Well, that's one way to get more shoes....

[Not the closet in question. This be Mariah's shrine de shoes}

A 51-year old San Diego woman is accused of embezzling more than $9.9 million over 7 years from her employer to fund her personal lifestyle and gambling habit.

"The woman is also accused of using nearly $25,000 to convert a bedroom into a closet to store her extensive shoe and clothing collection. Investigators say that the collection consisted of 400 pairs of shoes valued at a total of $240,000, designer clothing valued at a total of $300,000, and 160 designer purses valued at a total of $320,000. The closet included a granite covered center island, crystal chandelier, and a 32 inch plasma television."

The Sheriff's Department says that the woman was able to conceal the alleged scheme for so long because of her position at the company: chief financial officer. The losses resulting from the alleged thefts forced the company to conduct layoffs and restructure its operations.

The woman faces charges of grand theft and embezzlement.

Her laid-off co-workers must love her. So sad. The full story here.

Very superstitious

I scheduled a maintenance appointment for the server at work today and everyone was freaking out because it is Friday The Thirteenth. My normally sensible co-workers appear to throw logic out the window when it comes to old wives' tales. I was temped to bring in a ladder, a broken mirror and The Lounging Party just to freak them out some more (because why have one black cat when you can have two?). At least with The Lounging Party there would be entertainment while the entire computer system is down.

{The Lounging Party, doing what they do best}

Very superstitious
Writing's on the wall
Very superstitious
Ladders bout' to fall
Thirteen month old baby
Broke the lookin' glass
Seven years of bad luck
The good things in your past


When you believe in things
That you don't understand
Then you suffer
Superstition ain't the way


PS - is Spring here yet?


Sorry for the long absence, I was caught up in the whirlwind of preparation for the Two Ladies' wedding, and then in the aftermath of having neglected the rest of my life. Things are almost back to normal and I will be visiting you all and commenting soon.

And we take requests

My British agent, Sas of Sas' Magical Mystery Tour, has demanded that my band stop procrastinating and get our butts in the studio to finish our album (that's like a CD, for you young 'uns).



You, too can be a Jane Austen-quoting, Toddlers and Tiaras*-influenced Eastern European electronic klezmer rock star:

1. Go to Wikipedia. Hit 'random'. The first Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2. Go to Quotations Page and select 'random quotations'. The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
3. Go to Flickr and click on 'explore the last seven days'. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. I used the third picture down, since the third picture across was a cute little ladybug, flittering across a daisy, and my band is Eastern European electronic klezmer rock, not The Carpenters.
4. Use Picnik (or photoshop or whatever) to put it all together; I used my new favorite toy, Picasa. Then tell us about your album.
5. Comment with the link to your album

*seriously, why else is this child wearing this outfit?

For the record (ha ha, no pun intended, and for you kiddos, a "record" is also like a CD):

• Albota is a commune in Arges County, in southern central Romania.
• "Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way." is from Emma, by my girl Jane Austen.
• The photo is by NoSha.

When your band makes its album cover, don't forget to put your link in the comments!

I want my own mouse circus

Saturday night the boyfriend and I went to see a little piece of stop-motion genius, Henry Selick's Coraline. If you've seen James and The Giant Peach or The Nightmare Before Christmas, you are familiar with Selick's work. Coraline was three years in the making, employing dozens of artisans, artists and crafters (like Althea Crome, who knitted Coraline's tiny sweaters and gloves on needles smaller than toothpicks) to create the wondrous world of a curious girl and her mysterious neighbors.


Coraline is gorgeously made, and meets my main criteria for any film: a good story, well told. I think it is being marketed as a kid's film, and while there certainly were a lot of kids at the showing we went to, there were plenty of adults, and everyone was equally mesmerized by the spectacle Selick and his team have created. But the thing that made me squeal like a little girl was Mr. Bobinsky's Mouse Circus. See, when I was a child I had this thing about mice, this secret belief that behind the walls they lived a Borrower's life, wearing tiny clothes, sleeping in little beds made from matchboxes, dining at spool tables, tooling around in toy cars, Stuart Little-style. As an adult, I may or may not have let that belief...um... go (and this despite having once owned an old house that had many a mouse trap to catch the little buggers before they could do too much damage). Mr. Bobinsky's mice wear cute little red band uniforms, play tiny musical instruments, and put on a circus performance with military precision. There's a secret behind their showmanship that I won't give away here (go see the movie), but they are just adorable and must be forgiven for their role in any deceit. Plus if you ask them nicely they will spell your name with their tails (click the pic below to make your own).

Screenshots from the Coraline website.

The cheesy prom pose was his idea

{Matthew Modine and I, apparently about to break into a tango. Sorry about the bad photo quality, blame my iPhone}

Earlier this month the BF and I went to a swanky fundraiser for the local arts council, where we tasted lots of wine, sampled food from local restaurants, schmoozed, and bid on silent auction items that we didn't win (we forgot to keep going back to check on our items and were quickly outbid by others. This is what happens when you stop tasting wine and move on to martinis). Amidst the crowd of local business tycoons, non-profit leaders, arts execs and hoi polloi like ourselves was a tall dark & handsome guy that I kept thinking I knew, in a "did I go to high school with him" kind of way. Um, no, actually it was more like "did I have mad crush on him while I was in high school and he was starring in Vision Quest*".

Matthew Modine, one of the objects of my teenage affection, is in town in rehearsals for To Kill A Mockingbird at our (Tony Award-winning, thank you) regional theater and came to the fundraiser with the theater prinicipals. We don't get a lot of big stars in town so when one is in our midst the reactions range from stammeringly starstruck to ridiculously over-familiar. I was somewhere in between, but the real estate developer who owns the building where I work falls in the latter category, shouting out (like they are old pals) "Hey Matthew, Robin would like a photo with you" as Matthew entered the room we were in. Thankfully, Mr. Modine was not only gracious about the whole thing, but a little corny, hence the cheesy prom pose (as he put it) above. We even had a nice conversation about how rehearsals were going, how he liked Hartford, etc. He is very charming and looks you right in the eye when he speaks to you. My teenage crush is renewed.

*Yeah, now you have Madonna's Crazy For You stuck in your head don't you? Me too.

I heart you

Yup, that's exactly what you think it is. Happy Valentines Day.

By the talented Thomas Cheng

New bird on the block No. 25

Two of my favorite things: birds and purses! Swoony swoon swoon. This would look great with the new LBD I bought for Meg & Mo's wedding. Or gray wool pants and a black sweater. Or a tan linen dress in summer. Or jeans. Etc., etc. Swoony.

Love Bird Clutch by Noah, available here.

Alas poor Martha, we thought we knew ye

Sequined purple satin shoes sound like something that our current First Lady Mrs. O would wear, but apparently these beauties (which once also had gold buckles) adorned the feet of none other than the first First Lady, Martha Washington, on her wedding day to George.

The dumpy, frumpy image we have of her is based on a few portraits painted after her death. Through the magic of computerized age-regression -- and a better look at the life of a woman whose story was overshadowed by the legacy of her famous husband -- it turns out she was a head-turner, a smart business woman, a reader of gothic romances and a stylish dresser. Read more in this great article from the Washington Post.

Now I ain't sayin' she a gold digger

Research firm Prince & Associates Inc. carried out a survey of 191 men and women with a net worth of at least $20 million. More than 80 percent of the men said they planned to give lower “allowances” to their mistresses, and almost as many would offer fewer gifts.

In tough economic times, the incentive to become a kept lover may increase. After all, other ways of making easy money are looking less certain by the day.

“I foresee a growing desire on the part of many people -- male and female -- to be kept,” Prince said in an e-mailed response to questions (by Bloomberg.com, not by me). “A bad economy like the one we’re experiencing will only make the good life ever more attractive.”

More ridiculousness here.

Bath & Body Works has it in for me

Every time I find a scent I love at Bath & Body Works, they go and discontinue it. Every time. First it was Honey Almond - wonderful, not too food-y smelling. Then it was Fresh Ginger Lime, which was really refreshing in summer. Then it was Rice Flower & Shea, which was light and smelled great layered with almost any perfume, and now it's Brown Sugar & Fig.

I asked two different sales associates why they discontinued certain flavors and not others and got two different answers: 1) "They didn't sell well enough" (understandable. Hard to believe because they are delicious scents, but whatever) and 2) "We discontinue some to encourage you to buy others".

Huh?

You are discontinuing (yet again) a product that made me like you in the first place so you can force me to try something you think I should like better? I trudge all the way to the mall specifically to buy this specific product (okay, and maybe some shoes, and Sephora is just across the way, but I digress) and you think taking it away is going to make me more loyal? The basic principle of the law of supply and demand is that there is some supply to begin with.

Thank goodness for the "fond farewell" section of the BBW website, even if you have to dig on their site to get to it.

I Miss The Muppet Show

It would make this recession so much easier if The Muppet Show was on again, don't you agree?

A Prayer for John Updike

Author John Updike died today at age 75 after a long battle with lung cancer.

For some reason, I always mix up John Updike and John Irving. I've read books by both authors, and while both are excellent, there are profound differences. Nonetheless, when Updike's death was announced today, in my head it was John Irving that had died. I even wrote a post saying Irving had died, which may still be lurking in your Google Reader (ignore please!).

As far as I can tell, John Irving is not dead. He did, however, write of one of my favorite books of all time, A Prayer For Owen Meany, a book that is laugh-out-loud hilarious and cry-out-loud sad, heavy with political criticism and religious symbolism, full of subtleties and wit and insight. I love how it makes you think about faith and doubt. And no matter what year it is when I read it (and I probably re-read it every 5 years), there is always some scandal going on in Washington that can be substituted for the Oliver North hearings that take place in the present-day chapters of the novel. One year it was Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill. one year it was Whitewater, one year it was Clinton/Monica, etc. Same thing, different year. Sometimes I'm tempted to skip those parts and just savor the flashbacks to Owen and Johnny's life in their little town in New Hampshire in the 1950s-60s, but the political bits are key to the book and do tie in to the observances made by two young boys as they tried to find their way in their world.

"A LITTLE BREATHLESS, VERY BEAUTIFUL, MAYBE A LITTLE STUPID, MAYBE A LOT SMARTER THAN SHE SEEMED." (Owen's reference to Marilyn Monroe being just like America...).

Thank you Mr. Irving AND Mr. Updike, for your wonderful words, and peace to you both.

The Year of the Ox

{Lucky Red at Night, originally uploaded by sachman75.}

Happy New Year! Today marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar Year 4706.

I am intrigued by Asian culture, a fascination fueled in recent years by a peek behind the red curtain via films such as Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman and the gorgeous Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and books like Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Martin Booth's Golden Boy. On Sunday I watched the almost-too-beautiful Curse of the Golden Flower, about a 10th century emperor and some pretty dangerous family dynamics inside an impossibly gorgeous (and well-staffed) palace. Plot aside, the budget for costumes, sets and extras probably rivaled that of the 2008 Olympics opening ceremonies. If you enjoyed Memoirs of a Geisha (the book) I recommend all of the above.

Rockin' Robin, tweet tweet tweet

Rockin' Robin, as sung by the Jackson Five, was the bane of my grammar school existence. John Turner used to sing it to me every day on the bus. Also, lots of jokes about Batman and Robin, Robin (robbing) the bank, Robin Hood, etc. Hilarious. But the song was the worst. Over and over, every day. Kind of like the way it is stuck in your head now. He rocks through the treetops, all day long...


Third-grade angst aside, lets talk about tweeting. As in Twitter. As in I am in a self-taught crash course in Twitter via a personal account so I can start Twittering professionally for work (is that an oxymoron or what?). I was trying to avoid this, but apparently all the kids are doing it, even in the business world, and I figured its safer to muddle my way through on my own before I create a profile for work and drag our sterling reputation into the muck and mire of social networking, late to the game though we may be.


Besides Julia @hookedonhouses (and thanks again Julia for my first tweet) do any of you Twitter? Got any advice, tips, or tweets for me? You can find me at @abirdinthehand.




He rocks in the tree tops all day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and singing his song
All the little birdies on Jaybird Street
Love to hear the robin go tweet tweet tweet


Rockin' robin, tweet tweet tweet
Rockin' robin' tweet tweetly-tweet
Blow rockin' robin
'Cause we're really gonna rock tonight...

New bird on the block No. 24

{detail from Enchanted Forest collection by Wedding Paper Divas}

I'm helping Meg & Mo plan their wedding -- which is in just a few weeks -- and I swooned when I saw this birdie and his friends on the short list of invite designs. Happily he made the final cut.

No Bridezilla shenanigans or agonizing over details for months for these two, just a simple affair for a few dozen family and close friends at a wonderful restaurant downtown. Champagne, then the ceremony, then cocktails and eats. My kind of party!

Sex in the City, Quiet in the Country

No, we're not talking about me here (I'll never kiss & tell), but Sex & The City author Candace Bushnell, a Glastonbury, CT native whose country home in tony Roxbury, CT is featured in the Home section of today's Hartford Courant. One of my non-Resolution resolutions is to purge everything from my home office and start over with a nice clean slate, kind of like her desk here:

{photo by Cloe Poisson, click here for more photos of CB's surprisingly country colonial.}

Below is a pic from her NYC apartment, which was featured in Elle Decor a few years ago, one of the few issues I kept because I really like her style and use of color, but with white walls in most of the apartment.

{"Candace Bushnell, Elle Decor", originally uploaded by Jessica Condatore}

I really like the color of my living and dining rooms, but since my apartment faces north, every winter I get the urge to lighten and brighten with some paint. Luckily for the BF, who has volunteered to help me paint, my Gemini nature has issues with choosing a color, so we'll stick with Behr's Caribbean Coral for now.

PS - thank you for all the well wishes with my lousy sinuses over the holidays. I'm all better now!

Robin, the Red-Eyed Reindeer

Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you be my eye tonight?

Actually, I don't need Rudy, as I've been sporting a nice red eyeball since Friday, along with what I thought was a Christmas Day Cold but the nice doctor tells me was a sinus infection with a side of pink eye. I'm sure I picked up these germs while Christmas shopping at the fifth gate of hell mall on Christmas Eve eve. I've never been sick over the holidays before, and it bites. I had big plans -- Big Plans, I tell you -- for these two weeks. Visiting with faraway friends in town for the holidays, visiting with local friends that I haven't seen in weeks, closet cleaning, magazine purging, dinner party-throwing. Not to mention the BF is a teacher and this is one of the few times during the year that he has time off and I my work schedule allows me to take time off to match.

But enough whining. In between coughing fits, cabin fever (from which Meg & Mo have been so good about trying to rescue me), daily chats with Mumsie, and The Lounging Party's favorite activity (cat-naps), I've had lots of time to catch up on reading. Two books, a dozen magazines, the daily paper from cover to cover, and blogland. My Google Reader was overflowing with long-unread posts -- some of you are prolific and I've been really bad about keeping up.

Thanks to the miracle of modern medicine I am feeling better and am hoping to make a brief cough-free, red-eye-free appearance at a New Year's Eve party and then cram some fun times (and perhaps some of that closet-cleaning) into what's left of my vacation. Wishing you all a fabulous New Year's!

(photo from ABC)

She spends in a week what you make in a year

{Marie Douglas-David, soon-to-be-ex-hubby George David, and actress Julie Delpy at The 10th Anniversary of Green Cross International and Global Green Founded by Mikhail Gorbachev. MGDavidJDelpy_101104, originally uploaded by Global Green USA.}

Currently duking it out in Hartford Superior Court and on the front pages of the Hartford Courant are the Davids, one of America's uber-rich couples, he the former CEO of United Technologies, she a countess and former Wall Street type who apparently spends more in a week than what some people make in a year.

Click here to see what she spends it on. No really. Click.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around those types of numbers as weekly discretionary expenses. I know that there are people out there who are far more wealthy than 99.9% of the rest of us, and I know that in a divorce there is a little fudging of numbers going on, I just wonder if I was ever that rich would my lifestyle escalate to one where I spent that kind of money on clothes, hair, facials, flowers etc., every week. Every. Week. Oh, sure, in the beginning there would definitely be a shopping spree and lots of travel, but I don't think I could keep it up. There've been too many instances in my life (as a newlywed, as a new divorcee, etc.) where I had to be super-frugal, and even get a second job, just to make ends meet. I'm not saying I would maintain my current lifestyle 100%. I just don't think I could spend four grand a month on my hair.

What about you? Would you be all Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?

Hooked on Holiday House Tours Blog Party

Welcome! I'm participating in Julia's Hooked On Holiday House Tours blog party today. If you like looking at holiday decorations, need to get in the holiday spirit, or harbor some voyeur tendencies, then you may want to pop on over and check out the 50+ homes on display.

I live in a Victorian apartment building that "went condo" in the late '70s, so we have lots of charm and period detail, but with modern electric, plumbing, sheetrock, etc. We also have lots of great neighbors who can get quite festive when the occasion calls for it, and the holidays are no exception. We throw some great parties here, including one just to "deck the halls" i.e., decorate the lobby and the landing of each floor.

Here is the tree in our lobby, decorated with handmade ornaments depicting historic scenes from Hartford.

Before he played for the Sox, Babe Ruth batted for the minor leagues in Hartford.

A mod blue and white tree on the landing to my floor.

My front door. Welcome! (Note, I wasn't tipsy, I just couldn't take a straight picture with my dorky camera).

This year my wreath is silver, pewter and white. And fake. :-( It is very dry in the building and a girl can vacuum the doorway only so many times....

My tree, which I just put up this weekend. I love the smell of a real tree, but a) see note above re: the dry air in the building and b) The Lounging Party [aka my cats] think any living plant is their personal salad bar, just waiting to be chomped on. They did, however, "assist" with the decorating and frequently rearrange things while I'm at work.

My BFF Marie Louise of Cottage Industries brought back this petit chat from her honeymoon in Paris last year. The starfish is from Cape Cod.

I'm in love with the face on this little owl and acorn ornament.

As you can imagine, with a name like Robin I have a lot of bird ornaments on my tree (including the one in my new header above). Many were gifts from my dad growing up.

Even my chandelier gets a little dressed up for Christmas.

Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to check out the other tours at Hooked On Houses. But before you go, please have a cookie, made by Meghan of Two Ladies In Waiting for our condo Christmas party the other day. I promise they have no calories!

In stitches

{needle and thread, originally uploaded by Thru Jenn's Eyes.}

I am a girl who wears skirts. And dresses. Mumsie always said "Dress for the position to which you aspire," and I'm sticking with that rule, even though I am always "overdressed" compared to some of my co-workers. I like getting dressed up for work every day and I curse whoever invented "casual" dress code. I have a thing for heels and handbags. And accessories. I'm a girly girl, and not ashamed to say it.

I tore the hem of my skirt today during a run-in with an unruly file cabinet. I mended it at my desk (while wearing it) and it wasn't until I was threading the needle that I really took a good look at the sewing kit. It's a little plastic box with 7 spools of colored thread (there were 8 but I lost one). Of course the black thread is almost gone, followed closely by the navy. There's a plastic thimble, safety pins, a threader and a couple of needles. And then I realized: I have had this sewing kit in every desk I've ever sat at, at every job I've ever had, since graduating college. That's almost twenty years.

I'm sure the gals at Basket of Kisses would agree that "Joan" would be proud.

{Christina Hendricks as "Joan Holloway" in AMC's "MadMen"}

Joan Holloway dresses like the hot ticket she is, and keeps aspirin, a sweater, safety pins and a fifth of something in her desk. For emergencies.

What do you wear to work? Does anyone like getting dressed up anymore?

Sorry for the long absence. Thanksgiving melted right into a non-stop 10 days of work and travel that I only recently surfaced from. Just in time for Christmas shopping!