m not continuing to collect more and more.  It started with my son’s toys. I hated the visual of an only child with boxes of stuff all around him like a little prince.  This works well.  It gives me pleasure knowing that someone will get use out of a good pair of pants that frankly, I just can’t fit into anymore.

At some point enough has to be enough. Right?  Is it too much to want more from my looks?  I buy creams and lotions, but the girls are starting to head for the border.  I haven’t gone down plastic surgery highway yet, but will my creams lead to laser, then to Botox?  Is Botox the gateway drug to plastic surgery?  I’m pretty sure that my fear of surgery will prevail.  The imagined conversation at my funeral: ”She had to have perfect boobs. Now she’s gone. Oh, the price of beauty.  Let it be a lesson to us all, ” my friends and family would say. 

The truth is, it makes me uncomfortable having what I think of as  “too much.”  It takes away the joy of getting something new, waiting for it, dare I say… earning it.  I’ll continue to enjoy what I have, and the less I shop, the more I realize that I’ve got a lot.
         

 

 

 

My Candlelight Vigil

It started with an email from moveOn.org–one of my favorite non-profit, grassroots organizations: Candlelight vigil for health care reform at the Mount Soledad Cross in La Jolla. Lately I’d been increasingly frustrated by the national dialog on this very important issue. Instead of preaching to my (converted) friends or to my husband, who wishes perennially that I’d get either a soundproof room or an audience, I decided to put shoe leather to the problem and hike up to the Mount. 

The cross itself is a 29 foot high Latin-style cross that stands 822 feet high. There is an awesome, 360 degree view of San Diego, Coronado and Mexico.  I’d never been to a vigil and this one  was only five minutes from my house (provided my husband dropped me off; the uphill walk would have taken the better part of fifteen minutes, I suppose).  I thought this would be a good place to go and be with other people, like me,  who wanted health care reform.  I just hoped it wouldn’t turn into a town hall meeting filled with insane, gun-totting red-necks spewing their Obama-hate all over everyone. For all the dislike I had for Bush Jr., I never held a sign or wore a tee-shirt with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler.  Don’t make me bite your pinky off. 

I called my friend, who doesn’t want me to use her name, because she is paranoid (maybe because she stays home all day watching Fox TV news and plotting escape routes to Baja California) and asked her to go with me.  She’s furious about the health care debate.  She can’t stop saying how stupid Americans are.  She grew up in country that has universal health care.  I knew she would go with me in support.     

                         Assuming there wouldn’t be parking near the place—I was sure it would be packed with clear-thinking Americans hoping to discuss the single payer option—I went ahead and asked my husband to drive. He annoys me so much of the time, I figure, what the hell, let him drive.  When we got to the parking lot at Mount Soledad, the sun was just starting to set.  It was a beautiful night, balmy, clear, complete with an orange glow in the sky. My friends new walking shoes, neon green, evanesced softly in the reflected light. 

Not too many people were there at first, but they trickled in slowly.  We signed in with the local organizer, a man named Earl.  An affable guy, Earl seemed truly concerned that everything was in its place.   He had a table set up and asked us to make name tags–my friend hesitated, but eventually caved to the peer pressure and pasted a name tag on her shirt.  People were wearing their best political tee-shirts and carrying home-made signs and flashlights.  One channel 7 news camera and two police cars were there to witness. If I was a philosophy teacher I’d pose this question to my class—can a demonstration really occur if there is no media on hand to witness it? Eighty people signed in.

     The plan was to begin the vigil by listening to a speech by Ted Kennedy played out of Earl’s boom box.  Unfortunately, the boom box didn’t cooperate.  Since it felt like it was taking forever with Earl nervously futzing with the boom box—and since she was worried about the condition of a frail-looking older woman in attendance, one of a party of five from White Sands of La Jolla, who wanted a chance to air her health care grievances—my nameless friend suggested Earl skip Ted Kennedy’s speech—even though we all recognize him for the lion he was, the last remaining Kennedy  brother, despite that minor detail of the dead girl in his car at Chappaquiddick—and get straight to the meat of this pro-healthcare rally,  the part where people get to stand up and air their grievances.

     And so it was that the speakers stepped up and told their sad and maddening stories of being denied coverage by their insurance companies.  A military man who had great insurance, thanks to the government, said he feels bad for the rest of us who don’t have it.  Other stories were about people who  had lived abroad; they told of their experiences with “foreign” health care.  One woman who lives half the year in France and half in the US said, ”My medicine costs 75% less in France than in the US.” As this woman spoke it made me think of an article I’d read at Salon.com.  The writer had recently moved to New Delhi to write for a newspaper.  She wanted to get acclimated to the food and water and so began drinking and eating everything the locals did.  As a result, she got very sick, very fast.  After a few days of suffering, she asked an Indian friend to find a doctor for her.  At 9:30 am her friend called the hospital down the street, and the writer had an appointment at 10am with a gastroenterologist.  She was given an antibiotic.  She left the hospital after paying her bill—a total of $6.00.    The last woman to speak was a San Diego Unified school teacher.  She was told by her doctor that she needed to take Fosomax to increase her bone density.  Her insurance company denied her.

It seems to me the most interesting people (in terms of entertaining reading, at least) aren’t  the ones who want universal health care, but the people who don’t. A nurse at one of my doctor’s offices went off about Obama’s proposal being the wrong thing for America.  “It’s like when Hitler made the car for the common man, the VW bug, while everyone else drove Mercedes’. If anyone can figure out what she meant by this, I would appreciate you sharing it in the comment section below.

     I don’t know what the new health care program will end up being.  My unselfish hope is that people who don’t have health care will have it.   My selfish hope is that I’d like to keep the health care that I have but not have to worry about losing it,  about being denied coverage for things I need, or paying through the nose for it. Do you know that I recently discovered that my husband and I have been overpaying for our health care for nearly fourteen years to the tune of nearly 6,000 a year? I was being covered for another pregnancy even though my husband had a vasectomy. I can do the math but I haven’t. Just to not be ripped off so blatantly would be a good start.  

http://pol.moveon.org/healthcare_cantwait/?id=17194-2058199-vp1EWfx&t=2

 

Goin’ Home

The Stone Bone

People say you can’t go home again. I think you can; I guess it has a lot to do with how you feel about your past. Flying recently to Dulles Airport in Washington DC—embarking upon an eight day vacation of both pleasure and obligation—I wondered how it would feel to be a tourist in the city where I grew up.  

I arrived in DC at age two.  I was born in Walnut Creek, California, but my father’s job at the National Institutes of Health brought us to DC.  For most people, DC represents one of the ultimate power centers in the world.  For me, it was a place where as a child, my mom would encourage me to take off my clothes in the sweltering summer and wade into the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial; I remember so clearly  my mom—a hot number in her day– standing proudly nearby in her sixties-era mini-skirt.  I learned to ride my bike in the urban jumble of early Adams Morgan without the assistance of a parent, flying down the hills and through the historic cobble stone alleys; in this safe hippie neighborhood of group houses and new businesses, I felt the freedom to go anywhere, developed the wanderlust I still have today.  I sat in the aisle at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with my mouth hanging open and watched Judith Jamison perform with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.  I got my period while marching down Constitution Avenue, participating in an anti-Reagan protest.  My driving lessons included learning to navigate the leafy and serpentine Rock Creek Park; I cut my teeth on the city’s roundabouts, designed in the 1700s by the French architect Pierre L’Enfant in the same style as Paris. I snuck out of the house to see Prince at RFK Stadium wearing my signature bright pink eye shadow; my mixed chicks curls were blown out to afro-texture and cut into an eighties-typical asymmetrical geometric shape—complete with a long braided tail. At one time or another, I had  boyfriends in SW, NW, SE, Dupont Circle, Takoma Park, Mount Pleasant, and Georgetown. To get to my school, the Duke Ellington High School for the Arts, I walked a mile to the metro, took a 30 minute subway ride on the Red Line to Dupont Circle, then caught the bus to Georgetown.  In DC I celebrated my most important life milestones. I smoked my first joint, fought my first fight,  lost my virginity, graduated high school, got married, performed at Arena Stage (one of the oldest and most prestigious regional theaters in the nation), had my son, and buried my mother.  

Now, I was going to be a tourist with my family.   A month before we left San Diego, I made an effort to obtain permission to tour the White House from our congressman, 50^th district Republican,  Brian Bilbray.   I had seen the White House as a child.  Prior to 9/11, it was a right of passage for all DC school kids. I wanted my son to have it. Unfortunately, Bilbray’s office had to approve the White House tour, and we were not approved. Maybe it was because I had been an Obama precinct captain? Or maybe it was because I had waited to the last minute. I could only wonder. The congressional office did offer us a self-guided tour of the National Archives Museum (complete with a pass that butted us in line ahead of many others) and a private tour of the Capital.

The National Archives Museum was beautiful and fascinating.  If you’re a person like me who gets turned on by research, this museum is the mother-load that holds the nation’s history.  I was moved by the genealogy information that can found by archivists, and by the recent discoveries of Holocaust survivors’ Swiss bank accounts.   My son was moved by seeing one of the last existing copies of the Magna Carta. (Just when you think you’re raising a Philistine, you’re surprised, huh?”

In all the years that I lived in DC, I had never visited the inside of the Capital, so I was looking forward to the Capital tour.  I must say that it would have been better without Bilbray’s aide,  a kind of  ”Miss California”,  with her California up speak. When she began to ramble on about the failings of the Obama health care bill, I said nothing. My family was relieved. Besides, there’s nothing cooler than that place in the rotunda where you can hear somebody whispering from across the room. Worth the price of admission, to be sure. 

As the days went by, we all got into it, even my husband, who hates being a tourist. One day we walked from the Smithsonian to the Lincoln Memorial, a feat in 93 degree/90 percent humidity east coast weather. We saw the Vietnam memorial, the WWII memorial, the statues of the Vietnam nurses and the Korean soldiers, the Washington Monument presiding over all. My husband likes to call it the stone bone. He told stories of his weekly Sunday news people’s co-ed touch football games on the grass beneath the bone.

I braved the crowds with my son and toured the Holocaust museum.  We ate lunch at the Holocaust Cafe. In the museum,  I began to cry and my son gave me a hug and told me to “pull it together mom, you’re going to embarrass me.” I explained that I couldn’t imagine something so horrible happening to our little family.  He read every sign and looked at every photo.  I was so proud, I kvelled.

          On our last day, we “visited” my mother at the Parklawn Cemetery.  In the Jewish tradition when you visit a grave site you leave a stone on the grave marker.  This is done because at one time grave monuments were made of mounds of stone.  So, when you visit and leave a stone it shows that we are never finished building a monument to the deceased. We left pieces of coral that I had found here in California to symbolize the West coast East coast connection.  I know she would have liked the fact that there was some thought paid to the ritual.  She also would have loved the little rainbow flag I planted there, l think, always one to let her freak flag fly.

          As always, when I arrived home, I wanted to kiss the tarmac like the pope. San Diego is my home and in many ways it’s better for who I am now.  But like they say, you can take the girl out of the District of Chocolate, but you’ll never get the DC out of the girl.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cozbi

Since I started this blog, I’ve been lucky enough to visit a lot of small boutiques, meet their owners and talk clothes and fashion.  My recent trip to New York was no different. 

My goal was to find a really unique, small, and out of the way cool boutique and only spend money on clothing that I felt I couldn’t find anywhere except at this store and only in New York.

On my first day out, thanks to one of my oldest friends Michelle, I found the snowflake of boutiques in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, Cozbi.  As we walked in, we were greeted by the owner, Cozbi A. Cabrera. 

Cabrera is a tall, statuesque, dark-skinned beauty. She was wearing one of her own creations, the “must have” dress for the summer season; made of white eyelet, under which she wore a soft cotton white slip.  I was taken. 
Her clothes are the ultimate in classical femininity. The designs are sexy because they are cut and tailored to fit a woman’s body perfectly. All handmade in Brooklyn.  Most of her dresses are in either Jackie Onassis style or shift dresses in prints as bold as Pucci, but with a distinctly African twist. 

I tried things on, and asked her to hold my favorites. I needed to think.  We went back to Michelle’s apartment to check the Cozbi website. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design.  She began her career making handmade collectible cloth dolls called Muñecas; dolls in Spanish.  The dolls are collectors favorites and have been featured on Oprah.   Her heritage is Honduran.  She is the illustrator of the picture book Beauty, Her Basket  which Publishers Weekly called “a quiet treasure” in a starred review.

After much debate, calls to my fashion guru Jamie, many hours of shopping/shmying around Brooklyn, the lower East side, NoLita and Soho, I ended up back where I started.  I bought a dress at Cozbi.  It fits like a glove.  It’s one-of-a-kind. It makes me feel good to support women like Cozbi Cabrera.  I wish I lived closer.  My husband is probably glad that we don’t.    

http://www.cozbi.com/page1.html

  

  

Passione Boutique

Passione Boutique is  tailor made for the recessionista in all of us—the woman who loves to spend and enhance her wardrobe but still has a firm desire to be frugal in these tough times of ours. Rita Diste, a native of Ischia Italy, opened Passione Boutique in La Jolla in June. This very warm and charming store is located in the Fay Center, next door to the Empress Hotel.  It sits at the end of a cobblestone walkway flanked by flowers.  “Hopefully when you visit the store, you’ll feel as if you’re coming in to see one of your girlfriends at her house, ” Diste says in her wonderfully-accented English. 

            After giving a lot of thought to what brands of clothing she should carry in this rocky economy, Diste says she knew that there was one clothing line women in San Diego would love–List.

            Based in Rome, List’s claim to fame is that their designs resemble the best-loved Italian designers—Prada, Moschino, and Gucci—at a quarter of the price.  Using a team of young designers, who keep their eyes on fashion trends, List has been a successful brand around the world for many years.  Adding it’s own unique twist on designs, List maintains quality while keeping prices reasonable. 

Passione Boutique carries the prêt-a-porte collection.  The spring and summer line is filled with vibrant color. There is very little black; all the pieces are meant to blend together to build one great wardrobe.  “The line works especially well for San Diego because it easily transitions from season to season.” Diste says.

 Passione Boutique offers the look of Italy without the price tag.  Savvy shoppers will be happy to know that this store is the only place in the US to find List. 

Take a little trip to Rome without leaving San Diego and visit your Italian girlfriend Rita Diste at Passione Boutique in La Jolla.

http://www.passioneboutique.com/

Father’s Day

In 1966, the year I was born, fathers didn’t raise kids alone unless they were widowers.  When my mother left me with me father, he stepped up.  He was both mother and father to me.   

My dad was born in a small town in rural Louisiana.  He was one of ten children.  He went to Catholic schools through college and eventually finished with a PhD in microbiology.  While still in graduate school he married a woman by the name of Joan.  She is my sister Julie’s mother. I’m sure he would admit this easily, but leaving his daughter to finish his degree was his greatest mistake.  He and Joan divorced.  Joan raised my sister without her father.  When I was thirteen my sister and I became acquainted and today we are very close.

In 1960, my parents marriage, a Black man to a Jewish woman, was an act of bravery.  I was born six years after their wedding, within months they divorced. My mother left to “find herself.”  Over the years, she did…in many incarnations. 

My father is handsome.  He has dated many women over the years and to this day, I secretly hope that he will find love and companionship.  After Joan and then  my mother, he never re-married.

As a little girl, my dad did my hair, read bedtime stories, and tucked me in at night.  I accompanied him to dinner meetings; we never had a nanny.  I  would fall asleep easily in restaurant booths with my head in his lap.   He cooked dinner for me every night, usually chicken curry.   He made a brown bag lunch for me.  He drove me to school and  I walked home by myself.  I hung out alone and watched TV until he got home from work at 6pm–like clockwork.  Weekends were filled with hours of shopping at chic men’s clothing stores or fun dinner parties where I would make small talk with the adults. 

Today I live five minutes from my dad and we talk on the phone every day.  La Jolla is a long way from Opelousas, Louisiana.  He cooks dinner for our family regularly and when I walk into his house, whichever one he happens to live in from year to year, it smells like home because he’s there. 

Thanks to the relationship with my father, I married my husband.  They are alike in many ways.  Both are wonderful fathers.  My husband’s attention to caring for and loving our son is more than anyone could wish for.  When I asked my son what he loves best about his dad he said, “He’s my biggest fan.  He just loves me.”  What more can you want from your kid than to know that they are loved. 

Here’s to two dads who love and are loved.

 

 

Intimacy

Ladies, I’ve got a secret for you…You’re probably wearing the wrong bra.  I am.  At least that’s what I found out from Chrissy Mikhail, my “bra fit stylist” at Intimacy…

Intimacy opened in Fashion Valley in April and is one of the most talked about lingerie stores in San Diego.

So, between the local buzz and hearing about this place on Oprah, I decided to take “the girls” in and get fitted for a new bra. 

I called and made an appointment.  I was greeted by Andie Hennessy, the Client Services manager. The philosophy of Intimacy is that eighty percent of women are wearing the wrong bra size, so being fitted is very important.  The founder and owner, Susan Nethero, was trained under the Queen of England’s bra fitter, June Kenton.  Nethero is known in the lingerie world as the “bra whisperer.” With fifteen years of experience,  she opened her first store in Atlanta in 1992.  The store took off, more stores have opened across the country.  She has appeared on Oprah, What Not To Wear, Tyra Banks and the Today Show.  She’s also the author of Bra Talk: Myths and Facts. 

 

 

The first thing Andie asked me to do was to fill out the “Bra needs” questionnaire—Recent life changes?  Weight gain or loss?  pregnancy?  How many bras do you own? 

I was then ushered into the dressing room, which was, as the website promised, “circular and lit from floor to ceiling in an effort to give each woman a beautiful and unique glow.” Left unmentioned was the color- purple.  Next, my personal “bra fit stylist” for the next thirty minutes, Chrissy Mikhail, asked to see me in my bra and then without it, not for the faint of heart.  After looking me over, Chrissy proclaimed that my size, 34 C bra was definitively the wrong size.  I am actually a 30 D.  What a shock. 

She left and returned with a handful of bras in the “correct” size.  Chrissy does not mince words. She is stern. She pulled, shimmied and “windshield wiped”  my breasts into every bra.  She insisted that I needed lace bras, preferably with seams at the nipple line.  These would offer the shape and support that best suited me. She called these bras “balcony style.”  They are designed to be wider on the sides and more narrow in the front, to look like “the girls” are hanging slightly over the balcony.  I imagine a balcony overlooking a Parisian street.

“Every woman should own at least seven to ten bras,” Chrissy says. Most of the bras lines in the store are from Europe.  The best bra she gave me to try was the Bahia by Aubade, made in France.  It was crimson, all lace, and with seams in all the right places. “The girls” looked pushed up and out, as if offering themselves to the world.  Though they felt somewhat confined. 

The most difficult part of being a bra fit stylist, Chrissy says, is “Getting women outside of their habitual bra patterns.”  The bras Chrissy brought for me did not fit like my old standby bras.  The silhouette I’m used to seeing is rounder and softer, but not really as attractive as the Intimacy bras.  Most women don’t get bra fittings or spend $100.00 on a new bra–much less seven to ten new bras.  But, it’s something we deserve and the Bahia bra, at least, will get you the attention you deserve and the look to make you smile at yourself in the mirror every day. 

Intimacy offers a few very special perks for their high end bras.  They will tailor for free—if they don’t have the bra you love in the European size, they will sell you one in the closest US size and tailor it for you. They also tailor the bra free anytime after the elastic wears out, but only “if there is life still in the bra,” Chrissy says. Take care of these bras ladies. Hand wash and hang dry only and your bra should last three to five years.

You can also find sports bras, bathing suits and camisoles at Intimacy, all in your bra specific bra size. 

Chrissy says that the goal at Intimacy is to have each customer leave the store more informed about how her bra is supposed to fit than when she came in.  Some fun facts I learned: “Back fat” is really breast tissue that should be pulled forward and placed in the bra cup.  Compression sports bras are horrible for your breasts. They break down the elasticity in the breast tissue which Chrissy says can never be replaced.  Lace is hot and supportive; it’s worth the money for a great looking bra. 

Now, I just have to bite the bullet and spend the dough.  I think that “the girls” are worth it.  My husband will agree… I am sure of it.

http://www.myintimacy.com/