Lauren Takes Leave!

I am thrilled to announce that my novel, Lauren Takes Leave, is now available for purchase at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.  Click HERE to go to the book's page on Amazon!

IMPORTANT!  In other news, my blog has been moved to my new website, www.juliegerstenblatt.com.  I will not be updating this On the Verge site after July, 2012.  All new content -- plus the older posts -- can now be found at one convenient cyber-location.  I'd love to have you follow me there!

Summer Cocktails for Moms

We moms have it hard in May and June.  The social calendar that we tend to throughout the year virtually explodes for the spring season, with graduation parties and birthday parties and class parties and final exams and proms and cookies to bake and brownies to bake and teachers to thank and yearbooks to distribute and camp trunks to pack and backpacks to unpack and trip forms to fill out and letters to send to camp and Father’s Day to plan and little league playoffs and final recitals and band concerts and about a million other obligations that keep our heads spinning.  Until now.  Because now, we have reached Nirvana.  We have reached the end of June.

         

Ah.  Say it with me.  The end of June.  Now exhale.

            

At the end of June, and well into July and August, Mommy needs – no, Mommy deserves - a cocktail.

            

Here are some of my personal summer faves.  Continue here.

Relax at Yoga Haven

I recently got the chance to try a class at Yoga Haven 2, located at 91 Montgomery Avenue in Scarsdale.  The studio, owned by Betsy Kase, is the new outpost of the beloved Tuckahoe yoga studio, which Kase first opened 15 years ago.

            

This is not me.

“Back then, Madonna was on the cover of Time magazine doing yoga, and people couldn’t believe that you could look like her from doing only that,” Kase explained.  “Now, people have more understanding of it.”  In the past few years, in addition to growing her studio across the board, she has seen an increased interest from prenatal clients, seniors, men, and even children.

            

“Eleven year olds spend 8 hours a day sitting in a chair in school,” she said.  And then they go to play sports, sports, sports nonstop, without much stretching, “so they are getting tighter and tighter,” which can be rough on the body.  That’s why Yoga Haven offers a variety of classes for kids and teens, including a Monday evening class just for boys.  “We do handstands and hang from ropes, and lots of other fun things,” she explained. 

Now, as you may know from other articles I’ve written, I am into spinning, not stretching.  But after pulling my calf from three consecutive days of fast, repetitive pedaling, I knew that I needed to try something else. Continue here.

Interview with Annabel Monaghan, author of new YA novel, A Girl Named Digit

You know that feeling you get from holding a new book in your hands, excited by the promise of the first few pages?  That’s how I felt when I first read A Girl Named Digit by Annabel Monaghan.  It was a Saturday morning.  My Kindle and I crept downstairs in the dim morning light and hid under a blanket on the far end of the couch in the sunroom, pretending that we were still asleep.  In that way, I disappeared from my family’s radar for the better part of the morning, and by the time they found me and begged for breakfast, I was already hooked on Digit.

            

And that was good news, because before reading her novel, I was already hooked on Annabel Monaghan.

Annabel and I met in a novel writing workshop at Sarah Lawrence College in the Fall of 2010.  She was there to workshop a project called Digit, and since her novel was completed and the rest of ours were not, we read her manuscript first.  In person, Annabel is funny and self-deprecating and humble and smart.  She’s the one you want to sit next to in class so that you can pass notes back and forth and give each other meaningful eye rolls, as if a continuing education course at a local college is the same setting as your high school biology lab.  (Which, in a way, it is.) By week two, we had our own little inside jokes. As I sank into my couch, I desperately hoped that her book would live up to the real her. Continue reading here.

Grace's Table: A Restaurant Review in the Gerstenblatt Style

Grilled octopi!

There’s no doubt about it:  Scarsdale village, with eight local eateries featuring outdoor dining options, is the new European capital of Westchester.   Meanwhile, Central Avenue is… still Central Avenue.  That being said, it’s worth leaving the Village proper (and all the chocolate croissants one could want) every now and then for fine dining at a pretty spot called Grace’s Table, located at 324 Central Avenue in White Plains. 

            

Grace’s Table is part of the restaurant and marketplace team led by the Balducci and Doria families, known for the Balducci’s markets, Grace’s Marketplace, and Grace’s Trattoria.  In other words, as soon as I heard the name “Grace Balducci Doria” I made a reservation for dinner.  And you should too.  The restaurant serves upscale American fare for lunch Mon-Fri and dinner nightly.  They also have a private party room in a wine cave on the lower level.

            

Brett and I arrived about 45 minutes early for an 8:30 reservation, checked in with the hostess, and went to have a drink at the bar.  “If you have a table ready any earlier, we’d love to take it.  It’s just that the babysitter arrived and we had to escape while we could,” I explained.

            

“Understood.  If you’d like, I could give you this table right here,” she said.  We did like.  We sat.  (There are several rooms to choose from, so you might want to poke around; we were happy to just sit.)

            

The table next to us happened to be occupied by two couples from Edgemont that I’ve known for years.  We chatted for a while and I told them that Brett and I were here on an official culinary assignment.  Everyone got very excited and started telling me about their tasty selections.

            

Continue reading here.

           

           

The 10:52 Local

A day in free verse poetry

On the Starbucks lanai

dappled sunlight

watching the trains go by

iced grande green tea

sweetened

two dollars and thiry one

cents a day

after spin class

on a warm spring day

I stay hydrated and,

finished chatting,

head to DeCicco’s for

taco meat.

It’s Monday

So that is

dinner always

before piano practice and after

tennis, perhaps a stop at

the candy store

Where I steal a mini

peanut butter cup from Andrew’s

thoughtfully curated bag.

“Hey!” he shouts, but I unwrap

it and, pop, into my mouth it goes.

There are no calories from candy

meant for your kids;

everybody

knows that.

Zoe’s collection is mostly

chewy and bad

for my temporary crown.

I dig through and hand it back.

I could have bought

a Celine bag

with the money spent

on endodontics

but I needed

the new tooth

and the pocketbook

is always only a fantasy

like the beach house

and the movie deal

so I wave

to my reflection

in the storefront window

whenever I drive by.

There are always

nice things, as

my mother would say.

Finished shopping

for camp clothes

all labeled

Andrew’s first time away.

Upon safe return,

will he still let me kiss

him in public?

Do you have time for a mani-pedi?

a friend asks.

I have a book to sell and another

to write

(there’s always something

to write, a text, an email

a pin, a tweet)

but sure, mademoiselle.

Zoe and I will bond in July,

hang out at the town pool

apply sunscreen

and be lazy together.

There’s so much

I don’t know.

An uncertain world,

I manage it

through certain, predictable routines,

and try not to worry

like Brett does

as another train passes.

Digging through the junk,

we find small bits of beauty,

and in that way

life is like the sidewalk sale.

I drink it in.

And that’s my tale.

Looking forward to

summertime in the ‘dale.

My husband the...triathlete?

Artist, yes. Successful businessman, sure. Snarky comment maker, indeed. But here are words I'd never thought I'd utter: I'd like to introduce you to my husband, Brett, the triathlete. When Brett and I met in 1996, he was merely a summertime tennis player, and, when I was not chain-smoking, I occasionally attended a step-aerobics class. In Central Park, we went to Sheep Meadow to hang out instead of going for a run around the reservoir. I thought we were perfectly matched in every way.

When we moved in together in Brooklyn a few years later, we joined a gym and attended spin and yoga classes side by side. Skip ahead 12 years, and you will find that spin and yoga is where I still remain. Brett, however, has moved on. Way on.

My husband now goes to the gym. A lot. He has a trainer. He does something called box jumps. He wears something called a weight vest. When I said I'd marry him in sickness and in health, I didn't know quite how healthy he meant.

Continue reading here...