Wednesday Morning, April 18

1) A current situation is very much like one of the fairy tales I remember reading as a child in The Provensen Book of Fairy Tales, and last night after some diligent research, I found it. It's "The Three Wishes," in which a young man is walking in the forest near nightfall and discovers a little girl crying by a blackberry bush. Her mother will beat her if she comes home with an empty basket, but now all the berries are too high and/or deep in the bushes for her to reach. The young man helpfully begins picking berries, working as quickly as he can in the fading light, scratching his hands on the brambles while the little girl not only urges him anxiously to keep going but begins eating great handfuls of the berries. The young man is rewarded for his patience (see illustration); I fear I no longer have any patience to reward.

2) There comes a time in the life of every favorite T-shirt when a small eye-shaped hole appears somewhere around the shoulders. It announces the Beginning of the End; the material is aging. As one continues to wear it, holes grow in size and number, eventually rendering the shirt Unwearable Except at the Beach and Maybe Not Even There. In the past two weeks I've noticed that hole appear in two favorite T-shirts: one from my memorable Caribbean vacation of 2001, another from Provincetown.

3) Oh no, I will not be arriving late for today's breakfast meeting!

Sunday Morning, April 15

1) I said this morning that "All I can say is thank God this is the last day of Mercury retrograde," and - while unfortunately I can always find something else to say, I am truly grateful this period is coming to an end. The last week seems strewn with unfortunate conversations, tech mishaps, avoidable misunderstandings, and one enormous politcal disagreement.

2) Managed to do something productive before 11 AM - in this case, publish a column - so the day is good.

3) Aside from Official Tax Day (this year it's really April 17) and the anniversaries of the Titanic sinking and Lincoln's assassination, I realize it's the one-year anniversary of living alone after the prolonged departure of the Last Roommate. Living alone is still the right choice for me, and I've made the second bedroom a productive work space for myself (see above).

3a) I do like the 19th-century practice of referring to bedrooms as "chambers" on architectural plans.

4) Last week I picked up a book about Citizen Kane, which has led me to a new appreciation of Bernard Hermann's "Salammbo's Aria," which Dorothy Comingore sings so badly when Kane forces her into an opera career. To my delighted surprise, lots of actually good singers have recorded it, particularly Kiri te Kanawa. And I love hearing this sung well! But if you're reading this, you know me well enough to know that what I really love is the deliberately overdoneness of the entire thing: the exaggerated brass, the sweeping strings, the superhigh notes that only the greatest singers could attempt, the overture that badly sets expectations. With a smile in my heart I join the aristocratic lady at 02:06 who is heard to say "Perfectly dreadful!" within earshot of Kane. She can't stand it, of course, but I love it.

Friday Midday, April 13 - the Last Days of Mercury Retrograde

1) Coming to the end of the last dreary week of L.B. Jeffries in a cast - um, no, sorry, that was last week - the last active week of Mercury retrograde, feeling like I've dropped all the glass balls I was juggling.

2) Lots of communications this week that might as well have begun "Hello, I'm speaking to you from the village of High Dudgeon."

3) This week was also notable for bad sleep, but last night was a heavy exception. One of the nice surprises of this week was the arrival of an impromptu houseguest last night, a friend in from Minneapolis for a recital who a) needed a place to crash for one night and b) like me, loves movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood. After dinner we put on my beloved The Rains Came with Myrna Loy, George Brent, and Tyrone Power with a turban and a tube of Egyptian No. 6. But about two thirds of the way through, I almost had to put toothpicks in my eyes to keep watching, and so did my friend. Cementing my role as a Bad Host, I abandoned him at 10:15 for my bed and slept like the dead, with only one break, until 6 this morning.

Two Big Anniversaries This Weekend

The weekend of April 14-15 brings us two important anniversaries in American history: Lincoln's assassination in 1865 and the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. How will you observe them? By:

1) (Re)Reading Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, by James L. Swanson?

2) (Re)Reading Lincoln's White House: The People's House in Wartime, by James B. Conroy?

3) Searching for that passage in Sarah Bernhardt's biography about the time when the Divine Sarah rescued Mary Lincoln from being swept overboard in a storm at sea?

4 (Re)Viewing All About Eve for "I"ve always denied the rumor you were in Our American Cousin the night Lincoln was shot"?

5) Singing "Nearer my God to Thee" in Sunday worship and fighting about whether the ship's musicians played the British or American version as the ship went down?

6) (Re)Viewing the laughable but infuriating Nazi propaganda film Titanic, which blames the accident on a corporate battle between Ismay and John Jacob Astor and shows the ship's sole German officer rescuing a small child as the ship sinks?

7) (Re)Viewing the Barbara Stanwyck/Clifton Web Titanic which is still a good film even if the characters are almost all fictional, because the dialogue is so good? "May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?" "As for you Mother, I love you dearly. But my address is Paris, France." "Could you be common in a slightly lower voice?" "Never send the baby to buy the beer."

8) (Re)Viewing A Night to Remember, still all these years later "the most factually accurate film about the sinking" as Eva Hart said at the 80th anniversary screening I arranged at the Coolidge in 1992, "and the others are just rrrrrrrrubbish!"

9) Attempting a couple recipes from Last Dinner on the Titanic?

10) (Re)Reading one of the many, many, many books about the sinking?

11) Leaving flowers at the dried-up fountain (now just outside the south grounds of the White House) erected by their friends in memory of Archibald Butt and Frank Millet?

12) (Re)Viewing the James Cameron Titanic, not least for Frances Fisher's performance as Kate Winslet's mother. ("Will the lifeboats be loaded according to class?")

Obviously there are quite a few ways, and I'll bet you could make up a few yourselves.

Wednesday Morning, April 11

1) Doing my taxes myself for the first time in many years - and online for the first time - has concluded successfully, but not after a certain amount of frustration. The last big hurdle to cross was locating my 2016 return in order to file online (and why on earth should that even be necessary?!) - and where on earth were they? After Adventures in Paper (see next item), I randomly searched my email inbox for communications from the Nice Tax Man Who Is Now AWOL - and whaddya know, there's my 2016 return as a pdf. Thank goodness that's resolved!

1a) Adventures in Paper (this time around the search for my 2016 tax return) led to a couple tote bags in the study closet from who knows when, with everything that had to get swept off the dining room table before company came over. Mountains of stuff to be tossed out (old magazines, junk mail), but pleasant memories with 2016 Christmas cards, correspondence, and photos from Before Digital including Kauai 1996 and the 1985 family reunion in Atlanta.

2) Tonight is the Gibson House benefit at the Chilton Club, and Etiquetteer will be on hand to emcee and draw the raffle prizes. I love getting to do this - just wish the weather was nicer today.

3) Because murder is relaxing at times of stress, rereading the bloodiest of all Dashiell Hammett's novels, Red Harvest. I think about 23 people die violently in this Continental Op story of corruption in a mining town during Prohibition.

Monday Night, April 9

Auntie Mame on the switchboard at Widdicombe, Gutterman, Applewhite, Bibberman, and Black pretty much describes me trying to file my taxes this evening:

1) Oh yes Long Distance, how are you?

2) Ohhhh, did I connect you with Mr. Gutterman instead of Mr. Applewhite?

2a) I'm sorry Mr. Bibbercombe. Bibibibibib.

3) Oh Mr. Applewhite, what ARE you doing in that hole with Mr. Gutterman?!

3a) WHAT indeed!

4) Oh, there you are Mr. Applewhite!

5) Mr. Widdicombe, there's no such place as San Francisco.

6) PLEASE!

Monday Morning, April 9

1) I feel good.

2) I have my note from the doctor.

3) I am going back to work today.

Sunday Midafternoon, April 8 - Road Race Day

1) I had a feeling cancellation of the open house would not have penetrated through the entire guest list, so after a breakfast of egg drop soup I spent the morning on light housekeeping, and I'm glad I did. About 10:30 AM there was a knock on my door: a friend, and a friend of his, both running in the race and eager to drop their gear. Delighted to welcome them both!

2) Williams Street was empty of spectators as late as 11:15 AM. In the end, dozens fewer people than usual. Someone on the street mentioned that perhaps there was another road race going on today. And anyway, it was bitterly cold for spring - bitterly cold! The bright sunshine cruelly deceived a few. I remained carefully muffled up.

3) I passed the time picking up bits of trash in the garden, and then not too long after 11:30 AM, the motorcycle cops came along, signalling the arrival of the first runners.

First!

4) The new neighbors came down to the sidewalk to join me, as one of their number was running. This was my first real chance to chat with them since they moved in Easter weekend.

My new neighbor.

Too cold for shirtless running, except for this one guy.

5) Suddenly the news went round that one runner had proposed to his girlfriend while they were running together hand in hand! "Perfect JP wedding proposal, right?" smiled one of my neighbors. I replied, "All they needed to do was be running through an herb garden."

Is this the couple that just got engaged?

6) My friends had predicted that they'd finish the race by 11:45 AM. That time, however, came and went, and it just got too cold for me to wait to see them come in. As it happened, and as usual, I missed seeing them go by. They rang the bell about 12:15 PM or so, and enjoyed a good chat while they sorted out their gear and headed off to another engagement.

7) That meant that I could settle down to the Most Savory Lunch Ever: a bowl of Pr******o chickarina soup sprinkled with oregano and with a large clove of garlic crushed into it. Heaven in a bowl. And then a NAP. I slept like the dead for almost an hour, when I woke up and realized I hadn't moved. So I rolled over and promptly went back to sleep for over half an hour. I really needed that.

In conclusion, I really missed having friends over today, but Discretion truly is the Better Part of Valor. Right now I feel pleasantly drowsy after my nap, instead of utterly destroyed (and perhaps a wee bit hung over) as I surely would be after hosting a party.

Sunday Morning, April 8

1) Up VERY early, 5:00 AM - just couldn't sleep - and immediately taken by two of this morning's devotional readings. Not necessarily as they apply to me (but Lord knows I have work to do . . . and I know it, too . . . ), but - well, here they are:

1a) Acts 8:20-23: But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money [emphasis mine]. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.

1b) From C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters: “Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit [emphasis mine], come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the ‘Cause,’ in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war effort or of pacifism.”

2) The road race is this morning, and it feels odd not to be rushing about getting ready for the open house: no baking of mini-muffins, no large-scale perking of coffee, no backhoe shoveling books and papers from one room to the other. I feel bad having had to cancel, but after two weeks out of the office with the flu, it just didn't make sense a) to knock myself out on a party, and b) to serve as Typhoid Barry. I"ll enjoy the Passing Show as I always do, and if anyone shows up anyway I'll greet them happily, but it won't be quite the same.

2a) Please God, this period of illness is coming to an end! Feeling so much better, but not wanting to jinx it either.

3) Books. I love books. And as much as I love them, I fear the time has come again to cull a few.

Thursday Midday, April 5

1) Yesterday a friend used the expression "The opposite of 'trying' is not 'not trying.' The opposite of 'trying' is 'hiding.'" And yesterday I was very decidedly hiding. Whether online solitaire or Charlie Chan movies with Warner Oland (what on earth?!), or online solitaire AND Charlie Chan movies with Warner Oland, I put off all thought of the future and the present.

1a) No idea why I drifted into these Charlie Chan movies, but my goodness, the racist humor. Bill Demarest's Irish-American cop referring to Mr. Chan as Egg Foo Yung was bad enough in Charlie Chan at the Opera, but then last night I checked out Charlie Chan in Egypt and my eyebrows raised when I saw Stepin Fetchit's name in the opening credits. Oh dear. We've come a long way and we still have a ways to go.

2) Mother called last night, and in chatting about health-related issues she mentioned that her father died at age 57 of a heart attack. So I guess I'd better hurry up and write that book. #almost55 #whoareyouandtakethatscytherightoutofhere

3) With great regret have had to cancel my open house for the road race this Sunday. People have been so kind about it, and truly I am surrounded by goodwill. #blessed

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.