Merry and Bright

As requested, some of the motorized Christmas decorations in our neighborhood. (Apologies that some of the pics are a bit out of focus, was trying to avoid using the flash. )


The hat-tipping snowman is a popular item, and I counted at least three in a four block radius.

This house was really the piece-de-resistance of motorized decoration:

Both of the snowmen below spin around:

The reindeer moves his head back and forth:

And this one...wow! The elf in the smokestack spins around, and the big peppermint wheel turns. And some of the lights flash.

Do your neighbors go all out to decorate for the holidays?

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Halloween recap...

I didn't have a chance to carve my jack-o'-lanterns until yesterday afternoon, and so my designs are a bit "phoned in." But I think we had a record number of trick-or-treaters (probably between 350-400 based on how much candy we gave out) and notre fils really enjoyed his nocturnal sojourns and actually went up to some doors all by himself. We finally turned lights out a short while after 9pm.

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Foulard de la semaine

This is Vintage scarf #2 from my friend D. I thought it would be perfect for Cinco de Mayo.

One of the Fashion Commandments that I was raised with was "Thou shalt never wear red and pink on thy personage at the same time." But I think the pink bag and red scarf look fabulous together and the mix reminds me of a colorful serape.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

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Happy Valentine's Day

Instead of a traditional V-Day card with cherubs or cherub-cheeked children, I thought I'd share some of my favorite Mae West quotes.

-A woman in love can't be reasonable - or she probably wouldn't be in love.

-Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.

-Cultivate your curves - they may be dangerous but they won't be avoided.

-I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.

-I only like two kinds of men, domestic and imported.

-I'm no model lady. A model's just an imitation of the real thing.

-Say what you want about long dresses, but they cover a multitude of shins.

-Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.

-Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

-You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

Have a happy, sassy Valentine's Day!
~

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

2009 is the Year of the Ox. The Ox sign symbolizes prosperity through fortitude and hard work. May it be so!
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Happy New Year!

We'll be sipping our French Champagne from the comfort of our own living room, but dreaming about our next Paris trip (time frame as yet undetermined).

Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy 2009!!!
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Return from Palm Springs

We're back from les Springs des Palmes, where the rugged beauty of the landscape is juxtaposed against predominantly drab cinderblock architecture that would make an old Soviet factory town blush with pride. More than ever, I notice that the population seems to belong entirely to one of four subsets: the obviously-Tourists, the obviously-Retired, the obviously-Gay-and-Fabulous, and lastly those who look suspiciously like they would not feel out of place in a meth lab.

Palm Springs is where one goes to spend an off-the-radar Christmas. The town is quiet (especially quiet this year, we noticed that most hotel parking lots were gapingly empty) and unless one wishes to induce a nervous breakdown by trying to shop the after-Christmas sales at the nearby outlet mall, there's little to do aside from eat, read, and watch DVD's. Even though I brought my laptop, internet connection was spotty at best, requiring sitting outside in the cold and wind to piggyback onto some unknown neighbor's unsecured wi-fi.

However, there are a couple of attractions which you can still catch this week, if you want to keep that Christmas-at-zero-humidity feeling going just a little longer. First there's the WildLights display at The Living Desert: acres and acres of holiday lights, music, fog machines, and an "iceless" skating rink. There's also a half-acre (my guess) model train setup, which features sawmills, a loop trestle, the Grand Canyon and several other scenes. Very cool, in all senses of the word (nighttime temperatures hover near freezing).

Mix Santa Claus vs. The Martians with some robots, reindeer and Godzilla, and general Christmas kitsch tossed in for good measure and the result is the RoboChristmas house, featuring very unique and bizarre Christmas displays (click on link to see pics) which include robot and other "found item" sculptures juxtaposed against more traditional Christmas decorations and a total of 7 million lights in displays over a four acre area. Not your average Candy Cane Lane! (Fans of alien autopsies will be delighted.)

I enjoy our visits to PS, but am always glad to get home. We're mostly unpacked and laundry has been done. It will take a few days of hourly hand lotion and lip balm application and ingestion of a gallon or two of water to get my coastal equilibrium back and lose the dessicated look, however.
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Merry Christmas!!!

Best to you and yours, hope your Christmas is merry and bright!

Posting will probably be light over this long holiday weekend, but une femme will be back with some ideas to help you celebrate New Years.
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Happy Hanukkah!!!

Tonight we celebrate the first night of Hanukkah with extended family. We'll light the candles, the kids will open their first gifts, and then we'll bundle up and pile into the boat to cruise the canals and admire everyone's holiday lights.

It's also the Winter Solstice, and I know some of my friends will be celebrating with a traditional Sword Dance.



Picture from here.
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Over the river and through the woods...

Most of my childhood Thanksgivings involved a trip to Grandma's house. But there were no horses, no sleighs, no drifting snow. (There might have been a creek or two crossed, and we did pass through some tree-lined streets.) There was no pudding, no pumpkin pie, and much to my annual disappointment, no turkey.

Grandma lived in an apartment about 20 miles from us, decorated with white sofas and Asian art. When Grandpa died, she'd sold the big house with the oak tree in the yard that dropped the loveliest acorns, in the hilly neighborhood where she and I used to walk hand in hand and peel the bark from the eucalyptus trees that lined the streets to fully enjoy their fragrance. Thanksgiving morning, my sister and I would get up and watch the Macy's parade on TV, which would end up being the high point of the day. By early afternoon we'd be dressed in our starchy petticoats and best dresses, white cotton socks and black patent leather Mary Janes. The car ride always seemed so long, and her apartment so far away, though the drive probably took us no more than 30 or 40 minutes.

We'd arrive mid-afternoon, and after greeting everyone, we'd be sent off to the spare bedroom with a ginormous box of Crayolas and paper to entertain ourselves until dinner time. The adults would enjoy a few cocktails and nibble on the homemade Chex Mix that Grandma made. For my sister and me, she'd make a small batch where the straight pretzels had been stuck through the Cheerios. We'd also get a Shirley Temple or a glass of pineapple grapefruit juice if we wanted.

Grandma was not an openly affectionate woman. "Give me a beso!" she'd say as we arrived, meaning a red lipsicked peck. She mostly was not a hugger or a snuggler or a reader of stories. She could be cold and critical and was at times overly prim and proper, admonishing us even as toddlers to sit with our legs together and to be "seen and not heard" when in the company of adults. But I think back to those pretzels, and our eucalyptus walks and know she tried to show us she cared in her own ways.

We were not the only Thanksgiving guests. Her friends the Beebe's were also invited (a couple her age with no children), and Mr. Beebe didn't like turkey, so we always had ham. Canned ham, mashed potatoes and frozen peas. I think dessert might have been ice cream, but I don't remember. All I remember was feeling totally gypped for not getting turkey like everyone else.

One of the things I enjoy most about being an adult is being able to celebrate holidays however I darn well please. These days, I host the Thanksgiving dinner for whomever wants to come. I make turkey and stuffing, gravy, a fresh green bean salad, and everyone brings a side dish. I have a small glass of Scotch (Grandma's favorite) before dinner and miss her homemade Chex mix with the impaled Cheerios.

~

Happy Halloween!

I carved four pumpkins this year; these are my two favorites.

We're preparing for probably even more trick-or-treaters this year, the holiday being on a Friday. Usually we get between 300-350.
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Got Matzoh?

Seder plate painted by my son and the dreaded Four Questions


Happy Pesach to those who celebrate!

MIL hosts the big family Seder. Each year she tries to cut the number of guests down, and each year last-minute invitees bring the number back up to around 30. MIL makes The Best Matzoh Ball Soup On The Planet. My assignment each year is to make the apple kugel. Here's the recipe for anyone who's interested:

Passover Apple Kugel:

4 green apples, peeled & sliced thin

8 eggs
8 matzohs
1-1/2 C. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. lemon zest
2 sticks butter or margarine

Grease an oblong baking pan, preheat oven to 450.

Beat eggs, add sugar, vanilla, butter, lemon zest (OK if the butter is chunky)

Run matzohs under water for a few seconds to soften.

Layer matzoh, apple, egg mixture, repeat until you run out, probably 2-3 layers of each

Bake 450 for 15 minutes

Cover, reduce to 350, bake another 40 minutes

(You can also add some golden raisins to the egg mixture if you like them.)

I should mention that this recipe is for feeding a larger crowd, and you can easily halve the ingredients and make in a 9x9 square baking pan.

Happy Easter!

From the sublime...

Photo: http://www.thedigeratilife.com/blog/index.php/2007/04/08/the-fanciest-and-most-valuable-easter-eggs-in-the-world/

To the ridiculous...

That one's for my Blogpal Miss Janey at HATtastic!

Photo from: http://www.freenyc.net/archives/2005/03/27/

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Bridget immediately regretted her celebratory lunch of corned beef and cabbage when she learned that the afternoon budget meeting had been moved to the small conference room.

Sweets For the Sweet

If I were omnipotent, I would send you all a box of Teuscher Dark Chocolate Champagne Truffles today, even though the box is not a proper Valentine red. They're good for heart (literally) and soul. Happy Valentine's Day, and remember to be your own best Valentine.

Happy New Year!

Hope you're having a swingin', swell & swanky time! Here at Chez Femme the Taillevaint champagne is chilling, the Brie is coming up to room temperature, and the fireplace is ready to be lit.

See you in l'année nouveau!

Best Christmas Song Evah! Abbreviated Version With Visuals

Full version to follow, but this is fun.

Whew

Resting up from another fantabulous Halloween. Had another 300+ trick-or-treaters visit. We recruited les freres de l'époux to come over and help hand out candy, and a good time was had by all.

This year, pumpkins a l'Opéra, complete with Puccini sound track:

Moral of the story: hang onto those old Renaissance Faire costumes.

Fabulous! Festival - Boo! Edition

Dramatis Personae hosts the Halloween Fabulous! Festival. Ghosts, goblins, and clever last-minute costume ideas abound!

Miss Janey does Halloween right!

Meg at All About Appearances covers all of the Halloween bases, and leaves no headstone unturned.

Gilda at Holiday in the Sun enjoys her first U.S. Halloween, complete with window displays by Patricia Field!

Rebecca at Space Between My Peers re-animates....FRANKENCOAT!!!

and more.

Yours truly is hosting the next Fabulous! Festival on November 12, and the theme this time is Travel Style. Share your thoughs and experiences about travelling, packing, favorite vacations, tips for business trips, shopping for souvenirs, etc. You can submit your Tales of the Road here.

Eeek!! She's Got a Knife!!!

Halloween has always been une femme's favorite holiday. As a child, I used to start drawing pictures of ghosts and jack-o-lanterns and owls around mid-August, and driving my mother crazy by wanting to go costume shopping. (Back then, stores didn't start carrying Halloween stuff until the first of October, and didn't put up the Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. Ah, simpler times.) Halloween especially, still brings out my kitschy, traditional, nostalgic side. And let's not forget "corny."

The only candy I still nostalgia-binge on is Brach's Autumn Mix (regular candy corn, chocolate candy corn and the waxy candy pumpkins that are so sugary they burn the back of your throat). For the first two weeks of October, I eat it for a few days a handful at a time until I'm sick, throw the rest of the bag away, and buy another bag a few days later. Rinse, repeat.


Our neighborhood gets into cheesy holiday decorating, especially for Halloween.

The Enchanted Candy Corn Forest:


Le Chat Noir practicing his Halloween schtick on my dogs:














Dead Pirates seems to be a popular theme this year:

God, I hope that's a broom...







Boo.














Consequently, our neighborhood is a big draw for trick-or-treaters, and we usually get between 250-350 kids showing up at our door each year. Yes, we buy our candy at Costco.

While I no longer dress up beyond donning a witch hat, there's one area where I still give my creative side free rein: pumpkin carving. No plastic, pre-carved, electric pumpkins for this femme! Only the old fashioned, messy, candle-lit version will do. I choose my pumpkins carefully, looking for those that have some irregularities or interesting shapes. This gets tougher each year, as the pumpkins available seem to be bred more and more for uniformity. I often have to splurge on the more exotic varieties to get some gourd diversity, and wait to carve until just a few days before the holiday to avoid mold. Like a mad murderess, I savor the whole process, that first barbaric stab of the knife, the smell of pumpkin guts as I evicerate, the design that seems to spring from the shape and personality of the gourd itself, and especially the finished product. While my jack-o-lanterns are a bit rough due to my freehand filet knife technique and would never impess the Martha Stewarts of the world, I do think they have a lot of personality.

I had taken more pictures last year with the jack-o-lanterns lit up, but lost them when our hard drive crashed before we could back up all of the picture files.