1) Carol Channing and Tiny Tim sing “Wanting You” at the wedding of Gladys and Tyrone on Laugh-in.
1a) Sweet mercy goodness, I remember the wedding, but not the singing!
2) Now on ye Whytsypp!
3) Having just finished The Collector, about the great Russian collector of modern art Sergei Shchukin, I’m now moving on to Simon Sebag-Montefiore’s Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar.
1) Coffee in bed. I used to do this quite a lot, but much more rarely now. But I slept poorly, and this bed is so comfortable . . . where would this civilization be without flannel sheets?
2) Yesterday evening, waiting for dinner guests, I took this personality quiz from ye FyveThyrtyEight. The results really surprised me - and probably shouldn’t have. Can an old dog learn new tricks?
3) In this morning’s Times, a fascinating piece about alternative museum tours in museums in England from non-traditional points of view held my attention. Non-traditional as in from the point of view of cultural appropriation/looting or non-heterosexual history, etc. As one who loves museums, I love seeing how this is engaging museum goers.
BONUS) Long weekend coming, a long weekend of weather! Shoveling will certainly be a part of it, but so will yoga, half a coconut cake, and a lot of writing.
1) “That number’s too slow. Cut out the Maloney Sisters!”
2) When you wake up gently, warm and comfortable, reach for the clock to see how much longer it is until the alarm goes off, and it’s one minute.
3) Mother’s birthday is Sunday. Flowers have been ordered.
1) For the first time in . . . in . . . in forever, I was happy and ready to get out of bed when the alarm went off. Not bounding with energy and bouncing off the walls, just gently smiling and without a feeling of heaviness, and with vague memories of a happy dream.
2) Coffee and devotional in the gray room yielded tough love from an old article from ye Fyste Cympany: “You need to keep your calendar empty if you’re going to get anything significant done, like [write a book.]” I’m hardly swanning around with the bon ton, but the past few days my thoughts have been preoccupied with filling the calendar, not with creative progress.
3) It’s official. Yesterday’s column on the President serving fast food got more views than any column in 2018.
An unexpected encounter on the third floor of the Infinite Corridor today.
1) This morning - so long ago! - there really were a noticeable number of comments on ye Fycebykke looking for Etiquetteer to comment on President Trump serving fast food in the White House. So, I wrote it, and I can’t believe i was only 15 minutes late to work when I didn’t get into the shower until 8 AM.
1a) The result: a lot of interest in the column, a sharp spike in page views - the most since June 24, even more than Etiquetteer’s 2018 royal wedding coverage - a reduction by two of the number of Fycebykke likes on Etiquetteer’s page (but now it’s back up again), and a suggestion that the piece was “too self-referential.” And that may be. Also an anonymous Angry reaction. Mercy goodness people, declare yourselves!
1b) But the most important comment someone made was that it’s all a manufactured smoke screen, and keep paying attention to the Mueller investigation and Russia.
2) Interesting meetings today, one with a new (to me) volunteer who had great ideas, another with someone from another department who is just as much a character as I am. #youllneverwalkalone
3) The office is teeming with treats. Wasn’t all that supposed to be taken care of last month? Now we’re supposed to put the celery in celebration.
3a) That said, I have an entire coconut cake in my refrigerator.
4) Reclining in splendor in the gray room during the cocktail hour, suddenly a great banging on the front door. Almost the entire family from the third floor, including Little Miss, the Young Master, and New Baby, with a New Year’s gift for me: a fancy gold box of chocolates! Wasn’t that nice?
Carol Channing is dead. I confess my first reaction was that of the extra in Sunset Boulevard: “Why, I thought she was dead!” I never met her, obviously. But this is what I remember about her:
Some high school kid on Room 222 imitating her and other popular celebrites of the early 1970s, like Rich Little.
In college, reading the book by the ad director of the “What becomes a legend most?” campaign for ye Blyckglyma mink, which included her. She only wore white, and he had to stop her forcibly from saying on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson that she received a white mink from ye Blyckglyma . . . which, of course, only comes in black.
Someone I used to know in the 1990s constantly saying “Raspberries!”
My shock at learning she was the original Lorelei Lee.
The glee she expressed in an interview (I can no longer remember when or where I saw it) about the failure of the film version of Hello Dolly! since she wasn’t starring in it.
Seeing Forbidden Broadway in the Terrace Room of the Park Plaza Hotel (why a room called the Terrace Room would be in the basement is a subject for another time) with Arthur Friedman and their “Call on Carol/Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend!” number. “Some people sing, some people dance, some people act. I do Hello Dolly!”
I rather wish we could all remember her in her heyday as Lorelei Lee . . . but how can you remember something that happened before you were born?
Rest in peace, dahling.
I've enjoyed the short stories of O. Henry since I first read "The Gift of the Magi" in junior high school. When I'm back at my mother's house, I frequently take one of her two orange-and-blue bound O. Henry collected works into the bathroom with me.
When my great-aunt's household was being disbanded after she decided to move to a small apartment, I was given one of these O. Henry books (I can't remember which one). In the late 1980s, when I was living in Allston, I found the rest for $10 the set at a junk shop. I've loved them, but really . . . I was keeping them for the matching bindings in the Gloria Upson "Books are awfully decorative, don't you think?" Manner.
And since I hadn't actually opened one of these to read in over 20 years, I finally decided that it was time to move them forward into the universe - which really means the trash, since no one is reading O. Henry any more. I kept two (not pictured), The Trimmed Lamp and The Four Million, because my favorite stories are there. But these are now out of my house.
Back in 1989 - the year I quit my job and temped at an insurance company, the year I came out, the year of deep depression - I saw in the display window for Goodspeed's Rare Books a copy of Anna Leonowens' famous book An English Governess at the Siamese Court. It was $50, and I saved and saved and saved, and I bought it. It's been one of the chiefest gems of my library these 30 years.
I grew up on the original Broadway cast recording of The King and I with Yul Brynner and the divine Gertrude Lawrence, and at some point in high school or early college I got and read the book The King and I by Margaret Landon, based heavily on this book and Leonowens' other book The Romance of the Harem. I remember Landon said in her preface that her book was "75% fact and 25% fiction based on fact."
At that time in my life I was gripped by the story of Mrs. Leonowens coming to Siam from India with her little boy and a couple faithful Indian servants to serve as the first-ever European governess for the royal household. But I have had many interests come and go in the intervening years, most prominently the Ballets Russes, but also the Romanovs, the Titanic (which will always remain with me), French history (Claude Manceron's five-volume history came out in paperback in the early 1990s), and others.
I realized that it's time for someone else to enjoy this book. What a nice surprise to realize that it's a first edition!
Many years ago someone gave me this companion paperback to go with it. I have to confess I’ve never read it.
1) When you get to a low place, often the best thing to do is just to acknowledge that you’re in a low place.
1a) Yes, I’m in a low place.
2) On the political front, I can only say that a) responsible Republican politicians need to repudiate the President and get our government back up and running because b) Vladimir Putin is the only person to benefit from the President shutting our government and c) Althea Garrison is a Trump supporter? I knew she was a tenacious local gadfly, but really . . .
3) My trip to New York, just four days total, seemed to go on forever, but when I woke up this morning it was Monday and now it’s Wednesday night. #unoriginalobservation
I write this on my last afternoon in New York from the first class lounge (such as it is) in Penn Station, ready to return home after lots of stimulation. Contemplating what I might do between breakfast and train time, my brain basically dribbled out my ears. I couldn’t think of a thing. It’s time to go home.
But there were a lot of firsts on this trip:
First visit to the J.P. Morgan Library.
First visit to the High Line.
First visit to the Whitney Museum.
First visit to the Fashion Institute of Technology.
First visit to the Sherry-Netherland Hotel.
First dinner party on the Upper West Side.
First time I thought I’d lost my wallet while traveling in a New York taxi (or was it?)
And I got to enjoy some return visits: to the Met (of course) . . .
. . . the Modulightor Building, HQ of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; and the Strand Bookstore (of course!).
Best of all I got to see Drew from Interlochen (at the Met) . . .
Julien, a Flickr friend for at least ten years (at the Modulightor Building) . . .
. . . Anthony from Interlochen (over lunch at Obicá) . . .
. . . and Jonathan from the Gibson House, at a very elegant dinner party at his home.
Two factors sparked together to make me take this trip: a good room rate from ye Myrriotte and the Warhol retrospective at the Whitney. I’m hardly a Warhol disciple, but this felt like the right thing to see . . . AND IT IS.
Wish I’d been able to do everything (I missed out on the Neue Galerie, El Museo del Barrio, and a couple other things), but all in all, it’s been a good trip.
The wife of Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged gave me this unusual calendar for Christmas. I’m going to bring it to the office in the New Year.
1) Candlelight coffee and devotional (First Timothy 1, C.S. Lewis, and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up).
1a) The writer whose habits I read about in How Artists Work (always my last devotional reading) was someone who could only write when he was angry. This had a bad effect on his health. (I can’t remember who it was, I just know I couldn’t work like that.)
2) Domesticity! Scrubbing all the porcelain in the bathroom and polishing large bits of silver to prepare for Tea and Tarot. The latter made me reflect on how I neglect the “good stuff” from my grandmother. What I really need is a bolt of Pacific cloth to make bags for all these bits of plate that don’t get used.
3) All year I say I want to do an Etiquetteer “Year in Review” column on good and bad manners of the Old Year, and every year it comes down to December 31 and I haven’t started it. So for a few hours I’ll be compiling that.
4) My God, I’m leaving for NYC later this week and I’ve hardly scheduled anything!
5) New Year’s Eve is my favorite night of the entire year, and this year is no exception.
New Year’s Eve, 1999.
The luxury of two unscheduled days!
1) I don’t know why I kid myself that I’ll find presents for other people at ye Bryttle Books. But off I went, allegedly in search of Christmas gifts for other people, and of course I came away with zero books for them and four books for me:
1a) Stalin and his people, the discovery of cochineal, the presidential election of 1876, and the story of an art collection “dispersed” by World War II.
2) I curled up with Stalin at the bar of the Marliave for a late lunch that was not their macaroni and cheese - I had an actual salad! - and two spritzes. I’d enjoyed the author’s book about the Romanov dynasty so much I knew I’d enjoy this one.
3) The Thin Man is the perfect story for this time of year, whether it’s the Dashiell Hammett novel or the wonderful William Powell and Myrna Loy movie. The story takes place in New York around Christmas, 1932.
4) Galatians 6 turned out to be part of this morning’s devotional; this is the chapter that includes “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” I had to get out my big ol’ Revised Standard Version to help interpret the text; usually I’m reading the KJV.
4a) I must have four Bibles in this house, and I barely use one: the RSV I was given when I was confirmed (hardback, with my name on the cover in a corner in gold), another RSV, and my Gramma’s KJV from when she was second reader at the Christian Science Church well before I was born. The small KJV I use for daily was given to my uncle by the Christian Scientists when he was drafted in WWII.
5) I felt like I was on a roll this morning getting out today’s Etiquetteer video and handling laundry and other domesticity.
6) What a surprise, too, to learn via ye Twyttyr that today is the 20th anniversary of the release of James Cameron’s Titanic! Great opportunity for me to repost all the etiquette errors in the movie that I found, which generated some good engagement.
7) Tonight a three-ring circus in the kitchen. If I wasn’t baking a three-day cake (to be served in only two days) I was cooking dinner or washing dishes.
8) “Fast away the old year passes” indeed! Hard to believe tomorrow is my favorite night of the whole year already, but here it comes!
1) Mother and I ended up not having a Christmas dinner at all as planned, but after our very nice surprise visit with the neighbors, we each had a big ol’ NAP, and barely even exchanged a gift each before the arrival of the Tylers. The gift from me that Mother opened was a new-edition Scrabble dictionary; the gift from her I opened was a small brass easel on which to stand small pictures or plates for display.
1a) We usually exchange one gift apiece on Christmas morning, but somehow we didn’t do that this year.
2) I was just about to get into the tub for a Big Soak when I got a call from Laura that they were half an hour away. So I changed course for the shower and could emerge freshly clean and pressed almost as soon as they arrived via motorcycle and van.
3) Youger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged and his wife had not joined earlier Christmas Day festivities due to work commitments, but they were able to join us eventually so that we could commence exchanging gifts. Among other things I got a small thick blank book embossed with a Buddha and with a complicated brass lock, a small black Japanese “happy cat” figurine,” a T-shirt with the entire text of Alice in Wonderland printed on it around a design of the White Rabbit, a copy of How Not to Be a Dick: An Everyday Etiquette Guide, a very very dark plaid shirt, and a thick cream-colored scarf that had belonged to my grandmother (and which is perfect to wear with both my gray overcoat and my black cape.)
4) We moved on to Christmas supper of ham chowder prepared by Niece Who Must Not Be Tagged. I now sit in my daddy’s place at the head of the table; this year the children were in the four seats closest to me, and they really speak their own language. It’s like my own language of lines from Movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood, only their cultural references come from places I don’t even know. Later they showed me a compilation of Vines on the Yewtybbe, so now at least I know where “An avocado!” comes from.
5) The household wound down early, but I stayed up until after 10 PM, only to pass a fitful night - not unusual on the night before flying.
6) Up at 7 AM, and Laura and I took off for the mall after a catch-as-catch-can breakfast so I could snatch up a particular gift for someone at ye Dyllyarde’s. My brother-in-law took off even before we left on his motorcycle to beat the rain.
7) Now I am just not one of those people who beat down the doors to go to after-Christmas sales, but there was something I particularly had my eye on, and Laura was game, God bless her. My goodness, the excitement of the two dozen or so ladies assembled at the entrance when the doors opened! And to my dismay, they were all headed to the department where I, too, was headed. But there was no cutthroat atmosphere, all quite friendly. I found what I was looking for - and then my head went completely blank.
8) Laura and I retreated for coffee at ye Styrbyckke’s and got to catch up on family and other stuff. We made a tour of the mall looking for shoes for Mother and getting a few ideas.
9) En route home, as we circumnavigated the rotary from Prien Lake onto Holly Hill, I unintentionally started a debate on some of the Big Social Issues by mentioned that they should put a statue on the hillock at the center of the rotary.
10) And indeed, the mood had become very end-of-holiday as I turned my focus onto packing all my gifts and clothes, stripping the bed and getting a load of wash in, and all those other necessary tasks.
11) Niece and Mother prepared lunch - mostly the menu Mother and I were going to enjoy for our Christmas dinner - for which Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged joined us. My niece did a great job!
12) All the women in the house went off to buy shoes, leaving me on my own to finish packing, bathe, and sort through the conservative junk mail. I think I put over two dozen envelopes in the mail.
13) The weather had turned to rain - I never like flying in bad weather - and when we got to the airport, I didn’t let the family come in to see me get checked in or wait around. Mother really likes to do this, so she was disappointed. The airline staff were very friendly as usual, and even showed me how to download the airline’s app onto my phone. “You’ll probably get updates before we will,” they said . . . which was prescient, since about 20 minutes later I got an update on the app that my flight was cancelled! I made a beeline to the counter, where they rebooked me on the first flight out Thursday.
14) About 20 minutes later the family retrieved me, and off we went to Y*** S***, the Chinese restaurant closest to Mother’s house, where she and Daddy used to go.
15) Back at home, Laura trounced both Mother and me at Scrabble. Indeed, I turned out to be the beetlebomb. Whom the gods destroy, they first give all the letters for a perfect Q word without the Q.
16) Dead beat, I headed off to bed at the ridiculous hour of 8:15 PM, only to wake up at midnight - and to learn that my rebooked flight has also been cancelled, and I have now been ticketed (but without a seat) on the midday flight. I love traveling safely, and I am grateful for all the air traffic controllers and ground crews and pilots and co-pilots and airline staff who keep us all safe when we fly. But it’s also time to get home to Boston, and I am hoping the weather, and the confusion, will clear sufficiently for that to happen both safely and NOW.
The Boudreau brothers, Robert and Jerry, who grew up with my father and uncle.
1) Christmas Day! It no longer begins with the excitement of childhood, but it is precious nonetheless. I was last to bed and first to rise, just after six, and had my first cup of coffee and devotional (Proverbs 9 and Herbs and the Earth) before Mother appeared, fully dressed and, to my delight, wearing the necklace of silver hearts I gave her as a child.
2) Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged appeared in order to spirit away his sister to their father’s family’s big Christmas celebration in Lafayette. We had some good chat about his Christmas Eve celebration with his church community, which included Swedish influences. (Not, alas, young women wearing wreaths of candles.)
3) After my traditional posting of Sir Thomas Beecham’s arrangement of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus (as I have pointed out many times before, you can just make out the kitchen sink he threw in among all the extra brass and the skirling woodwinds), I turned my attention to making avocado toast for our Christmas breakfast. Thank goodness I had an extra avocado, as I had too heavy a hand with the salt and lemon juice! The end result turned out all right.
4) Once I’d cleaned up the kitchen (if you know my mother at all well, you know that leaving the dishes until later is next door to heresy), we settled down to some Scrabble. About three or four turns in, while I was trying to decide if PINSUIT was a word, we were both surprised to hear the doorbell ring. Our caller was Toni, who apparently lives next door, inviting us both to come over “as there are several people who really want to see you. They knew your family.” My initial reaction, of course, was to retreat - not least because I hadn’t bathed yet and smelled like a paper mill - but we both said we’d be glad to and would be there shortly.
4a) I immediately doused myself with 4711 and changed into day clothes. Not wanting to go empty-handed, I was able to set my hands on a little Christmas gift to bring with me.
5) Mother had not told me she had gay neighbors! A happy coincidence, Toni and her partner (whose name I have not retaiend) live next door with their son. It’s always a pleasant shock to find gay people living in Lake Charles!
6) But the BIG surprise was meeting the Boudreau brothers, Jerry and Robert, who grew up with my father and my Uncle Tom in Opelousas! Robert especially was eager to talk to me and share stories of Uncle Tom at the University of Houston, and of visiting my father in the final months of his life at the Guardian House, and much else.
7) While the main gathering was continuing in the living room, Mother and I and the Boudreau brothers and a changing assortment of female relatives sat in the dining room. While Mother and I snacked on crawfish pie and other delicacies, more stories were shared. I brought up the name Emma Michie, and that set off a torrent of memories about the Majestic Hotel and life in Lake Charles at the mid-century. The name LaRue Stevens, a man who’d also been to high school with them, also figured prominently in the conversation.
8) Robert’s daughter (whose name escapes me) mentioned the names of her sisters (who were not there) in passing. One of the names was unique enough that I looked at the sister in a new light, seeing suddenly a family resemblance. “My God, did you sisters perform for Marc Pettaway in the Cotton Candy Players?” I asked, flushing with horror. They had, and I had performed with them, 40-some-odd years ago, in a musical parody of Cinderella and probably a few other things, too. They also went to the Catholic school where I spent my sophomore year of high school. I remember having words with the younger sister in theology class (in which I, the Methodist, did better than all the Catholic kids).
9) The champagne was flowing, so unlike a Dimmick family anything, certainly encouraged by Mr. Boudreau. Mother, ever the teetotaller, didn’t entirely express disapproval, but would have preferred otherwise. Toni and her partner and I got to talk about their recent trip to Salem for Hallowe’en!
10) At noon we gracefully departed as the family was preparing to head to another Christmas celebration. Fond goodbyes were said. Walking home, I noticed that they had a large thyme plant growing in a pot at the end of their driveway, and ran my hands along the stems so Mother could smell the thymy smell.
11) Mother has just gone down for a NAP, and I will follow shortly. This has been a most unexpected Christmas, but a very enjoyable one!
1) This morning the house felt chaotic, with stimuli coming from every direction: an internet flirtation (!), alarming news via email from a friend, Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged coming to put up the Christmas tree and talking with Mother about the Big Social Issues, Mother proposing alternate recipes for Christmas supper since Niece Who Must Not Be Tagged was still asleep and hadn’t gone shopping for the One Remaining Ingredient, and on and on.
2) But eventually, and after many questions from Mother along the lines of “Are you sure this is right?” and “Even though we didn’t do it that way last year?”, I got the tree decorated! This is the year Mother wants us to take home the ornaments we feel are “ours,” and it occurs to me (hours later) that there are some that are missing. But I am very happy with the overall results.’
3) For awhille I suppressed a silent panic that my beloved Japanese paper angel musicians had disappeared, as they weren’t in any of the boxes. But as soon as I mentioned this (quite calmly) to Mother, she retrieved them from their hiding place. Bliss! I love my little Japanese paper angel musicians. Originally there were six, but now they are just a quartet.
3a) When you were little, did you play with the Christmas tree ornaments, and did all the ones that were people and/or animals talk to each other and interact? Ours certainly did, and that’s why I continue to hang them on the bottom branches.
4) Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged had Christmas Eve plans with his own church community, and while Niece Who Must Not Be Tagged said she would go with us to the 5:30 Christmas Eve service, she was sound asleep at quarter to five, and I didn’t have the heart to wake her. So Mother, looking splendid in her red jacket, and I in my daddy’s green ultrasuede blazer, drove off to First Methodist and arrived a good 20 minutes or so early (a novel experience for Mother!) - and a good thing, too, or we might not have gotten seats near the front.
My view.
5) Not unusually, the church was packed, which is why there are three services on Christmas Eve. Just before the service started, Mother turned to me and said “This is my family.” First Methodist has been Mother’s bedrock since she married there in 1955, and I know how she feels. Where on earth would I be without the community of friends I found myself in almost 30 years ago?! They are my bedrock.
6) Leaving afterward, Mother asked to drive by the front of the church to see the large lighted cross. So I kept going down Broad Street to Lakeshore Drive, turned left, and passed the extravaganza of Christmas lights at the civic center and Bord du Lac Park! I thought we might keep going down Shell Beach Drive to look at the Christmas lights (for out-of-towners, Shell Beach Drive is the street of large old important houses in Lake Charles, right on the lake), but the traffic was so very much at a standstill that I turned off and we headed home through town.
7) Niece said she had awakened only ten minutes before we got there, but she served us some of her good ham chowder for dinner.
8) The rest of the evening continued with the wrapping of remaining gifts, laundry, political commentary (yes, I am to blame), dishwashing, and other preparations for tomorrow. Niece is being collected at 8 AM, and Mother and I will have until 4ish to celebrate Christmas on our own before the arrival of Laura’s family.
9) All of us are dead beat and looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
That tree must just have come from ye Jynny Crayge or ye Wyght Wytchyrs.
1) I had to be assured of an early start today, and happily I achieved consciousness just before the alarm was to go off at 6:30. Mother declared that breakfast was “on our own” so she could take the morning at her own pace before we headed to church.
2) Now most of y’all know that my sweet lovely mother has a problem with punctuality. It was a rare childhood Sunday that I was not late to Sunday School, and I have many memories of sitting anxiously in the back seat of the car with my sister, Daddy behind the wheel having started the car, and Mother eventually running out of the house, skirt swirling (and looking wonderful) so that we could finally get going.
2a) This year Mother had a personal epiphany about being “the late Mrs. Dimmick,” and she has really been making an effort to be on time. And whaddya know, we left the house exactly on schedule, and arrived a wee bit early!
2b) In the Sunday School class, one of the men in my parents’ circle said to me “And how did she ever get here on time?!” I replied “She’s turned over a new leaf . . . “
3) Most of her friends sat at a table in the back of the room, and we pulled in chairs for latecomers until we were quite packed. Most of these people have known me from infancy, and Mrs. B***** proudly said to the grandmother of the associate pastor (they are new to this church) “We reared him!”
4) As you might expect, there was a lot of talk about broken hips and who just went into the hospital.
5) This Advent First Methodist has been gathering some of the Sunday School classes together in the church hall for a series (partially on video) called something like “From Bedlam to Bethlehem,” which Mother has been very enthusiastic about. This lesson was about “minding the light.” With my usual ambivalence about returning to the church of my childhood, I kept quiet. But I kept thinking about how the light of Christ does not come from a dark lantern, only to shine through slats onto the Favored Few - for instance, the favored few north of the U.S.-Mexican border and not anyone else - but on all people - and how very many Christians seem to have a problem with that at the moment. I simply could not get into the rather anodyne spirit of the lesson.
6) I was very surprised by some enormous arrangements of American Beauty roses, completely out of character for the church. Later I found out they’d been from a wedding the night before.
7) The service was all right, with the sermon focusing on the hymn “What Child Is This?” The preacher is a good one, and Mother is a fan of his. And he was absolutely splendid to us when Daddy died, and before.
8) I left church in an uncomfortably reflective mood, which I’m afraid was exacerbated by Mother’s needing to stop and talk to someone passing our car just as I started it. I am very much like Great-Grandmother Dougherty: if ya gonna go, GO! Yes yes, spontaneity blah blah blah. I had just started the car, and it was time to leave!
9) Unfortunately this was repeated as soon as we got home. Having exited the car, in the act of walking to the back door and thinking happily of taking off my tight black shoes, Mother caught a glimpse of the bags of Christmas carol booklets in the back of the car and suddenly remembered that she had promised to get one to Mr. M*****, and that we had to bring it right away. Let’s just say we got it done, but when I’m driving, I need simple answers like “Yes” or “There” instead of anything off-topic. Times like this I can see that I am very much like my daddy after all, which is to say short-tempered.
10) Leftovers for lunch - om nom nom - and a NAP which concluded with a three-hour notice text from Niece Who Must Not Be Tagged about her arrival with Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged. This spurred me to complete my Christmas wrapping - yay! - with Alastair Sims’ A Christmas Carol.
10a) I love giving presents at Christmas, but my shopping has been rather haphazard this year. Still, I’m generally happy with what I’m giving - but there’s nothing like opening a closet and seeing a gift you’re giving already there. Eek!
11) Niece came in looking like a hobbit or something with a black hoodie over her head and trailing behind her like a cape, and holding lots of packages and things. Oldest Nephew had an engagement (“No, I am NOT engaged!” he replied to me, smiling) with friends, and had to skedaddle, so we three remaining headed off to ye Olyve Gyrdynne nearby for dinner. And that was nice except for the family at the booth behind us playing video games or watching videos or something.
11a) Niece is getting to be quite an adult, and I am really glad we got to catch up.
12) We’ve gone our separate ways since dinner: Niece to bed (college students are always tired, yes?), Mother to some of her own Christmas preparations, and me to the dining room, where I have yet to start on my Christmas cards.
13) In order to do a load of colors, since I packed very lightly, I am forced into a wearing an old cream flannel nightshirt, very severe, of my mother’s until my clothes are dry. It was in the utility room in a bag of clothes that are to be donated. It is at least more comfortable for long-term wear than the white terrycloth bathrobe I have here, but just now Mother said I looked “expectant.” She did not mean “waiting for Santa Claus!”
13a) On the other hand, perhaps I have a future career as a department store Santa . . .
1) Well, the big event of the day was the wonderful reaction on ye Fycebykke to Mother’s photo in front of the Christmas wreath: over 150 likes and loves, and several lovely comments! In the morning I went through almost the whole list of people to explain who everyone was. And in fact, people from all over my life just loved that photo: family, colleagues, friends from Interochen, Boston, Flickr, the Gibson House, everyplace.
2) An “early start” to run an errand across town ended up being 9:30 AM - which I don’t really consider “early.” The errand turned out ot be brief, and I ended up drifing into the nearby Craft Supply Store That Is Not ye Homophobic Hybby Lybby. Two chatty Ladies Older Than I were ahead of me in the checkout line and ignored the call from the next cashier. I had to interpose very sweetly “Which of you two ladies is next?” The remaining lady asked me to go ahead of her, since she had to make a return. Wasn’t that nice?
3) Tomato soup and egg salad.
4) Sixteen pieces of mail, of which only three were Christmas cards. Most was junk mail from conservative organizations whose lists we’re trying to get Mother removed.
5) Mother’s housekeeper gave her a box of ye Ryssell Styver milk chocolates for Christmas, and you have no idea what happy memories a box of Ryssell Styver can bring. Although the principal one had to do with a gigantic box of ye Schryfft’s chocolates. When I was very little some old and distant friend of my gramma gave her a huge square gold box of of ye Schryfft’s, both milk and dark and with two bright Jordan almonds in that mosaic of chocolate. And there were TWO layers! Gosh, just to bite into that coconut cluster was such a happy feeling.
6) Chikhirtma! Mother was interested in trying chikhirtma having heard me talk about it, so I cooked up a pot with her help. This was the first time I’d gotten to use the cinnamon in the recipe, and it is a bit involved. In the end it could have used more lemon juice.
7) Taking the garbage out I saw the glorious moon shrouded by swiftly moving clouds. Just as mysteriously beautiful somehow as it was last night with not clouds at all.
8) Mother headed off to bed just before 9 PM “too pooped to pop,” and I washed up all the dishes. I am now “too pooped to pop” myself. Tomorrow is Sunday, the gifts are not wrapped, the tree is not up, the dining room table is not cleared or set, and I haven’t sent even ONE Christmas card, but I’m done for the night.
9) We have to have a for real early start tomorrow for church.
1) I read the news today, oh boy: Trump shutdown, Mattis resignation, Ginsburg surgery. No matter what I did today, all this news (and fears for the entire country) went with me.
2) Mother and I had a late breakfast around 10 AM. I was simply not in a space to write Christmas cards, so around noon I headed out to the mall for some shopping. I managed some victories and got nice presents for everyone remaining on my list! The saleslady in houseware at the Anchor Department Store has only lived in lovely Lago di Carlo for four months. I’m always astonished that people choose to move here, but apparently she’s had family here for the last 15 years and “was just tired of winter” where she used to live. So, bravo!
3) The traffic down here is reaching impossible gridlock, approaching Bostonian levels of backup.
4) Today was the 25th birthday of Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged, and as it happened he was free for me to take him and Mother to dinner. He chose a country-style steakhouse near Mother’s, and they gave us a good dinner. Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged is not always the most talkative person, but I was able to learn more from him about his new job, plans and renovations for the house he and his wife bought earlier this year, and what they’ve been doing with the produce on their little property: lemons and other fruit from trees already on the property, peppers from their hanging plants, and an eggplant that, after careful tending, a squirrel looted from them.
4a) It make me think of my own 25th birthday, when two friends took me out to Dyrgin-Park during the period they had an outpost at Costly Space, and they gave me a Swatch watch (which was then the must-have accessory). Even though the strap’s broken, I think I still have it.
5) Scrabble after dinner! Mother and I faced off and I ended up victorious 337 to 271.
6) This being the solstice, we went out to look at the moon, small and such a pure white, a white that only the moon can achieve. I took this portrait of Mother before we went in. Isn’t she adorable?!
7) Now I am listening to the score of Giselle, fearful for the morrow. A friend posted on ye Fycebykke “My feeling? It’s all gonna blow like a boil, and soon.” Trying not to feel too fin du monde, and not really succeeding. Halley’s Comet brought down the Marcos and Duvalier regimes in 1986. What regimes might this solstice cast down . . . or elevate?
1) The preponderance of young people and Asian-Americans on my first flight yielded to a preponderance of military and travelers in wheelchairs on my second flight. Five or six soldiers in full-on combat fatigues, including one woman, were traveling to LCH, and I counted four travelers in wheelchairs exiting the arriving flight.
1a) The unique moment en route was a passenger seated in the row ahead of me opening his safety card and finding a large smiley face sticker inside it. The flight attendant saw it out of the corner of her eye, did a double take, and came back to exclaim over it. “They should all have those stickers!” she said.
2) Lago di Carlo has exactly one Lyfte driver on duty at midday, but he made to the airport in 11 minutes. After a stop at the gas station, he got me home safe and sound. Retired from professional life, he actually lives not far from my sister, but was in LCH visiting his girlfriend for Christmas.
3) Mother had a bit of lunch ready for me in the midst of a lot of present-wrapping, and we got to catch up briefly on many things before I sank down for a NAP.
4) Rising just in time for the cocktail hour (I really needed that sleep!) I discovered that the cabinet over the freezer contained only a dusty half-empty bottle of dry vermouth, which is a bit wispy for the cocktail hour by my standards. I retired to the big bathtub with a small glass and my annual end-of-year ritual, the final double-issue of The Economist with predictions for the coming year.
5) After a light dinner, I corralled Mother in making a list for our “battle plan” to be ready for Christmas. She has refilled all the tables with papers, so obviously clearing those off will be important. And we started then and there!
6) Unfortunately for my sleep, I checked the news before bed and was appalled to learn of the resignation of Mattis and the President’s rejection of the stopgap government funding bill.
7) Now, after a middling night’s sleep, alarmed at the news of Whitaker clearing himself to oversee the Mueller investigation.
8) Mother’s daily devotional book included her pencilled note “[Insert Name of Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged Here]’s Birthday.” So I hope we will get to take him and his wife out to dinner this evening.
1) Right now I’m laying over at my beloved Pappadeaux’s Seafood Kitchen by Gate A24, DFW, with a big cup of coffee and a big dish of shrimp etouffée. Who cares that this is breakfast?! #omnomnom
2) I was up like a stone at 3 AM and at the airport in 45 minutes thanks to Yber. This was my first middle-of-the-night-to-the-airport ride, and the fact that the driver showed up only four minutes after I put out the call automatically made it ten times better than Boston Cab. (When they say “Ten minutes” it means “Call again in ten minutes to see if we’ve assigned a cab.”) And the cost was 50-75% less than some of the car services I’ve had to use.
2a) The down side was that the GPS sent this driver on what I’d consider a VERY indirect route through Franklin Park and Dorchester. In a taxi that would affect the price, but not in an Yber.
3) Unusually for this flight, there were a lot of young people. One young man sitting behind me was somewhat noisily speaking two languages and playing at high speed with a large Rubik’s Cube before takeoff.
4) Waiting to exit the aircraft here in DFW, I slipped my beautiful new iPhone into my jacket pocket. Imagine my surprise when it didn’t stop at the pocket and just kept slipping down the inside the jacket. Oops, didn’t know about that hole!
5) Just remembering that I left dishes to soak in the kitchen sink . . . oops again!
6) On with the journey! When I get to Lago di Carlo I expect my checked bag, a Lyfte home, my sweet mama waiting for me with a tuna sandwich, and a NAP. And then laying out battle plans for Christmas shopping, wrapping, decorating, and meals, not in that order.
1) This is what candlelight coffee can look like with just a half-loaded candelabra. Imagine going full strength . . .
1a) First time I’ve done this - usually I just light one candle - but I must say, it gave a lift to my spirit.
2) The list of things to accomplish in the next 22 hours . . . well, I just don’t think I’m going to get it all done. As long as I make the plane, though, I’ll be doing OK.
3) I’ve never felt less ready for Christmas. Mother and I had a nice long talk last night, and she’s not feeling ready either. I had to remind her that we’re both in this together and that we can do it!
3a) She was also full of praise and gratitude for Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged, who repaired one of her beloved scrap wood Christmas trees made by a longtime Dimmick Supply Employee, and taken care of some other household repair type things.