sarah in nyc

 One of the great pleasures, (and there are many) of visiting my sister in law and brother in law in Santa barbara is the sunsets. Each time we turned the corner onto their street at the end of the day there was yet another color show. Most days I would miss the very best color But the sunset, even not at peak colo,r is wonderful. Yesterday was our first full day at home. We don't always get a terrific sunset but when my yellow living room glows I know I need to go in to check out the color-show in the Western sky. It just felt like a nice welcome home. Today I woke up to the sad news that a college friend had died. I met Dina, (not Dena, who is an entirely different person despite both being friends with one another) my freshman year in college. I was, at that point in my life, testng boundaries. Dina was into maintaining boundaries. We ate countless meals together in college. Dina and I reconnected at Parents' Night at Camp Ramah in Nyack. It felt like half of my freshman yea...

 We just got back from California last night. I took a fairly small wardrobe for the trip (five changes of clothes for fifteen days).  One of the mainstays of my vacation wardrobe was this dress. It's a variant of  below is the schematic for the dress. the One Hour Dress developed by the brilliant  Mary Brooks Picken . The One Hour Dress is cut with wide sides that are gathered at the hips to give the wearer walking ease. I had read an article about the one hour dress years ago and tried to make the dress following the directions to pleat the sides. The final look was hugely unflattering on me but when I let the wide sides fall naturally then I ended up with a really flattering dress that looked much more complicated than it actually was. Made in a knit I can whip up one of these dresses  not in an hour, but in something closer to twenty minutes. My sister in law fell in love with this dress as did our friend Lisa who asked me for the pattern. I don't have a pat...

 Our itinerary for this trip (starting out in one city and flying out of another) has created some complications. I don't have to bore you with them and I am grateful to my husband for figuring out how to make all of this work.  But we needed to return our rental car to LAX and then get ourselves to Santa Barbara. My husband explored a few options but the best and most convenient way taking the airport shuttle between LAX and Santa Barbara. I loved this old control tower at the airport. It looks like it would take off into the air if it weren't tethered to the ground. We ran into a fair amount of traffic. Eventually, we began to see the ocean Seeing the ocean from a bus window reminds me of all of the trips that I have taken from New York to Boston along Route 95. Of course, the California coastline is more dramatic than the Connecticut shoreline but the glimpses of sea always feel like home. The mountains around Santa Barbara have become deeply familiar over time. Yesterday I...