To dream of my charm jewelry at N.Y. Fashion Week

Last week I had a some oral surgery. After leaving the dentist’s office I made my way over to the local Whole Foods and purchased some chicken noodle soup and the latest issues of The Economist, The New Yorker and In Style magazines then made my way home to spend the rest of the day relaxing.

There was an article in the New Yorker by writer Lizzie Widdicombe and it focuses on the fourteen year old blogger from Chicago, with the Fashion blog " The Style Rookie".
Tavi Gevinson has been blogging since she was eleven. The article is eight pages long and covers a lot of Tavi's different perspectives and opinions.

What interested me the most about this article was not the immediate obvious which is Fashion and blogging and her natural enthusiasm to create. There is a photo of Tavi where she has self styled herself in some very hip current fashion garments, right down to the charm jewelry in her hair.

I looked at that photo of Tavi and thought to myself “Run with the wind girl”….

When I was in Design School that was the main premise that we were taught about the “high” of designing clothing - or anything for that matter. It revolves around artistic expression which translates into a wearable art form and that is what clothing is. We get to tell the world about how we feel and who we are every day in our social system through our clothing. A quick picture for example - think blue button down shirt and a pair of chinos with a pair of deck shoes, “you know what that person is saying who they are”.

This month is New York City Fashion Week, which Tavi has been invited to. It brings up happy memories of when I had my own clothing label back in 1984 and sold my collection to a small boutique in Soho New York. I had gone to New York in the late spring and walked door-to- door trying to get someone to buy my collection. Finally I got a sale. I flew back in September with my shipment for a trunk show. The store shut down a year later due to a health situation with the owner, but it was just a few blocks from Parachute, which way back then was a very cool store. My girlfriend who I went to design school with had an apartment in an area that made it walkable to Soho.

So I arrive at the airport in New York City, having had some drinks on the plane bought for me by some nice Americans - okay, I am only nervous taking off and landing. Yvo greeted me at the terminal and we jumped into her Camaro and drove into Manhattan. There was a new restaurant I had read about in the WWD newspaper called the Odeon in Tribeca and that is where we headed. I was completely overdressed in retrospect, for the Odeon ( I don’t even know if that restaurant is still around) I wore my most expensive evening dress. The bar there was busy and jostling and we were celebrating with probably $20 dollars but that didn’t bother me because I was in the Big Apple.

At one point I made my way through the restaurant to the ladies room at the end of the building and used the facilities and then walked back to the bar. I thought that the restaurant clientele were admiring my beautiful dress I was wearing, and when I finally got back to the front of the restaurant where the bar was Yvo, my friend grabs my arm and says “Rena you have tucked your dress into the back of your pantyhose”. I honestly thought I was going to faint, and couldn’t untuck my back dress hem out of my pantyhose fast enough. I just have to say in my defense, that the bathroom stalls at that restaurant were really narrow. That is what the restaurant clientele were looking at, not my dress, but my bare naked pantyhose butt as I cruised through the restaurant. Needless to say more nice Americans bought us some champagne.

Yvo and I are standing and talking at the bar by the door and the next thing I know a gentleman with white hair and dark frame glasses who is walking by me to leave the restaurant, touch’s my arm and says this to me: “I don’t know who you are or where you are from lady, but I like your style”. Turns out it is Andy Warhol, and so now that all pride is out the window, I follow him outside and ask for his autograph. Mr. Warhol had an issue of “Interview” under his arm, it had that classic Warhol graphic style of "Twiggy"in brilliant green on the front cover. He graciously signed it “To Rena” with his autograph.

I was too embarrassed to say anything of the much, that I was a new Designer in town....

The next day was the trunk show at the boutique. It was a huge success and the boutique sold a lot of pieces. The store had two or three models wearing my designs and I can’t remember who but a very kind person took the girls outside and photographed a few of the pieces on the streets of Soho, N. Y.

(I tried to place the photos here but apparently, I cannot get them to, so they are at the top of the page)

I closed my studio in 1986.

Fast forward to my latest collection of charm jewelry. My artistic offering is something that just gushed out and here I am designing for myself again all these years later. There was no stopping it. I just had to do it. My fashion statement dangle, is wearable art. It makes me jump up and down with glee when I get an order and I can package up my product and send it to it’s new home.

I can only imagine the memories that Tavi is stacking up at Fashion Week in New York City.


Have a beautiful day,

Photo: PKM


Joy,


Rena

www.talktotheturtle.com

Our dog is the lucky charm

Our dog is a senior now I guess. Fourteen years converted makes him 98 in human years.
We were sitting on the front deck watching him lie there in the driveway, prone with his back two legs crisscrossed over each other. We were talking about what an amazing animal he is and how much happiness he has brought into our lives. “Fluffy” really is our lucky charm.


Our high maintenance doggie “aka” zoo creature has kept us on total high alert for a decade now. The last three years he has slowed down a little and just when we think he has slowed down for good, a squirrel crosses his path and the roaring creature comes forth and shows us he has still got it in him.


It was year five that we actually found out what his mutt pedigree really was. Of course it was a totally surreal moment. We had him with us to go to my Mothers funeral and it was a day's drive, and by the time we got there, he starting having these really weird dry heaves. So, we called a local vet in the yellow pages and the Vet that showed up was in a portable “Vet Mobile” is the only way I can describe it.

We were on the West Coast of Canada and our Vet was from Santa Barbara. He had moved up North with this high tech decked out animal hospital on wheels. So when he looked at our snarling, heaving animal, he asked, “What kind of dog is that”? Husky/Collie cross we replied.

Big pause….

“No he’s not.” “Your dog may have husky in him, but your dog is part wolf.”
The Veterinarian went on to say that he worked with Minnesota timber wolves as a study group and that he knew our dog had wolf in him. “He is neutered I piped up.” There will not be any more like him. He was a really cute puppy and he was free. “I always thought that the collie in him made him so high strung”? Are you sure? My boyfriend rolled his eyes staring at me, as we have argued for years over Dakota’s genealogical make up and I have always maintained that he was a Collie/shepherd/husky mix. My boyfriend~God bless him after all these years - looked at me, and said the inevitable: “told you so”, "told you he was not a normal dog".

The Santa Barbara Vet went on to say that our dog gets stress colitis very easily when he is not happy and that we need to remain calm around him, and to introduce yogurt and cottage cheese into his diet as a staple and that will help with the dry heaves.

He gave him a shot to get through the funeral, and so that all three of us could make it through the day really.

That was eight years ago now. Shortly after getting home we bought a pair of shears and a muzzle and starting giving him hair cuts to tone down his wild side. I tried to make him into a poodle kind of or “schmoodle” as we affectionately called him and that is also where his other nickname “Fluffy” came from. We bribe him with a hot dog that we feed him through the muzzle while I am giving him his haircut. Sometimes the end result looks like mange. Other times one side of the haircut is shorter than the other side because by the time we get to that point we are both so exhausted by the sheer energy of trying to outsmart that dog. There have been a lot of haircuts as his hair grows unreasonably fast.

As we continued our conversation on the deck staring at him lying there soaking up the sun, we discussed the fact that it is harder for him to walk and we have to lift him into the truck now. The reality that maybe we should consider leaving him home the next camping trip, is on the table.

“Schmoodle” sits up and blinks that slow lazy blink that he does with such attitude, gets up and slowly walks over and down into our “virtual” gravel pond and takes a big poop. I look over at my significant other and say “that’s new” he has never done that before. “That’s not cool Dakota, I bark, “I don’t want you doing your business in there”.

“Schmoodle” turns around and blinks at us again. Then he walks over to the walkway that straddles the pond and with cat like agility jumps up onto the bridge. On the bridge he shakes his fur so that he is as big and fluffy as he can possibly be, blinks at us again as he walks past us on the way back to the driveway, lies back down and closes his eyes.

Who says dogs can’t talk…..


Have a beautiful day,


Photo: PKM

Joy,

Rena

www.talktotheturtle.com

Feng Shui and desk placement

When I want a great smile of a read I visit Heather Armstrong at her blog, dooce.com Heather has the writing prowess of Joan Didion with a really really wonderful sense of humor. Her style of writing is not as wacked as Hunter Thompson but she dives in and out of that hemisphere and I so applaud her unplugged style.

I usually show up at Heather's blog when I am tired and need a head shaking guffaw laughing moment. “The squirrel in the tree”, and well the list is endless as to how she can make a normal day at home read like a episode of Saturday Night Live except you are reading it.

In her latest installment Heather made a new office renovation and it made me start to think about Feng Shui and office workspaces.

I thought it would be of interest to those of you who have wondered about what and how to place your desk for the best optimum Feng Shui experience. I will list both Eastern and Western styles.

Directional Feng Shui is what I am going to start with here. This is not some big secret that you are receiving. I mean really you can read it in just about any book out there on Feng Shui. I am however, sharing and tailoring this set up for office/home work place specifically. This is using Eastern style Feng Shui.

If you want to change your office, if things are not going the way you like try this out for grins.

It is kind of scientific in that you need to do math. Well just a simple add and subtract.
You use your birth year and come up with a single number. Then that number correlates to auspicious directions. There are four to choose from that will be beneficial to you, with one being your very best direction. Then you place your desk with your chair facing that direction. Or to say it another way, if your best direction is North place your chair down and sit facing or looking north. Now add your desk in front of you. I hope that is clear enough for you to understand how to do this.

You take your year of birth to start:

Men and Women are slightly different adding and subtracting: Here goes,

MALE:

Take the last two digits of the Year of Birth and add them until they make a single digit.

Minus the number from 10

Example: Male born 1956
5 + 6 = 11
1 + 1 = 2
10 – 2 = 8
So 8 is the number for that birth year.

** Note: If the total reaches #5, Males assume #2 and Females assume #8.
(I told you it was mathematical…..)

FEMALE:

Take the last two digits of the Year of Birth and add them until they make a single digit.

ADD 5 to the number.

Example: Female born 1956

5 + 6 = 11
1 + 1 = 2
2 + 5 = 7
so, 7 is the number for that birth year for women.

Please Note: February 4th marks the beginning of the Chinese Solar New Year. If your birth date is on January 1 st thru February 3rd then take the previous years directions.

So next I will list the numbers that correspond with direction. So let's say you figured out your number to be (7) like the above example you would go to the list and see the locations that are the best for that number. They will be sorted as A,B,C,D. All the directions listed are good with Letter (A) being the best. A Feng Shui consultant trained in Eastern style Feng Shui would use this information as a guide and work with the aesthetics of the room and see if one of these directions could be worked into the desk placement and overall room design.

Here is the list: again, the # is the single digit you derived, with ABCD best location to look at.

# A B C D
1 SE E S N
2 NE W NW SW
3 S N SE E
4 N S E SE
6 W NE SW NW
7 NW SW NE W
8 SW NW W NE
9 E SE N S

You will need a compass to find these true directions and I guess it is kind of exhausting to go through all this to find out, but it is there for the sharing if you are at all interested.

In Western Style Feng Shui the direction is called a power position and you work the aesthetics into the room by positioning the desk to face the door. That means when you are sitting down you are looking at the door with the desk in front of you. If you cannot face your desk and yourself to look at the door, then a good design/Feng Shui tip is to place a mirror on the wall that you are facing so that you can see who is walking into the room.

That is your desk placement using Western style Feng Shui, to arrive at a pleasant well balanced office space. There is no need to work up the mathematical like the Eastern style I have listed above, and you really use your “intuitive” to feel the space into a balanced and flowing environment. I hope you find enjoyment in all your comings and goings.

Happy Feng Shui trails,



Have a beautiful day,



Photo: "nice view" PKM


Joy,

Rena

www.talktotheturtle.com

Fun sayings, positive affirmations and powerful quotes:

If you have made mistakes . . . there is always another chance for you . . . you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.”

~Mary Pickford (1893-1979)
American actress



“Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.”

~Anna Freud (1895-1982)
Austrian pschonalyst



“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.”

~Helen Keller (1880-1968)
American writer



This is one of my favorite positive affirmations statements:

To create your tomorrow, go over your day when you are in bed tonight just before you fall asleep, and feel gratitude for the good moments. If there was something you wanted to happen differently, replay it in your mind the way you wanted it to go. As you fall asleep, say, “I will sleep deeply and wake up full of energy. Tomorrow is going to be the most beautiful day of my life.” Good night!

-Rhonda Byrne
Creator of “The Secret”


Here is an excerpt of Marianne Williamson,
from her book: “ A Woman’s Worth”

Don’t you get it? Can’t you see? As we change our minds, we will change the world. And until we do, we will remain where we are. And all the laws and all the bashing and all the silly, childish, petty political arguments will continue for years, and for more years beyond, until women remember, followed by men, that a woman is a miracle and in her heart lies God. She is here to love God, passionately and truly, and to reveal to all others- men, children, and other women – that God is good and God is here. But we must be good, and we must be here, or our function is denied and the mission is aborted. It’s time to get started. It ‘s time to wake up. Don’t wait another minute. Claim your heart, and claim your glory. You have all you need. The new world will seem like nothing you have seen before. It will shine like you. It will smile like you. It will feel like home.


Have a beautiful day,

Photo: 'nice walk' PKM

Joy,



Rena

www.talktotheturtle.com