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Susan Getgood's personal blog

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Spring has sprung, and I’m out and about

05.09.2014 by Susan Getgood //

It’s finally spring in the Northeast. The relief on the faces you see on the street, in the subway, on the commuter rail platform is palpable. Even a little rain doesn’t seem to dampen the spirits. Last weekend, I was out and about in the glorious weather.

Starting with a reception for the exhibit of Posey Krakowsky’s quilts Friday night.

Posey Quilt

If you are in NY this month, and in the vicinity of Lex and 54th, take a few minutes and stop into the Narthex Galley at St. Peter’s Church and check out the quilts. It is a small exhibit of 4 large wall-size quilts, so it won’t take you long, and well worth the stop. The exhibit, originally scheduled to end at the end of May, now runs through June 27th.

LTYM NY

On Sunday, I attended the New York Listen To Your Mother show at Peter Norton Symphony Space. BlogHer is the national media sponsor.

There are Listen To Your Mother shows in 30-plus cities across the country, so while you’ve probably missed the boat for this year, mark your calendars now for next spring. This year’s performances also will be on YouTube by summer, and they just announced that  a collection of essays will be published next year, so plenty of other ways to Listen To Your Mother.

Looking for something to do this weekend?

Friday May 9th is the premiere of Laurie David’s new film, Fed Up. I was privileged to attend a launch event for David’s new cookbook The Family Cooks where she also screened the trailer for the film. Co-produced by Katie Couric, the film digs deep into the true impact of sugar on our diets, and promises to share some truths about food and exercise that the food industry doesn’t want us to know.

For my part, this week I am in Las Vegas at the BlogPaws pet blogging conference. Thursday,  I led a workshop on monetizing your blog, and today I will be soaking up the positive mojo from so many lovely pet people.

Here’s the early morning view from my window at the Westin Lake Las Vegas.

westin las vegas

Next weekend (May 16-17) is the BlogHer Food conference in Miami. Always a good time (and good eats).  I have passed through Miami many times, but have never had time to actually visit the city. This time, I arrive the day before and am hoping to grab a little time to check out the food scene in Little Havana and South Beach. I know the Food Conference will offer tons of  inspiration for my weekend “pretend to be a food blogger” videos, so I apologize to you in advance!

Happy Mother’s Day — whether you are one, have one or know one!

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Categories // Art, Blogging, Conferences, Friends, Spring, Travel Tags // BlogHer, Katie Couric, Laurie David, Miami, New York City

Au revoir mon ami

01.04.2013 by Susan Getgood //

Earlier this week a good friend from high school died of cancer. We’d lost touch about 20 years ago — sometime in the early 90s — but for more than 10 years we were very close, though high school, college and our early adult years.

I won’t lay claim to grief. That emotion belongs to his family and the friends for whom he was a daily presence, not a just a deeply cherished memory.

But I am profoundly sad.

Sad because the world has lost a good, kind and true man. A friend you could rely on — and we relied on each other a lot during those years we were close.

Sad because there are now things about me that no one else living will remember because they were moments or thoughts or feelings that were only shared with him. My memory of the last time we saw each other is fuzzy; although I think it was for dinner at a Bertucci’s in South Boston, I’m not entirely sure. The only other person who would remember is my friend. And I can’t ask him.

As is the way, my memory of earlier times is much clearer. We both loved good food. I remember making spaghetti carbonara with him in his apartment in New Haven. And steak au poivre from the French Chef cookbook one New Year’s Eve many years ago. And galettes and croque-monsieurs and hours playing backgammon and drinking black coffee (and sometimes mulled wine) at cafés in Rennes during our year at School Year Abroad.

I remember his first pets. Because I was responsible. A cat that had been living in my mom’s house (but not her cat) had four kittens, in her house, and we feared the owners would treat the babies as badly as they had the mother. I was still in college at the time, and escaped from my mom’s with the kittens barely an hour before the owners showed up looking for them. I intended to keep two, and had convinced my friend to take one, but didn’t have a home for the fourth. There was no way I could have three kittens in a tiny dorm room, so my friend  (who had an apartment) kept two, naming them Grand Marnier (Marnie) and Sambucca (Bucca). My kittens had the more prosaic names of Mischief and Trouble.

His sister friended me on Facebook about a year ago, for which I am very grateful, as I was able to follow his story this past year through what she shared on Facebook. I’d half-hoped to hear from him after she reached out, but also understand why I did not, respected it and never pushed the issue.

In December, her updates made it clear that things were worsening, and for the past week, it seemed like everywhere I turned, I was hearing music that reminded me of him.

Because my friend loved to dance. So many of my memories of him are related to dancing and music. At the AfLatAm dances in Andover our Lower Middle year,  at clubs in France during our SYA year in 1978-79 and then later during college and the years after when we would get together.

Just after Christmas driving north to finish retrieving the last of my personal belongings from what is now my ex’s house, I heard the Commodores’ Brick House and I was 16 again, at an AfLatAm dance on a Saturday night.

And then, watching the film Ruby Sparks with my family, I heard — for the first time in years — Plastic Bertrand’s Ça plane pour moi, which was hugely popular when we were in France.

The lyrics are pretty nonsensical, even if you speak French, but a good translation of  “ça plane pour moi” is “things are going well for me.”

And that is my hope for you, mon cher ami — that, wherever “after” takes us, “ça plane pour toi.”

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