Chasing My Chins And Other Adventures in Skin Care: The Mother of the Bride Chronicles, Part I

For My Little Bird.com

Some days I wish bearded women were in. Today is one of them. I once vastly improved a chinless ex by talking him into some pretty lush whiskers. Spotting him recently at a funeral, I noticed he's still sporting a beard forty years later. Does his wife knows what's under there? 

Meanwhile, I resemble a basset hound in a turtleneck, a situation that is reaching crises level as my daughter's April wedding approaches.

To paraphrase Catherine Deneuve, At some point you have to choose between the ass and the face.  Sadly, what I have are really good ankles, which haven't been a significant lure since about 1915.

While kvetching about my falling face, I've done virtually nothing but study possible solutions for the past thirty years. Perhaps it's the German in me, this reluctance to Get Serious About My Skin. As if I should be able to keep my chin up entirely through force of will.

Oh how stupid are the young. Thirty years ago I looked like a nymph. A nymph with nearly undetectable scowl lines, what they call inverted commas between my eyes, no doubt formed from whining about looking older. 

That's when a similarly tetched girlfriend and I started a weekly radio talk show called A New Wrinkle, to discuss what to do about our nonexistent problems: Retin-A and Botox and such, then cutting edge. Fortunately, or not, the station (the only one that would host us) had such a weak signal that my husband had to sit in the car in their parking lot to listen. We made tapes, but thankfully I no longer have anything to play them back on.

Now I don't much care about looking older, but how old I look is another matter. I'd rather not look any particular age at all. Here's what I want to hear whispered at the wedding:

High Life at the Umstead - Luxury in the North Carolina Triangle

Story and Photos for the Washington Post's FW

We (and by that I mean I) were severely underdressed for lounging at the Umstead. The Forbes five star resort and spa set in a 12-acre wooded grove in Cary, North Carolina warrants slink; champagne satin a la Harlow, marabou mules, a coupe not a flute for the bubbly. 

Sleek blond furniture, Frette linens, plush carpets, triple layers of drape, it's tres 1930s drawing room comedy.  Bring on Jeeves! Enter Clark Gable.  (You can add a pup but Fluffy will add $200 to room tabs that begin at $329). 

Experience the Ultimate Southern Exposure at The Jefferson Hotel

 for the Washington Post's FW 

There are reasons why some hotels rate five stars from Forbes.  Like pulling up to a grand port cochere in a twenty-year-old pick-up, duct-tape patched and loaded with old house parts, and being greeted like her ladyship back from the hunt. (Which she was, Richmond has fantastic salvage yards).

Such a place is The Jefferson, exorbitantly gracious and luxurious to the tips of the terry slippers set out beside your turned down bed and the Molton Brown soaps and creams in the marble bath. 

Built in 1895 by Colonel Lewis Ginter, a confederate officer and tobacco baron, who also designed the beautiful Ginter gardens on the edge of town, the beaux arts masterpiece  immediately and forevermore became the centerpiece of Richmond's society events. Among the guests were twelve U.S. Presidents, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplain, Elvis, and most of the cast of the recent hit movie, Lincoln.

Ein frohes Weihnachtsfest und alles Gute zum neuen Jahr! (And to All a Good Night)

for the Washington Post's FW magazine

Winterfest at Tyson's Corner is in full swing on the brand new outdoor plaza, with ice skating, live music, brats and beer and mugs of hot mulled Glühwein.

It's Bavaria on the new Silver Line, which scoots you out in about thirty minutes from Metro Center, and deposits you on a footbridge to a fairytale.

Bob Maurer, the marketing director at Tyson's Corner Center, is no stranger to creating fantasy worlds in Washington. He was the impresario behind Union Station's long collaboration with Norway, which brought model trains, a huge tree, and wonderful crafts and music to those gilded halls.

At Tysons he collaborated with Käthe Wohlfahrt, of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a company nearly synonymous with Christmas in Germany, that has created snow globe scenes in major cities around the world, from Tokyo, to Paris, and now to our Emerald City of Shopping.

Time to Light Up!

For the Washington Post's FW magazine

HOLIDAY LIGHTING! There’s magic in the air!” says exceptionally fabulous Washington designer Skip Sroka, who has a lot more exclaiming to do. “There’s nothing more exciting than lighting your whole house with candles — everyone looks fabulous!” he says.

“Ambient lighting softens shadows so people’s faces look young and rested. It’s visual Botox without the pain,” says he. (Hoo boy, say we.)

Now amp that candlelight with reflective surfaces like silvery objects and mirrors. “I use huge mercury-glass urns on the foyer table — you get twice the illumination. One of the best holiday tables I’ve seen had tiny bits of mirror sprinkled about, mingled with candles. The table shimmered!”

More?

Splendor in the Palms

for the Washington Post's FW magazine

One imagines it possible that the flowers are painted to match the citrus-hued furniture. Anything seems possible in a place where a sign announces that today the ocean -- not the beach -- is closed due to stormy waters.

This is The Breakers, after all. The many star and diamond studded Italian Renaissance hotel that presides over the Palm Beach waterfront like the world's most splendid cruise ship, though there's no reason to disembark.

Like a cruise ship, the resort is capable of comfortably mingling guests of all ages and pedigrees, from the brilliantly bejeweled to the elaborately tattooed. Kids as well, with day and evening camps,  playgrounds and game rooms to keep them out of your ...coif.  

Modeled after the Villa de Medici, filled with  tapestries, murals, gilding, and chandeliers dripping Venetian crystals the size of mangoes, The Breakers, built in 1926, is tended by a chicly-clad staff of two thousand.  

At crack of dawn, teams of workers appear to prune the very air along with microcosmic snippets of errant grasses that have dared to breach the perfect gap between paver and lawn.  Throughout the day the stone chalices (dare one call them ash trays?) that dot the property are instantly cleaned and raked.

Set on 140 acres, there are four pools along the half mile stretch of beach ocean front, two golf courses, ten tennis courts, and eleven boutiques, including branches of Ralph Lauren, Guerlain, and Lily Pulitzer, of course.

The spa offers everything from manicures to full-day indulgences, three fitness centers serve those who prefer the treadmill, and complementary classes are offered in belly dancing, pilates, and yoga. Given the level of service it comes as a shock that you're expected to swab your own yoga mat.

Roasting Alvin Ross: Retiring Restaurateur Takes a Little Flack

 

The Hill Rag. September 20014

It's hot enough to grill a burger on the sidewalk this mid-week, mid-afternoon in August. 

By moonrise the sidewalk cafe at Mr. Henry's will fill with burgers and fries and nachos, beers and margaritas. Right now the patio is abandoned, but inside the restaurant is as it always is, cool and dark, denying the hour. Any hour. Any year. 

A spiffily-suited quartet appears to be negotiating Something Very Important at a center table. A few regulars inhabit the bar, but the curmudgeonly cloud that normally hovers, always ready with a sarcastic remark and a hemorrhoidally-fueled smile, is missing. Alvin Ross, the mug of Mr. Henry's for over four decades, has retired. 

Alvin has been at the pub since 1971, when local property baron, Larry Quillian, won the place in a poker game from Henry Yaffe, the pint-sized, peripatetic entrepreneur who ensconced songstress Roberta Flack in a room of her own on the second floor. 

At the time, Yaffe owned six bars around town, operating under different names, but with the same stylistic formula of red-checked tablecloths and hodge-podge of Victoriana hung over flaking plaster walls.