Last night, on the way to the book signing, I drove past beautiful Lake Waramaug. I still have not purchased a new camera, but took some more photos with my iphone. I’m really liking the iphone pictures.

Sometimes the pictures end up looking a little warped – for example, in the photo above, the land and lake are, obviously, flat.

The event was a lot of fun. I saw Marshall Miles and Jill Goodman, the Producers/General Managers of WHDD-FM/Robin Hood Radio, the NPR station located in Sharon, CT, where I used to have my show IN HOUSE. Seeing Marshall and Jill reminded me how much fun it was to have the show, and we talked about the possibility of starting it up again if and when I ever finish this book.

I met many interesting authors and readers at the event, and when my books were all signed and sold, I decided to cut out early and meet Denis and Devin for dinner. Today I got an email from our blog’s very own Colleen, saying that she saw me standing outside in the mud, barefoot – yes, that’s right, I was wearing a skirt and heels but it was too muddy so I took off my high heels and ran around the place in bare feet. Honestly, you can take the girl out of Midland, Racine, Kenosha, Marblehead, etc., but you can’t take Midland, etc out of the girl. Anyway, Colleen was ONCE AGAIN too shy to introduce herself, but she did say that they stayed and had some wine and enjoyed the evening. Must meet Colleen in person!

Now out to enjoy a sunny day in New England, but first, a photo I took last night, of the mist rising from our wet, steamy hills, and a poem to go with it.

God’s World
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.
My soul is all but out of me, let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

Tomorrow will mark the first anniversary of my blog. Today I have decided to do a little retrospective of the year, in photos. As those who have been with me from day one might recall, I didn’t know how to load photos onto the blog in the beginning, so I wrote these rather long-winded entries and was in danger of running out of stuff to write about by week two. Thankfully, I learned how to load the photos and the blog has survived! Here are some of my favorite blog moments in pictures.

Thanks to all of you who read, comment or email me each day. I had no intention of starting a blog last year. I only did it at the suggestion of my publisher. Now I love to blog and have come to think of many of my readers as friends Keep those comments coming. XO Ann

May 12

May 22


May 23

June 30

August 4

Also August

September 12

September 19

September 22

September 22

October 25

November 2

November 2

December 6

Finally, two great souls who are missed:

May 4

October 7

Tomorrow, a new episode of IN HOUSE will air at 2:00 on WHDD-FM (robinhoodradio.com).

For this week’s IN HOUSE, I visited the very beautiful and entirely eco-friendly Manhattan townhouse belonging to Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher and their three children. Lisa is a two-time EMMY award winning former producer who is now a publishing executive. Paul is an award winning architect. They have three amazing kids and they’re all quite interested (Lisa admits she’s obsessed) in the environment, and in trying to live in a safer, less toxic world.

They have co-authored a beautiful book called, Dreaming Green: Eco-Fabulous Houses Designed to Inspire

Unfortunately, my show is only a half-hour long, so I had to cut out some interesting details about their home and some of the others they featured in their book, which is not just a coffee table book that you flip through for the beautiful photos. It’s also filled with resources on suppliers of green products, etc. But I did manage to squeeze in enough to get you inspired to live a little greener. So tune in tomorrow, by clicking on the WHDD link above, or afterwards, you should be able to download it here.

Yesterday I visited the Manhattan home of Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleisher and their three children, and I interviewed them for an upcoming episode of IN HOUSE. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Lisa and Paul live in a green, eco-friendly townhouse on the Upper West Side and they have written a beautiful book about “eco-fabulous” homes. This is their roof garden:

The green stuff that looks like grass is actually a form of moss that helps insulate the house, keeping it warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. It is a small eco-habitat now and Lisa says that the sounds of crickets on their rooftop at nght often drowns out the noise of traffic and other sounds of the city. In answer to Mary’s question on my previous blog, the moss that you see in the photo requires very little water and no mowing. Also no subsoil. Paul describes it very well in the interview. Also, I will find out who makes those beautiful blinds.

The interview was fascinating because the Sharkey-Gleishers know how to make your house more eco-friendly no matter what your budget. And they’re nice. And their kids are great. Lisa has won two Emmys, Paul is an award-winning architect. Carter, their King Charles Spaniel has the softest coat I’ve ever felt and he cuddled with me throughout the interview, making it even nicer.

We stayed in the city last night and this was the view from our window this morning:

Pretty huh? Well, it was pretty then, but now it’s slushing out. That’s right, slush is falling from the sky. Denis and the kids are attempting to drive to the country, but it’s snowing where they are and they’ve been driving for hours and are not even close to home. I stayed in the city an extra night because tomorrow I’m interviewing Lisa Sharkey and her husband Paul Gleicher who have co-authored a beautiful book called Dreaming Green: Eco-Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire.

Click on the link above to see photos of their gorgeous “green” townhouse, and if you have any questions or comments for Lisa and Paul, post them here and I’ll ask them during our interview tomorrow, making this blog thrillingly interactive! The interview won’t air on IN HOUSE for a few weeks though, so you’ll have to be a little patient.

Anyway, I hope everybody is surviving the weather, wherever you are!

Maybe some of you will recall that I have a weekly NPR radio show called IN HOUSE. The show was on hiatus for a while because I had surgery and then really needed some time to work on my book. Well, tomorrow WHDD-FM, (robinhoodradio.com), will broadcast a brand new episode of IN HOUSE, featuring author and NPR commentator Heather King.

I interviewed Heather when I was in Los Angeles. She’s a dear old friend and during the interview we discussed why she, a native New Englander, chose to make her home in LA. We also discussed her books and her relatively recent conversion to Catholicism. As I was editing the interview, I thought about how wildly radical it is, in this day and age, to devote oneself to a religion that is relatively out of vogue with today’s popular culture. It seems that the Catholic church has become a much scorned institution, as has Christianity in general, in our society. Of course some highly unethical priests and hate-mongering fundamentalists are mostly to blame for this, but it occurs to me that it takes a very brave and devoted individual to proudly (and wittily – she’s one of the funniest people I know) assert her faith, despite the prejudices.

Yesterday, when Denis and I were shooting this video about buying books for the holidays, the producer kept warning us not to use the word “Christmas,” but instead, to use the word, “holidays,” when discussing gift giving. I would have said “holidays” anyway, because that’s what everybody says now, but it sounded like letting the word “Christmas” slip would be like accidentally saying the f-word on camera. When did Christmas become so obscene? It makes me sad, thinking about it, because, I’m not a religious person, but as a Catholic child, I was in love with the story of the baby Jesus and this time of year still is very precious to me because of those memories, which are enmeshed with the memories of my own babies and their early Christmases. Now, it seems, it is very appropriate to talk about all the material things you plan to buy and get, but any mention of the spiritual aspect of the holiday is considered almost vulgar. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Anyway, I plan to do monthly installments of IN HOUSE now, at least until I finish the book, because the interviewing and editing takes up quite a bit of time. Have a couple of great interviews lined up, though, so stay tuned!

Due to my schedule, I’ve had to broadcast reruns of IN HOUSE the past two Saturdays, but tomorrow, tune in for an all-new IN HOUSE interview with my guest, the brilliant and wildly eccentric dancer/choreographer Moses Pendleton, who directs the word-famous dance company, MOMIX

I got to sit in on a few rehearsals of Botanica, Momix’s exciting new show and I used the music from the show throughout the interview, making it, I think, one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve done. Well, Moses made it enjoyable too, of course. If you’re into gardening, New England, the environment, dance, Van Gogh, sex, love, skiing, John Keats, bees, the psychological effects of color on mood, music or the creative process – if one or all of these things appeals to you – you’ll love tomorrow’s show.

And, on another, equally exciting note, I’m going home today. I don’t know if it’s a HIPA violation to name your physician, but I’ll risk it in order to thank my surgeon Dr. Jamal Rahaman and his wonderful team of residents here at Mt. Sinai hospital. I’m told the surgeons don’t always have great bedside manner, but that’s not the case with Dr. Rahaman, who is not just a great doctor, but also a great man.

Also, at the risk of forgetting some names (I’m sure I will) I’d like to thank the nursing and support staff on my floor who include Michael Quizon, Mary “Jennie” Del Prabo, Cheryl Parks, Debbie Johnson, Lucy Jumelez, Antoinette De Los Reyes …oh, I know I’m forgetting names. Some of the most helpful people helped me when I was least lucid, but if you’re a nurse, I thank you, on behalf of all patients everywhere, for the work you do. Listening to the way some patients here talk to hospital staff makes me think that the word “patient” when describing somebody under nursing care, is an almost laughable misnomer. The nurses I’ve met this week have taught me much about patience, compassion, tolerance and grace under pressure.

I have spent the entire day trying to edit my four hours of digital Moses Pendleton into a concise half-hour for my radio show, IN HOUSE.

Why, you might ask, did you interview the man for four hours, when you have a half-hour show? The answer is, because a half hour is just not enough for a man whose kitchen looks like this:

Whose office looks like this:

And whose hallway looks like this:

Moses is a little preoccupied with sunflowers and marigolds and the interview is all about how he is attempting to bring the garden into the theater in his new show, “Botanica.” I have recorded a rehearsal but how do I bring the eroticism and beauty of the musical arrangements and choreography of Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn to radio?

I’ve decided to make it an hour long. There’ll be a part I the first week, followed by Part II the second. The problem is, Moses has a lot of energy. So do I. So does his Jack Russell Terrier, Mojito, who opens and closes all the doors to the house with his paws. The three of us just got ourselves whipped into a frenzy of excitement during our conversation and often veered way off-topic, and eventually I would have to suggest we take a moment and collect ourselves, and he would respond like this:

Download file

Anyway, it won’t be this Saturday’s show, but will most likely be on next Saturday. So stay tuned. This Saturday will be a surprise (to you and me).

Here’s somebody I encountered at Moses Pendleton’s house yesterday:

Here’s Moses himself, tending to one of his sunflowers.

Denis and I got to watch MOMIX, Moses’s dance company, rehearsing for their upcoming show, “Botanica,” yesterday. There was a piece called Nightcrawlers in which the dancers used black ductwork tubing (stuff you would find at Home Depot) as extensions of their bodies and they became strangely erotic earthworms that pulsed and undulated and intertwined themselves with each other in a most beautiful and entrancing way. I’ve already ordered our tickets for the debut show of “Botanica” at the Warner Theater in January. Meanwhile, their company will be touring in London and throughout the US during October. Click here for details.

Today we’re in sunny California. As we were flying in, I recalled the first time Denis and I ever came to LA. We were young. Denis was a comic, I, a waitress. Denis won a stand-up comedy contest sponsored by Budweiser, and we got to stay at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. It was winter and even though it was only about fifty degrees, we splashed around in the pool like kids and then took a city bus all the way to the beach in Santa Monica, which took all day. We were so excited! Denis was going to perform at the Improv! In LA!
This time we’ve flown in for the Emmys, older, wiser, but still dazzled, as we always are, by this bright city with its colorful architecture, friendly people and impossibly clean streets.

This time it’s HBO, not Budweiser footing the bill, so we’re staying in Santa Monica. Here’s the view from our window:

There’s the Santa Monica pier:

Here’s Denis reading a script, poolside. I just had to say it, it’s so Lucy Ricardo. “There’s my dear husband, reading a motion picture script, poolside!”

If you’re in or near the Sharon, CT area, this afternoon at 2:00, tune into 91.9FM, WHDD, to listen to my IN HOUSE interview with Playwright A.R. Gurney. If you don’t live in the area, you may still hear it as it’s broadcast, by going to robinhoodradio.com, and clicking on the “Listen Live” link. If you miss it, I’ll have it downloaded here on my site, sometime later today.

A.R “Pete” Gurney has written the critically acclaimed plays, Scenes From American Life, Children, The Middle Ages, The Dining Room, Love Letters, Sylvia, and many others. His most recent play, Buffalo Gal has just completed its very successful Off-Broadway run, and I saw the show and loved it and recently had the wonderful opportunity to interview Pete in the place he wrote it—his Roxbury, Connecticut home.

Pete Gurney is not a tortured playwright. He is one of the most gracious, charming, cheerful and intelligent men I have ever met. It’s hard to be in his presence without smiling. He smiles all the time. We discussed his years at the Yale Drama School, the shows he wrote and produced while he was a Naval Officer during the Korean war (his audience was literally captive – they were on an aircraft carrier), and why he has always preferered to work at home, with his dog and family around him, when he writes. Tune in to hear one of our great American playwrights discuss what is happening to the theater in the electronic age; and the huge sacrifices actors, directors and writers often make to be able to do live theater.