Caryl recounts: Anna Quindlen and Me

I met Anna Quindlen, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, author and, according to her newest book jacket copy, America’s laureate of real life, when we were both young mothers. Anna lived in Hoboken, and I lived in a Greenwich Village brownstone on the property of St. Luke’s where her children went to school. She’d schlep her children by path train across the Hudson River to the school yard. I could watch her from my kitchen window give her kids one last kiss, sometimes several last kisses, another hug. (I also remember watching Anna Wintour, Vogue’s editor, arrive by town car to drop her children. I don’t remember kisses.) On those same school mornings, I’d wait with my girls and our over-eager beagle puppy for the bus to their public school in Tribeca. At least once, Anna (Quindlen, not Wintour) came upstairs for a cup of coffee, and we talked about our lives in our 30s.

Maryl wishes: Happy Birthday to Eileen

We have another birthday this week. My older sister Eileen would have been 65 today…..more on that momentous age in a moment. Eileen died from encephalitis at age10 before there was a successful treatment for the disease. I’ve lived my whole life wondering what it would have been like to have an older sister, how my life would have been different, and more so what Eileen would have done with hers. I imagine she would have been in a creative field. She was a very sensitive little girl, she liked to draw daffodils and our father was a graphic artist.

Me and Eileen

So would Eileen be retiring from an advertising agency, a design studio, a fashion house or an art school this year? Probably not if you look at a recent AP/CBS poll that finds 73% of baby boomers plan to work past retirement and that number continues to increase. Some are doing it for economic reasons, others because they enjoy the stimulation they get from working or pursuing a vocation of their own design. It’s interesting to note that almost half of the 7.4 million self-employed workers in the USA are baby boomers according to the US Department of Labor. And a third of them began working for themselves at or after age 50.

Caryl lists: 17 Things I've Learned in the Last 5 Years (about life at this age)

That's me in the hat celebrating a milestone birthday at the Taj Mahal.

Birthdays, like reunions, are occasions for looking back--and since my birthday is tomorrow, I thought I'd share with you as I promised in my last post what I learned in the past half decade. I was surprised how much more of life has come into focus. I was shooting for 5 things but stopped at 17 because I know your time is precious.


By the way, this is neither the format nor the tone of Harvard's Red Book because if there is one thing we have all learned in our second life,  it's that we can do what we want now (and we really don't give a damn what other people think).  Clarity, in fact,  may be the prize for being this age (see #16).  So here's what I've learned--from the trivial to the imperial--and in no particular order:

Maryl puts: Her better foot forward

That would be my right foot. More on that in a moment but first did you happen to see Habitually Chic’s post last month about the latest must-have Charles Philip slippers. Those who left comments were drooling over them, and that’s how I found out that they ran wide. Yay! I found a selection online and ordered the ambrosial shoes right up.

The slippers are handmade from shirting material in a variety of solids and stripes and reasonably priced but it’s the packaging that really blew me away. They arrived in a reusable lined box with a magnetic flap closure and with an embroidered cotton shoe bag, a beaded and satin toe cushion and bamboo shoe tree. The packaging just might be more beautiful than the shoes themselves. 

I held my breath as I slipped them on. I’m in love but heartbroken at the same time, and I’ll probably have to return them. Can you guess why? It’s my darn bunions, especially on my left foot. There’s no heel but the shoes are stiff unlike my Repetto ballet flats that are like being barefoot (but probably worse for your feet without any support) or my Tory Burch’s signature flats that feel fine for the first three to four hours before the rubbing against the sides of my toes becomes really annoying.

I go back and forth with the big question those of us with bunions consider -- whether to have surgery or not. I’ve been to two podiatrists and one orthopedic surgeon over the years. The first podiatrist dissuaded me from having the surgery for the usual reasons—the real possibility the bunions could reoccur and the long and painful recovery time. He wouldn’t even allow his wife to have the operation. (They had two small children and who would take care of them!) The second one gave me inserts but had her scalpel at the ready. She is a regular contributor to network news, a number of women’s magazines and the book, Bad Shoes and The Women Who Love Them (I’m afraid that’s me). Her overall mantra is that high heels destroy your feet. The surgeon I saw advised against surgery all together for the most reassuring and persuasive reason—my type of bunions wouldn’t keep me from being active later in life.

Strappy sandal

So medically, I’m good to go, jog, run, Zumba! But aesthetically, my feet are not so good to look at and it’s not that easy to camouflage distorted big toes. Numerous pedicures are not a cure for toes that deviate in the wrong directions. Shoe shopping—once fun—has now become a soulful event as I eliminate designer shoes because the toe box isn’t wide enough and pretty sandals because a strap cuts across and puts too much pressure on the knobby area. Must I reject my Charles Philip slippers too? Is there nothing I can do? 

Thong sandal

I went online again where you can find non-surgical treatments such as toe spacers, night splints, bunion booties, padded inserts, shoe stretchers and more. Do any of these work? I don’t know, does anyone?  I also found a very helpful discussion board at YouLookFab.com, which addresses some of these recommendations. In addition, a search will return BarkingDogShoes.com that specializes in “fashionable finds for fussy feet.” It’s an attractive and informative site but you won’t find any Manolo’s or Jimmy Choo’s here.  

Even my Tods
hurt after an hour!

At least for summer, I have my gold Italian thong sandals and another black pair where the straps just miss the bumps on the sides of my feet….as long as no one stares at my feet for too long. I have  flats and some heels that I can wear for limited periods of time and for as long as the bunions don’t get any worse. I’m going to look into those non-surgical devices more seriously and would welcome comments as to which ones are more successful. But that still leaves me with what to do about the Charles Philip slippers? Well . . . if nothing else, they make a nice still life.

Caryl sums up: A Half Decade of Life

How much a difference does five years make? Well, if you are a newborn, those first five years are supposedly the most critical. But what if you are our age, does life change that significantly in a half-decade? Is it important to tally up occasionally just to understand where you’ve been and where you are heading? Isn’t that the value of sub-totaling? There’s still opportunity to influence the final tally. There is, isn't there?

Deborah Copaken Kogan

The reason I was thinking about this particular increment of time is because Deborah Copaken Kogan’s new novel The Red Book just came out. I wrote about The Red Book earlier at Second LivesClub, and I interviewed Kogan for Publishers Weekly. The actual red book is a legendary document among Harvard graduates. Every five years following graduation and until the day they die, Harvard alumni receive a hardbound crimson-colored book filled with the mini-memoirs of themselves and their classmates. The entries contain the usual biographical data (addresses, emails, occupations, spouses, children) and a short narrative (three to five paragraphs) putting their successes and failures, triumphs and tragedies into context. As someone who has dated several Harvard boys in her time, I can tell you that much time is spent finding just the right words and the perfect tone--all the while recasting events in the best light possible. My last Harvard boyfriend-- class of ’71-- had all his red book volumes lined up on his bookshelves somewhere between his Fitzgerald novels and the collected short stories of Hemingway.  (Note: They were shelved in fiction!) 

In her new novel, Kogan (Harvard ’88) follows four female friends who reconnect at their 20th reunion. Over the next five years and against the backdrop of the current economic recession and their own midlife crises, the women reconsider their future, what they really want from life. By the end of the book and their 25th reunion red books entries, they have put into motion some radical changes that end up altering the course. Or, as we would say here at this website, they had begun rewriting the plot line for their second lives. 

If you had to sum up the last five years, what would you write? What are your highlights—and lowlights? Would the entry reflect your shifting ambitions, how you've kept alive your earlier passions or find new ones? Would your entry acknowledge who you really are right now---or would you shade the truth? The book trailer for Kogan’s novel suggests: “There’s the story we tell the world, and then there is the real story.”

My alma mater

If you want to know what I’ve been up to for the past five years (even though my humble college in the Midwest has no such tome), just leave a comment here.  I might even tell you the secret Kogan told me about how she was able to write four books and raise three children at the same time. I am pretty sure she didn't reveal it in her red book entry.

Maryl tries: Online Dating

I have been looking for a partner for a while now in the usual places and not having any luck. Finding the right match with the ideal background, age, trustworthiness, level of commitment, willingness to be monogamous and whose personality complements mine is quite the challenge. I have to be able to really communicate with this person; we have to “click.”


My family and friends have been very supportive in helping me find someone; my husband especially.  He thought I should just go for it. They understand my need for a partner in order to get my online brand business off the ground and how critical it is for her/him to have the right character traits and skill sets that enhance mine. I had exhausted my network, worked my LinkedIn connections and couldn’t join one more Meetup group. So I turned to online dating.

Start-ups are on the rise and great business ideas and the resources out there to help get you going are endless. There’s a growing recognition that this all begins with a great partner or co-founder. Just go to meetup.com and search under “co-founder” and take your pick.   For that matter, go to Google and search the same.

I’ve already found www.CoFoundersLab.com, which is an online and in person matchmaking service for entrepreneurs who want to launch a startup together. “Think eHarmony for entrepreneurs.” There’s also www.PairUpNYC.com that leverages “advisors’ experience and expertise to create pre-screened matches between founders.” And www.women2.org (founding startups) has a personal account of one women’s quest for her ultimate soul mate.

But I went to www.FounderDating.com first and completed a profile. “FounderDating brings together super talented entrepreneurs with different backgrounds” and attributes and helps you find someone who will complement yours. They conduct in person sessions in various cities and, sad to say, I didn’t make the cut off for last month’s event closest to me. I was told not to think of it as a rejection as the selection process is based on assembling the right number of candidates together with the most complementary expertise. So there may have been too many applicants with brand marketing experience like mine last time and I’ll try again next month.

The marriage metaphor is the right one for this step in building my company. So I’ll keep on dating until I find “the one.” Do share any similar challenges you’ve had in the Comments below but please no fix-ups. I’m too old for blind dates.

Caryl reveals: Lies, Dyes and her Miracle Dress

First of all, I lied.  Not even a little white one, this lie was many-hued.  When I told you in my last post that I had given up the Easter ritual of dying eggs, it wasn't true.  The thing about giving up family traditions, you have to get the family onboard. When my daughter and I arrived in the country this weekend and she spotted the chalk eggs, she exclaimed with audible horror:  “You mean we are not going to dye eggs this year?”  So we did. (I told you that ours never look Martha's, and they especially don’t look like Martha’s on Econesting. (Check out this terrific site and the incredible eggs pictured in the 4/7 post.)

I remembered that last Easter I was in New Delhi. It

happened to be my birthday as well so I went to the Sacred Heart Cathedral for mass and then to an Indian friend’s home for lunch.  I was wearing the bright yellow dress (shown below) over hot pink silk pants. I imagined I looked like the modestly dressed locals but I think I looked more like a psychedelic egg. I own this same dress from Dosa in silver-grey and an iridescent green and love them both. But the yellow, which I bought on sale (I forgot the cardinal rule of never buying anything on sale that you wouldn’t pay full price for) was a disaster.

As long as I was dying things this Easter, I decided to color my dress, give it a second life--so to speak. I used Rit’s (remember that stuff?) color extraction to remove the baby chick color. Initially, it turned the dress the color of early summer peonies, then white (except for the yellow thread).

Step 1: Color Extraction

Next I prepared the dye, using two packets of Rit’s Navy Blue. I moved the whole operation outside, where it couldn’t stain the blue stone patio. By now, I was really into this crafty scene.  Generally, I’m not much of a DIYer except in the country where I do things I never do in the city (like garden and cook!). 

Step 2:  Dye Mix

 Voila!  The dress came out navy blue. It was a miracle, if not a miracle dress.  I am pretty sure that Rit stuff was not exactly natural, however.  The directions said to wear gloves and to not inhale the dust from the packet. I wondered if I'd see another Easter.

Last year, after Delhi, I flew to the little-toured Indian state of Orissa and met with champion weavers who were making extraordinarily colored Ikats from natural dyes. But, alas, I didn’t have any cow dung available  this season; it makes a beautiful deep red. I do have plenty of flowers and berries and seeds, however, and according to a New York Times piece last week I can learn to make natural dyes.  Instead I just picked my garden's offerings for a spring bouquet and put them next to my chalk eggs, which I intend to keep until next year when I hope my family will be more accepting.

Caryl drops: The Eggs

Yes, that’s my stone table in the country.  I was dashing back to the city earlier this week but knew my daughter and I would be returning for the weekend and wanted to have something evoking Easter to welcome us upon our arrival.  I love traditions; it’s the connective tissue for the generations and a momentary meditation amid our fast-paced modern life. I can recall with pleasure coloring eggs with my young children, hiding them wherever we were for the holiday (Grandma’s house, Maryl’s house, Florida, Jamaica).  Our family is scattered this year: two of us are in New York, the other two far-flung (Toronto, Prague), not to mention my daughters are 28 and 24.

Nevertheless, I pulled out the yellow wooden chickens my grandfather made for my mother and her sister more than 80 years ago.  I use them every year to hold the  hard-boiled eggs we’ve colored.  Then I remembered I hate coloring eggs! It’s messy and disappointing (ours never looks like Martha’s) and wasteful (you can’t eat them, right? I never have been quite clear about that.)

 Still eggs are widely used in all cultures as symbols of new life.  And you know, how we love new lives here at our website. So I broke out the eggs.  What do you think of the ones in the picture above?  They are made of chalk and I found them at a general store called Sickle’s in our country village.  At Second Lives, we love rituals, AND we really love short cuts!
                                      *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Oh—and one more thing, I’ve been meaning to remind you that April is National Poetry month.  If you go to Poets.org, you can register to have a poem a day sent to your email address every day. Like traditions, it’s a literary kind of connective tissue, an inspiring meditation.  Whether you celebrate Easter or Passover or just Spring, I wanted to send you a favorite poem from a favorite poet of mine to acknowledge the occasion and to thank you for stopping by in this busy world to spend a little time with us at Second Lives Club. It’s even about eggs.

With Thanks to the Field Sparrow, Whose Voice is so Delicate and Humble
Mary Oliver

I do not live happily or comfortably
With the cleverness of our times.
The talk is all about computers,
The news is all about bombs and blood.
This morning, in the fresh field,
I came upon a hidden nest.
It held four warm, speckled eggs.
I touched them.
Then went away softly,
Having felt something more wonderful
Than all the electricity of New York City.

Maryl models: Her Miracle Dress

Maryl wearing Celeb Boutique "Miracle Dress"

You may recall last month I blogged about the pluses of Stella McCartney’s Miracle Dress (a.k.a. the Octavia dress). Due to its unique fiber and optical illusion design, it can compress excess body fat and smooth out curves before your very eyes. The only minus is the $1600 price tag. The knock-off I ordered from Celeb Boutique (CB) at 1/10 the cost finally arrived after being on back order all this time. 

Here’s my up-close and personal assessment based on three criteria and scoring of 1 to 5 (5 being the highest): 

Kate Winslet wearing Stella cCartney
"Miracle Dress"

1) Fabric: 3
Both dresses are made of synthetic fabric but the original has a softer and more substantial feel to it.
2) Body shaping: 2
There’s no miracle fiber with the CB copy. (The good news is that a Spanx body shaper can take up the slack and is much cheaper than the price differential between the McCartney and CB dresses.)
3) Design: 5
The dress looks the same complete with the bust and side seamlines. 

And I’ll give it another 5 for just being fun to wear. So what do you think?  I'm no Kate Winslet but miracle or not?

Caryl discovers: Undiscovered Florida--Part 2

If you haven’t been to Florida recently, you may be under the mistaken notion that the Snow Birds are still sitting in their beach chairs, riding their golf carts or tirelessly playing bridge--or worse, bingo. (Does anyone play bingo anymore?)  Well, you’d be wildly wrong.  The notion of retirement has changed, starting with the word itself. Here at Second Lives Club, it never passes our lips.  No one we know ‘retires’, they are fully engaged in their new repurposed lives.  


Many, in fact,  are living out their dreams. For example, one of my much older sister’s friends plays three sets of tennis a day and in her down time raises race horses. Last season, one of her horses was on track to the Kentucky Derby, which Kathy, the owner, described as “very stressful”.  (The horse didn’t qualify, and Kathy's and husband Bob’s heart rates have returned to normal.) Another recent acquaintance of my sister's, a widow who turned 70 recently, bought a night club in Chicago to keep her life interesting. She renamed the club previously called 12 West after herself: Marianna’s.  Roll your r’s when you say it--and please remember to call the former Mary Ann by her new hot cha cha name when you meet her.

My favorite “I have a dream” story belongs to Mary Lee, a former nurse from Guilford, Connecticut who relocated to Sarasota, Florida to open a museum. Her Second Life tale brings us to Part 2 of my "Undiscovered Florida" posts. (For Part 1, scroll back to our March 13 post where my sister and I dip our toes in the fountain of youth. . . and I try to pick up a man from Slovakia.) After taking the water cure in Northport, Florida, Pat and I hit the highway in a race to make it to The Marietta Museum of Art and Whimsy before it closed.  The admission-free museum is only open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 1pm to 4pm.  We pulled up in front of the flamingo pink building with less than a quarter-hour to spare.  

               

Mary Lee bought the former 5,300 square Buddhist meditation Center in 2008 for $1.55 million and opened it two years later as the Marietta (Lee’s given name) Museum of Art and Whimsy to house her light-hearted but wholly-impressive collection of folk art, painting and sculpture. "I like goofy things,” Lee told the Herald-Tribune in 2010. “But I also like quality.” Given our 15 minutes to tour (and our need to use the bathroom: see female torso sculpture displayed there below), I was  unable to formally interview Lee. And, she unarguably declined having her picture taken.  The Herald-Tribune article by Billy Cox, however, provides an excellent introduction to (and photo of) this fascinating woman.

Nevertheless, let me share a few critical facts about Lee. Along with her nursing degree, she graduated in 1991 from the nearby Ringling College of Art and Design in painting.  Her nursing and emergency room dramas provided subject matter for her paintings. "From a quasi-abstract take on hysterectomy, to a portrait of chemotherapy-induced isolation, to the horror of a family incinerated in a plane crash, Lee's brushes with darkness literally fill a book," Cox writes .  Is it any wonder she turned to whimsy?

Lee has a curator’s eye and a philanthropist’s pocketbook. In the garden—the only place photography is allowed (unless you count the bathroom),  larger than life size sculptures share space with  candy-colored tables and chairs purchased from Good Will,

native palm trees and plenty of faux flamingos. Center stage is a gleeful metallic ballerina rotating atop a stunning pink marble pedestal.  Lee imported 23 tons of the Stony Creek stone from her native Connecticut, the same material used in Grand Central Station and the Lincoln Memorial, to build the base. The museum may house the whimsical but the collection  is substantial in scope.  The same can be said of Mary Lee.  The woman, who is in her mid-60s, was locking the door at 4pm sharp, shooing us out and heading to an art opening that evening in Sarasoto,  I think.  Nothing retiring about her.

Post-script: If you liked the triumphant tales of Kathy and Marianna (cha cha cha) and museum founder/whimsy collector Mary Lee, you'd like us.  We hope to hit 200 "likes" by April 1.  Please go to the upper right hand corner of this post and click "like"; if you have already done so--thanks so much, and --please forward to a friend and ask them to do the same. We are counting
on you.

Maryl swallows: The hard truth about sleeping pills

We just closed our unscientific poll on the sleep habits of second lifers and reported that we are a very, very tired demographic. And now we learn this week from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that sleeping pills present more risks than rewards. They went online with a study that concluded patients using prescription sleep aids on a regular basis were nearly five times as likely to die over a period of two and a half years than non-users. Those using drugs periodically were at some risk too but heavy pill takers were even more likely to develop cancer. Yikes!

To be clear the research that comes out of the Viterbi Family Sleep Center at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego does not prove that these medications were the exact cause of these risks but that at the very least there’s a correlation between the two. Patients with sleep problems tend to have other health issues, such as cancer, heart disease, depression, to begin with or may develop them as a result of sleeplessness.

The study involved the use of benzodiazepine and barbiturate drugs and the more popular non-benzodiazepines, such as Ambien, Lunesta and Sonata. I’m often faced with the quandary at 2:30 in the morning whether to give in and take a pill and risk feeling groggy the next morning or to continue plumping my pillows and pretend sleep is imminent. I guess this study will help with that dilemma.

So where does that leave us? We’ve already had to rule out Hormone Replacement Therapy, which quelled night sweats and anxiety that can keep women awake at night. Over the years my doctor has prescribed several antidepressants, such as Zoloft and Effexor, the anti anxiety drug Xanax and Gabapentin, a drug used for seizures that also treats hot flashes. None of these were worth the morning after dizziness and drowsiness and they shouldn’t be used long term. Basically I’m not a comfortable pill taker. So at my last visit, my doctor tossed out “just take some Benadryl,” which targets allergic reactions and has quieted many a small child on those long car and plane trips.

Benadryl….I can do. It’ll work on my sinuses too. It’s also the PM component of Tylenol PM and other sedative antihistamines that several friends swear by. But then I read about the danger of anticholinergic drugs, which antihistamines as well as many other popular painkillers and antidepressants are classified as. The cumulative effect can be cognitive impairment and memory loss and heavy users had an increased death rate in a recent study conducted by the Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia in England. Oh no!

You can’t avoid some of these medications but you can be sure to make your doctor aware of all that you are or have been taking so that you don’t experience an anticholinergic overload. And they probably shouldn’t be prescribed to older patients who have likely been taking them regularly for many years already. If you would like to know which drugs fall under this classification (and sometimes ignorance is bliss), you can acquaint yourself with the Anticholinergic Burden Scale here. A score of three is the most serious.

So now where are we? Drugs are not bad unto themselves. It’s the frequency with which we take them and how we balance the variety of medicines that are now available for whatever ails us. But sleeplessness can be chronic. Maybe we should take those healthy sleep habit tips (no daytime napping, darkened room, etc.) we’ve often skimmed past more seriously? Learn from our rare friends who sleep like a baby? My 94 year old aunt told me at lunch today that the only time she remembers not being able to sleep was when she was a toddler. Her mother made her a cup of Ovaltine and tucked her in. Hm. Could be the Ovaltine that worked. Or just maybe it’s the being tucked in we all miss?

Caryl visits: Undiscoverd Florida--Part 1!

I’m not one for the Sunshine State but my much older sister, who lives on a small island off the Gulf Coast, was celebrating a significant birthday, a number that matters little to her but I can barely say aloud.  The first night I arrived there was a small party which Pat (my much older sister) was unable to attend because she had caught  a 24-hour flu that very day. It was still a fun gathering of spirited women of many ages including a spritely one in her 90s, whom was celebrating a different occasion. She had just passed her driver's test and told me: “I can now drive until 2018!”  Ahh Florida!

Once Pat felt better, we decided to go off-island.  In the process of our road-tripping we discovered a couple of points of interest I doubt are in many guide books.  We are always in search of new horizons, both physical and mental.  And, on the last day of my brief visit, we hit the jackpot finding two places: one that renewed the body and the other that tickled the mind.

Not far from Sarasota in a town called Northport, we came upon THE MIRACLE WATER! This little-known pool contains nine million gallons of healing water filled with 51 minerals—more than Vichy or Aix les Bain in France, or even Baden Baden in Germany.  The waters have the highest mineral content of any in the United States, all heated to a bathtub-like tempeature of 87 degrees. Back in the 16th century,  the Native Americans had told Ponce De Leon about a place that could make people young again. While in search of this fountain of youth, he came within footsteps of this site. Today the National Register of Historic Places lists the locale, and a small fountain and marker at the entry documents this is indeed the place de Leon had been pursuing.

So why haven’t you heard of it? Maybe because it is a nondescript place with tall, dignified palms and tacky plastic chairs. In other words, it hasn’t been gentrified yet.  Consider its (marketing) slogan, for example: “You’ll feel better.”  Where's the hype? What about looking younger? There are no deeply-tanned bikini-wearers with their Louis Vuitton beach bags and La Mer sunscreen here. Rather the crowd we saw were mostly Eastern Europeans and Russians wearing sometimes wacky hats--one woman had a flower-covered sombrero-- and conversing in their native dialects while clinging to flotation noodles. A man I encountered neck-deep in the waters told me he was orginally from Slovakia and had relocated to Toronto but had been coming to these springs for more than 35 years.  A fairly fit and healthy fellow, he applauded the properties of the water for balancing out the toxins of modern life.

Pat and I only stayed a few hours, enjoying the warmth of both sun and water.  We had gotten used to the smell of sulphur and almost didn’t mind the straight-backed chairs. We read the local papers--those are Pat's decidedly youthful gams above--between dips and found out the county government had approved a proposal to upgrade the mineral waters to more spa-like facilities. Once we had slipped out of our swimsuits and into street clothes, we agreed our skin did feel silkier-- and my knees barely ached despite the previous day's four-mile-long beach hike. As we got back in our car and headed toward I-75 and our next adventure, I swear the birthday girl (that's her below) looked a mere 60.

Part 2:  The Museum of Art and Whimsy