New Yorkers are different from you and me

Swingtown has it down pat

Oh my god! I just saw Swingtown for the second time--I can't stop watching it-the show has the era down pat-from the cheezy mustaches and Dorothy Hamill haircuts to the Reeboks running outfits (remember short white shorts on men?), and polyester dresses and rainbow colored knee highs. I graduated from high school in 1976 and the music drove me nuts-it brought back so many memories. I lived with my older sisters one summer off from UC Berkeley at their "condo," a brand new term then. The Watergate complex (that was the name-II kid you not) was a hot bed of sexual liasions in the hot tub fueled by Chardonnay and Mumm's champagne served with triskets crackers and brie (so sophisticated). My sisters had a roommate, a gorgeous blonde who literally had men almost crossing themselves in the corridor in their rush to her bedroom. When this nurse left for a month I took over her room and invited over the most gorgeous man I have ever dated. Since he lived in San Francisco and was a TV anchor, l he thought the crowd was beneath him so I told everyone at the pool (where we were laying out to get tan-no one heard of skin cancer then) that he was not being rude, he was a deaf/mute-and they believed me.
The show brought it all back to me-my sister showing off her merry widows for her boyfriend who flew a plane to impress her-my other sister dating a doctor who played tennis and drove a Porsche and me borrowing my sister's silk wrap dress to wear to a frat party.
Those were the days-when they told us cocaine was natural and non-addictive and the anchors snorted up in the bathroom, when no one knew about AIDs and everyone was just concerned about not being uptight.

Everyone knows George Clooney but me

I just returned from a trip to the Big Island and I swear to you, everyone knew George Clooney! My massuses' husband has a Hawaiian name for Georgie boy that he greets him with when he visits Hawaii, a fellow journalist, Petra, a gorgeous blonde from Germany got a kiss on the cheek from him! Tim, a young superstar mogul has met him many a time at movie premieres and reiterated how down to earth the star can be.
I love the Big Island-forget Maui-too crowded-or Kuai-too old-for a perfect mix visit Kona and Hilo. Tragically for the second year in a row I did not make it to the famed Hana Hou store in HIlo where Michelle the owner uses vintage fabrics to create one of a kind designs. When I whined about it, my friend Bill said "Yeah, George Clooney was there today."
The good news is Hana Hou means encore or return so I will have to go back to the black sand beaches, lava tubes and shops of the Big Island. (There are some great new stores at the Mauna Lani mall! Trina Turk half off and a sale at Tommy Bahama-one of the few Tommy stores with a restaurant. You didn't really think I could come home without buying something new did you?)
Keep your eyes open for a story about a woman ready to throw herself in the erupting volcano if I don't see George soon. I'm starting to think he doesn't exist-maybe he's just a big secret government conspiracy to make everyone feel good about things! Good thing I am married to Tom Selleck-well his mother always said he remindered her so much of that actor. As my boss told me, "There's nothing like a mother's love!"

My wife's name is Ruth

Another stranger story...I'm sitting at the airport talking to a charming older gentleman from New Jersey who tells me he's just been to see his son in Martinez, CA because his daugher-in-law and grandson both broke their legs in seperate accidents and ends up telling me his daughter is lesbian professor in Chicago and he's worried about her being alone in her old age and his wife recently died. I told him to move to California and he said he's thinking about it. When it's time to board my plane, I say nice talking to you my name is Ruth. "My wife's name was Ruth," says Tom. Something tells me she made us sit near each other so I'd encourage him to move near his son.
The plane had a great movie about Jane Austen, who was called a "spinster" back then and I couldn't help but admire her indepence, hitting a cricket bat, writing and turning down a wealthy suitor. She is still a role model today. Even in 2008, what is it about women that makes us turn over our lives to men and forget that we are daring, exciting, unique individuals? It's so much easier now for women to make their own fortunes and yet I still hear young gals in college say they'll just marry a wealthy man. I guess they think that's easier than earning their own way...but what if the man goes bankrupt or he cheats or the wife just goes insane in her gilded cage?
Well Kuhl is being very serious these days- good thing Bella has a lighter touch (and better prose too!).

Bella's Beauty Adventures

I am 46 years old; one would think in all that time I might have gotten a clue about my hair, mais, au contraire mes amie. Let's review my brief history of hair in San Francisco, where we've lived for three years now.

Step one: Go to the most expensive salon; they've got to be good. Instead, I feel like a chick in one of those God awful, assembly-line chicken processing factories where they cutoff the beak, send the fuzzy little chick sliding down a stainless steel funnel to the conveyor belt where some lunatic in a paper jumpsuit, hair net, face mask and latex gloves clips the wings. At Yosh they tossed a smock at me, shoved me in a chair, slapped some dye on my head then ushered me to a back room crammed with old SF money: lots of laser treatments, botox and big gold jewelry. A lightening shampoo to wash out the color, then wham-o! Into the chair for a cut with a razor. People, they only use a razor when they are in a hurry, and on this assembly line it was "Get 'em in. Get 'em out. Ye-haw raw hide!"

Steps two and three: random salons around town recommended to me, but were mediocre, and left me looking either matronly or stupidly trendy -- think, Shag.

Step four: Hugh, the most gifted colorist who could not cut my hair to save his life, and he was a bit of diva. I think he told me once, "don't touch me!" OK, not a problem. I would have stuck with him for the exquisite blow-outs alone, then he charged me $125 for a color. I knew I had to break-up with him, which was traumatic, not just because I loved my Sandra Bullock movie-star-color, but I loved Ron, the owner of the salon. Bye, Ron.

Steps five, six and seven: no one is cutting my hair until the awful cut Hugh gave me grows out. I go to three more random salons that do a crap job with my color; Hugh is a hard act to follow. I feel depressed and consider returning to the Pixie cut of my youth: the one my mother forced me to have after our hippie cousin gave all the rest of the cousins head lice at one family reunion.

Step eight: I am two years older, and with more bad hair days than any woman my age deserves. Well, last night I tried a salon in my neighborhood, and today I look, for the first time in ages, pretty darn good. The color is nice, not too brassy or dark. The cut is cute, on the edge of too young for me, but not too much. I think -- dare I speak it out loud? -- I've found a keeper. And it only took three years!

Don't even ask me about how long it took me to find a decent dentist. People think moving to France or San Francisco is so glamorous. It's not. It takes enormous effort to reassemble your life. You have to find a bank, doctors, the post office, a place to live, schools... the list goes on an on. And frankly, it takes so freaking long to find a good stylist that I'm just not moving again, because I refuse to go to my grave with bad hair.

Luck of the Irish

Tonight, it happened again...I won a raffle prize-yawn. I know what you're saying, "I never win anything." I can't help it-it's in my genes. My dad was the same way-he was half Irish and everyone in Dubuque where I grew up said he had the luck of the Irish. I inherited the trait. It was embarrasing how often Daddy would win raffles-especially when they were work-related or with his many volunteer groups like the Knights of Columbus. I'm the same way. I'm shocked when I got to events and don't win. I always enter those cheesy things that say, leave your card, you could be eligible for a prize or buy a raffle ticket (incidentally doesn't seem to matter if I buy one or 10 tickets). Among my prizes: a TV, spa treatments, a cell phone, a designer purse, wine, gift basket, clothes and tonight a trip to Canada from the tourism board. This is a real prize-not those stupid "free" trips you get in the mail-throw them away! My colleague that attends Chamber events with me refuses to buy a raffle ticket or put his card in the hat for a free prize because he knows I'll win. My thrifty husband is very jazzed about my lucky streak -he makes sure we buy raffle tickes, enter our business cards at events, and fill out those pesky cards, but he doesn't understand why I don't win on that rare occasion. I can't explain it-the lottery doesn't work for me and neither does Vegas-just like my dad-it's all about raffles.
Unfortunately my winnings are just extras-they don't pay the rent-so I have to get back to work now. The good news is being a winner-no matter how small time-sure makes life more fun!

Bella Time

I pray for days like this, days where my time is all my own, days when I can "get things done!" and then, when they get here, I wish like hell I had something planned. Because cleaning out my son's closet of all the clothes that don't fit him anymore, watering the plants, or even doing my blog entry, these are all tasks without enforceable deadlines: and I need a damn deadline. I wasn't a TV reporter for nothing. I need a real and very active threat, like, oh say, getting fired or beaten to a bloody pulp -- I was in TV after all -- to make me get anything done. So today, instead of cleaning closets, I am farting around trying to log onto the blog, and I can't, and it's pissing me off, and Kuhl's hubby who set this whole thing up for us is still asleep -- did I mention it's nearly noon? KBH (Kuhl's beloved husband) WAKE UP! The clock is ticking. I only have two more hours before I have to go and fetch BC (beloved child) from preschool, and then this free day, this day where I had nothing planned: no dentist, no grocery shopping, no errands to run, this day of which I dreamed of finally getting to the projects that have been hanging over me -- I did mention that my plants are going on week three, or is it four without water? -- will be over, and I won't have accomplished squat. I should have gone to the gym. Then, even though my house would still be a dump, I would feel like I did something. Free time is so vastly over rated.

Bella Watch

One of these days my gal pal Bella is going to join me so the website and my photo will be complete. She's a very funny writer but her darn 3-year-old keeps getting in the way of her creativity. Kids are so selfish-they expect you to do everything for them! My husband Rich honestly once said "Why can't you just lock a kid in the closet while you go out?" Now you understand why I am chidless.
I just got back from Sacratomato, Bella's old city, which is surprisingly groovy these days...I used to dread going there for work but now it has trendy restaurants-more hotel choices-and boutiques that are cutting edge in their way-they carry classic suits and I don't know any store that does that anymore. If you still want to see people dressed up to the nines, visit the state capitol.
There's something about the power charge I feel in this city that makes me want to live in one of their downtown lofts. Of course once I move, I'd be attending lots of receptions with Ahnold. Our governator is a big flirt-I sat in the front row of a press conference in a short skirt and boots and he made a point of shaking my hand afterwards-maybe it was the marching boots. I never considered Mr. Pump You Up my type (over muscled men don't usually do it for me) but when Schwarzenegger stares in your eyes it's mesmorizing. I have a girlfriend who workd with him in the movies and she said he was honestly very interested in the crew and aksed about their future plans. When his Austrian buddies from college visited the movie set, practical jokes were common and my grilfriend helped them out by putting sparkly markeup on Arnold's face without his knowledge. She was getting back at him for an earlier joke when he pretended to be cradling her face in his hands but was really applying dark makeup. He took the sparkles joke well and his buddies loved calling him a girlie man or whatever that term is in the Austrian language.
In my opinion he is doing a great job for our state (I am an independent voter) and think he should be allowed to run for President. None of us are really Americans-except Native Americans-anyway and being born here hardly seems a loyalty test. Anyone who goes through the arderous process of becoming an American (like the hilarious Craig Ferguson) is more patriotic than most of us-just as converts are usually more religious. We're losing a lot of potential leaders by excluding them and we need all the help we can get-look who's in the White House right now-or don't-it might warp your mind irreparably.

Breathing is Over-rated

My friend E lives in a different zip code and different world than me. She’s refreshingly down to earth and great fun--grew up middle class in the Midwest like me-- but her neighbors are very 90210, Desperate Housewives of the O.C. Let me give you a few examples. We went shopping the other day on our lunch hour in Los Gatos and stopped in one of the many ridiculously over-priced boutiques in Los Gatos. Naturally, I made a beeline for the 75% off rack where a black Malandrino wool jacket I am lusting over has been marked down..drum roll, please..to a mere $500.00!!! I try it on every time I visit, and they keep telling me what a great deal it is-the last time a button popped off so I'm hoping they'll keep knocking down the price.
This time I decided to try some clothes on for fun-a purple dress resembling one that Kendall Hart has been wearing in brown on All My Children and I convinced E to be Greenly and try on a short black dress with huge brooch-like stones around the high waist. I tried to squeeze into this low cut number, but couldn’t zip up the back. My Pilate-sized friend looked like a movie star in the LBD but said she couldn’t breath. “Breathing is over-rated,” said the sales clerk with a straight face. I tried on a pair of size 29 jeans but decided I needed a bigger size and the same clerk said with disgust that they didn’t carry any size larger than a 29! (I’m a curvy size 8 for those of you trying to figure out how much an elephant I am). E spotted a girlfriend from her kids school (another mommy boys would like to you know what) while we where there who was drinking wine. She buys couture and as soon as the clerks realized we were all buds they brought out a bottle and told us they have full bar in back! They never told me that all those times I dig through the ten-dollar bin! I grabbed a pair of Boob-eze as a gag gift for my flat chested girlfriend’s birthday and the clerk said that was cheapest pair of boobs she’d ever seen-hers certainly cost a lot more she confided. I tried on an extra small fuchsia silk strappy top and it squashed my boobs so much that I had to come out from the dressing room and parade around the store, telling E that I thought it was a perfect fit and I was going to buy it. I don't know what was better-her shocked face trying to break the news to me gently that it was hideous or the horrifed clerks who told me they were not under any circumstances going to sell that to me. lt's a joke I said, as they formed a huddle and whispered. Who knew they have fashion Nazis in Silicon Valley that determine whether or not you can buy an item-I'm surprised they let an elephant like me in the store. Maybe the next step will be a tiny door with a sign like you see in amusement parks: "If you are too big to fit through this slot, you are denied entry."

E decided that she didn’t need to move for the few hours she’d wear the dress and as we waited to check her out the young teen in front of us racked up a crdit card charge of $1,300! A little different from the gals I see in Santa Cruz at Crossroads selling their old clothes to buy used Betsy Johnson dresses. E asked for the dress in a bag not on a hanger-easier to hide, huh, I said and she nodded. It's nice to know that no matter your income all women share the same issues--hiding new clothes and price tags from our husbands.

getting closer to George Clooney

I met a distant cousin of his! Unfortunately she does not know him. Also Georgie boy jogged right past a friend of mine, Lee, in Mexico -or Maine-this rich guy -my friend has houses everywhere. His car broke down outside Jennifer Aniston's Santa Barbara home years ago and Brad stopped to ask him if he could help-he didn't even know he was talking to a movie star! The CHP filled him in when they showed up...Maybe I just better hang out with Lee

Country more Sexist than Racist

I'm tired tonight. Tired of work, tired of feeling like women are second-class.
My boss is an African American male who told me years ago that we would have a minority male President before we'd have a woman because our country is more sexist than racist. I was shocked then but not anymore. Don't get me wrong-I like Obama-and if there wasn't a smart woman running for President I'd be pulling for him 100%. But it's sad to me that half of America's population has never been represented unlike England, India, Sweden, and so many other countries who have had women CEOs.
I grew up in Iowa where girls were groomed to marry well. My mother encouraged us to attend college to meet husbands and prepare for practical jobs like nursing and teaching in case our spouses died, but as soon as we had babies we were expected to quit work and stay home. Purposefully I didn't learn how to cook or sew or type so I wouldn't be able to fall back on those traditional skills. (I have regretted not paying attention to typing in the past-thank God for computers).
I love babies but the thought of staying home all day while my husband got to be in the outside world seemed very confining. I used to argue with my mother about women's liberation in the 70's --she didn't understand why I wanted to go to UC Berkeley when I could just marry the town's rich boy. But I was the school's first "girl" president of the junior class and dreamed of something beyond this small town.
I watched old movies with working women like Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, and Katherine Hepburn and longed for the day when I would take the world by storm. My Aunt Ruth, my mom's sister, was an inspiration in the 70's. She worked at her store until she was 88 and would frequently tell us that things had changed so much, "It's a woman's world."
The world is changing, but slowly. I am so happy (and jealous) that my nieces are active participants in sports when my only option was cheerleading. Unlike me, my nieces avoided the 5th grade drop in math grades that scientists have shown so many young girls experience at puberty. And they have no problem with attending the prom with a group of gals, rather than waiting for a boy to ask them-or the right boy. But they also worry too much about their looks, their weight, and what boys think about them. I still hear comments from college women that they don't have to study--just marry well.
I never thought I'd see a woman and an African American male vying for the Democratic nod for President and in a way it's an embarassment of riches. On the other hand I just wonder if my boss is right and whether there will ever be a woman in the White House.
Young women especially don't seem to understand what feminists went through to get this far. They scoff when I say I want a woman in the White House-no matter what- which makes me really sad. They don't realize how far women have come in just 30 some years and how the tides could turn or the strong symbolism of a woman in charge.
I'm still frustrated in meetings when I have a good idea and it's ignored until a man says the same thing and then it's considered brilliant. If women get angry they're hystercial while men are strong leaders. I loved Tina Fey's riff on Saturday Night Live and couldn't agree more. If you're not a bitch you can't get anything done.
Guess I'll quit bitching and go to bed.

Six Degrees of Seperation

I was watching Torchwood, a sci-fi show on the BBC last night and started thinking about weird connections in life. Don’t you have a feeling sometimes there are forces out there beyond our control?

Let me give you a few examples in my life:
One time when I was babysitting in college I picked the phone and it was a wrong number. I was about to hang up and the woman on the other end said, “Wait, I know you, I recognize your voice, who are you?” She was my cousin Barb.

I recently wrote a story about a new golf course in Ireland and interviewed an American who had bought a home there. Turned out he lived near me but more importantly he had grown up in the same small midwestern town as I did -a block away from me-and his mom was a teacher at my grade school!

One of my former bosses came to my house (70 miles from the job site) and realized he had been there to a party before I lived there and my husband had been to my boss’s vacation home some 15 years earlier with a mutual friend.

When went to College at UC Berkeley the dorms were surrounded by poster shops. I bought a painting of a blonde girl who reminded me of my younger sister. Some 25 years later I was standing in the Prado Museum in Madrid staring at that same painting, Las Meninas (Spanish for The Maids of Honour), by Diego Velázquez. I had no idea that was what I bought until then. (Okay so I wasn’t an art history major!)

I have been happily married for 25 years but resisted getting “set-up” with Rich…instead a chance encounter brought us together. A mutual friend at the TV station where Rich and I worked tried to arrange a date, but the silk scarf around his neck put me off. (Turns out he thought it made him look like director-I told you he's Kramer!). My boyfriend at the time, a reporter, suggested that I arrange a blind date with my sister because Rich was so nice. My sister was four years older than me Rich was six years her senior so he was closer to her age- it seemed like a good idea. I was with sis when I ran into Rich one night at a bar in the San Francisco area we called the Bermuda Triangle because there were three bars on opposite corners of the same street and singles were known to disappear from there for days. I couldn’t shake this assertive guy from Australia in red pants so when Rich called out hello from another table, I told the Aussie I was the Iowa pork queen and that Rich was one of my judges. Sitting at Rich’s table, I was thinking this was the perfect opportunity to set Jane up but as we began talking, I decided, “No I’m keeping this one for myself.” Rich asked me out on a date to Santa Cruz on Monday (we joke that we got together because we were one of the few people who had that day off) and in 1989 we moved to this romantic city.

I like to tell people my sister Debbie got together with her long time partner because of me. When she was going through a messy divorce in France she couldn’t leave the country with her three kids so my 9 siblings decided to have a reunion in Bordeaux. I was planning to go but couldn’t get away from work at the last minute so my brother Dave invited his friend since College, Doug. A lifelong bachelor, he and Deb fell in love and five years later they are all blissfully happy living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

But the strangest story I ever heard was from my friend Lora who was with her husband Phil on a train in Prague. She started chatting with a mother and daughter across the aisle and when they mentioned their last name, it was the same as Phil’s, an uncommon surname. After much discussion it turned out that the daughter was Phil’s half-sister and the woman his father’s ex-wife-0a family Phil never knew about!

Maybe there really are only six degrees of separation in the world. I slept with one of Sharon Stone's ex-husbands so my husband likes to think he kind of slept with her. I like to say Sharon’s ex couldn’t have me so he had to settle for a movie star.

I am hoping this separation theory is true because my time is overdue for meeting George Clooney. I’m sure we’d be perfect together-he’s an Oscar award winning director, but you never see him wearing a scarf around his neck!

The Absence of Noise

I'm a writer but I have a hard time concentrating in silence. I usually have an old movie (I guess old is relative depending on your age-for me it's the great era of Cary Grant, Betty Davis and Katherine Hepburn) playing while I create. I'm married to a photographer and we have no kids so I could have total silence but growing up with nine brothers and sisters I have no idea how to work with no sound. My youth was spent doing homework to the sounds of a TV, the screaming fights of my siblings, my parents arguing, babies crying, (there were ten kids in 13 years!), the phone ringing, the washing machine going-no dishwasher--too expensive, (my dad said"I have ten dishwashers (his kids) what do I need a dishwasher for," radios playing and friends knocking at our front door.
I'm sure I waste a lot of time with distractions-my father would always yell at us- "how can you do your homework with the tv/radio on?"-but it also keeps me going. When it gets to crunch time, I turn it all off and zone in but in the early stages I need inspiration. Inviting my 17 nieces and nephews over would be overload I'm afraid. My mother could probably handle it fine. She used to laugh at women with four kids. "With four kids I could reinvent the world! What do those women do all day?" she'd say. My younger sis Deborah Kuhl (www.deborahkuhl.com) has inherited her energy and her hot bod (after ten kids my mom was still a perfect size 8) and Debbie looks like a size 6 or 4 model after three kids. A single mom, Debbie works full time, sings her original compositions at various venues, and still manages to have perfect children. My sister Jane has two (also perfect) kids, (I'm not biased:) ) works full time, is in the Army reserves and now getting a Masters.
Having babysat-and feeling like I needed a week's vacation afterwards-I am in awe of their accomplishments. If I had a kid I don't think I'd ever leave the house. I feel like such a slacker-all I do is work and write freelance travel stories.
Good thing I have KuhlBella to keep me from my impending deadlines...guess I better go back to work.

Facebook Addict

They say the first step toward recovery is admitting you have a problem. Okay, here it is, I am addicted to facebook. They want me to go to rehab but I say No, No, No. Admittedly I am a little late getting into this trend but give me a break -I'm 50 and I can still kick and stretch. My "friends" are a pathetic mix of my 16-year-old nieces and old farts who complain to me "I can't figure this thing out." Right now my husband and I are in a contest to see who can get the most friends-I was winning but he went to one of his photography organizations and sent a mass email and now he has more "friends." I think you should know the people on your site but if I start feeling really competitive I'm just going to get all of my nieces zillion friends to sign up and wipe the floor with his ass. It's a great way to see what my nieces are up to but I am sure they have confabs about "what if Auntie tells mommy what's on our sites?" So far I have been cool...with them...in life I am so out of it. Did you know that every message now has to be decoded: hw is homework, and pos is parent over shoulder. They also use "ha ha" a lot. I'm sure I have ruined their street cred.
For all you Larry David fans out there, here is my hubby's latest...I overheard him talking to his older brother today about how to close the porn on his website before his wife comes in the room. "You need to get a motion activiated sensor that alerts you when someone enters the room or a closed circuit camera." And he wasn't kidding.
I gotta go and see if anyone put anything on my fun wall....Ciao for now