A vacation close to home

We took a random field trip the other day to Cold Spring. The trip was unplanned. Originally we were headed to Radovich & Dean Music Store, in nearby Carmel. If you’re still crying because Bramson’s closed and you don’t know where to go, Radovich & Dean is the place. They sell instruments, handle school instrument rentals; it’s a place to take lessons, and they do repairs. Mr. Sax’s alto had a sticky key, so when he said he was headed to Carmel, I said can I tag along, please. Our mission accomplished at the music store, a sign saying “Cold Spring, 15 miles,” beckoned.

Cold Spring is an old river town that grew on the Hudson. The old town, built straight up from the water, is quaint and charming. There are interesting residential side streets to explore if you’re into eyeballing houses, and it’s hilly, which is good for the quads. The views from every direction are awesome. Main Street, the main drag, is a long but pleasant sidewalk stroll past myriad antique shops, boutiques, a couple of B&B’s, a few restaurants and several coffee shops, many selling homemade ice cream. When I say homemade, I mean it, because Cold Spring’s downtown has no chain stores, and according to a local newspaper I thumbed through, is considering a law barring the opening of any new business that requires its employees to wear a  uniform or a logo-embossed anything.

Free spirit prevails as Cold Spring’s guiding light. Wandering in and out of shops for an hour, I began to appreciate what I perceived as the dual vibe of the modern Occupy Movement, mixed with old school hippie-dom. It was refreshing to hear (twice) people speaking French on the street, and nary a woman was sporting a Keratin treatment. There was one real estate office in town: Houlihan-Lawrence. By the river, a few people were fishing, while others sat on benches in the sun, facing the water.

At the Antiques Center I admired an old, rather beautifully framed print depicting a horse scene. There was an affordable old hoosier, my favorite antique kitchen piece,  as well as some really cool vintage clothing. Surprise, surprise, they had a very good selection, in good condition, of old Playboys and Penthouses. For $5, I scored a pair of sexy, dangling, silvery earrings. I was tempted by a shop called Country Clocks. But what really got me was the loads of outdoor seating where one could tarry, inside or out. The line too long for Moo Moo’s, at random we chose the Cupocchino Café. They specialize in many formulations of coffee drinks, tea drinks, chai drinks, and fountain specials. That day, on their sidewalk blackboard, they were recommending root beer floats.

Inside, Cupocchino was everything I think a café should be. I loved the back wall covered in huge blackboards, the worn wood floors, and the friendly atmosphere. The furniture was mix ‘n match. In a case were yummy bakery items including flaky scones and Danish and black and white cookies. The ice cream case offered a dozen flavors handchurned by a lady named Jane. You could get panini sandwiches made to order; a note on the blackboard said egg sandwiches are available until noon. I can’t even begin to list the choices of hot and cold beverages, including many true Italian classics like espresso macchiato and ristretto. Made with two big scoops of that handchurned vanilla, topped off with a full bottle of Stewart’s, my root beer float was crazy-good.

Waddling back to the car 20 minutes later, I couldn’t help noticing the outdoor tables everywhere. It made me mad to think about Katonah and this new nonsense about enforcing the county Board of Health regulations. Because of the recent brouhaha about outdoor seating, Katonah is suffering. The rules, whatever they are, are killing the downtown. Somebody needs to address this problem, and the sooner the better.

On another note, Ebba, the Katonah-centric home goods and jewelry store is selling this insanely addictive fragrance called Miss Marisa. Viktoria Fisch, Ebba’s owner, had a wildly successful business, also called Ebba, for years in Los Angeles. Ebba Katonah is now her only physical store, but in the world of virtual commerce, www.ebbalosangeles.com is thriving. Fisch, who creates her own fragrances, conceived of the line years ago to embody what she describes as the quintessential modern woman. Fisch said, “The line distills an elusive je ne sais quoi essence that makes all 6 of the Misses memorable and intoxicating.” I’ve been wearing the one she calls “Zest” for a week and I can’t stop sniffing my wrists. Besides “Zest,” Miss Marisa comes in 5 other scents, including “Original,” “Nuit,” “Fleur,” “Marine,” and “Tropical.” Miss Marisa has been featured in Lucky Magazine, In Style, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Fisch’s cousin dubbed the scent, “The Man Catcher!" Some celebs who wear it include Amanda Seyfriend, Jenna Jamison, Carmen Electra, the model Nikki Taylor, her own grandmother in Sweden, and, yes, Dave Navarro! I know Kourtney Kardashian loves it. How do I know? She talked about it (and Ebba!) on her http://officialkourtneyk.celebuzz.com website. Now that’s what I call pretty wow.  

Let the sleeping games begin

Not me or Mr. Sax, but other people have been sleeping late in our house all summer. It’s only early August, but I’ve already changed the spare room sheets enough times to make me feel like a hotel laundry. While we’ve enjoyed the company of our company, and Mr. Sax, aka the Grillmaster, loves any opportunity to show off (so far he’s served overnight visitors his signature BBQ ribs, BBQ chicken, rotisserie chicken, rotisserie turkey, grilled pork tenderloins, all accompanied by grilled sweet corn), the main thing that stands out about our guests is how they sleep, some of them well past the noon hour. Years ago a young boy we didn’t know stayed with us for a week. We were his hosts while he was involved in the Summer Program at the Children’s Center at the Bedford Women’s Correctional Facility. The boy, who 10 at the time, spent the hours between 9 and 3 with his mother; joining us afterwards for trips to the Katonah town pool, followed by a home cooked meal, and dessert from King Kone. The boy lived with his grandmother in one of the rougher neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and he couldn’t get over our night time quiet. In response to my question,  “How’d you sleep?” he said, “Good. There’s no gunshots or cars backfiring or people screaming,” relayed over Capt ‘n Crunch.

This batch of summer guests are also Sleeping Beauties. One guest arrived so exhausted and jet lagged after a three week journey hiking in the desert that she basically collapsed into a coma. One day she slept 13 hours. Another guest who claims she never sleeps in, slept until 10:30. She undoubtedly would have slept longer except that Mr. Sax started playing his instrument, and rather loudly.

This past week on unbearably sultry mornings, instead of rushing off , I’ve been lingering inside in the air conditioning to watch the 2012 Summer Olympics. I’m following, as best I can, wrestling, fencing, shooting, swimming, and, of course, equestrian. While I’m rooting for the entire American team, I am especially intrigued by Reed Kessler from nearby Armonk, who at 18 is the youngest person ever to compete on an Olympic equestrian team. In London, she is competing on Cylana, her 10 year old German Warmblood, who is related to McClain Ward’s now retired champion, Sapphire, through the Darco line. Reed’s impeccable posture and perfect hands are inspiring. It’s been said ice water runs in her veins, which is probably a good trait to have in this arena. In the months and weeks leading up to the Olympics, I heard a fair amount of grumbling and hostility directed at this girl; that she isn’t a “great” rider, but because of her family fortune has only ridden great horses. Like Reed, I, too, was a horse crazy child. My stepsister says she can’t remember when I wasn’t trying to touch, talk to, or get on some horse. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was when my mother’s 2^rd husband, Maurice (Geraldine married numerous times), a wealthy Philadelphia furrier, offered to send me to any boarding school I chose so he could be alone with my mother. Why didn’t I say yes and let him pull whatever strings he claimed to have and apply to Ethel Walker, Linden Hall, or Oldfields? Because I was clueless. At 12 I didn’t know anyone who went to boarding school. Bad decision. I want a do-over.

In a classic case of “coulda, shoulda, woulda,” decades later, watching Reed in the Olympics, I wonder what might have happened if I’d taken Maurice up on his scheme. (For the record, he tried to woo me by gifting me the first time we met with a fall of authentic human hair; incensed, I threw it away.) So instead of going to a fancy boarding school and getting out of Dodge, I stuck around, and within days Maurice sought an annulment from my mother, who he said had tricked him (after a whirlwind courtship, they married while I was in the Poconos, at Camp Timber Tops). My mother blamed me that because of the split, she didn’t even get a mink coat. It all happened in August, after all. Far too warm for fur. How differently things might have gone if I’d only embraced boarding school. I’ll never know. But at least I can sleep like a log in the quiet of our house, dreaming of horses.

How sexy media can liberate you

“I just read ‘Shades of Gray’ and loved it,” a friend recently gushed to me. This is a woman I admittedly don’t know very well, but she strikes me as fairly conservative. She’s been married to the same man a long time, her kids are mostly grown, and judging from the way she dresses, even when I’ve seen her dressed up, appears to be someone more at home in yoga clothes than, uh, leather and nipple clamps. She seemed almost defiant, telling me her reading tastes. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. Every woman needs a bit of a sexy shake up from time to time, and what fills the bill better than a dirty novel?

Sexy media, whether it’s a work of fiction, or a movie (foreign films, for the record, usually have twice as much sex in them, especially if they’re French), a hot magazine cover, a racy advertisement, are really good for shaking things up, and putting you in the head of a person who thinks about sex. It’s been said (and oft reported) that the average man has hundreds of sexual thoughts every day, but that women only think about sex, or things that are sexy, occasionally. That’s because the average woman is consumed and inundated with both mundane and pressing things on her to-do list, things like laundry and picking up something for dinner and work deadlines. These things, while necessary, are pretty libido killing, at least for the majority of women.

Getting out of your head is an important step in reclaiming your sexual health and vitality. It’s also a good way to release stress. A few weeks ago in a movie theater crowded with middle aged women, two girlfriends and I laughed and squealed and howled at the bumps, grinds, and moves of the male strippers featured in the popular summer film, “Magic Mike.” The girlfriend sitting next to me, married to the same man for 28 years, practically wet her pants when Mike’s break-a-way pants broke off, revealing his deliciously bare bottom. “Look at that hairless butt,” she marveled. “My husband is so hairy. I wish he would wax his back and ass.”

Hopefully when my friend got home from the movie, she closed her eyes and made believe her husband was Magic Mike. Or Mr. Gray. Fantasy is wonderful. Embrace it. Embrace sexy media. It’s stimulating. It’s sexy. And best of all, it’s a safe and healthy way to behave sinfully.