It's Sleeping In My Memory....

Many happenings since last week...summer cocktails and backyard parties and girls' book clubs and gourmet dinners. So much to tell...fun and festivity and drama. I mean, come on, it's always a blast when summer cocktails commence with the Nigerian parking attendant on 29th Street giving me a lollipop in an attempt to cheer me up as I drive away...the lollipop did little, but the gesture was certainly lovely....ahhh, good times. Friday and Asian night with the gourmet ladies lifted my spirits exponentially...ADP sporting a silk kimono and chopsticks in her hair...I made spare ribs but it was Suse's lettuce wraps, and that noodley-peanutty thing Tracy cracked out, that I was all over. Oh, and don't let me forget the fortune cookies...we each read ours out loud and then added the line "in bed" at the end...remember that game from back in the 'tween years? Back when you knew "in bed" was naughty and had some connotation relating to sex and making out and all that, yet you still had no clue. Well, we were a little tipsy-ish on sake so we found this retro pastime hysterical....some choice selections:

"You are sociable and entertaining....(in bed)"

"You will be fortunate in everything you put your hands to...(in bed)"

"You will always get what you want through your charm and personality...(in bed)"

Of course, we can all agree that each of those apply to me...but my actual fortune said:

"The man who fools himself is the greatest fool of all."

Ha! Can't say that little gem didn't seem to apply quite readily to my life...in or out of bed. In fact, I am pretty sure the Nigerian parking attendant mumbled that very same sentiment as he offered me that consolation lollipop....well, I couldn't understand him, but it was something like that. Ok, ok, ok...I know some factory out in Flushing is pumping out those little "fortunes" en masse...but you know me, the dreamy Pisces, all about psychic communication, reading into everything, trying to decipher meaning...maybe that little message was meant just for me...a gentle reminder from my angels...you know, via Confucius.

So after that, on Saturday we had Gwen and Joe's backyard BBQ bash....we arrived at 3, ate, drank, were merry around the vintage beer-filled tub and Scott's famous corn-hole game and beer pong and the 80's hair band tunes and the fire pit. We returned home at 11:30...surprisingly I ingested only half of one margarita, one of Tim and Mike's classic and perfect mojitos, some sickenly sweet Mike's Hard Berry crap and one Corona Light in 8 hours...pacing myself...how novel. Best of all -- no hangover on Sunday. Nice! So since I was headache-less that Sunday afternoon, we were back to Gwen and Joe's for some next day leftover feasting and party download in the yard. Brian and Sam with us too, all of the kids running around, catching fireflies, putting flowers in their hair, piling onto the hammock, playing

Wiffle Ball and some make-believe game they called "Teenager"...hmmm...yeah, don't think I want to know the rules of that game. So I said to Brian as we loaded up our plates with the pulled pork and brisket and all that: "These are the times I remember when

I look back to being a kid...these summer nights running around a neighbor's yard, the parents enjoying a cocktail...these are the memories I love the most from back then. So glad I can give that to my kids too..." And he totally agreed.

Not even 24 hours later, Ellie and I packed a bag full of red wine, cheese and crackers, lobster salad and peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies and headed into the City for a showing of Harold & Maude at the outdoor film series at Bryant Park. There we would meet my gay boyfriends/big brothers/elegant hosts/style icons, Tom and David, and a selection of their ultra-fab posse (including their friend, Matthew, who is my favorite because of the story he told us once about the night Princess Diana died when he was at a boring dinner party on Fire Island and, unknown to the other guests, had climbed out the bathroom window to visit Tom and David a few houses down just for a laugh...and they broke the sad news to him...so he ran back to the dinner party house, climbed back in the window, came back out of the bathroom and informed the dinner guests of the earth-shattering drama unfolding in Paris, thus ruining the party completely and never fully explaining how he had learned of the news while locked in the john....Love that!). So anyway, I know, bringing a nine year old to a decidely adult cultural event seems a little askew...when I told her she would be the only child in our group, she rolled her eyes and said: "well of course, Mom...gay guys don't have kids..." Hilarious! But anyway, we are talking about making memories here, and ever since the Jo Bros concert last week, Ellie has been my undisputed BFF and first-choice date...my little confidante too. So you know...I adore my Mom and Dad, but when I was nine, I was virtually taking care of myself, so Ellie seems old to me....certainly old enough to be introduced to the "outdoor series" concept, no?

So at any rate, back to memories...Ellie had always wanted to attend the Bryant Park film series because she knows that her father and I were engaged there during a showing of the great Audrey Hepburn/Humphrey Bogart film, Sabrina (delicate sparrow Sabrina, a servant girl in a Gold Coast estate who visits Paris and returns a Franco-phile fashionista and foodie...in a set of twists and turns, she falls deeply in love with the serious and tense but secretly soft-hearted older businessman who grew up on and whose family still inhabits the estate...and her vivacious spirit transforms his life...a little heartbreak, I feel a pinch now just recalling, but it is worth every tear...run out and rent it immediately....). And that memory lingers as we enter Bryant Park, my firstborn and I navigate the blankets and people and cheese trays and wine bottles crammed onto the lawn...we find our party and settle in and pour some wine and chit chat and greet the motley crew (Ellie's new best pals, Tom's darling niece, Annie, and her adorable, floppy-haired boyfriend...at 18, they are the next closest in age to Ellie...), the scent of premium herb filling the air. And suddenly, I am flashing back...and it's not a contact high...this is a total deja vu. I can't shake the memory of me and my sisters and little brother and my parents and their friends from Beverly Hills -- a surgeon and a novelist -- and their daughters...and we are crammed in on a field, sitting on blankets for hours on end, all day and night.......but this place is much bigger than Bryant Park...and it is much more crowded...and the event is a legendary moment in pop culture history....it is 1981, the event is Simon & Garfunkel, the concert in Central Park. And I was there.

I know!! How cool is that? My parents weren't hippies or anything, prone to caravaning around the tri-state, selling tie-dye shirts or some crap like that. It was just that Dad was always a big fan of S&G...the boys from Queens...and maybe he identified with their brand of urban poetry. When we were kids, after dinner and just before bedtime, Dad would settle in the family room, work spread all over the big game table and listen to the Bridge Over Troubled Water and Sounds of Silence albums on heavy rotation (the other top choice was The Beatles' Abbey Road...). So these are the songs that pepper my early childhood memories...I remember sitting there in those hideous 1970's orange velour chairs in our family room in the New York house, before we moved to Franklin Lakes, with my nightgown on, chatting with Dad while he tried to work, asking him what "I am a rock/I am an i-i-i-sland" meant...how could that guy be a rock? And that bridge and troubled water? I always pictured a man stretching himself across the river, like the GWB or something, which seemed so stupid...And how could silence have a sound? But that voice (what I now know is Art Garfunkel and his glorious gift) made it all the more intriguing and confusing and so beautiful.... So I suppose the symbolic prose of Paul Simon piqued my interest very early on in that orange chair...I wanted to understand the metaphor and, again, decipher the meaning (just like the fortune cookies...the philosophical genius that comes out of Queens is endless...) and

identify why the lyrics touched me even then. So maybe that is how I ended up a reader and writer and analyst of all things nebulous and eventual English major...and perhaps what landed me here.

So I remember, we all hopped the train together, met the extended posse and then snaked our way through the City early that morning (in my googling of the event I learned it took place on September 19, 1981 -- exactly 20 years later, to the day, I gave birth to my second child and first son, Tim...) and then entered the massive Great Lawn, staked out a spot, spreading our blankets all about. And it was tight, I remember, and we were on top of one another. And I am pretty certain that there was no cheese and wine, just #5 sandwiches from Grosso's if anything (though, I cannot confirm that...my mom probably forgot she had children with her and put us all on her survival diet for the day...). My sister, Trish, and I sat there together for hours and she regaled me with her teenage stories and we played games....and I remember the group in front of us passing a roach around and RJ loudly asking my parents: "Why is that cigarette so small?" over and over again. And I remember the show too...I remember that I couldn't see a thing, not at all....just a far away stage with two little human-shaped dots on it...but I could hear everything. Simon kind of reserved and monotone...Garfunkel all psyched to be there (well, did he have much else to do then???), keeping the crowd happy and riled up. And I remember that they did not sing Cecilia and my sisters were bumming, calling out the song's name just prior to encore...as if S&G would hear us from 20 blocks south...Mostly I remember being there and feeling so grown up...and that after the concert, years later, whenever I told someone that I had been there, camping out all day at age 11 to see living legends, they were so totally impressed.

Ok, so a screening of Harold & Maude doesn't exactly compare...but the vibe was the same...you know, we were with fun friends, all jammed in and the group of twenty-somethings in front of us were passing joints back and forth (Ellie was oblivious to that, but she was impressed with their hippie couture fashions...one of them sporting a $250 head scarf...) and the crowd was festive and excited. But truly, the very best part of being there with Ellie was laying on that blanket, looking up at the buildings surrounding us, their windows lit up and making patterns across the sky. That sky...Ellie kept saying: "Mom, look at the purple sky..." And she was asking me all kinds of questions while we ignored the film...talking about how lucky we are to live here, to be able to be in this City whenever we want and see and do all kinds of fun things here...even if it was just to lay on the grass and look up.

And we were making memories...

So on the way home, she in the backseat of the little blue Jag, finishing up the Mr. Softee chocolate dipped soft serve cone that we bought on the way out of Bryant Park, she says: "Mom, where did this fortune cookie come from?" And after she explains finding it on the floor in front of her, I tell her about Asian night and the gourmet ladies...I had forgotten that I had grabbed extras to bring home for Tim, who loves to eat fortune cookies and whose taste in cookies, obviously, is lacking. So anyway, Ellie asks if she can open it...and she reads it to me and even though I was silently adding the words "in bed" to the end and giggling, the fortune could not have been more perfect...simple and easy to decipher, not shrouded in mystery...no rock or island here...just another nudge from the angels who never, ever misguide me...again, via Confucius:

"Treasure what you have."

Photo 1: Marisa and Suzy Fong kicking off the MSG-fueled festivities...

Photo 2: Suzy Fong trying to seduce me with some extra sake and peanutty noodles...

Photo 3: Confucius say: You gourmet b*tches certainly love to eat...in bed...

Photo 4: Tub 'o suds...heat that up and I'll jump right in....

Photo 5: Our cherubs, playing "Teenager" and making memories...

Photo 6: Ellie and me enjoying togetherness among the Bryant Park throngs...actually, that's when we were fighting over the lobster salad...

Photo 7: Me and David...planning an attack on an adjacent strip of grass...

Photo 8: Hepburn, Bogart in Sabrina...difficult, torturous, beautiful love, as it always is...ouch, my heart is pinching again...

Photo 9: Tom and the 18 year olds...gorgeous and fabulous against the City backdrop...

Photo 10: Boys from Queens, that night in '81....

Photo 11: At the Concert in Central Park...I think those guys were sitting right by us...well that bald guy was definitely there...

Photo 12: Me and Ellie, cozy and blanketed...looking up at that purple sky...

Photo 13: One of my most prized treasures...I mean Ellie, not the ice cream...