Tuesday Afternoon, October 13

1) Today would have been Daddy’s 91st birthday. Because it’s raining here today, I think a bit about some of our return drives from the camp on Toledo Bend (two hours in a full station wagon) passing through little towns like Center, Merryville, and Longville, and listening to Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto on the tape deck.

2) Daddy was also an admirer of the actor Frederic March; I only learned this much later in life. While Advise and Consent is a favorite all-star cast political thriller for me, Daddy introduced me to Seven Days in May, which stars Frederic March as a US President who faces a coup from high-ranking military officers. Both films are worth a look right now, as well as Inherit the Wind, a dramatic retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial with March as William Jennings Bryan and Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow.

2a) You have your viewing assigments. Now get on with it! :-)

3) Like all the Dimmicks, he had an expansive smile and an open heart, but he was also more intellectual than he was given a platform for in his life or his business. The New Thought of the 19th century — propounded by Charles Fillmore and now put forward by Unity — was where he found his true spiritual fulfillment.

Friday Night, October 9 - My Hair is Fabulous

1) Being a webmaster has — how to put it? — given me many opportunities to practice Patience, as Mother would say. But it’s all in a good cause, and knowledge I can use later. If I don’t throw myself out a window.

2) For my first trip to the cemetery in several days I decided to search out Anne Sexton, fairly clearly marked on the map near department store magnate Eben Jordan. (I feel sure they never met.) And after a bit, I found her, with some interesting funerary offerings atop the family tomb.

2a) After the Big Blow earlier this week, I was sure there’d be more tree limbs down, and I was right. Most were already stacked up tidily by the cemetery staff, but one big honkin’ maple limb — the size of many young trees already — was prone on the ground having taken out a few gravestones.

2b) Notice how that glistening snow-white marble has weathered to gray-black over the decades! Moral: granite endures, dahling.

3) If you are not on board with how fabulous my hair is, then you are not on board, and there will be no lifelines thrown.

Thursday Evening, October 8 - Picture Mommy Dead

1) I remember seeing this movie on television in the early 1970s, in the summertime. Picture Mommy Dead, with Don Ameche (!), Maxwell Reed (who is not Anthony Newley), Martha Hyer, child actress Susan Gordon, and cameos from Wendell Corey, Anna Lee (I adore her), and Signe Hasso (!). And the unforgettable performance of Zsa Zsa Gabor as herself in a red wig being burnt to death.

1a) Worth your time in the spooky season, especially this year. I won’t go into the plot, but there are issues you could just drive a truck through.

2) About ten years ago I rediscovered it on the Yewtybbe, and it’s funny how you can remember a movie not quite exactly the way it really is. I remembered Zsa Zsa in flames, but I remembered her face, her gown, her hair differently.

2a) The set design of this allegedly grand house is like a mashup of the renovated Truman White House, Barbie’s Dream House, World War II surplus green paint, and a gallon or two of Pepto-Bismol.

3) You can tell Zsa Zsa’s career is on the way down, because of the two blondes, she had to dye her hair red.

Thursday Morning, October 8

1) Yesterday evening, during a brief pummeling of wind and rain, more very large tree limbs came down and are suspended above ground by power lines - just like last spring. This morning’s photos tell it all.

1a) Was it a derecho? That seems to be the fashionable word everyone’s using suddenly. It might have been.

2) My sluggish experience with 911 resulted in the fire department coming by, taping off our parking spaces, and leaving. An upstairs neighbor had better results with the power company, who should be out later today to get ‘em down. Last spring it took 18 hours for them to arrive.

3) I really have had quite enough of 2020, but at this point I don’t have confidence that 2021 will be any better.

Wednesday Afternoon, October 7

1) Yesterday morning I made a rare trip away from home, this time back to ye Instytytte, ye olde Place o’Toil, to pick up a presecription and get my flu shot. Three months ago, on my last visit, sidewalk-level scaffolding was still up all over Kendall Square, but not now! Incredible to see all the progress on the new buildings. Kendall Square is now truly a part of Manhattan.

1a) Also my very first glimpse of the new dormitory on Vassar Street, on the site of the olf West Garage. One reason I’m grateful to have retired when I did was ye Instytytte’s decision to build buildings on all the parking lots elderly alumni made the most use of.

2) I went yesterday because, then, today’s forecast didn’t look so good. Now, today’s weather looks fabulous!

3) And then I walked all the way from campus to Mass. Ave. station, about half an hour. I am unaware of the significance of this new 333rd Smoot, but it’s alarming!

Monday Morning, October 5

1) Mental clarity, divine insight, a shift in consciousness - whatever you want to call it - comes when it’s unexpected, sometimes unwanted. But for it to have an effect, the mind has to be quiet enough to receive it; your personal radio has to be set to the correct frequency. Yesterday morning it happened to me in the hour before getting out of bed, when I half-knew I was awake, definitely knew I would not get back to sleep, but too warm and comfortable to care. And then it came, the sudden arrival of unhappy knowledge about how I’m handling a particular situation and the need for immediate change. So powerful it tied me up in knots all day.

2) Which might explain why I slept like the Rock of Ages last night - just worn out by my own mental energy.

3) Receiving insight like this is a little bit like the stages of grief. Instead of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, I have realization, horror, anger, depression, resolution. The receipt of insight is the negation of denial. Now I have to move past all this to action.

Wednesday, September 30 - Falling Leaves and Limbs

1) As indicated yesterday on ye Fycebykke, the neighborhood had a Big Blow yesterday morning, bringing down yet another tree on the property line, the second this year. Happily, the back fence neighbors had scheduled an appointment with an arborist for late in the morning! Result: the tree at the center of the shared property line will come down entirely at the end of the month, and today’s broken tree at the same time.

Chez moi. Freshly broken tree at left, remains of spring’s felled tree at right.

1a) Additional pruning on other trees in the garden, including our enormous redbud tree, will wait until spring.

2) After all that weather in the morning, the afternoon offered perfect weather — which of course brought me to the cemetery. Limbs large and small could be found scattered throughout my favorite section, what I call the Back Forty, sections 19-31 on the map.

Notice that his name is spelled in ALL CAPS, perhaps his family’s way of saying they’d have enough of his pretensions?

3) Yesterday’s walk also seemed a good time to ferret out the grave of e.e. cummings, one of the more famous residents. It took much more time that expected, in part since his grave is marked only by a small flat plaque on the ground. Admirers had ringed it with rocks, making it the perfect container for falling leaves. In addition, his grave is set almost against a wall of hill. My first clue that I was in the right place was spotting from above a flat plaque with Cummings on it. But it turned out to be someone else - perhaps his sister?

3a) If you decide to go search for it (and I’m not with you), you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble by looking for a very large granite block lettered CLARKE. The poet’s grave is to the left.

Kitchen Renovation, Day Thirty-Eight

If this kitchen renovation had been a movie, Friday, September 18, would have been the end of principal photography, which means that retakes would begin the next day. That Friday was the official end of the kitchen renovation, barring a couple things pending the arrival of necessary parts in a couple weeks.

That morning I welcomed the electrician in at 7:00 AM for his final task, to wire the dishwasher. Because the dishwasher finally arrived Thursday, although it was not the dishwasher I’d originally ordered. Long story short (too late!), “expected date of delivery” actually means “we have no blessed clue when the damn thing will get here.” With no Bosch in sight, I compromised by getting a Frigidaire dishwasher the local appliance dealer had in stock. It’s here now, and that’s all that matters at this point.

Another victory last week was finding the pin thingies to hold up cabinet shelves. The contractor’s partner said they hadn’t come. I found them in an unopened box while boiling a pot of water on my new stove for the first time (yes, the gas leak got fixed the week before!) Moral: open every box yourself. Thursday I got to put most of the shelves in place and start filling them, a source of great satisfaction.

It has been an even greater satisfaction to wash the heaps of china that have been stacked about in the dining room and cellar in the new dishwasher. In the 36 years I’ve spent living on my own, I’ve had a dishwasher for only nine. This is going to be wonderful!

The Bearded One was supposed to come at 11 AM to handle a few things. But 1 PM he hadn’t shown, and I texted the contractor, who replied they’d be there at 3 PM. Which of course meant that the Bearded One showed up at 1:30. And he got right onto screwing in all the cupboard doorknobs and drawer pulls. Another victory: the missing pantry doorknobs mysteriously arrived overnight on the back porch.

At 3 the contractor and the rest of the crew showed up, and they all got very busy with the final tasks: installing the curtain rods, cleaning up the kitchen floor (the word acetone got tossed around a lot), masking the nail holes at the base of the crown molding, and planing the door into the parlor so it could actually close. I could only stand in the doorway fascinated by everything going on, feeling the end of this enormous project, unable to look away.

“You know why you have all these Irishmen in your kitchen, Rrrrrobert?” the contractor asked me. And with my usual candor I replied “Because we’re all gonna drink champagne!” And we did. I cracked open a couple bottles of Mumm Napa (and one of ginger ale for the teetotallers), which we enjoyed over 20-30 minutes of good talk.

My joy in the completion of this project disappeared with the news of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg - which is why you’re hearing about this now and not earlier. Since then I have kept myself busy filling the cabinets, washing mountains of china, and adjusting myself to a very different space. Once most everything is in place I’ll have a Big Reveal, but that’ll be sometime in mid-October.

The transition of old kitchen to new, for the moment, is best expressed in the photo at top, of my 36-year-old Revere tea kettle, which has been with me in seven apartments and looks every year of its age, and my new orange tea kettle, which should last me the rest of my life. Now that the room is almost done, I need to start inhabiting it and making it home . . . but without spotting it up too quickly!

Kitchen Renovation, Day Thirty-Five

Let me start today by acknowledging how very grateful I am to be in a position to renovate my kitchen in the first place, and to have a kitchen to renovate at all. Annoyances and aggravations can all be solved - there’s a solution for everything! - even if sometimes that solution is only Patience.

Today was kind of a mixed bag, but I’d rather concentrate on the good things. The electrician arrived about 8:00 AM to wrap up his remaining work. By the time I returned from errands at 11 he was gone, which meant that the new hallway Moravian star lantern was successfully installed. And it is beautiful, just what I had hoped.

Today also gave me my first little taste of what my new daily life can be like. To walk into the kitchen from errands, have a counter right there at the door on which to put the grocery bag, and a tall slim refrigerator for a tall portly dude like me where most everything is at eye level — that is all great. This also means I can start stocking the refrigerator. It is the only one of the four appliances to be installed yesterday that is actually working. And it is beautiful, just what I had hoped.

I brought home a couple bottles of champagne to celebrate the renovation completion on Friday. But . . . but it doesn’t look like the job will be completed by Friday. Though it is highly unlikely that will keep me from celebrating anyway!

My two big assignments today were to a) find out about the carbon filter and b) find out about the missing stacking bracket for the washer/dryer, which was supposed to come with the washer/dryer. Or so we all thought. The buzzards at ye Heaumeau Depeau sell it separately, I learned calling the 800 number this morning. “How,” my contractor asked incredulously, “can they sell a stackable washer/dryer without something to stack it with?” One word: profit. And then their delivery fee is almost the cost of the item, and they can’t get it before September 29 anyway. September 29. You will observe that that is not the end of this week, or even the end of next week. But . . . what’s the worst thing that can happen?*

Now I must say, even though I didn’t get the information I wanted, my 800 number experience with ye Heaumeau Depeau today was much better than hitherto. They have probably tagged my number as “Really courteous unless you keep him waiting very long.” The Nice Customer Service Representative told me he’d call the recirculating vent manufacturer to find out why the carbon filter wasn’t there; after a few minutes on hold, he had to tell me that they don’t open until 9 AM PDT, so I then had to call them after noon.

Calling this company was the first time I ever heard “If you do not wish your call to be recorded, please disconnect now.” In other words, we don’t care whether you like doing business with our company or not. Then after five minutes on hold, “All customer service representatives are still busy. Please hold to leave a voicemail, and someone will return your call shortly.” Frankly, this is not promising. And it’s almost 5 PM and I still haven’t heard back.

The contractor and his partner came over during the midday hour, essentially for a punch list meeting. They stacked the washer and dryer in place (without the stacking bracket, and without hooking them up) to get them out of the way. They swept up, and it was surprising to see how dirty the floor had gotten with everyone mucking about. It’ll get a good mopping on Friday. The counters, backsplash, and paint job all got high marks.

They surprised me, though, when they told me that there had been no pins with the cabinetry to fix all the shelves into place. Might’ve been nice to know that a couple weeks ago when they got installed! So I won’t be able to start loading the pantry shelves just yet. When I call the kitchen designer, I need to get pins for the shelves, a black touch-up kit for the pantry cabinetry, and a replacement door in exchange for the one with the damaged corner.

Besides the all-important dishwasher, at this point the only items remaining to be delivered are the drawer knobs and pulls, which should come tomorrow. On Friday, the Bearded One will install them all, install the curtain rods, solve the problem of the floor tile coming up by the parlor door threshold (either by “banging down on the tile” or replacing the new threshold with a new threshold of double width, like the old threshold), and plane down the parlor door so that it can actually close. Friday the plumber will also install the dishwasher (assuming it does, of course, arrive by Thursday), replace the faulty fitting on the gas line in the basement, and reinstall the stove. And once the dishwasher is in, it will actually be safe to use the new garbage disposal.

But, to end this meeting on a high note*, the best good thing to happen today was picking up a decorative element for the kitchen this morning on my round of errands. I’m not going to tell you what it is until the Big Reveal (whenever that will end up being) but let’s just say I have been waiting a long time for this. And it is beautiful, just what I had hoped.

*Yes, I’m aware that that isn’t the wisest question to ask in 2020!

**Thank you, Cloris Leachman.

Kitchen Renovation, Day Thirty-Four

The moral of the story is: don’t say no one’s coming until the afternoon if the first person is actually going to arrive at 8:30 AM. Which is what happened today. I really am trying my hardest to be flexible during this unique period, but for the rest of the day I could not throw off the expectation that I had been told I’d have the house to myself in the morning, and then didn’t. But that’s on me, not on anyone else.

At least I had a bathrobe and a mask on when the interruptions started.

The backsplash came out nicely, especially considering how not-so-nice the previous backsplash was.

The two planned big events today were the installation of the appliances and the tile backsplash. They had to summon me from the bathtub (!) to confirm where the backsplash was to go (I knew it wouldn’t have been helpful to say “On the wall, dearie”). By the time I was dry and dressed, two other issues had surfaced with the recirculating vent thingy. First, the carbon filter that was supposed to come with it wasn’t in the box. Second, to everyone’s surprise, the round thing on the top to fit it into a duct (if it weren’t recirculating) wasn’t removable, so they were going to need to cut into the bottom of the upper cabinet and then put a lid on that duct thingy.

As long as they put a cap on it, it’s not a problem.

Late in the afternoon, another call to come back to the kitchen. The stove had been installed, and they were just getting ready to install the fridge. “Rrrrrobert, there’s no ice maker on this refrigerator!” Well . . . hell, at this point I don’t know if I ordered one and I don’t care. They are installing it without an ice maker, even though they’ve plumbed for one. Can’t this just please end?! (Turns out I did not order an ice maker.)

The installed stove and refrigerator . . . before . . .

I had to spend the cocktail hour with a back fence neighbor, as they are planning to prune trees on our property that overhang their parking lot. When I returned, the contractor’s partner had gone, and the plumber told me that they couldn’t install the washer/dryer because they need a stacking bracket. Which was supposed to be in the box. And apparently I have to call ye Heaueau Depeau to find out what’s going on with that. Oh dear.

My home from behind. I had never seen it from the neighbors’ parking lot!

After they’d gone and I walked back into the house, my immediate reaction was “Who farted, and is that why the bathroom door is closed?” Unfortunately, the gas I was smelling wasn’t that sort, and in the kitchen it was prominent. So I texted the contractor. He responded to open the windows, and sent the plumber back to look things over. Apparently when you install a stove or reopen a gas line you have to “bleed the system” or something, so he moved the stove out from the wall, draped himself over the counter to reach behind, made some adjustments, moved the stove back into position, and lit all the burners one by one to be sure they worked. Then he waited about a bit, and perhaps the smell dissipated a bit, and took off.

Waiting for his arrival, the neighbors texted “Does anyone else smell gas? Should we call 911?” So at least I was able to tell them the source. But half an hour later they could still smell it, and so could I. I texted the contractor again, and abandoned my plan to dine out. By 7:30 he was back, and finally identified the problem: a faulty fitting in the basement. He turned off the valve - so I won’t be using my new stove yet - and will replace the faulty fitting when he returns Friday to install the dishwasher.

So - that’s enough excitement for today! Whew!

Kitchen Renovation, Day Thirty-Two

To paraphrase the late Victor von Frankenstein, “LIGHT! LIGHT! GIVE MY CREATION . . . . LIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!”

About 6:30 this morning I realized that I couldn’t pretend any longer that I’d go back to sleep and should just get up. Fifteen minutes later, as I was approaching the coffee maker to make the coffee, my phone started vibrating. It was the contractor. “Can the electrician come and work over there today?” When I’d asked yesterday, he assured me no one would be back until Monday. “Absolutely!” I replied. “That’s perfect!” ‘Cause, let’s get this thing done!

By 8 AM the nice electrician was all set up and starting to install lightswitches and outlets, and by 2:30 he was packing up to leave for the weekend. Now, finalmente, a moment I have long awaited: installation of ceiling fixtures.

As mentioned in the early days of this renovation, I had never liked the ceiling fan that came with the place, and over the last few years it had started wobbling dangerously on all but one setting. The new fan has a contained light, shorter but thicker blades, and a nice mid-century sleekness to it.

In the pantry, I had long dreamed of a Moravian star lantern. Long ago this year - so long ago that it might even have been before the coronavirus pandemic quarantine started in March - I ordered this (and the fan) from ye Ymyzonne*. Patiently they have waited in the cellar, like tulip bulbs waiting to be planted and blossom. And now at last, their time has come!

One more Moravian star waits to begin shining its light, this one in the hallway. The electrician had to abandon it because some elderly wiring needs to be replaced, a prudent delay.

No one will be working here on Sunday, but Monday I expect big doings with the installation of the appliances.

A dimmer switch for the lights! And an incomprehensible remote for the ceiling fan.

*I have been made aware that my disguising of the names of businesses or other entities to keep from having this personal blog pop up in internet searches is both annoying and lacking in clarity. To which I can only reply with the deathless words of William Hurt in The Big Chill, who so memorably said “Sometimes . . . you just have to let Art wash over you.”

Kitchen Renovation, Day Thirty-One

Today is the day this renovation officially rounded the turn into the home stretch. The countertops were installed.

The day actually began with the bearded member of the construction crew returning to lay the floor tile in the pantry. The stonemasons arrived at noon, exactly in the middle of their two-hour window of arrival. I showed them back to the kitchen, and before I knew it the smaller countertops were in place. It was like magic!

With adhesive still to dry on the pantry floor tile, the next countertop to go in was the sink. Whether they cut the hole for the faucet in the kitchen or back outside, I’ll never know. I did what I could to minimize the impact on the rest of the house, shutting the doors, rehanging the plastic that remained by one of them, and shutting of the central a/c. As it happened, the Bearded One chose that exact time to start replacing the thresholds on those doorways. Of course that required at least one of those doors to be open. With a silica-like odor in the air, I just threw up my hands and retreated to the garden with a new book, Washington’s End: The Final Years and Forgotten Struggle by Jonathan Horn.

The stonemasons installed the sink, too, and after that were finally able to get into the pantry. As mentioned way back, the pantry countertop had to be seamed because it’s a wall-to-wall countertop in a narrow room, and with a long ell down one side. The stonemasons did a superb job; the seam is hardly noticeable! They warned me not to put anything on it for 24 hours while it sets.

The stone, Eternal Noir Suede, looks exactly as I’d hoped it would. Originally I had wanted the black stone only in the pantry and a white granite in the kitchen, but that would have cost a ridiculous amount of money extra. Now, with the black counters in the kitchen, I find I really do add a nice contrast.

With the stonemasons’ departure, the Bearded One remained to continue working on under-cabinet baseboard in the pantry and the kitchen. Throughout all this, it was extremely difficult for me to concentrate on other things.

To give you an idea of what’s to come.

So Saturday I can start filling the pantry, Monday appliances will be installed, and Wednesday the dishwasher delivered. With its installation next Thursday, “principal photography” will be done! Then I can begin “retakes,” which really means hanging curtains, pictures, Fiestaware, etc.; filling cabinets and drawers, and stocking the refrigerator.

Thursday Afternoon, September 10 - Diana Rigg

1) Diana Rigg has died after a rich full life. Perhaps her most important film was one of her first, A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1968. I’ll never forget seeing the film at Interlochen my junior year, and especially this monologue:

1a) Mercy, looking at her IMDB page I barely recognize a title. And I had no idea she was on that show about a throne . . .

1b) Perhaps she is the Diana Wynyard of her generation?

2) Later I acquired her wonderful collection of mean theatre criticism, No Turn Unstoned, absolutely invaluable to those who love 20th-century theatre.

3) I’ve already posted in this space someone’s tribute video to Mrs. Peel of Cake’s “Short Skirt, Long Jacket,” but also seems appropriate to repost today.

Kitchen Renovation, Day Twenty-Nine

Today’s theme is tension headache. Actually, it’s the kind of headache that begins at the bottom of the shoulder blades and works up. It’s not a migraine - so thank God for small favors - but I haven’t had one for awhile, and it sucks.

This morning I expected the contractor to show up about 8 AM with someone to finish laying the floor tile, now that the final box has arrived. So I was sure to be up early, tension headache and all, because you know how I am about being late. I hardly needed my second cup of coffee after sighting six turkeys (!) in my garden. The presence of Real Live Turkeys on the property of course made me think of Daffy Duck’s Holiday for Drumsticks.

The contractor called about 8:15 with the news that he’d be over in “about an hour” after a COVID test, bringing with him backsplash tile samples. That at least gave me a chance to shower without fear that he’d show up while I was in the shower. One of the best home remedies for a tension headache that doesn’t involve medicine is standing under a vibrating shower head for as long as you want. (But I also popped a couple aspirin tablets.)

It’s always a pleasure to talk with the contractor, even on the rare occasions when we don’t agree. It felt like a victory to hear him acknowledge that the colored ceilings came out better than he’d thought.

The tile situation got sorted out quickly. Small, white subway tile with a glossy finish behind all the counters, with bulnoses where they belong. He did show me some larger tile that I didn’t think would work, but the reason he offered them was he had three boxes at home. You’ll see above that, in spite of my efforts, I’m ending up with my Philip Marlowe “The white made the ivory look dirty and the ivory made the white look bled out” Situation after all, but it will all look better after some sleep.

The contractor ll return tomorrow morning with the backsplash tile, the faucet for the kitchen sink, and the garbage disposal. Friday the guy will come to lay the floor tile - presumably at a time when the countertops are not being installed. (The countertop company will call Thursday to confirm the exact time they’re coming.) Monday the appliances will be installed and the electrician will install the light fixtures and switches and outlets and whatnot. But that day, alas, will not be the end of the construction phase of the renovation.

After the contractor left, I called the local appliance store from which I’d been able to order my make/model of dishwasher, which I was told would arrive last week. Now that the charge has gone through, I’m getting the Service With a Snarl version of small business in America. “Oh yeah, those are arriving here next Wednesday, so we’ll have it delivered on Thursday.” Frankly, I am not a state today to argue about it.

Back to bed!

Kitchen Renovation, Day Twenty-Seven

Sweet mercy goodness, if today is day 27, then tomorrow is the end of week four. And I said it would be five weeks . . . and that looks realistic! Thank goodness, too, ‘cause I’ve finally run out of disposable coffee cups . . .

The painters returned this morning at 8 AM, properly masked, to finish up the kitchen. I left for a very long walk in the cemetery about half an hour later, just to be prudent. And it was a beautiful morning; I’m glad I went.

These two photos show the one corner where you can see the cabinetry, woodwork, wall, and ceiling at once. One photo is with the lights on, the other off. The ceiling actually lends a warm tone to the walls there!

With workmen in the house, it really is not easy to concentrate on anything else. When I returned I actually just got back into bed! It was the only thing I felt I could do. But at 12:22 I heard them call me into the kitchen. Imagine my surprise when they told me they were all done! Somehow I had expected them to be there until 4 PM, like on Saturday.

The work looks good, and Moonlight White looks like the right choice after all for the walls and woodwork. One of the pictures below was taken with the lights off, the other on. Under the cabinets the backsplash will go, so they didn’t paint there.

No crew here tomorrow, so the next important event is getting that new box of tile here tomorrow so it can be laid on Wednesday. The tracking link from ye Fydyxe indicates that it’s at their local distribution facility already and should be delivered by 8 PM tomorrow evening.

Kitchen Renovation, Day Twenty-Six

I’ve talked about the Howard Johnson’s part of “Howard Johnson’s at Versailles,” but not about the Versailles part. And as I think about it, I realize I have no clear memory of when mashing up those two contradictory things came to mind! “Lost in the mists of Time” at this point.

But really, when you think of Versailles, what do you think of? Gilding, mirrors, and Marie Antoinette. And therefore cake. And perhaps also Louis XIV, and therefore Big Hair. I have always loved Marie Antoinette, even before I found Madame Campan’s memoirs at Boston Book Annex in my sophomore year of college, and then Stefan Zweig’s Freudian biography of her, Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman. Even Mary, Queen of Scots, who I first read about in third grade, takes second place.

So visiting Versailles and the Petit Trianon was a priority when I first went to Paris in 2008. A room I’d never heard of deeply impressed me: the chapel of the Petit Trianon. White and black, with a dash of red. This became my inspiration for the pantry (even though the pantry will look nothing like it).

Many people will be shocked by this, but I rejected the idea of any gilding right off the bat. White and gold might be a very Versailles combination, but in America it was also every suburban girl’s bedroom in the mid-century. I didn’t want a Veda Pierce Distinctly Middle Class kitchen at all.

I’d also thought about lining the back wall with floor-to-ceiling panels of mirrors, including a sliding panel that would obscure the pantry and backstairs doors. That, no surprise, would have been impractical. I am still toying with the idea of placing a mirror someplace.

There is also The Urn, which has been languishing down in the cellar for a long time now and needs to be brought back out. About 30 years ago, when Daddy was serving on the board of one of the local hospitals, he would get a ridiculously elaborate-looking gift for Christmas. The first year it was an over-the-top porcelain urn, over two feet tall and encrusted with porcelain flowers and cupids and whatnot. It was not like anything either of my parents would have chosen for themselves! The whole thing made me laugh like a drain, which is undoubtedly why I begged for it to put on top of the toilet in my Beacon Street basement apartment. And there it stayed, and it had a place of honor in the bathroom on Columbus Avenue, too. It’s time to bring it out again.

That leaves how to include the Queen, besides my sweet Marie Antoinette action figure with head-popping action my friends gave me for my birthday in 2009. Oddly enough, that journey detours through Provincetown. In August, 2019, I acquired this handsome gentleman from a Provincetown art gallery.

Pastelitos shows a handsome young man on a palm-lined beach offering a basket of traditional Cuban pastries. Handsome young man + carbohydrates = marry me! And notice the blue and orange color scheme, and how well it would complement Fiestaware.

The artist, Kurt Walters, has created an ongoing Dessert Series of paintings, all of people offering desserts from their culinary traditions. He’s not only a talented artist with a fabulous sense of whimsy, but also an engaging raconteur. Happily, I was able to persuade him to create for me an addition to this series, of Marie Antoinette with a cake.

So the two of them will make an unlikely pairing in the kitchen . . . but then, that’s part of why I find it so delightful. As noted before, I am seized with flights of fancy so obscure that only I can appreciate them. ;-)

Kitchen Renovation, Day Twenty-Five

The painters arrived this morning at 8 AM to work their magic. The contractor came along to show them the ropes, and then skedaddled, no doubt to another job. (I have provided three referrals to him, but he said they’re very busy right now.) They had to open the doors to the rest of the house, and I have had to remind them once to keep their masks on. I totally understand that it’s uncomfortable and an inconvenience, but it’s a risk to their health and mine if air is recirculating throughout the house.

But I’ve noticed a genuine reluctance to wear masks among various members of the crew, and delivery men. This is most often displayed by wearing masks below the nose, or below the chin. And it’s one thing if the doors to the rest of the house are sealed off, but quite another when they’re wide open and I’m home, too.

They left shortly after 4 PM and will be back on Monday, Labor Day, to finish. The good news is: the work they did looks good on ceilings and woodwork. I also like how the colors looks. Up at the top of this post you can see a kitchen corner with the Sweet Orange ceiling, Moonlight White window frame, and white cabinetry. (The walls have not yet been painted.) The orange is a bit yellower than I thought - quite like a squash blossom - but it works, and that’s what counts. In the pantry, the Onyx woodwork matches the black cabinetry quite well, and the Exotic Red ceiling and Moonlight White walls blend as I wanted them to.

Hmm, there are a few little bits of painting they are going to have to smooth out! That smudgy bit by the window frame is not a paint smudge, but painter’s tape.

The bad news is: a bad booboo on a pantry cabinet door. A couple white paint spots on black woodwork . . . aww, that can come off. Painting outside the lines can be fixed. But that booboo can’t be masked in any way that I can see.

Magnified for effect. You can imagine the effect it had on me!

In other news, I did a lot of online shopping today for kitchen things, including drawer pulls and door handles. Nothing very satisfactory came up when I searched for “Fiestaware knob,” but I still found something thematic.

Next week, Monday finishes the painting, Wednesday finishes the flooring, and Friday features the counter installation. After that, the appliances and light fixtures can be installed and . . . and . . . and perhaps I can be cooking in the kitchen by September 15 after all!

Moonlight White door and woodwork, only primer on the walls still.

The Films of Elspeth Dudgeon

Yes, that’s her real name.

One of the joys of the Yewtybbe for me is recognizing faces from one film to another. I can be watching, say, I Wake Up Screaming, see Lady Handel at her nightclub table greeting Victor Mature and Carol Landis, and say “Hey, wait a minute, isn’t that . . . “ and of course it turns out she was the housekeeper in Little Lord Fauntleroy and Mrs. Phillips in the 1940 Pride and Prejudice, not to mention the old lady who says “Who locked that door?!” in the powder room of the Casino Roof in The Women. And that would be Mae Beatty.

I lead a rich, full life!

A favorite Old Hollywood Classic to view on the Yewytybbe is the 1935 Becky Sharp, starring that naughty Miriam Hopkins. At the very beginning of the film we see Becky’s schoolmistress MIss Pinkerton, a very stern old lady with a face like a tombstone. Then watching Now, Voyager, I got a look at Bette Davis’s Aunt Hester (a non-speaking role in only two scenes). “Hey, isn’t that Miss Pinkerton?” And a trip to ye IMDB revealed that yes, yes it was Miss Pinkerton — the character actress Elspeth Dudgeon. So for no reason at all, I am creating this page to collect in one place her film performances.

Elspeth barely appears in Becky Sharp at all - after the first five minutes she’s out for good - but this was one of the first Technicolor films to come out of Hollywood, and it has a great ensemble cast: Alan Mowbray, Frances Dee, Nigel Bruce (I love Nigel Bruce), and, as Pitt Crawley, the same actor who plays the preacher reading the 23rd Psalm in the besieged Atlanta church hospital in Gone With the Wind.

In Camille with Greta Garbo, Elspeth is the matron attending the ladies room at the casino. Her scene begins at 01:26:23, but really, don’t skip the rest of the movie! Greta Garbo at her greatest, Robert Taylor at his most beautiful, Henry Daniell at his most reptilian, my beloved Laura Hope Crews (Aunt Pittypat from GWTW), and a vivacious actress we almost never see, Lenore Ulric, who plays Greta Garbo’s rival Olympe. About ten years later she had a small part in Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious, when she says to Cary Grant “Young men have such short memories!”

In The Moonstone of 1934 Elspeth has an actual part that goes on through the entire movie, as the querelous but loyal housekeeper Mrs. Betteredge. This is sort of a horror/mystery/comedy mashup based on the famous mystery by Wilkie Collins. It centers on a very large yellow diamond called the Moonstone that was stolen from an Indian temple by an Englishman and left to his niece. Ridiculousness ensues, but also exceedingly handsome David Manners, so it’s worth it.

Finally, something I just discovered night before last, Sh! The Octopus. Hugh Herbert (“Woo hoo! Woo hoo!”) is one of the stars, and I’m sorry, I’m just not a Hugh Herbert fan. A group of strangers are trapped in a lighthouse and besieged by a gigantic octopus and fear of a burglar named The Octopus who is trying to steal the radium ray invented by a young woman’s stepfather. “Whoever controls that ray controls the world!” Elspeth appears as Nanny, and if you thought she had a face like a tombstone to begin with, you will be amazed out of your wits at the transformation she undergoes at the end of the film - into someone’s mother-in-law!

Thanks for your indulgence.

Kitchen Renovation, Day Twenty-Two

PART ONE

I was in the bathroom this morning the contractor texted “Be there in ten minutes.” Surprise! I knew he was dropping by, but not so early. This was only the second or third time he’s been on site, due to travel and quarantine issues. We have a good rapport, and I was looking forward to seeing him.

He seemed pleased. “I hadn’t known how those floors would turn out,” he said in his Actual-Irish-Not-Southie-Irish accent, because that brand of tile was new to them. He looked approvingly at the woodwork and the cabinetry (his partner spent a whole day on it, “it was a pain in the @$$,” he said), and clamored for the countertops to be installed.

On the spot the contractor telephoned the painter to come this weekend. “Well,” he said to him, “the colors are gonna be a little of what you’d call funky,” meaning my ceilings. All that remains is to replace the wooden thresholds of two doors, install the appliances (which can’t be done until the countertops are installed), install the ceiling fan and the pantry light, complete the electrical outlets, finish laying the pantry floor when the next box of tiles comes (next week Tuesday!), screw on the cabinet hardware, position all the cabinet shelves, and dust. Then all I’ll have to do is put in the curtain rods and curtains, move in the furniture, fill all the cabinets, hang the pictures, and raise a toast to the successful completion of the renovation.

PART TWO

Finalmente, the arrival of the appliances! An event worthy of its own soundtrack, but the circumstances could have been more auspicious. The driver called during my 1 PM Zoom meeting to let me know he was half an hour away (a risk I took, scheduling a Zoom meeting during the delivery window) and had difficulty hearing me. (“I SAID, I WILL BE READY WHEN YOU ARRIVE IN TWENTY-FIVE TO THIRTY MINUTES!”) They arrived in the rain and couldn’t park immediately in front of the house. I had to tell the driver twice to cover his nose with his mask.

They were real pros about measuring all the doorways in advance and unscrewing the automatic spring bar thingy at the top of the screen door. The one disagreement we had was about unboxing. Ye Heaumeau Depeau makes it abundantly clear in their documents that there are no returns/refunds of major appliances, and that they needed to be unboxed to be inspected by the customer to be sure they were in good condition (e.g. no dings, nicks, or dents). Three out of four were wrapped in shrink wrap, and I was comfortable inspecting them thus. The stove was in an actual box, but he refused to unbox it inside. That meant unboxing and inspecting streetside. Not an ideal outcome with the rain . . . who knows, I may end up repenting my light blue floor at leisure, LOL!

The goods are here, in good condition, and that’s the most important part. I was also expecting the dishwasher, from another vendor, but it has yet to show up . . .

PART THREE

Afterthat, I returned a voicemail from the company doing the countertops to schedule their installation. The good news is, September 11 is the day! That will be Day 31, just a couple days after the contractor’s original estimate of four weeks. No complaints from me!

The bad news is a brewing disagreement about how it’s done. When countertops are installed, it’s typical for holes to be cut in them on site for the positioning of faucets and things like that. Earlier this week one of the workmen told me “Don’t let them do it inside! Make them take it outside because of all that silica dust. It’s bad for you!” When I mentioned this to the Nice Young Lady handling the scheduling, she said “Well, they don’t usually do that, but I’ll tell them you mentioned it. There’s always a second person vacuuming right there as the cutting is taking place.” When I mentioned it during pre-meeting chatter before my second Zoom meeting*, someone told me that they, too, had used this company, and that there was dust everywhere and just send them outside.

As Joan Fontaine so accurately observed in The Women (1939), “You know Mary hates situations!”

*It’s been a very busy day here! I get to start using my appointment book again!

Kitchen Renovation, Day Twenty-One

The end of today marks three full weeks of kitchen renovation . . . and the work is still moving swiftly.

Today the floors were laid. I was wrong. There were not enough tiles to tile the pantry completely. So I had to rush order an additional box, which I hope will arrive by Thursday.

I do rather like how they look though. Bold! but also severe.

And I really do like this shade of blue. The crew asked how I wanted them laid out this morning, and I really preferred the grid style rather than staggered like bricks. This can remind me of the Armstrong tile floors at the old Dimmick Supply stores and Doyle’s without actually being Armstrong tile.

The plastic has now come down off the interior doors, so in theory I can wander in and out. But I prefer to keep a well-ventilated distance, as I can’t be sure they’re wearing masks when I’m out of view.

With the plastic down that also means dust, and I’m already seeing it on the new tile. Nothing a quick visit with a Swiffer can’t fix . . . I hope.

With arrival of appliances tomorrow, the contractor has expressed some concern about protecting the floors, and I agree. I sure don’t want to see any dents! But it will be a relief to have them all in house, and the old appliances carted away.