Alas, Defeat...

Only 3 days late, but who's countin'?

After nothin' but blue ribbons, I was finally dealt two bitter Cully Comps defeats...

First in the plank competition and then, the kip up. Video of that very unladylike melt down not fit for public consumption...

I take solace in the fact that I was taken down by my star athlete of a cousin...

DidYouALSOKnow...that Melissa sets up her competitors for failure by plying them with lethal margaritas?

Kindness of Melissa who will heed Uncle David's warning that, true to form, I will be practicing my li'l kip up heart out and by the time I roll into Greenwich I hope to be doing kip ups OVER you or die trying. That, annnd I'm revoking your mixology license. Let's leave the margarita making to the professionals please...XXOO

Cully Reunion Comps

Listen, that competitive apple didn't fall far from the Cully family tree. Day one of our reunion began with a dive off and yesterday's posted swim race. By night two, Uncle David was spearheading the one armed pull-up and wall sit contests...



Being inclusive, I devised a friendly handicap for my mother's attempt at a pull up. Guess those apples skipped a generation...

Kindness of Emma for whipping out her iPhone cuz she had the foresight to know this was gonna be rich...XXOO

My Mom, Style Icon

Like Piper Weiss, author of the book, and blog, My Mom, The Style Icon, I am sometimes shocked when I run across old photos of my mother looking stylishly glamorous...



Whatever happened to all those lovely pieces and why are they not now hanging in my closet?

L-R my Mother and my Aunt Carol
Do you know what kind of moola Babe I would fork over for a jacket cut just like that? Not to mention, I once paid $500 for a pair of Ralph Lauren shoes identical to that purse. Annnd, we now know the genesis of Hilbil's ham routine...

L-R My Papa, Uncle Stephen, Nana, Aunt Carol and Mother (MIA Uncle David away at Boarding School)
Why, oh why, did you insist on wearing the bottle green corduroy skirt with the mismatched panels that was my ninth grade Home Ec project when you could have been showing up to school dressed like this? I earned a "C" on that skirt for a reason...

L-R My Mother, Papa, Uncle Stephen, Nana and Aunt Carol (that Boarding School apparently strict on leave)
I want to know the whereabouts of that hat, those gloves AND that charm bracelet. Do you see this Kathleen cuz it looks as though Aunt Carol's been pulling the bamboo handled wool over your eyes too. And, is that ahhhh needlepoint purse Nana's carrying? NevermindIdon'tEVENwanttoknow...

L-R My Mother, li'l moi and my Father
Sigh...I'm going to have to go across the Pond in hopes of ever finding a pair of white kidskin gloves trimmed in red. But, donuts to dollars that Home Ec catastrophe's still hanging in the closet...

Kindness of my Mom for knowing I jest. I mourn but, I jest. I may not have the heirlooms but, I thank you for, from all accounts, dressing me so expensively when I was little. Babe, ESPECIALLY thanks you for that. And, as part of your Mother's Day gift, I've submitted your picture to Piper for posting on My Mom The Style Icon blog...XXOO

Final Rerun: Back By Popular Demand

My Uncle David has developed quite the cult following. So, to appease the masses, I'd thought I'd share the two page yearbook letter (click to enlarge) he wrote for my cousin Melissa when she graduated from Roland Park Country School in Baltimore. I think I just heard an audible groan clear from Bedford, NY. Sorry MAC, comes with the blood relation territory I guess...


Kindness of crowd favorite Uncle David. Happy Birthday! XXOO

Rerun: More From "The Works Of Uncle David"

Above is a picture of my Uncle David's dog, Ralph, who is listed as "son of " David and Carol and "brother of " Melissa in our family tree. And, below follows a recent correspondence between a long lost, distant relative looking for some help with the family tree and my très funny uncle:

Hello there,

I am trying to contact David Cully who is developing the Stephen's Glen project. I think we may be related. Can you either send me his email address or forward the following? Thanks so much.

-Rolando.

Hey there. Got your message [sic] yes, I am the son of Dorothy Gibson Cully, RIP.

But I need to tell you right up front - if you’re after a piece of the family fortune, you’re a day late and many dollars short. My sister Barbara ran off with just about all of the inheritance money, bought a fancy place in Zihuatanejo, and left the rest of here to freeze through the winters while she dances the Mariachi with her Mexican lover, Frostito. I think he sells drugs. Otherwise we’re all fine.

Now tell me again how we’re related. If Jeremiah and Catherine were siblings, how did they come to be married and have great grandchildren? And what’s with the de Aguiar name? Everyone knows that Carews, Cullys and Gibsons only marry Irish, or at least hard drinking Scots. Very suspicious.

Of course I am not the suspicious type, but my sister Carol is – what with all of this talk about money and you showing up suddenly with a weird last name; well, she’s kind of like Jessica Fletcher – picks up on all of these clues, if you know what I mean..

Anyway, please tell me how you tracked me down and more about the family tree as you know it. Hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
DPC

Ha! Now I know who wrote that obit!

I assure you that I'm not searching for anything, though I might need a
hideout in Zihuatanejo, so if you could send me Frostito's (sounds like some
sort of horrible flavored margarita) number, that would be helpful.

About a year ago I started an online family tree. I knew my mom had 35 first
cousins but I'd never met one. A few letters (paper!) later, I had one
contact, my mother's cousin Kathy Smith in Virginia. Well, this lady knew
all of her cousins, and pretty sure I had more names and ancestry than I
knew what to do with. And it turns out that I was pretty good with Google.
So when one third cousin linked me up with a list of Catherine Carew's
grandchildren, I dutifully popped their names into Google, and out came your
mom's obituary.

Six months later, I google "David Cully Raleigh" and, well, it's not that
common a name.

So, to answer your question, my great grandfather was Jeremiah (father of
Robert, father of Diane, mother of me). Jeremiah's sister was Catherine, who
married Robert Heard, had a daughter Kathleen, who had a daughter Dorothy
(your mom). I'll send you an invitation to the online tree. Of course my
grandfather was thrilled when his daughter married a Cuban.

I'll send you an invitation to the online tree so you can check it out.

-Rolando.

Key:

"Frostito" - my maiden name, Frost, with some added Mexican panache

"Zihuatanejo" - reference to my parent's home in Mexico

"sister Carol" - of Belgian loafer bogarting fame

Looks as though the tongue-in-cheek trait is quite a dominate gene in mi familia...XXOO

Rerun: Happy Birthday Nana

This is a post I ran on May 14th of last year. Due to popular demand, and a campaign waged by ADG over at camp Maxminimus, I am re-running it in honor of my Nana...

Since the 14th of May is my late Nana's birthday, I thought I'd share her infamous obituary with you. Written by my mother's brother, my Uncle David, it debuted in Raleigh's News and Observer but soon gained international notoriety...

The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC:
ON JUNE 3, 2005 at 10:45 p.m. in Memphis, Tennessee, Dorothy Gibson Cully, 86, died peacefully, while in the loving care of her two favorite children, Barbara and David. All of her breath leaked out.

The mother of four children, grandmother to 11, great-grandmother to nine, devoted wife for 56 years to the late Ralph Chester Cully and a true friend to many, Dot had been active as a volunteer in the Catholic Church and other community charities for much of the past 25 years.

She was born the second child of six in 1919 as Frances Dorothy Gibson, daughter to Kathleen Heard Gibson and Calvin Hooper Gibson, an inventor best known as the first person since the Middle Ages to calculate the arcane lead-to-gold formula. Unable to actually prove this complex theory scientifically, and frustrated by the cruel conspiracy of the so-called "scientific community" working against his efforts, he ultimately stuck his head in a heated gas oven with a golden delicious apple propped in his mouth. Miraculously, the apple was saved for the evening dessert. Calvin was not.

Native Marylanders and long time Baltimore, Kent Island and Ocean City residents, Ralph and Dot later resided in Lakeland, Florida and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Several years after Ralph's death, Dot moved to Raleigh in 2001, where she lived with her son, David.

At the time of her death, Dot was visiting her daughter, Carol in Memphis. Carol and her husband, Ron, away from home attending a "very important conference" at a posh Florida resort, rushed home 10 days later after learning of the death. Dot's other children, dutifully at their mother's side helping with the normal last minute arrangements - hospice notification, funeral parlor notice, revising the last will, etc. - happily picked up the considerable slack of the absent former heiress.

Dot is warmly remembered as a generous, spiritually strong, resourceful, tolerant and smart woman, who was always ready to help and never judged others or their shortcomings. Dot always found time to knit sweaters, sew quilts and send written notes to the family children, all while working a full time job, volunteering as Girl Scout leader and donating considerable time to local charities and the neighborhood Catholic Church.

Dot graduated from Eastern High School at 15, worked in Baltimore full time from 1934 to 1979, beginning as a factory worker at Cross & Blackwell and retiring after 30 years as property manager and controller for a Baltimore conglomerate, Housing Engineering Company, all while raising four children, two of who are fairly normal.

An Irishwoman proud of and curious about her heritage, she was a voracious reader of historical novels, particularly those about the glories and trials of Ireland. Dot also loved to travel, her favorite destination being Eire's auld sod, where she dreamed of the magic, mystery and legend of the Emerald Isle.

Dot Cully is survived by her sisters, Ginny Torrico in Virginia, Marian Lee in Florida and Eileen Adams in Baltimore; her brother, Russell Gibson of Fallston, Maryland; her children, Barbara Frost of Ocean City, Maryland, Carol Meroney of Memphis, Tennessee, David Cully of Raleigh, North Carolina and Stephen Cully of Baltimore, Maryland.

Contributions to the Wake County (NC) Hospice Services are welcomed. Opinions about the details of this obit are not, since Mom would have liked it this way.

As you may see, I do indeed come by this honestly, for the tongue-in-cheek apple doesn't fall far from the tongue-in-cheek tree...XXOO

Reurun: Bienvenue

It's wheels up and bikini on in about 48 hours for a couple glooorious weeks of sun worship at my parent's home in Ixtapa. I've decided to dig throughout the archives and roll out some back by popular demand reruns in my absence so that I can focus all my South of the Border energy on Emma's Tanning Challenge and converting kilometers into miles on the treadmill. See ya'll back here on the first day of Spring!

Tons of new faces 'round the hood since the NY Times mention on Sunday so, I thought it only proper to reintroduce myself and my merry band of cohorts...

Summer is a Verb is kind of a "Preppy Handbook meets The Waltons meets As the World Turns" with lots of good shopping, lots of thinking 'bout good shopping annnd lots of getting into trouble for good shopping...

My cast of recurring characters includes my beloved Templeton who is in the end stages of kidney failure buuut, bravely holding on til he's sure Mummy has all her emotional ducks in a row...

George, aka the Pilge, who has been waging a subversive campaign to have Mummy committed for Munchausen by proxy syndrome. This campaign has been fueled by an outlandish number of ER visits and it is only by the shear volume of "vet shopping" that I have survived any finger pointing thus far...

The southern college going nieces who love all things sun, fun and Lilly annnd will someday provide the apartment over the garage for their favorite aging Aunt...

Then there's Aide de Camp Lizzie. This entire blog evolved from years of daily emails swapped between the two halves of our one fashion brain. Other names frequently bandied about include bff Kimba, Uncle David of obit fame, Washington Royalty Amy, "illustrator to the bloggeratti" PVE, my notsosecret crush but, tastefully stalked Monty and good ole Belgian Shoe wearing, loud pants Maxminimus...

But, most importantly there's Babe. He's the brains and wit behind the curtain that funds the whole sheebang both emotionally and financially. As a consultant he travels the world leaving me to my own devices, i.e., as much shopping as I can sneak in between Monday and Friday, til he returns to us all at the beach house on the weekends. In a nutshell, I am one très lucky girl who gets to spend my free time writing about the people I love, the clothes that I covet and, the trouble that sometimes gets me into. Doesn't always pay to be married to a smartie pants...

Merci beaucoup to all for all the emails, tweets, BBM's and calls that have poured in since Saturday. I feel really blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family. Please don't forget me when my 15 minutes are up...XXOO

Post Anniversay High

My Dear Niece Alice,

Here’s a Happy 5th Anniversary wish for you and Josh….

He’s a great guy who happened to meet the Right woman; in many ways you are perfect for each other…Josh is cool, focused, considerate and tender toward you and always has one eye on the Big Picture. You are, well, You.

After the BOA (Birth of Alice), God quickly realized that you were one of a kind, shattered the mold and sent you on your merry, creative way. And you were definitely merry. And definitely creative. Then the star-born collision with Josh, and voila! – the couple of the decade was matched up! Five years and counting – you and Josh are going to be just fine.

I am happy for you both and wish you the best.

Love,
Uncle David

Merci Uncle David. Merci everyone for the abundance of Anniversary wishes we received. 'Twas a blissful weekend and, even poor Babe, who was coming off of only 6 hours sleep in a 72 hour period, rallied for some Allie requisite fun in the sun and a couple of celebratory dinners...

And, my inexpensive (read non-Hermes related or priced) 5th year gift of "wooden" mallets was very well received. I expect to be rewarded accordingly (read Hermes related AND priced)...

Kindness of Babe for generously being such a good sport during your brief time at home this weekend even though I know all you wanted and needed to do was sleep. I'll be holding down the fort here in "Candyland" til your return again Friday from Pinocchio's "Pleasure Island"...XXOO

Friday Funnies

Lat week, funnyman Maxminimus posted a bit about online dating pictures and encouraged all eligible gals to meet him on Saturday at the Old Town Alexandria Giant. That clever Meg, at Pigtown * Design blog, had us all in stitches with her Photoshopped response...

Ole Max (my term of endearment "Maxie" has been decreed verboten) has been spinning fielding questions about his non appearance ever since. According to his PR, he had moi, AllieVonNightStick, "deputized and appointed as Chief of the Butt Police. Anyone exceeding the Caliper/Weight Ratio was turned away at once". What he failed to mention though, was that it was an Hermes nightstick. I refuse to beat women off with anything less than the best...

Btw Meg, are you certain LFG said, "home counting his Belgians" or was it, "home cleeeaning his Belgians"???


My brother Keith and his girlfriend Nancy were inspired to launch their own field test after Monday's post. The jury's still out on the validity of the tape and, early reports looking into Uncle David's "white vs. red theory" are proving to be bunk. We now suspect the shoe trick only works when one is in France, or attempting to open French wine. However, a special dispensation is granted to those owning an Hermes beach towel...

And, last but not least, my mother's forward du jour. Is this where I initiate my complaint about how many "drugs" my parents made me do growing up?

Kindness of my brother Keith Frost and his girlfriend Nancy Guardado for mentioning Babe's old Aldo shoe in the credits. Never mind that youknowwho actually mailed you the shoes. And, Maxminimus, who has bestowed upon me more nicknames than a gal could shake an Hermes night stick at. I'm collecting them like I collect Canforas...XXOO

MacGyver Sommelier

Last week my Mom, the Queen of forwards, sent all us usual suspects on her mailing list this video of some drunk Frenchman opening a bottle of wine with just a shoe...

Thank goodness this ex Girl Scout actually watched it and took copious notes. Some of us "suspects" found ourselves in a corkscrewless predicament when my cousin Melissa's three year old twins hid the all important tool from us drunks adults...

So, outside we all hustled with a shoe and the bottle of wine so as not to wake the thieving babies...

Hey, I had a huge amount of confidence going in...

I once witnessed my Uncle David remove a cork from inside and empty bottle of wine with just a linen napkin...

But, after about five minutes of us all standing around watching and growing more desperate with each attempt, I started to rethink those two day old Margarita's idling in the kitchen...

By now my Dad had begun heckling voicing his snobbishness concern about the rising temperature and growing foam of the much handled wine...

Maybe we need a harder surface? Besides, the cork may not be budging but, the door frame of the rental house is starting to sound as though it is...

I think we all eventually had the same collective thought; this bottle of Fetzer's one thing but, that bottle of Sancerre on deck is quite another. Ohhh neighhhborrrr...may we trouble you for a corkscrew?

Moral of the story? Shoes ARE good for opening a bottle of wine. They walked us next door when we threw in the towel annnd they helped stabilize the who's counting? next few bottles for opening with the proper tool...

Which, turns out, nearly everyone had in their glove compartment all along. Maybe we would have had our wits more about us if we had started this game pre Vodka tonics...

Kindness of my infamous Uncle David, of obit fame, who is researching the validity of the shoe trick with a little YouTube due diligence and a red versus white theory. I'm hoping to have his report on my desk in time for Amy's Fahrenkopf's birthday dinner. Mama needs a new party trick! XXOO

Happy Birthday Nana

This is a post I ran on May 14th of last year. Due to popular demand, and a campaign waged by ADG over at camp Maxminimus, I am re-running it in honor of my Nana...

Since the 14th of May is my late Nana's birthday, I thought I'd share her infamous obituary with you. Written by my mother's brother, my Uncle David, it debuted in Raleigh's News and Observer but soon gained international notoriety.


The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC:
ON JUNE 3, 2005 at 10:45 p.m. in Memphis, Tennessee, Dorothy Gibson Cully, 86, died peacefully, while in the loving care of her two favorite children, Barbara and David. All of her breath leaked out.

The mother of four children, grandmother to 11, great-grandmother to nine, devoted wife for 56 years to the late Ralph Chester Cully and a true friend to many, Dot had been active as a volunteer in the Catholic Church and other community charities for much of the past 25 years.

She was born the second child of six in 1919 as Frances Dorothy Gibson, daughter to Kathleen Heard Gibson and Calvin Hooper Gibson, an inventor best known as the first person since the Middle Ages to calculate the arcane lead-to-gold formula. Unable to actually prove this complex theory scientifically, and frustrated by the cruel conspiracy of the so-called "scientific community" working against his efforts, he ultimately stuck his head in a heated gas oven with a golden delicious apple propped in his mouth. Miraculously, the apple was saved for the evening dessert. Calvin was not.

Native Marylanders and long time Baltimore, Kent Island and Ocean City residents, Ralph and Dot later resided in Lakeland, Florida and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Several years after Ralph's death, Dot moved to Raleigh in 2001, where she lived with her son, David.

At the time of her death, Dot was visiting her daughter, Carol in Memphis. Carol and her husband, Ron, away from home attending a "very important conference" at a posh Florida resort, rushed home 10 days later after learning of the death. Dot's other children, dutifully at their mother's side helping with the normal last minute arrangements - hospice notification, funeral parlor notice, revising the last will, etc. - happily picked up the considerable slack of the absent former heiress.

Dot is warmly remembered as a generous, spiritually strong, resourceful, tolerant and smart woman, who was always ready to help and never judged others or their shortcomings. Dot always found time to knit sweaters, sew quilts and send written notes to the family children, all while working a full time job, volunteering as Girl Scout leader and donating considerable time to local charities and the neighborhood Catholic Church.

Dot graduated from Eastern High School at 15, worked in Baltimore full time from 1934 to 1979, beginning as a factory worker at Cross & Blackwell and retiring after 30 years as property manager and controller for a Baltimore conglomerate, Housing Engineering Company, all while raising four children, two of who are fairly normal.

An Irishwoman proud of and curious about her heritage, she was a voracious reader of historical novels, particularly those about the glories and trials of Ireland. Dot also loved to travel, her favorite destination being Eire's auld sod, where she dreamed of the magic, mystery and legend of the Emerald Isle.

Dot Cully is survived by her sisters, Ginny Torrico in Virginia, Marian Lee in Florida and Eileen Adams in Baltimore; her brother, Russell Gibson of Fallston, Maryland; her children, Barbara Frost of Ocean City, Maryland, Carol Meroney of Memphis, Tennessee, David Cully of Raleigh, North Carolina and Stephen Cully of Baltimore, Maryland.

Contributions to the Wake County (NC) Hospice Services are welcomed. Opinions about the details of this obit are not, since Mom would have liked it this way.

As you may see, I do indeed come by this honestly, for the tongue-in-cheek apple doesn't fall far from the tongue-in-cheek tree...

Bienvenue

Tons of new faces 'round the hood since the NY Times mention on Sunday so I thought it only proper to reintroduce myself and my merry band of cohorts...

Summer is a Verb is kind of a "Preppy Handbook meets The Waltons meets As the World Turns" with lots of good shopping, lots of thinking bout good shopping annnd lots of getting in trouble for good shopping...

My cast of recurring characters includes my beloved Templeton who is in the end stages of kidney failure buuut, bravely holding on til he's sure Mummy has all her emotional ducks in a row...

George, aka the Pilge, who has been waging a subversive campaign to have Mummy committed for Munchausen by proxy syndrome. This campaign has been fueled by an outlandish number of ER visits and it is only by the shear volume of "vet shopping" that I have survived any finger pointing thus far...

The southern college going nieces who love all things sun, fun and Lilly annnd will someday provide the apartment over the garage for their favorite aging Aunt...

Then there's Aide de Camp Lizzie. This entire blog evolved from years of daily emails swapped between the two halves of our one fashion brain. Other names frequently bandied about include bff Kimba, Uncle David of obit fame, Washington Royalty Amy, "illustrator to the bloggeratti" PVE, my notsosecret crush but, tastefully stalked Monty and good ole Belgian Shoe wearing, loud pants Maxminimus...

But, most importantly there's Babe. He's the brains and wit behind the curtain that funds the whole sheebang both emotionally and financially. As a consultant he travels the world leaving me to my own devices, i.e., as much shopping as I can sneak in between Monday and Friday, til he returns to us all at the beach house on the weekends. In a nutshell, I am one très lucky girl who gets to spend my free time writing about the people I love, the clothes that I covet and, the trouble that sometimes gets me into. Doesn't always pay to be married to a smartie pants...

Merci beaucoup to all for all the emails, tweets, BBM's and calls that have poured in since Saturday. I feel really blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family. Please don't forget me when my 15 minutes are up...XXOO

Galleria Of Christmas Cards

Thought I'd share some Christmas cards from a few recognizable faces round these parts including, my own Paperless Post easy way out version...

If I hadn't been so overwhelmed with the recent move, and an ohhhsoooclose to a move abroad, I would have most definitely commissioned the illustrious PVE to illustrate us a Christmas card. Once again, the card she created for Mel was hands down one of my absolute favs...

The blue ribbon for creativity went to my Loyola gal pal Ellen Ciciotte in Naples who sent her holiday wishes out via picture text...

Then there was thee infamous Uncle David of much fame pictured with my Aunt Carol and their grand babies...

The bff...

Aide-de-camp Lizzie and her Tracy Anderson guns...

Carol of Canfora sandal fame...

Joanie of Belgian Shoe fame...

Now qualifying as an old friend, the ever popular (although, I suspect not merely for his writing) Maxminimus and his partner in crime LFG...

And, new friend, the beautiful and talented Jules Reid and family. Okay, I now have 350 plus days to get it together and put in my order for a PVE pièce de résistance for next Christmas. I'm officially reserving a paintbrush in the name of the Richardson family...
Kindness of everyone included above for humoring me while I trot out your card for one last hoorah...XXOO