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Archive for August, 2026

Sofa Surfin

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 18, 2026| 2 Comments »

Since my sister Kay arrived in Nashville, she’s been pining for her blue couch. It arrives today from New York City.

Is it purely serendipity that everyone in our family was on the hunt for a new sofa at the same time? It all started with the Rocker and Aunt Kiki. They said goodbye to their starter home and just moved into another with room to grow for the Twins – and an actual playroom! So they packed up their car and went on a safari to IKEA to look for a durable sofa. Little did they know it would be like taking the girls to the circus. Their friends went along with another toddler and there was free range play all over the store capped by a lunch of Swedish meatballs. Note to young parents: if the heat is getting you down, try shopping at IKEA!

Meanwhile, Kay flew back to Manhattan to bid adieu to her Carnegie Hill apartment and retrieve her blue couch. Spoiler alert: I use “sofa” and “couch” interchangeably, but if you want to know the difference between the two, a couch is less formal and more comfy. It is from the French cucher, which means to sleep! A sofa, otoh, is more formal and structured, it’s a more decorative less functional piece of furniture. Believe me, I just looked it up!

Back in Nashville, the Bride was wanting to turn their second floor family room into a teenage hangout. Since the Love Bug is starting high school, with a newly painted bedroom btw, it was time to redesign the living areas of their house. The piano was moved upstairs, along with the small sectional in the family room off the kitchen. My daughter had her eye on the Lovesac – billed as “The World’s Most Adaptable Couch.” And with two kids and two dogs, she needed something sturdy, with zip-on zip-off machine washable pillow coverings. And so a sectional appeared one day in their study last week, in many boxes ready to unpack and put together, like so many comfy puzzle pieces.

A delightful niece joined Kay last week to help her pack up over 60 years of memories, while our realtor/nephew managed to put her 4th floor co-op on the market.

With couches on the move in one way or another, I realized I needed a sleeper sofa for the casita after we received its CO. Now sleeper sofas have evolved since the Jennifer Convertible sofa days when you were destined to sleep with a metal bar sticking somewhere into your back. I had one of those in my first marriage – let’s just say it was a tea rose covered chintz that is better left forgotten. We visited our local furniture store only to learn that the best of the breed is American Leather, no metal bars, and it doesn’t have to be leather; however, a queen sleeper would set us back $5,000 to $10,000… So, I did what any other rational human being would do, I turned to social media.

While Kay’s elevator was being replaced there, I had set her up with a futon-like, white sofa for a few months here. It was my first Facebook Marketplace find, direct from Wayfair and still in a box. But it was too hard to sit on and too white. It just wasn’t her blue couch that she bought with a dear friend a few years ago in NC, so it had to go. Oh, and her flight back to Nashville was cancelled, so Kay spent her last night in the City sleeping on another niece’s couch!

Musical Sofa Surfin is about to end. We’ve decided on a green Koala sleeper sofa for the casita and are simply waiting for the Labor Day Sale to order one. And along with the blue couch on the truck from NY, Kay’s artwork will appear today; as well as several tables and lamps and boxes. Enough I hope to make this place feel like home.

And Happy First Day of School to all those Southern parents sending their little ones off this week. Look at how these two Grands have grown!

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Tomayto Tomahto

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2026| 2 Comments »

There’s nothing like a Jersey tomato – all you need is white bread, mayo, salt and pepper, and lunch is served. New Jersey is the Garden State after all, and it grows more blueberries and cranberries than Cabot Cove. But after landing in the South, I’ve come to appreciate a ripe, organic, multicolored heirloom tomato. Sometimes, I’ll even slather on some pimento cheese and skip the mayo! And taking Southern a step further, who doesn’t love a fried green tomato?

This past weekend was East Nashville’s Tomato Festival, aka “Tomato Art Fest.” https://www.tomatoartfest.com/

Our cousin Peggy, our ice storm savior, is a fabulous cook who loves to host a good party and also happens to live in East. btw East Nashville has been called the Portlandia of the South, where artists and musicians congregate on Gothic front porches. Naturally, Peg threw a tomato cocktail party that couldn’t be beat! Her dining table was covered with tomatoes of many colors, a huge pot of gazpacho, skewered Caprese balls of yumminess, and all the fixins for the aforementioned sandwich.

We contributed my famous Mango Tomatillo Salsa. I say “we” because Bob is instrumental as sous chef in the kitchen – he chops the red onion when my crying gets out of hand, and he always cuts up the mango. This salsa recipe is over 25 years old, and that is hard to imagine! I first made it in NJ for the Bride’s college graduation party in our Rumson backyard. You know the one, with a tent under the mulberry tree where our dog Buddha grazed, and we first met the Bride’s college boyfriend. I still have the small cookbook – “Salsas, Sambals, Chutneys,& Chowchows – Intensely Flavored Little Dishes From Around the World,” by Schlesinger and Willoughby copyright 1993.

To be honest, I always thought a tomatillo was a Mexican tomato! But while searching Google, AI dissuaded me of that notion: . “Even though the word means “little tomato” in Spanish and they look like small green fruits, they belong to a different plant genus (Physalis). They are more closely related to ground cherries and cape gooseberries than to standard red or green tomatoes.”

Peg and her husband Paul had just converted a deck into a wraparound screened porch at the back of their historic house. And I must be accommodating to this climate, since the 90 degree temps felt lovely under two ceiling fans. There were no phones in sight as we met and mingled with their friends and neighbors – nurses, political activists, doctors, and potters. Their dog George, a black mini-Poodle, roamed around with his girlfriend, Gracie, a white Westie. I was dazzled by the sheer number of tomato earrings!

The Love Bug walked over to her friend’s house for a sleepover. The next day was the annual Tomato Festival parade and run with entertainment and FUN galore. Peggy is a runner so we wished her well. We tried talking the Pumpkin into entering a redhead contest, but he would have none of it. If only I had a tiny streak left of my strawberry blond hair. I was a chameleon as a kid, turning a deeper shade of red in the winter and nearly platinum blond in the summer. My Nana was the redhead in our family, a deep, glorious auburn color with braids wrapped around her head.

Please enjoy this tomato feast for the eyes!

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Something Blue

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Love Bug wanted to paint her bedroom her favorite color, BLUE, before school started, and sure her Mother could have hired a painter, taken the easy route. But where’s the fun in that? And what kind of lesson does outsourcing send to our kids? And though we haven’t done any painting in a dog’s age, we offered to help. Bob went to the paint store with them to get everything they needed – the rollers, brushes, tape, etc. And Saturday, the Grands came over to cart our long ladder over to their house. They were ready to begin.

I’ve lost track of how many rooms I’ve painted over the years. It’s never been a solitary activity. You order pizza, buy some beer, and invite your friends over to help paint. We even bartered a paint job with a tenant in the basement apartment of the medical school foursquare in Charlottesville. Free rent if he painted his apartment, which he did! We did a lot of painting and wallpapering in NJ, but right about the time we started building our house in the Blue Ridge Mountains, we realized it was best if the painting was left to the professionals. Also, we hit middle age.

Painting is a young person’s game.

The first day was all about preparation – laying down tarps, moving furniture, spackling picture holes and cracks, sanding and taping the trim. I forgot how much of painting is actually just getting ready to paint. The next day we were ready to begin. I offered to bring lunch, which was appreciated since the Groom was on call in the MICU and the Bride had two Bluebird appointments. I mean what else could I do? Ladders are verboten to me, and she has cathedral ceilings!

I did help pick the shade of blue. When I asked Bob what colors the Bug was considering he said, “Sky blue, sky blue and sky blue.” I swear sometimes I think Bob is color blind. SO I marched myself over to their house in the middle of the week to look at the three swatches of blue on the Bug’s bedroom wall. One was too green. Of the remaining two periwinkle colors one was lighter than the other. Good thing I sided with the rest of the females in the family. The deeper shade won, Sherwin Williams’ “Something Blue.”

Picking out the wall colors for the casita was easy. I just asked my brilliant designer DIL, Aunt Kiki, what was hip in off-white these days. The last time I picked an off-white it was Navajo White, which almost looks beige. She told me she loves Swiss Coffee, and so I looked it up – it’s a creamy, warm off white with a balanced light reflection value (LRV), and looks great with natural woods according to the experts. It also looks good with my sage green kitchen cabinets.

But back to Funday Sunday After lunch, my main job was holding the ladder for the Love Bug, a most important role! After all, she was reaching eleven feet up in the air! The Pumpkin was relaxing since he was going to do most of the rolling with a very long handle, while Bob and the Bride used brushes to paint near the white trim. After a couple of hours, the Groom arrived back from the hospital to take over the tall, ceiling adjacent painting on the ladder. At one point, I was able to dab a little paint around her closet door, which was extremely satisfying.

We laughed, we told stories, we listened to Olivia Rodrigo on my phone. And now, the about to turn 14 beautiful Bug can say she painted her own room, with a little help from her fam. ps – just looked up Olivia Rodrigo tickets for her Nashville dates and she is sold OUT! Well, it was a good birthday present idea. ps Proposed amendment to the Torah – Parents teach your children how to swim and paint!

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