Wednesday, April 4

1) In between all the coughing I had two deep, beautiful, unbroken hours of sleep last night concluding with a dream of visiting their small country house with my parents, who happened to be Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton from the late 1960s.

2) Egg drop soup for breakfast, so easy. Just boil up some chicken broth, drop in an egg, and stir (or not, as you choose). I add an herb (thyme today) and crush in a clove of garlic.

2a) This always makes me think of Gramma, who used to say that she was courted in every Chinese restaurant in the Twin Cities. Chinese food was just starting to have a vogue 110 years ago.

3) The one advantage to this flu is that I get to spend more time in my home, which I always love to do.

Tuesday, April 3

1) It's embarrassing, being sick this long. I got a reasonable amount of work done from home today, including three somewhat long conversations with three different volunteers, and it feels good to be getting work done. But damn, this has gone on long enough.

2) The second floor changed tenants last weekend, which means that the thunder of Little Feet over my head has ceased, and it's much quieter at home during the day than hitherto. #blessed

2a) But the third floor family remains, and when I stepped into the foyer this evening to get my mail, I heard a Tiny Voice two floors up asking "Who is dat?" Whereupon I responded long and low "Heeeellllllllllllooooooooooooooo," and two Tiny Voices called out "Rawbaw!" "Did you leave us the chocolate bunnies?" came the First Tiny Voice (Little Miss), which of course I had. We enjoyed a brief conversation, including their father who was on the landing with them.

3) Ferreting around for something to read over dinner down the street, I found my copy of Lost Horizon, which I hadn't opened in many years. The framing device seems to get eliminated in film adaptations. It's 1933 at Tempelhof Airport, and three middle-aged Englishmen who were all "at school together" are having dinner and realizing that they don't have a lot in common any more. A young pilot joins their party and lets drop some old gossip about a plane that went missing in India a couple years before. Later that prompts two of the old school chums to reminisce about Conway, the story's protagonist. And it transpires that one of the two found in the year before in a Chinese hospital and learned from Conway about Shangri-la, etc. etc. I love it.

3a) The prologue references Conway learning unpublished works of Chopin from one of his students living at Shangri-la, so I'm listening to Chopin tonight.

Monday Evening, April 2

1) The snows of spring fade quickly - at least this year they do.* I took this photo just before noon, when I stepped out to post the bills in the mailbox on the corner. By 3 PM all the snow had vanished.

2) This afternoon, the sunlight of early spring pouring in around every withdrawn curtain, I delved back into my work email and managed to dispatch some business. Makes me want to conquery the phlegm even more.

3) Charlie Chan in Monte Carlo (OMG, so many annoying language translation jokes), the latest Awesome Etiquette and The Limit Does Not Exist podcasts, and "Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Georgia Garrett."

* Up to now, anyway! I hope I didn't just jinx us into an April of blizzards.

Monday Morning, April 2

1) The crocuses bloomed yesterday, and from my parlor window, I can see them in the distance, in their far corner of the garden, receiving the first April snow. It's actually beautiful.

1a) Finding and celebrating what is beautiful is going to be important today, I can tell.

2) Still home with the flu, day 11 (including weekends).

3) In the absence of nepenthe, I'm quaff, o quaffing this kind coffee.

Easter Sunday Night, 2018

1) After listening again to an episode of You Must Remember This about Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, I stumbled across a Karloff film on ye Yewtybbe, Charlie Chan at the Opera:

And now, at the end of the day, I've watched it about three times. Because, as the Cheshire Cat said, "Then it doesn't much matter which way you go." This is one of the films that continue the stalwart, unbelievable tradition of "The show must go on even though cast members are being murdered almost before our eyes" like Phantom of the Opera, Murder at the Vanities, and . . . and other movies in which the show must go on even though cast members are being murdered almost before our eyes.

1a) Let's just say that a lot of the humor here has aged into racism. For instance, William Demarest. as an Irish-American detective, refers to Charlie Chan as Egg Foo Yung and Chop Suey, "a mystery, but a swell dish." #tedious

1b) Still, Demarest, along with Karloff and Warner Oland as Charlie Chan, had the most enduring career of anyone in the cast.

1c) And what a pleasure to see that the wardrobe mistress also played Jean Harlow's gawky, not quite as dimwitted as everyone thought maid Tina in Dinner at Eight.

1d) Among other improbabilities, the opera company has to perform the opera a second time to help solve the murder. In real life we all know that the musician's union would shut down that idea immediately. :-)

2) For Easter I got all the neighbors chocolate bunnies, and I got one for myself, too. Mine had a white ribbon around it; everyone else's was red. Imagine my surprise when I unwrapped it to discover a white chocolate bunny. Shoulda seen that one coming! My gramma used to love white chocolate, and I would surprise her sometimes with a little bag of them from the candy counter at S**r's. I am, shall we say, less fond, but retaining it to use in cooking.

3) The three things that sparked my brain this evening, after this period of complete sluggishness, were: a) a phone chat with my best friend for over half an hour, b) a call with my mother for 45 minutes, and c) the discovery that April is not just National Letter Writing Month but also National Poetry Month. I can only hope that being sparked this way means my recovery from the flu is coming soon.

BONUS: The last time I got a flu shot I was sick for two weeks (but not, as I recall, out of the office that long). So I haven't had a flu shot since then, and now I'm out of work a solid week and a bit more. So it's really a crap shoot . . .

Easter Sunday Morning, 2018

1) Through the murky filters of phlegm and anxiety, I am conscious of gratitude for the many good things in my life, and the many good people who care. I have no idea what's going to happen next, but things could be much worse than they are.

1a) I generally like to get the day started early, but when I got up for the nth time shortly after 6 AM I said, "Dammit, I'm going back to bed." And eventually I got up at 8:30, which is very late for me these days. But it contributes to the aimless feeling of my life being on hold during this influenza.

2) This Easter Sunday I am regretting that I don't have scanned on my computer remembered photos from childhood of Easter finery and festivities. A project for a trip home!

2a) In the early 1970s Mother had a real flowering of craft creativity: burlap flowers, découpage, and especially one year, Easter eggs. She created an Easter tree of thin white-painted branches and hung them with eggs of her own creation, looped with lace or ribbon to hang them, and often decorated with colored fragments of eggshell in contrasting color (see photo above). Exquisite. I know she still has them all packed away somewhere.

2b) There is also, purchased at the church craft fair, a very large orange papier mâché hanging Easter egg with a yellow papier mâché chick inside it. You can tell that a balloon was used as the framework, but no matter.

3) Green so dark it's black, two-tone gray, silver, white, and an unsurprising dash of orange.

Saturday Morning, March 31

1) This thing, this illness, is present in my chest. It's both trying to burrow in under my sternum and claw its way out through my throat.

1a) My chest is now a horror movie from the 1950s: Slime, The Creeping Crud, The Bog Within, Eternal Invasion, and of course No Escape.

2) Just taking in the fact that I have been out of work a full week, which has not exactly passed brilliantly like a comet.

2a) Idly speculating this morning about getting this week back at the end of my life for a redo, and wondering which week of my life I'd relive in exchange. Would it be a week of my early life when I was four, happily at home and school not even a thought? A week of my senior year at Interlochen? A week on vacation, and which one? Washington 1980, Hollywood 1994, Kauai 1996, St. Martin 2001, Provincetown before 2003, Paris 2008, Venice 2013, or another?

3) I have no idea why I stayed up until just past midnight reading Roz Chast's excellent and moving memoir about her parents, Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?, or why I started it again this morning for my devotional. But I did.

Good Friday Morning, 2018

1) Yesterday the doctor asked me if I thought my face looked redder. "I think it looks older," I responded. But I've noted that for some time. Every sun spot, every bump, every tiny skin tag, every big bag. If I were sterling silver they'd be "character marks." LIke I need to be marked for people to know I'm a character? :-)

1a) I'm watching a lot of The Scarlet Empress these days. At one point the Empress Elizabeth says "You wouldn't think that once I had skin like velvet. Empress, bah! I haven't even the power to iron out a single wrinkle." NOT, I think that I'd go back in time. The rent may be cheaper in the past, but the only possible path is forward.

1b) I can certainly see more of my father in my face now, especially about the nose.

2) It's an active day at home this weekend, as the second floor changes tenants. No more the thunder of Tiny Feet overhead! The new tenants are three adults with no children, and I'm hoping for a quieter atmosphere.

3) This morning I started my devotional with the last chapters of Matthew, and observed that here the phrase was written "yielded up the ghost," as opposed to "gave up the ghost" in John.

Thursday Afternoon, March 29

1) Spin the GTS Wheel and you get "Mrs. Van Hopper's cold's turned into flu so she sent for a trained nurse."

2) Oh well, it could be worse. I could be putting the moan in pneumonia right now.

3) Seriously, I finally went to the doctor today, and after some thumping with a stethoscope and a chest X-ray, the good news is that it's just the flu.

Wednesday Morning, March 28

1) I am no longer myself. I am only Slime, Creature of the Phlegm Factory.

1a) "Here's Aunt Jemmie, and Aunt Clemmie, and oh look, here's Aunt Phlegmmie!"

2) Yesterday I actually did get a reasonable amount of work done for the office, including an important breakthrough on a special project. As Stephen Sondheim taught us, "A girl has to celebrate what passes by."

3) My V***'s V**-o-Rub expired in 2015. How wonderful that I've been in such good health for so long that I havent needed it.

Monday Evening, March 26

1) Y'know, I just had that Great Big Cold at the start of December, and that was gonna be it for this season. Now here I am on day four of the Next Big Cold and, just like the last time, I am too busy for this! Destroyed by fatigue, but at least got to make some headway on an important creative project for the office. And that's a plus.

1a) "You know dear lady, I've just been to Bath, to be cured of the fatigue. And now I'm so fatigued by the cure that I, I really think I shall have to go back to Bath again . . . to be cured of the fatigue."

1b) Homemade chicken soup for breakfast. Om sniffle nom nom.

2) Internet Discoveries I: So, slouching about after my second nap, I discover these peppy, upbeat Tunes of Another Era: "My Sweet Tooth Says I Wanna (But My Wisdom Tooth Says No)" and "Who Taught You This? Who Taught You That?" I won't say they'd rouse a corpse, but they make keep me going until bedtime.

2a) Internet Discoveries II: Pocket, the new thingie that seems to be part of F*****x, suggests articles I might be interested in, and today one of them was about "elder orphans" planning for the future. And I'm thinking, "Oh mercy, I don't want to deal with this now," and I hear Scarlett O'Hara answer back "But I MUST think about it!"

3) There comes a time in the life of every favorite T-shirt when those tiny holes begin to form up around the shoulders, and you know that the material is finally aging. And it's a sad day, because it's a favorite T-shirt. There will be others, of course, but never that favorite T-shirt.

Sunday Night, March 25

1) The painting above pretty much illustrates how I feel when Big Events are taking place in the world, and I'm staying inside my little house. This weekend was March for Our Lives and now the Stormy Daniels interview, and I'm in bed with a cold since Friday morning. Full of admiration for those I know who marched or spoke out this weekend - for all the people who actually enjoy mixing it up with debate on the Big Issues.

2) Among other things, today included: a column by 11 AM, a second viewing of The Scarlet Empress (that is a weird movie!), discovery of the Awesome Etiquette podcasts from the Emily Post Institute (and they are awesome!), housekeeping, a NAP, and a half-recipe of chikhirtma. And many cups of tea with lemon.

2a) Malheureusement, the nasal congestion portion of this cold began just after dinner.

3) But the clincher of the day: the breathtaking insensitivity of Rick Santorum. No wonder he got voted out of office!

Saturday Morning, March 24

1) Ugh. It's definitely a cold. Unable to sleep, so up by 5:15 AM. Coffee, devotional, breakfast, bathroom cleaning, shower, and off to Haymahket by 8:15 AM.

1a) Lemons! So necessary for a cold. Now I have seven, and they'll go into tea and soup.

2) Snatched up Valley of the Dolls to read on the subway, which I hadn't picked up in some time. It's still the best mindless beach read there is.

3) My friend Miss Percy Larsen will be delighted to know that I indulged in the DVD of Sternberg's famous The Scarlet Empress starring Marlene Dietrich. Clips on the Yewtybbe are simply too enticing to avoid this any longer!

Friday Night, March 23 - Sick Day

1) I've done nothing today but lie around, watch Maltese Falcon, The Heiress, at a lot of scenes from Feud: Bette and Joan; eat leftovers, hydrate, and wash dishes, and I am absolutely, scratchily prostrate.

1a) I am far too busy to be sick right now!

2) If you want a treat, look up the podcast "Help I Sexted My Boss," which just premiered.

3) The neighbors said it felt like spring today. More proof that if you don't like the weather in New England, all you need to do is wait five minutes.

Things That Tell a Story: A Cutting Board

A few days ago my old cutting board finally broke apart. One of the ends had come off months ago, so I knew the time was coming. It's been an important part of my kitchen equipment since I got it 30-something years ago. It's traveled with me from my studio apartment in Brighton to the Derriére du Nord, Medford, Allston, Back Bay, the Derriére du Sud, and now at Maison Robaire in JP.

How did I get it? Thirty-something years ago I was still in college and had a part-time job to make ends meet. After three months behind the counter of a Popular Doughnut Store* and nine days of prayers to St. Jude (I"m not kidding), I found what was the best job for me, working as a concierge in a Venerable Back Bay condominium, the V******. I forget how many concierges there were - eight, ten? - but for awhile I had two eight-hour weekend shifts. Junior year I took the seven-to-midnight shift five nights a week, five hours of almost uninterrupted reading, perfect for a college student. It's the only reason I ever aced English Drama After 1590, because I actually read all those Jacobean revenge tragedies.

I was definitely one of the youngest concierges. Most of the others were retirees, including a short Irish-American gent, R******, with too much tan, a gold link bracelet, and a very obvious hairpiece. If my gaydar had been working it would have been signalling "old queen, old queen!" But, as Sally Field memorably said in Soapdish, "I was very young then!" And besides, I wasn't even out to myself at that point.

We got to talking as colleagues do (I think I relieved his shifts rather than vice versa), and I mentioned that I was moving to a studio apartment and would need to go shopping. Immediately R****** offered to pass on some things he was no longer using, an offer I accepted gratefully. The weekend after I moved he provided a random selection of silverware, some glasses, and this sturdy butcher-block cutting board. And it started serving me well right away.

The glasses were probably all sacrificed on the Altar of Hospitality at some point (a few broken glasses are almost always the sign of a good party if you're under 35), and I passed on all my unmatched silverware to the Last Roommate in 2016 as part of my Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Only the cutting board remained of that long-ago generosity, and now its usefulness has come to an end.

R****** and I lost touch, as colleagues do, either when he really retired and moved to Florida or when I left the V****** in grad school to take a full-time job at that Suburban Weekly Newspaper. He had no need to offer a helping hand to a much younger man, nor did he attach a string to it. That's so much the popular narrative, isn't it, very Guy Kibbee in 42nd Street: "I mean, I'd like to do something for you . . . . if you'd do something for me." [pant, pant] Reflecting on his generosity now reminds me that Paying It Forward is important for good karma.

*People simply cannot believe I ever did such a thing in my life, but I still have my nametag to prove it.

Friday Morning, March 23

1) Yesterday in the late afternoon and early evening I staffed an information table for Interlochen at the state's High School Drama Festival. After some confusion (alas for them, one of the principal organizers was unable to be there due to illness), I was parked at a table in a large, low-ceilinged room jammed with teenage hubbub and emotion. Every ten minutes or so there would be a crest of screaming or other exclamation, until the room emptied for them to begin the program in another space.

2) This morning, in a most likely unrelated incident, I woke up with the unmistakable signs of a cold - bleah! Staying home and handling some work stuff from here will be better than spreading a lot of cooties all over the office, especially at a time when all of us need to be in good health.

3) The back story feature at the end of this morning's NY Times briefing shattered a myth for me. All this time I thought the expression "OK" originated with Martin Van Buren's 1840 presidential campaign. Turns out that first it was a joke in a Boston newspaper in 1839!

Thursday Midday, March 22

1) Static. Friction. Paralysis.

2) Finalmente, feedback on an important project, resulting in a different set of criteria that will require me to redo about 85% of my work.

3) The verse goes "Know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free." Knowing the Truth means recognizing it as the Truth. So many do not. They see it, but do not recognize it.

Thursday, March 22

1) This morning's devotional somehow threw a spotlight on Matthew 23:15: “Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of Hell than yourselves.”

2) I went to bed after 11 PM, and the snow hadn't started by then. Now, at almost 6:30 AM, it seems to be snowing a bit feebly. All this dramatic buildup for nothing.

3) Yesterday morning I arrived 15 minutes late for a large breakfast meeting, which sort of set the overall tone for the rest of the day. In other words, Lonnie Gordon's "Bad Mood."

3a) Which is not to say there weren't some lovely light moments as part of the day.

Wednesday, March 21

1) Yesterday being the first day of spring, a colleague and I persuaded everyone on the team to wear something floral. This actually involved me bringing in a couple floral neckties for a colleague who doesn't wear ties much. Later he reported a lot of compliments!

2) Last night for the third year I went to Taste of the South End as the guest of my friend Carl. Fabulous negronis in the Room No Longer Referred to as the VIP Room yielded the most fabulous event souvenir: faux-sapphire-tipped swizzle sticks.

2a) It's funny sometimes, the momentary rage for a souvenir. My delight in those swizzle sticks reminded me of my first ball for the Pastel Prison, for which the event planners arranged for Egyptian charms to be tied around all the napkins. One lady was so excited about them she commandeered ALL of them at her table and made them into a necklace.

3) Someone needs to write Fifty Million Users, a parody of Fifty Million Frenchman (a musical of which I know nothing but the name), about Cambridge Analytica.

BONUS: OMG, I cannot believe how people are just losing their minds over another snowstorm. It's New England, it's March - snow happens!

Monday Night, March 19

1) Quietly freaking out because a) my camera, which I just used to take photos when I got home, has disappeared, b) the news, and c) where is my damn camera?!

1a) There just aren't enough chocolate chips and tamari almonds in the house right now.

2) Tonight's soundtrack: the Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffmann. The Countess of Rothes remembered this being the last piece of music the band played on the Titanic before shutting down for the night - before the iceberg struck, of course.

3) Tonight at Doyle's I was shocked to hear someone ask for the wine list. A beer list, I could understand that!