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Heaven Sent
I love this vintage ad for Helena Rubenstein’s Heaven Sent perfume. It ran in Seventeen for years. The sweet and now quaint copy is ostensibly the words of the fetching model, telling us…
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Prom
All little girls dream of being brides one day, but when I saw the pink meringue confection that my mother wore to my father’s senior prom hanging in the attic, I unabashedly longed…
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The Comfort of Perfume
The Boston attacks came close to home. I worked in the Back Bay for many years – it was my daily turf. The older perp’s wife lives in my current town, and the…
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Miscellany
My daughter and I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art for their wonderful exhibit, “Impressionism, Fashion, & Modernity”. (And by the way, if you visit New York City in early spring, you are…
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Irish Girl
My father moved us to my beloved homecity when I was in kindergarten. It didn’t take many St. Patrick’s Days to realize our school had lots of Irish kids. These pals were descendants…
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The Key
Remember the job I told you about in September, the one I said was too small for my soul? Well, I never left it but I will be exiting the cage as…
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Snow Day
We woke up early on snowy days in the hopes that we would hear “No school, all schools Marlborough…” from the hi-fi radio in the living room. With bated breath and crossed fingers,…
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A Garnet Week
I’ve loved garnets since reading the following passage in Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady: Niel liked to see the firelight sparkle on her earrings, long pendants of garnets and seed-pearls in the shape…
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Someone at a Distance
I loved this novel by Dorothy Whipple. Someone at a Distance kept me ruminating about the characters between readings, and it’s difficult for me to find literature (except for the classics) that keeps…
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Valentine
I found this lovely Modern Priscilla magazine at a rare book fair recently. It’s dated February 1918 and it is a gem. The condition is nearly perfect and it cost $5.00. What drew me to…
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The Way She Looks Tonight
I picked up “The Way She Looks Tonight” while staying in my friend Karen’s guest room in Rochester last month. It looked like a light read that would lull me back to sleep…
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Nana’s Home
I learned elegant homecaring from my grandmother. Nana never had a house of her own and always lived on the streetcar line in Boston. She and my grandfather rented a great old apartment in…
