I have a lot of art and photographs in my new office. I sort of like the clutter. There is the lampshade with the heron, the soccer poster from 1930, and the deco picture of a woman playing golf. I love how my David Hockney’s remind my of my time in Santa Monica. There’s a […]
Let me just say, I miss Italy – the walks, the food, the friends, the light, and the myriad of personalities represented by each tiny kingdom that makes up this crazy country. Whenever I travel to Italy, I find myself in a reoccurring predicament sort of like Groundhog Day…the arrival day. There is a reassuring […]
We just moved our offices and my new office has become a bit messy as I untangle some 20 years of old office life and reorganize it in our new and cool space. In between sorting out my artwork, I also find myself looking back at the photos I have collected over the years. They […]
As Europe has slowly opened this summer, I get to see the places that I frequent through my friends that live there. I get to look at the canals in London, the empty piazzas of Venice, I get to walk through the royal parks and Hampstead Heath, and I truthfully miss it all. Travel is […]
I like cooking and always have. I think I was inspired by my childhood growing up in London. My mum was a terrible cook, and I grew up in the post-war period when rationing was still around. We had to supplement our diet with cod liver oil, halibut orange tablets, and spoonfuls of malt along […]
It’s strange to have passed through an entire calendar of seasonality. I like gardening but in some ways I am limited by the harsh and short seasons in Western Massachusetts where I have a home. However, I have never actually experienced this total transformation from snow to mud to buds to green to flowers and […]
I have been trying to learn Spanish off and on for many years. It’s ok and is always enhanced by my fabulous Argentinian tutor, Martha, who comes to the office to teach a bunch of us. However, I miss too many classes, I never do my homework, but I still love the buzz of a […]
Seven months ago, I went into a tiny store in Kyoto and bought myself a set of three masks because I thought it would be cool to emulate the health and safety protocols that Japan has had for years. Who would have thought that we would all be wearing masks as a matter of protocol […]
Some people were born to be remote workers. They wake up, make some coffee, have good Wi-Fi, and then drift off to a room that is all kitted-out for a virtual office. They love the non-existent commute and they’re very self-motivated. They don’t miss the socializing in the office. Type B people…highly focused, not attention […]
As I now sit out in Western Massachusetts watching the annual invasion of Japanese beetles balanced by an influx of hummingbirds and crickets and dragonflies, I was thinking how quickly April passed and how Easter came and went. That’s when I realized I had never spent Easter in the USA. I always find myself traveling […]
Strangely enough, this whole challenging saga began after my second trip to Japan in January 2020. After visiting only a few months prior, I had returned to the country again to see Tokyo and Kyoto, and this time I even got to visit Hiroshima. As I love Japanese food, I ate up a storm on […]
My niece lives in Rome and has been there since 2001. Due to Covid-19, she has been locked down since the end of February and has only recently been able to leave the apartment to start enjoying again the beautiful city that she lives in with her husband and 9-year-old daughter, Beatrice. As part and […]
Today I dreamed of Venice. I had never been to Venice during Carnevale di Venezia but for some reason, some weeks ago, I found myself transiting through this great city and arrived in the middle of the Carnevale spirit. Venice in the winter is something incredible. If you fly into Venice on a clear day, […]
In my Facebook and Instagram world, I find myself traveling to all of my familiar haunts and daring to step into places that I am not so familiar with. A friend of mine, who lives in the center of London, keeps me updated with his afternoon walks through the deserted city. It makes me nostalgic […]
Driving over the Steppes of Georgia The drive from Tbilisi to Azerbaijan is quite stunning. The mountains are always hovering over you with the snow capped peaks soaring above the plains. To drive from Tbilisi to Baku, we decided to spend an overnight en route and visited a Soviet-era spa hotel. It was quite a […]