Friday 5ive- April 29, 2022

The Friday 5ive is back after a long hiatus. I've been away on Fridays for awhile so I have a lot to cover.

1)  I had a big birthday earlier this month, and the celebrations went on for a long time and all were lovely. My kids came over for dinner, and my husband ordered a fabulous chocolate peanut butter cake from 

We Take the Cake, bakery in Miami. He said he knew I secretly loved chocolate and peanut butter, but that is not a well-kept secret- everyone who knows me is aware of that. We all loved the cake, it tasted just like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. The next night we went to dinner at Ocean's Prime and I ordered the Deviled Eggs with Caviar on top. They were delicious, and I graciously shared them with my sons and husband. 

2)  Monday night I was awakened at 3am by loud explosions. It sounded like fireworks right outside my window, and when I opened the window blinds, that is exactly what I saw. It only lasted a few minutes, and the fireworks didn't travel very high, not even above the high rise across the street. There was a lot of chatter on the Nextdoor Neighbors website, with people not believing it was fireworks, but I saw it with my own eyes, and the next day my friend sent me a photo from the street that confirmed it. So there.

3) I am so glad that in-person book events are back! On  Monday night, Adriana Trigiani was in conversation with the charming Willie Geist talking about her fabulous new novel, The Good Left Undone, at the gorgeous Rizzoli Bookstore. (My rave review of the book is here.) Willie Geist started off by saying that interviewing Adriana is like lighting the fuse on a firework- just light it and she's off. (I wonder if Willie has an alibi for later that night....) The standing room-only crowd enjoyed hearing about the wedding that Adriana crashed in Scotland that led her to write the fictional story of the Cabrelli family in Tuscany. The Cabrellis have been gem cutters and designers for generations, and Trigiani told of taking a gemology class at Christie's auction house in New York that helped with her research. 

Adriana covered a lot of ground in this freewheeling discussion and we learned so many fun facts, such as 

1) Adriana had a mad crush on Orson Wells

2) St. Bernard of Clairvaux was not a handsome man

3) Adriana didn't know you could buy Sweet & Low in a store. Her grandmother would take the packets from the restaurant tables and put them in her purse. Her grandmother passed away in 1987 and they still have Sweet & Low packets from her stash.

4) Elizabeth Taylor had size 11 shoes. You never saw her feet in any of her movies.

Yes, the evening was filled with laughs, fascinating information about the creation of The Good Left Undone, and it was so great to see so many people I haven't seen in a long time. It was like the good old days. I even got to meet author Jane L. Rosen, whose terrific novel Eliza Starts A Rumor I sent as Christmas gifts two years ago. I'm looking forward to reading her upcoming novel, A Shoe Story, publishing in June. I can't wait to go to more in-person book events in the future. 

4)  I binge-watched season two of Bridgerton on Netflix, and I have to agree with my friends- season two was better than season one! Season one was all about the sexy with the Duke and Daphne, and season two was about the slow burn romance between Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma. We watched with bated breath as Anthony and Kate fought their mutual attraction as Anthony was to marry Kate's younger sister. Once again we had gorgeous costumes and jewelry (those tiaras!), beautiful scenery, and Queen Charlotte. I love how they deepened the family relationships, we really got to know the Bridgerton family and their friends and frienemies. I can't wait for season three. 

5)  I've read some terrific books. The first one is a true crime book, which is not a genre I normally read. Kathryn Miles' Trailed, about her investigation into the murders of two young women in Shenandoah National Park in 1996 had me riveted. Miles takes us through the missteps into the investigation, the arrest of a suspect whom she doesn't believe is guilty, and the lives of the two young women cut short by a brutal act. My full review is here. 

Jessica Anya Blau's novel, Mary Jane, comes out in paperback, and I loved this one. Mary Jane lives a sheltered life with her straightlaced parents in 1970s Baltimore. Mary Jane doesn't have many friends, sings in the church choir, and helps her mother cook dinner in order to learn how to be a good housewife. She gets a summer job babysitting for the precocious child of their neighbors, who are decidedly more progressive in their lifestyle. They wander around the house nearly naked, and don't cook meals for their daughter, subsisting on fast food and cereal. When a rock star and his famous singer/actress wife come to stay to be treated in secret by the father, a psychiatrist, Mary Jane is mesmerized by everything going on this household. Blau absolutely nails what it feels like to be a fourteen year-old girl in this wonderful novel, a perfect summer read. 

Next week, I'll share my visit to Boston. Stay safe and healthy all!

A Great Book For Father's Day- Good Talk Dad by Bill and Willie Geist

Good Talk Dad by Bill and Willie Geist

Published by Grand Central ISBN 978145554727

Hardcover, $27, 272 pages

Bill Geist has been doing pieces for CBS Sunday Morning for years. He usually profiles interesting (quirky) people and places, and his sense of humor makes me smile. His son Willie Geist is currently one of the co-hosts on the third hour of the Today Show, and is featured on MSNBC's Morning Joe. He clearly inherited his father's sense of humor.

Just in time for Father's Day, they have written a book that I dare say most of us can relate to: Good Talk Dad: The Birds and The Bees...And Other Conversations We Forgot To Have, which pokes fun at the fact that Bill never gave Willie 'the sex talk'. Come to think of it, they never had deep conversations about other important things either. Sound familiar?

Early on, Willie describes embarrassingly being baptized as a 19 year-old in a church service, along with several babies sleeping peacefully in their mother's arms. He asks: 

"Couldn't they have done this in a private ceremony before the service, as they do with the technical awards at the Oscars? In a ceremony earlier today, nineteen-year-old Willie Geist was given the sacrament of baptism."

If that made you giggle, you'll love this book as much as I did. Bill and Willie alternate telling stories from their lives, some of which differed depending on whom was telling it.

Bill and his wife Jody decided to send Willie to summer camp. But not to the camp that all Willie's friends were going to; Willie went to Camp Carson, "where convicted nonviolent offenders were sent to serve out their sentences", unbeknownst to Bill and Jody. That wasn't in the brochure. The campers had to decide whether they were safer backing the Latin Kings or the Spanish Gangster Disciples, who, at night, slashed each other car tires as a "prank".

When Bill received a $10,000 check to write a book, he bought a brand new red Jeep to celebrate. Willie loved his dad's "instinct to take that ten-thousand-dollar book check and spend every nickel of it as fast as you could, like a rapper who just got his first record deal".

Some of the funniest stories involve that Jeep. Jody taught Willie to drive on that Jeep, and then when it was all beat up and on its last legs, Jody drove down to Nashville to accompany Willie to college, but they had to make many stops along the way, coaxing that Jeep and stopping to repair it and feed it antifreeze several times before making it to Vanderbilt.

Bill and Willie shared a love of the New York Yankees and inappropriate humor. When Willie's basketball team held a year end banquet and discovered that the special guest was not a famous New Jersey Nets player but the team mascot, the boys pounded the poor mascot with rolls from the table. Some dads disciplined their sons, yanking them out of there. Bill laughed hysterically, thinking it was pretty darn funny.

There are serious moments in here, such as when Bill finally tells his children (after ten years) that he has Parkinson's disease. They found out when they received emails from people after reading about it on Bill's Facebook page. They suspected something was wrong, but never realized the truth.

I met Willie at Big Fish on Broadway- nice guy!

I loved the stories about aunts and uncles and grandparents; it reminded me of my own family. And when Willie becomes a dad, his stories about his children, Lucie and George, are utterly charming.

This is a perfect book to read this Father's Day, or to give as a gift. It is funny, heartwarming (but mostly funny) and Bill and Willie are terrific writers; their voices come shining through as if they sitting next to you on the couch, recounting their stories aloud. It's like S@$t My Dad Says, but without all the cursing.

rating 5 of 5