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)