This Is Why I Hate Driving

Weeeeeeeellllllllllll. Can you believe a rear-end collision wherein I hit the dude's pickup truck going 15 mph max resulted in $8,000+ in damages?! Quell surprise. Jesus.

So now, get this—my rental car is a pimped-out, gold Cadillac. Seriously. The car is so big that my arm can barely settle on the driver's side armrest. I think these cars are engineered with obese, old Jews in mind, no? It was either that or some kind of subcompact I'd never heard of. So picture me cruising around SoBe in this granny yenta car until Feb. 20th when mine is repaired. It's so much bigger than my car that I can't really gauge the girth in terms of parking, backing up and turning. Which resulted in me driving over the newly-planted flowers in the driveway median at the 'rents' house. Oops.

Their driveway is notoriously long, and over the years, the lights lining it have been the victims of many a vehicle, especially back when mammoth vans were all the rage. I think Dana's mom smashed about 10 of them as their family vans grew larger.

This car is a real fucking gas guzzler too. Took me a tank-and-a-half to get to Jax this weekend each way.

It's been a busy couple of weeks here during 'season.' Season—gah, the reason for the interminable lines at the Epicure deli, the clogged streets AND, most importantly the episode last week at the chemo ward.

Mom's 60th birthday was a blast, though dad and I ruined both surprises at the last minute. We're just cool like that; the two of us foil any surprise by accident.

The first was that Susan, mom's BFF from college, was coming in from Atlanta with hubby Ray, the Jell-O shooter. Dad kept it in the bag for SO long. And then. . .

"Yeah, Jeff's coming in town for the party," dad told her.

Jeff's one of our oldest family friends and one of the people from a family we've had relationships with for three generations. Jeff's daughter is one of my good friends and frequent baking partner. Our grandparents were best friends, our fathers, etc.

"Oh, that's so sweet of him!" mom said.

"Yeah, he's going to play golf with me and Ray Saturday." D'oh!

Yeah, so Susan and Ray, not so much of a surprise anymore. Secondly, I had been working intensely with Lynn on mom's bday gift from her girlfriends. Lynn makes me look like a Type B; this Type A strives to be so organized and perfect! Remember she was my cancer project manager and has been my mom's shopping partner in crime for 30+ years. She knows mom's taste as well as me, so they often shop for each other. Lynn was thinking jewelry from Landsberg, but I suggested that any jewelry they'd give her within their price point she'd either already have or likely not get too much use out of since the woman has so much damn jewelry.

My suggestion was a classic Chanel evening bag in black with gold hardware, which mom actually needed. So we settled on that, and Lynn ran around from Worth Ave. to Palm Beach Gardens scouting out the perfect one. And I was receiving picture messages of the bags from the Chanel sales girl's phone.

Meanwhile, some of the peanuts in the gallery thought jewelry more appropo, but I held fast in my Chanel stance. Which resulted in me putting the final kaibosh on the jewelry debate on the day of the party. I texted one of the peanuts and told her that the present was settled and that mom had been wanting this bag for a while. I was in the car with mom, and she knew that this whole gift had involved a lot of peanuts and opinions. So she wanted to hear the text I sent to make sure it was diplomatic—as if I am ever undiplomatic. I read it to her and when I said the word 'bag,' well, you know. Double d'oh. But she loooved the bag and I'm sure Lynn breathed a big sigh of relief after it was opened to much ado at 1:30 a.m., when Ray decided to take his Jell-O shot induced nap pictured in yesterday's post.

This is the bag. She's got the strap doubled up here; it can be worn long or short. Perfection. Like I've said before, Chanel is the perfect go-to label for investment pieces. Two of mine are hand-me-downs from mom bought in the '80s and I wear them all the time.




Consequently mom, I'm assuming I'll receive your vintage, camera, leather Chanel in the mail soon now that you've upgraded?

Ta for now.

I've just arrived home from Jacksonville for mom's 60th birthday. I've got some vv important Gossip Girl DVRing to do, so let the photos suffice for now and I'll try to post something in the a.m. There's one in particular photo, however, that sums up the festivities and our wonderfully amusing, entertaining, endearing, fun and lovely friends.

The master of the universe meets the Jell-O shot(s).


(Brother and I still have no idea why our parents and their cadre of 60-year-old-ish friends have latched onto Jell-O shots as we did 10 years ago in college.)

And although I did indulge in a Jell-O shot served by a very amused catering staffer, I made sure we started off the festivities with a bottle of Tattinger.



And now behold Ray by the end of the night. Not that I'm saying he can't still party like a rock star. . .

In his defense, by the time mom got around to opening presents—she adored the classic Chanel bag her girlfriends and I gifted her with—it was about 1 a.m.