Joie de Vivre

09/25/2026

If you were a Joie customer, you've probably bought at least a few things by the wonderful company Blue Q. (and for the record, we were their very first customer for their very first product, the Flat Cat!) We love every single thing about this company including Mitch and Seth and wanted to share this very fun and informative "About Us" short video they just posted. Enjoy!

Take a whirlwind tour of Blue Q headquarters and discover what we’r...

09/23/2026

I've been in a few local stores lately, collecting ideas for my Shopping column and noticed several of these signs by registers. When I first started Joie, we did most of our business in cash and personal checks. Thirty-six years later, it was the reverse, I'd guess at least 80, maybe 85% of our sales were paid by credit or debit cards. If asked, we would always say we preferred checks, but in later years, we were rarely asked. I was always appreciative of the money our customers spent and so hesitated to bring up the credit card issue but I tallied it up once, the amount I'd "donated" to credit card companies over the years, and it was a shocking sum, money I could have put to much better use. So, it's interesting to see these signs popping up now. But everything about being in business now is more expensive/difficult so - it makes sense to me!

09/20/2026

News alert! I'm now writing a weekly "Let's Go Shopping" column for the Cambridge/Somerville Independent, the publication that former Cambridge Day editor Marc Levy began when the Day decided to stop covering Somerville. I'll be doing short profiles of our Cambridge and Somerville independent gift shops. They'll be coming out mostly once a week - I'll link to them here. CSIndie is doing excellent local coverage and I'm happy to be part of it! Here's my first one!

A column devoted to the many great independent shops of Somerville and Cambridge visits Henry Bear’s Park, a toy store with roots back to 1976.

09/16/2026

On a beautiful fall day maybe ten years ago, I brought a few of our poseable fairies to Fresh Pond and had a little fun. I wish I had kept a few of them, would love to do it again!

09/11/2026

September 11th, 2001. I wasn't at Joie on that awful day, but vacationing at the Jersey Shore. Julia, who was working alone that morning didn't know what to do and after she couldn't reach me on the phone, made the right decision and closed the store. Ten years later I cut this out of the Times special edition. And I will never forget the feeling of disbelief, and the bright blue of the sky over the ocean that morning, and for days after, its eerie emptiness. And I kept looking up at the sky for many weeks after that day.

09/10/2026

I'm in a book club that reads all kinds of books. We read Billy Budd by Herman Melville for our last meeting. The entire novel takes place at sea and I was surprised to come across the term "cat paw" used negatively. (Imagine!🙂) I looked it up and found that among other things "Cat's paw" is an idiom, meaning "the dupe (or unwitting tool) of another," derived from a Jean de La Fontaine fable. Thinking about our beloved Joie cat paw . . . unwitting tool of another kind of fits. Or does it . . . ?

09/02/2026

I was in New York recently and went to Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks on 2nd Ave. for the first time. It's a tiny, charming, idiosyncratic used cookbook store in the East Village on 2nd Street owned and run by Bonnie herself. Perusing the various flyers and memorabilia pinned to her entryway walls, I saw, and particularly loved, this (very pre-Amazon days) cartoon! (And, highly recommend a visit if you're in the neighborhood!)

08/28/2026

So I've been going through my files to save various things before my email and etc close down, (FB will remain!!) and found this old video today. We were big on truth in advertising and felt we needed to make a video about a product we stocked, the "High Bounce Ball," that . . . fell a little short of its claims!

08/24/2026

I don't know how many of you are aware that Joie de Vivre still has its website- Joiedevivre.net - but through the rest of this week, it does. Almost six years after closing the store, I've decided it's time to close it and the Joie email will also be gone. (I'm keeping our fb page for now, so you can always reach me here!) We "archived" it after we closed so that it shows what we sold and gives our history (to make it clear that we were no longer in business.) I loved our site which was designed and kept up by my very talented sister Nancy. There's a fun photo tour there too - so if you want to take a trip down memory lane - you have until August 29th. (And sorry for the short notice!)

08/19/2026

Just discovered a new to me card line and website/instagram called A Daily Cloud. Definitely Joieworthy! ❤️