New York City has been on our minds for sometime, ever since we realized that our planned excursion to the New York Gift Show coincided with Restaurant Week. That meant we were going to be able to reward ourselves for a month�s worth of diligent eating right and exercising with visits to a few of the incredibly high priced and foodie famous restaurants we�ve heard so much about. And we could afford it, for once.
Read the rest of this post »

So it�s the new year and we�re quietly off to a flying start. A new elliptical trainer set up in front of the TV to make the half-hour go by more easily is being attended to with diligence by Karen every day. I�ve embarked on a month-long detoxification, basically good eating minus the wheat and soy so those overstressed organs can be rejuvenated. Plus a little daily Pilates on the living room rug.
Read the rest of this post »

Nothing like an early-morning drive to focus the mind on important matters. We took our coffee with us en route to visit the 50wishes warehouse and what with the usual swath of humanity on the way to work � seems there�s no urban environment where traffic jams aren�t a fact of life these days � we were blessed with plenty of chatting time. Read the rest of this post »

We broke our routine this morning. We both had early appointments so it was more convenient for us to have coffee at a designer coffee chain instead of the one-of-a-kind caf�s that we prefer. With the holidays approaching, there�s so much mocha and caramel being added to their concoctions that I�m amazed they�re still called coffee.

But we were on to more fascinating topics than cookie cutter coffee shops. Another kind of caf� gave us food for thought this week, since I�d attended a �university of the streets caf�� lecture where the subject was happiness.
Read the rest of this post »

There’s a cool little cafe, all marble and chrome and mostly takeout judging from the lack of tables, where Karen loves to admire the vertical muffins. We haven’t figured out yet how they make them, but they look like mini-pannetones or chefs’ toques, their parchment middles tied with thin raffia bows. We had coffee there the other morning, and as I disassembled a carrot muffin — they’re easier to look at than take apart — we somehow got onto the topic of age.
Read the rest of this post »