Behold my favorites at Fashion’s Night Out on Rodeo Drive last weekend. The mood was very festive, and I noticed that the most prevalent trends are: feathers, found objects, crystals, satin, and skinny pants. Oh right, and there was a ferris wheel! Too much fun!

Back to school is the theme of my life this week. Sunday was Rock School, Monday was preschool. I joke that I can just as easily raise a successful rock star as I can as a successful banker or lawyer – if you have a child that shows talent in music it’s all in the way the parents play it. Now that I’ve seen the kids of RockSchoolFund, I am completely vindicated in my theory. I heard the buzz about the fund and that there would be performances by the students and Dave Stewart at a new restaurant from the An Family down in Costa Mesa, so I laid out the Critter’s clothes for the next morning, gave my Perfect Husband bedtime instructions, and hopped on the 405 to see what was happening.

Since the Ans are restaurant royalty here in Beverly Hills, I was very interested to see what the family who brought us Asian fusion at Crustacean would offer down in the County of Orange. I was completely blown away! I arrived a few minutes before my friends, so I had some time to walk around and scrutinize the place. As a designer who has spent time working in the hospitality field, it’s hard to get me excited about the design of a new restaurant, but I was gasping all over the place. AnQi opened a few months ago and is the progeny of An third generation Elizabeth – AnQi is spectacular! The physical restaurant is amazing, housing a noodle bar, catwalk/soundstage, cocktail bar, main dining room, and mineral gardens – a Feng Sui dream. No detail has been left unattended, even the washrooms are beautifully appointed down to the burnished edges of tile seams. Honestly, food would have been an afterthought after the visual sensory delights, but after tasting about five of the signature dishes I was ready to see if I could just live there. From now on.

When I thought it couldn’t get any better, Dave Stewart came out with his new diva. I was a huge fan of the Eurythmics in their heyday, and it appears that Dave has continued to embrace talent for his tunes. The School of Rock All Stars are clearly being taught well. As a “rock music school teaches kids to play music by teaching them rock and roll, with a curriculum that includes Led Zeppelin, The Who, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, The Beatles, and Black Sabbath….the Classics”, my whole table was rocking out to these kids who were not even born when most of these songs were originally hits! The whole place was singing along with the Gwen Stefani cover that you can see in the video. It was all love and happiness, and I managed to get home in time to sleep a little and then take the Critter for his first day of preschool. I only cried once, I promise.

Celebrity and gastronomie were abundant last night at the ultimate foodie event A Taste of Beverly Hills, in support of the Beverly Hills Education Foundation. Sponsored by Food&Wine and other esteemed luxury brands, it was divine decadence at its finest with tastings of a myriad of the city’s finest foods and libations, entertainment by Natasha Bedingfield, bestowment of honors on Wendie Malick, Larry King, Kardashians and Jenners (in spite of their comments heard on the video), and a chance for folks in the neighborhood to enjoy community spirit.

Taste of Beverly Hills sessions continue throughout the weekend and there are still tickets available for sampling all the drink and delicacies you can contain. Attending more than once is a necessity, as no human could imbibe it all in one session. I hope you’ll check out the excitement tomorrow and Sunday – click here for more information, and enter BHEF50 for a $50 discount! I’ll be there tomorrow night trying the wines that I didn’t have time to try last night, and Sunday checking out barbeque, Beverly Hills style.

The diet begins again after Labor Day. Really.

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I recently spent my first weekend away from the Critter and my Perfect Husband EVER. This epic voyage occurred so that I might attend Bloggy Boot Camp – a great day long workshop that enlightened me about this thing called social media. I learned a lot, had a great time visiting with old and new friends, and explored a few places I haven’t yet seen in the city by the bay. I missed my family, returned happy to have had some time alone and grateful to have a life worth missing.

I was initially invited by the amazing folks at PBS to their annual fall press tour to get a preview of their new kids’ programming. I LOVED the new shows and will tell you all about them before they air. I have to say, though, that being invited to sit about fifteen feet from Yoko Ono and to hear her field questions from the press was really something. Although I am not quite old enough to have lived during the initial rage that was the Beatles, I was very aware of the disdain folks have for Ms Ono-Lennon, and probably have reiterated that she was the cause of their breakup. For that, Yoko, I apologize – I was so ignorant!

Yoko was at the Beverly Hilton to promote LENNONYC, a new PBS American Masters documentary chronicling the life of the Lennon family in New York after the breakup of the Beatles. I remember the press having a field day with their entry into the country and Nixon trying to deport them, I remember how much people hated Yoko, and most of all, I remember this photo by Annie Leibovitz. Upon receiving my copy of Rolling Stone in the mail, I remember thinking to myself (as a high school sophomore in Mississippi) that I hoped to be loved one day like John loved Yoko. It took me about twenty five years to attain that goal, and now I have things that Yoko had – an adoring husband, a precious child, and a home. These are things worth protecting, and how this tiny hip septuagenarian managed to keep the wolves at bay, survive the loss of John, and raise a son in safety is nothing short of phenomenal .

I was not prepared for how endearing Yoko would be. I was REALLY not prepared for how well I understood her plight, which, after seeing her this close, I do – she is the keeper of the flame, of the treasure that was her home. I was surprised that pro journalists still wanted to dwell on criticisms of her, veiled by polite demeanor / rude questions, like “Why didn’t you move out of the Dakota?”, the Manhattan apartment building occupied by many famous people. Yoko said “because John lives there”. Then she flatly told the reporter that his question was sexist and racist and that no one would have questioned a white man about why he stayed in a home he shared with his deceased wife.

We viewed footage of the film and we all wanted more. I think if the world had seen this footage while John was still alive, the public opinion would have swayed more toward seeing the two of them as a love story, not kooks, as they were often portrayed. This is the crux of the dilemma of being the keeper of the flame – can Yoko ever give enough of her home to the people who loved Lennon? She mentioned that she was stunned by the amount of footage that was available to make the film – that she had so carefully guarded their private life and that even thirty years later there are still so many reels and negatives from the days before the internet that she viewed for the first time during production of LENNONYC.

One clip in the movie was a recollection of Lennon’s producer seeing him push his son Sean in a stroller Central Park and noticing that John seemed so happy with this part of his life, that the producer chose not to broach the subject of making a new album (which would later evolve to “Double Fantasy“) – why would he take on that aggravation now that he had such riches of home and fatherhood. Yoko’s comment about this particular incident was that before John came to New York, only nannies strolled babies in the Park! No daddies did that – daddies were at the office and didn’t do domestic things like that! John Lennon was a trailblazer not only in music but in the realm of fatherhood.

I also noted that she twitters “on the weekends”. I am now a devoted follower! LENNONYC will air Monday, November 22 at 9pm on PBS

I should be writing to tell you about the PBS Press Tour, where I saw lots of wonderful new programming for the fall at the Beverly Hilton plus famous people like Ken Burns and Yoko Ono, but, well, the Critter and Louis XIV needed some mommy time today.

I’ll be back with more inspiration soon xoxo

Some things are quintessential Beverly Hills, and those are the things I really enjoy. Watching television and movies as a child gave me a certain perception of what it would be like here – glamorous, fun, festive, tropical, with star watching. All these were rolled into one evening under the stars at the Aqua Star Pool of the Beverly Hilton. I always try to be the mom who finds activities for My Perfect Husband, my Critter and I that combine that lust for glamour and can also give the kidlet something fun to do. When I got the invitation to screen Shrek at the pool and enjoy tiki cocktails(we can WALK home!) while the kids laugh at the ogre, I was all over it – called Dr. Leila and told her to get her posse over there too.

The weather was just cool enough to turn on the heat lamps and settle in to watch Shrek while dining from the menu of the fabulously renovated Trader Vic’s. I must say the Hilton looks really fabulous – it’s been a while since I last spent time at the pool, and it is comfortable and luxurious, and the staff was exceptionally gracious and attentive. The kids had a ball, the grownups got to relax a bit and enjoy the balmy evening with good friends.

Of COURSE I won’t disappoint you by not giving a celebrity sighting – I have a three for one! I noticed a pretty lady with a hibiscus in her hair and as I focused on her I realized that she was Betsy Brandt of Breaking Bad, the AMC series that has had me in fits for three seasons. Also with Ms. Brandt was Dean Norris, who plays her husband in the series along with Vince Gilligan, the executive producer. The characters Brandt and Norris play on Breaking Bad have had a very crazy scary life lately and I had to tell them what a great job they have done with the material – they were super nice and said that we can look forward to more BB next summer.

I’d like to thank the folks at the Beverly Hilton and Trader Vic’s for a very Beverly Hills evening!