January 10, 2008
The Three Tomatoes Book Club, Tea at Gracie Mansion, and Taking
Better Care of Ourselves
Well according to last week’s poll, 50% of you hate the New Year’s
resolution thing, and 25% of you who made resolutions, have broken them already. Well The Three
Tomatoes hate them too, but we did make three promises to ourselves this year. And
while we may be splitting hairs, a promise is so much more hopeful and optimistic than a resolution, don’t you think? So
our three promises are 1) to read more books just for the shear enjoyment; 2) be more proactive and “preventive” about our health and;
3) take the time to enjoy and discover more of the great things NYC has to offer. So even if you didn’t make a resolution,
or already broke one or two, or vowed to keep your resolutions, you may just want to join in on our promise thing.
Here’s how.
Join The Three Tomatoes “Just for the fun of it” Book Club
We really do love to read. In fact, one of our proudest moments
was winning the 6th grade book reading contest, which involved reaching a planet for each book you read, and we got all the way to
Pluto. Which was still considered a planet way back then, and we personally have mourned its heave ho from the planetary
system, but that’s another story. Then for many years we traveled for business extensively and the only good
by-product of that was we got to read a lot. But lately, we start reading at bedtime and two pages later we’re
asleep. We thought briefly about joining a book club. You know, the kind where you actually
meet up somewhere, read some over rated erudite novel, and sit around with a group of pseudo-intellectuals and try to pretend that you understood all
the subplots and the layered meanings. As we said, we thought about that briefly, because honestly these days, we just want to read
novels we enjoy, without over thinking them, and then sharing them with our friends, along with a thought or two along the way.
Then a brilliant idea occurred to us. Why not start our own virtual book club? Of course, this idea will only be brilliant if some of you actually participate, so we’re counting on
you.
Here’s how it works.
Go the Book Club and vote for
February’s book from three choices. We will announce the February book on January 17th and you will have a month
to read it. (We’re not picking War and Peace length epics, so that should be long enough.) Then
starting February 14th we will pose questions about the book once a week for a month. And of course,
you’ll also get to vote for the March book.
If you’ve read Water for Elephants, one of our favorite books from last year, you can participate in our book club right now, by responding to our first discussion
question. Check back every Thursday for new questions. So join in the discussion.
Who knows, it could be fun, you don’t have to leave your house, and you’ll have time to think about your answers and post pithy
comments. Just don’t pull that pseudo-intellectual stuff on us. Now if we could just do virtual
martinis.
Tea at Gracie Mansion anyone?
One of New York City’s many treasures is Gracie Mansion, but up until recently, you could only get
inside if you were invited, usually to some sort of fundraiser or “A” list event. Located on the Upper East Side,
with sweeping views of the East River, Gracie Mansion was the summer house of the wealthy merchant Archibald Gracie back in the early
1800s. It was made the official residence of the Mayor of the City of New York in 1942 by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. and with the
exception of Mayor Bloomberg (who chose to stay in his own sumptuous digs), all of our recent mayors have lived there. But it is
Mayor Bloomberg who gave Gracie Mansion a makeover (mostly
with his own funds), calling it the “People’s House” and threw the doors open to the visiting public back in the fall of
2002. Now there are tours every Wednesday, and, here’s the best part, Tuesday afternoon teas for groups of 25-50 for
$25. So if you are interested in joining The Three Tomatoes on a Tuesday afternoon for tea at
Gracie Mansion, email us and we’ll try to put together a group
of tomatoes.
Taking care of us
You know all those annoying, embarrassing, and pesky tests like mammograms,
and colonoscopies that many of us would rather forget about? And yes, we admit, we’ve been guilty of the “we’d just rather not
know” or “we just don’t have time” excuses too. Well now there’s a web site called selfchec, which was created to encourage people like us and those we
love to keep healthy from cancers that are often preventable, treatable and curable: Colon, Breast, Skin, Lung, Oral, Testicular, Cervical, Prostate
and Ovarian. According to the American Cancer Society more than 60 percent of all cancer deaths could be prevented if
Americans stopped smoking, exercised more, ate healthier food and got recommended cancer screenings. Selfchec is not only a great resource, but more importantly it urges
self care through caring card kits, learning how to do self- checks, email reminders (that don’t nag, but encourage) and several other
pro-active items that may just save your life or that of a loved one.
Well here’s to ’08. We’re just going to be
so well read, healthy, and cultured this year, we can hardly stand ourselves.
‘til next week,
The Three Tomatoes
Copyright©2008. The Three Tomatoes. All rights
reserved.
