Tuesday Afternoon, 24 August -- Books

1) Last week it was eight to ten boxes of books that left this house when the More Than Words folks came to collect them. This afternoon it was two boxes of CDs and DVDs that I toted over to Boomerangs to donate. Slowly but surely I am purging this house of the dross!

1a) I was especially relieved to get the books out. Reboxing last week I could remember where almost every one of them came from — from Mother, from Gramma’s house, gifts from long-ago friends, the bookstores where I discovered them — and I could have weakened over a few volumes. But they got into those boxes for a reason, and I did not waver. This time.

2) It was fun returning to Edith Wharton for Sunday’s column on cutting, but I don’t feel like bringing her along to the beach this week. I have a two-foot stack of “new” books on the coffee table (where it doubles as a tripod for Facetime calls) — some of which go back a couple years — but none of those titles are calling out to me now. I will probably tote along Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to the Civil War by Joanne Freeman just because I would love to have finished it. (It’s a very good book, but my goodness, the parallels to today . . . )

3) But really, sometimes the best read is a NAP.

3)

Sunday Evening, 22 August -- The Randomness That Is Who I Am

1) Not that long ago, someone pointed out that it was Madonna’s birthday. Which inexplicably led me to get reacquainted with her I’m Breathless album from Dick Tracy. First, I used to own this album on cassette. And second, how can “Vogue” be 30 years old?!

1a) Gawd, 30 years ago I was living under the stairs on Beacon Street. Furniture from old apartments and trash days. Popcorn-sprayed walls. Mice. But I had some fabulous parties there. You’ve come a long way, baby.

2) It took a tropical storm warning to get me to clear the back porch of everything left over from the yard sale three months ago. But it’s done now!

3) All afternoon I’ve been marinating a piece of skirt steak in a mixture of red wine, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and rosemary, so let’s see how that turns out.

BONUS: When I came back from P’town at the start of the month I made a sincere and dedicated return to my diet, and I’ve lost ~six pounds since then. “Slow but steady wins the race” and all that, but the point is that I’ve stuck with it.

Kitchen Renovation: THE BIG REVEAL, Part II

When most people think kitchens they immediately think appliances. Whereas my attention was captured by color, art, and decorative touches. So, thank goodness everything works (except for that niggling issue of the wash machine wanting to break through the exterior wall to freedom), and let’s take a look at the decorative elements that led to the, um, unique theme of Howard Johnson’s at Versailles.

The first thing is always “Work with what you’ve got,” right? So, what did I have? Some wonderful midcentury furniture from Gramma’s house, vintage Fiestaware (including several pieces in the famous Radioactive Orange* that were actually made with uranium oxide), and some beat-up Franciscan Starburst. I also had The Urn, and after 17 years in the cellar it was time for it to make a comeback.

In the words of the late Cole Porter, “It’s appalling! It’s appealing!”

Back in the early 1990s when Daddy was on the hospital board of directors, he was given The Urn as a Christmas gift; everyone else on the board got one, too, I gather. Mother, of course, thought it was awful and wouldn’t have it in the house. I, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious and begged to have it to put on top of the john. It played a prominent role in my bathroom decor at both Beacon Street and Columbus Avenue, but when I moved to Maison Robaire there was no obvious place for it, so off it went to storage. It was the linchpin of the Versailles half of the scheme.

In the old kitchen I’d used beautiful orange sarongs patterned with green leaves on vines for curtains, and they cast a wonderful glow in the room late in the day. The view is inconsequential, so I never open the curtains in here. “How,” I asked myself, “could I incorporate a view of Versailles in this room?” The answer turned out to be screening early 18th-century illustrations of Versailles gardens and fountains onto “tapestries” from Fine Art America, getting the dry cleaner to hem them at the top, and hanging them on café curtain rods. In front of them I hung white gauze curtains and tied them back with roughly color-coordinated ribbon left over from Christmas or birthday gifts. (Always save the ribbon if it’s pretty.)

Pastelitos and Boston Cream Pie by Kurt Walters, hanging over the desk between the windows.

At the Simie Maryles Gallery in Provincetown in 2019 I discovered the Dessert Series by Brooklyn artist Kurt Walters, and was completely charmed by his work. While I missed out on the Apple Crisp that first captivated me, I was delighted to bring home his Pastelitos, a handsome Cubano offering a basket of traditional Cuban pastries in a beach atmosphere of blue and sand — with just enough hints of orange to make it work the Howard Johnson’s half of the scheme. Last month I snapped up one of Kurt’s latest series, Boston Cream Pie. Aside from its Boston roots, this smiling baseball player has the added advantage of coordinating completely with the curtains.

Now, if you’re talking desserts and Versailles in the same sentence, you are of course going to think of a famous queen who lost her head and something she was supposed to have said about eating cake that she didn’t actually say. I talked Kurt into painting Marie Antoinette with a cake in front of the Petit Trianon, and I love having her as a presiding spirit in here. At the moment she’s been displaced by Boston Cream Pie, but I need to talk Kurt into a companion piece for her, a Howard Johnson’s soda jerk with a hot fudge sundae, so . . .

Notice wire sculptor Brian Murphy’s wire head of Marie Antoinette.

So that’s the Versailles half of things. The Hojo half starts with their colors: blue, orange, and white. Originally I was flirting with a, shall we say, bolder, more authentic color scheme having found some vinyl floor covering on the internet in koi orange. I was persuaded to lighten up, and eventually my English friends steered me to a wonderful tile company that made a vinyl floor tile in pale blue (almost an exact match with the Franciscan Starburst). So I painted the ceiling a pale orange that really turned out to be a bold yellow, but I still love it.

Mother’s pill basket.

Orange turns up elsewhere: in Fiestaware, in my new teakettle, and drawer pulls and cupboard handles. Whatever the cabinets came with was just too ordinary! The orange throw rugs from the old kitchen work just fine in here, too. Mother’s little medicine basket has a peach ribbon running through it. She made it herself in an art class, and kept all her pill bottles in it for years. She even brought it with her to the hospital on that last day. I love having it, but I keep fruit or other kitchen things in it.

During construction, one of the surprises (for me, anyway) was the need for a new circuit breaker located in the kitchen. Circuit breakers are notoriously unattractive, and I knew I’d need to mask it somehow. The poster everyone signed for my Boston Ballet farewell party in 2003 works perfectly, and with the added benefit of featuring Adriana Suarez. Every room benefits from the presence of Adriana!

By the door I have three generations of family needlework. Mother’s “Be It Ever So Humble There’s No Place Like Home” I have always loved. Laura made especially for me the coffee and beignet still life for Christmas! How special is that?! And over the door is Gramma’s “No Matter Where I Serve My Guests, It Seems They Like My Kitchen Best.” This hung in her kitchen next do the dining room door, and it takes me right back to her house when I see it.

The refrigerator in the old kitchen had been covered in magnets and postcards, but that approach wasn’t going to work with my tall, slim, handsome new Bosch. When my English friends came to visit in 2016 they brought me these beautiful magnets from the Alhambra, and they couldn’t be more perfect.

Note the orange handle.

Finally, I keep a special message over the sink.

Green Red Wing Pottery vases, Franciscan Starburst butter dish, salt and pepper from Gramma’s kitchen, all on a counter of Eternal Noir Suede quartz. (Or granite. Whatever.)

*Yes, Fiestaware fans, I know that color is officially red, but it’s orange.

Kitchen Renovation: THE BIG REVEAL, Part I

Bienvenue chez Howard Johnson à Versailles!

“Finalmente!” I know all of you are thinking. Yes, it took me awhile to get my head bent around putting this Big Reveal of the kitchen renovation together, and I apologize. It is, however, very appropriate to post it today, August 13, because it just happens to be the 18th anniversary of my closing on Maison Robaire. I have now officially lived in this condominium longer than I lived in my hometown.

So here we go with some time lapses of the renovation, from each corner of the room.

Southeast corner.

Southwest corner.

Northwest corner, the Cozy Nook.

Northeast corner.

How does it feel a year later? Fantastic! The room feels lighter with all the white and the paler-than-I-originally-intended colors, brighter with all the new can lights, larger with the choice of a narrower refrigerator and its new location next to the stove, and taller with the high cabinets. Gramma’s Cushman Colonial desk fits exactly between the windows and makes the perfect coffee station, just as I’d planned. My Cozy Nook now truly is cozy, especially when I keep from dumping stuff on the chairs. The new ceiling fan pleases me every time I turn it on; it never looks like it’s going to shake its way free of the ceiling.

The big deep sink makes housework easier, but the most enormous improvement has been the dishwasher. For 17 years* I lived here with no dishwasher, so dishwashing took up a lot of my domestic time. Now that glass, china, and silverware can all go in there, I can dispatch with pots and pans and other things in something like ten minutes. I’m no longer settling in for the long haul!

What’s been unexpected? How much I end up using that desk. I imagined it would only be for coffee and a kitchen countertop. Instead, it’s my domestic HQ for all accounting and condo association business, home base for my laptop, and sometimes where I eat. I also didn’t plan on an empty shelf in the cabinet directly over the sink, but it’s a great position for my laptop if there’s something I want to watch while dishwashing.

And, there are some things I need out where I can get to them and not tucked away. It’s great to have the recycling hidden in a cabinet, but I need the trashcan out in the open to toss stuff in without any fuss. Same with my working tote bags. I hang ‘em on the pantry doorknob and not on a hook in the pantry, and that’s OK.

I also didn’t expect to be completely happy with a blank wall. Originally I’d planned to mount the Fiestaware on that wall, but that simply isn’t going to happen. I’m perfectly happy with that blank white space, but I know it will eventually fill with art of some sort.

There’s still a few things that need to be taken care of. The wash machine needs to be anchored to the floor somehow. The two times I’ve tried to use it it’s tried to break out of the house! I need to order a glass top for the desk, not only to preserve the desktop but also so I can display my small collection of Hotel Vendome postcards underneath. I don’t understand why nails in the door sills keep wanting to pop out of the floor. But I’ll get to it all at some point. In the meantime, it is a pleasure to be in the room instead of a necessity. I’m really very happy with it overall.

Big Reveal Part II, when it comes, will look at some of the decorative elements.

*The same amount of time Casper Gutman searched for the Maltese Falcon.

Tuesday Afternoon, 3 August -- A Few Days in Provincetown

1) I arrived last Thursday afternoon for my third week in Provincetown this summer. What a change from July Fourth! That week was like the Before Times: very little masking or social distancing, dining out in restaurants, overall a freedom from fear. Since Miss Delta raised her head, it’s been like a return to 2020. This visit I haven’t been down Comical Street once since I arrived, and I have only dined al fresco a few times.

Only traveling al fresco, too, when possible.

2) Mistralino is truly the secret garden of P’town this summer. A restaurant off Bradford with a charming small brick terrace (some of you may remember it as the old Ten Tables), I went there Friday evening for a lateish dinner with the Other Housemate. For me, a rye manhattan, arancini, and chicken parm. We talked about insects (we had to get the waiter to relight some citronella candles), gardening, herb gardening (I was surprised he had an interest in that, and was able to recommend Beston’s Herbs and the Earth), COVID (of course), and The Boys in the Band.

A beautiful little spot for socially distanced cocktails.

3) This trip has included some really nice encounters with friends rarely seen:

• Early on, a rarely seen friend and his new-to-me husband and their new-to-be little girl, absolutely adorable.

• Sunday, two friends who moved to Palm Springs during the pandemic dropped by for drinks on the terrace, which was lovely.

• And today, Tuesday, I met two friends from Boston here on vacation for a ramble through the small Winthrop Court Cemetery, a common interest.

4) Friday, Sunday, and Monday were my beach days, and very grateful for them I was, too — especially after how gray and damp everything was over July Fourth. I’d get into my rags and tatters, fill up the thermos with ice and water, and trudge off to Herring Cove with a stop at Gale Force for necessities. It’s pleasant to think of Herring Cove not being crowded at all, but that’s all it would be, a pleasant thought. Each day the area in front of the dunes would be consistently paved by 1:30 PM. Too close for comfort for me! So Monday, when I arrived after 2, I just trudged even further to the area in front of the roped-off bird nesting area, with no one around me for at least 30 feet, and that was wonderful.

Every rock an ouchie.

4a) The best, most beautiful part of these beach visits was simply floating in the water and feeling its chill in my ears and the back of my neck.

5) The Other Housemate ended up leaving Sunday afternoon, which created an opportunity for one of my Best Friends (with whom I’m splitting a half share) to pop up for a couple nights. This included dining in on Sunday night, and the viewing of the Halston documentary, during which I’m embarrassed to say I fell asleep for about ten minutes. In my defense, it was after 11 PM by then.

6) And now I’m preparing to return to town tomorrow, to pick up the threads of credit card fraud resolutions, Konmari, preparing for my talk for the Gibson House on August 17, and praying that COVID will spare the people I love. When I arrived on Thursday, I felt like a stressed mess. But these last few days of trudging back and forth to the beach, quiet dinners, good conversations, and some writing has helped restore my balance. A lot.

Monday Evening, 26 July -- Fraud and Pork

1) The horoscope today began with something like “Nourish yourself with what is beautiful.” As the day progressed I could tell why, because my mood depressed as I considered more and more the global and national situations.

2) Late in the afternoon I got an email from Ypple about my new yPhyne being delivered tomorrow to my home address at [Insert Address Definitely Not My Home Address Here]. Wait, what?! First I had to call Ypple to say “What on earth, dahlings?!” and they took care of it with their legal department or whatever. They also confirmed the last four digits of the credit card involved — yup, it was one of mine. The card company was helpful via their chat function, and my card has been successfully cancelled. So yay for the Ypple email system working as it should! But I am doing figure eights about my information being hacked.

2a) Insert Fulminations about a Credit Rating Agency with Impossible Customer Service Systems Here.

3) By then it was decidedly time to “prepare the burnt offering” for dinner. There were things I needed to use soon, so I ended up tossing a chopped onion, a peeled and sliced red apple, a very small clove of garlic, a small handful of raisins, and a package of thin-sliced pork cutlets into a skillet with some olive oil and a bit of nutmeg — just to see what would happen — and you know, it came out quite palatable. Doing the dress dinner challenge the last two winters and experimenting with new recipes has also made me a bit more willing to improvise in the kitchen.

Ten New (or New to Me) Things About New York, July 2021

Earlier this month I spent few days in New York, my first real vacation since the pandemic, but I didn’t end up blogging it every blessed day. So now that the trip has ended — when I wrote this I was sitting in the lush and plush Metropolitan Lounge at the glistening new Moynihan Train Hall — here are ten new things I saw or did that made the trip extra special. There were familiar friends and places that made this trip special, too, but I want to focus on what was different this time. In chronological order:

Hangin’ with Tiny Marie Antoinette at the Campbell.

1) FIRST FIST BUMP: Wednesday night, Bastille Day, I was supposed to be hanging out with a friend who ended up being called out of town for work. I rolled with the punches and trotted over to the Campbell Bar at Grand Central with Tiny Marie Antoinette for a couple drinks, and then walked back to my hotel in Chelsea. En route I stopped at a corner deli to pick up some sustenance, and wouldn’t you know it, a man there with his wife was very impressed with my new shoes (off-white wingtips with sneaker soles; I laced them with purple laces.) So impressed, in fact, that he just had to give me a fist bump. After that I felt that no only had I arrived, I had a place here!

1a) The hostess at the Campbell saw my citrine pendant, which led us into a very excitable discussion about crystals — she makes jewelry — and the presentation of her card. I’m sure she’ll be my new best friend until I don’t buy anything.

Rita! How discreet not to include dates of birth . . .

2) GRAVE MATTERS: On Thursday another schedule change allowed me to do something I’d comtemplated for awhile: take the 1 train all the way up to 157th Street, ankle over to 770 Riverside, the Trinity Church Wall Street Uptown Cemetery, and search out the grave of Rita de Acosta Lydig, “the fabulous Mrs. Lydig” who so captivated Cecil Beaton, and her sister, Mercedes de Acosta, who spent her life having relationships with celebrities like Greta Garbo.

Thursday morning it was hot, and I was both wearing long pants and carrying a jacket. This trip I really made an effort to walk slowly, to try to cultivate the “peculiar drifting ease” Willa Cather used to describe Lady Longstreet in her short story “The Old Beauty.” That came in handy at the cemetery, which is many things, but few of them are flat. I knew from the internet that I was looking for a flat stone slab. Trudging up a steep winding path in the sun, I spotted something, but . . . “No,” I said, “that isn’t it. No wait . . . it is! It IS it!” And so I found scandalous Mrs. Lydig and her scandalous sister Mercedes, buried with their unscandalous mother and their aunt. And I felt great joy.

It was so hot.

2a) This is also important to me because the grave of the love of her life, Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, is in my neighborhood cemetery at home. I pay a call on him whenever I’m in his area.

Amber Cowan, Dance of the Pacific Coast Highway at Sunset, 2019

3) AHTSY CRAFTSY: The Museum of Art and Design on Columbus Circle turned out to have some very thought-provoking exhibitions, including a beautiful dollhouse in the style of a Venetian palazzo created and furnished during the pandemic, a celebration of craft, and some eye-popping displays of glass. It was great to see what all the fuss was about.

4) POWER LUNCH: Thursday included lunch with a professional etiquette colleague, conveniently at the restaurant (like me, named Robert), atop the Museum of Art and Design. That’s why I was wearing long pants and toting a jacket. We didn’t rise from the table until almost 4 PM, and the conversation had not flagged. I had been to Robert once before, a couple years ago, in winter at night. Having had the impressive night view, this time I was able to enjoy the majestic summer daytime view of Central Park and the Upper West Side even more. Long story short, I left feeling very encouraged about the direction I want to take, and I floated away on a cloud into the hot streets.

5) THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW TO SEE AT A MUSEUM: Or at least something to see in a new way. Friday I went to the Frick Madison* first, to see some familiar paintings hung in a way that I could concentrate only on them not on them within in the context of the environment. Absolutely wonderful.

5a) Yes, I also saw new-to-me works of art at the Met, but what was really new there was that . . . I didn’t buy any books in the gift shop!

Not showing me a Whole New World . . .

6) CHELSEA FLEA: I’d been hearing more lately about the Chelsea Flea market on West 25th Street, and decided I would go on Saturday (in the blazing heat) to see what all the fuss was about. Anthony and Pedro joined me, too, but I left asking the Peggy Lee Question: “Is that all there is?” It must have been the heat.

The base of the Farragut Memorial with its exquisite carving.

7) Instead, we drifted over to Madison Square Park nearby, to which I’d never been and which contained two beautiful, thought-provoking works of art: a memorial to Admiral Farragut designed by sensationally murdered Stanford White and sculpted by Augustus Saint Gaudens, and Ghost Forest by Maya Lin, best known for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.

In front of Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest. That Hawaiian shirt was my dad’s.

8) DINING FINELY: Some weeks ago a friend pointed out the NYT review for Gage & Tollner in Brooklyn. And I thought, “Hmmm, that’s close to the friends I’m staying with on Sunday night!” So off we went for a very early dinner (because no one was in favor of a very late dinner) that was completely superb. Manhattans, oysters Rockefeller, monkfish with fingerling potatoes and the aura of bacon, an icy cold bottle of Sancerre, and whatever the chocolate cake was. IN. HEAVEN.

Oysters Rockefeller

9) I was invited to stay in the rectory next door to St. Paul’s Carroll Street, a charming little church. It’s a secret gem as well as a vibrant church community, and I was so enthralled by my private tour that I didn’t take any photographs at all. Everything about the rectory had been arranged charmingly, too, down to a copy of Mouseton Abbey in the guest room. Everywhere I turned there was something to delight my eye.

Even the guest room view of all the interesting angles formed by the church roof fascinated me.

10) The astonishing comfort of the Metropolitan Lounge at the newly-opened Moynihan Train Hall concluded my trip. Anyone who’s ever been in the tiny, cramped, and not entirely clean old Acela Lounge at Penn Station will be very surprised by this spacious room filled with plush-lined armchairs, a balcony overlooking the main hall, sunlight, and a downright palatial snack bar. When I mentioned the old club to the Nice Man at the snack bar, he smiled at me and said “We never speak of it.”

There’s no other city like it!

So, that was New York July, 2021. This trip I also enjoyed many things I’ve done and friends I’ve seen before, including Ballet colleagues, Flickr friends, the 1 and 6 trains, Macy’s, and at least one aperol spritz. Everything on this trip contributed to my joy; while I was sorry to miss friends whose plans changed, even the necessary changes to my own schedule resulted in wonderful experiences. I’m very grateful.

*The Frick Collection is closed to renovations, so they’ve skimmed off the cream of a creamy collection and hung it at the Breuer Building not far away.

Independence Day, 2021

1) As has become my tradition, this morning I read the Declaration of Independence aloud. I think it gains from being heard as well as read.

1a) You should, too. And you’ll find it online at the National Archives.

2) Before this, however, I had an early breakfast with two friends who a) I didn’t know would be in Provincetown, and b) I haven’t seen in person in over two years. So we rendezvoused at Liz’s Café for a mighty good breakfast and mighty good talk about flea markets, pets, politics, and how the pandemic has changed our daily routines.

2a) We are also approaching the age at which the “organ recital” appears on a meal program, and we each had a piece to play on the program, whether digestive, arthritic, or just achey.

3) It’s gray and sort of bleak in Provincetown today, which I’m sorry to say is having an effect on my motivation. Daddy needs to pump out a column today! But the pages of Everybody Behaves Badly beckon, too . . .

Saturday, 3 July -- Provincetown, Day Four

Yesterday was pleasant but unremarkable, so here we are with today.

1) Coffee chatter with a housemate on, among other things, project management.

2) Late on a gray morning I decided to take the recommendation of a friend and explore a different cemetery, the Winthrop Street Cemetery, which is Provincetown’s very first burying ground. Essentially an overgrown sand dune, I was impressed with the near-pristine condition of many of its marble tombstones, the piney tree cover, and the presence of Mrs. on several of the tombstones.

3) Notable graves included an obelisk listing the three husbands of one woman (usually it’s the other way around, isn’t it?), a small stone for five young children, and a couple whose graves were divided by the sandy path.

And in death they shall just appear divided.

4) Then a late breakfast at the bar the Post Office Café, where I was immersed in an atmosphere of exceedingly loud “Oh Mary!” style camp (which I often practice myself, as you very well know.)

5) Vodka was always the bottle to bring to Casa Gizmo, but suddenly everyone’s drinking gin. So I picked up a bottle and was amused by the sign on the exit door. And then later by the tip jar at Pop and Dutch. My love to double entendre is going to get me in trouble.

6) Shoals of confused people on Comical Street just standing in the way while the rain came down like Shakespeare’s Quality of Mercy.

7) Connie’s Bakery turned out to be the perfect place to pick up dessert for dinner this evening. I ended up with four slices of their Walk of Shame pastry; I don’t remember the schtick the counterman used to describe it, but sweet mercy goodness.

7a) The woman behind the counter added to that with the cheerful rhyme “You’ve got no class if you don’t eat ___.” And I thought “I need to floss now.”

8) Back at the house the weekend guests had arrived. Over a light late lunch we covered many topics, not least the comparative virtues and vices of the two ferry companies.

7) And now, it’s naptime!

Thursday, 1 July -- Provincetown, Day Two

1) “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes,” blah blah blah. With thunderstorms in the forecast, it seemed clear that the beach would not be possible . . . and yet the weather could be deceptively clear.

2) Breakfast al fresco at Liz’s Café — formerly Tippy Toppy of beloved memory — where the parking lot has been commandeered for outdoor seating. Excellent coffee and a smoked salmon and cream cheese omelette.

3) Having missed my usual Wednesday column because of traveling, I knew I would have to spend the morning writing and publishing a column. But I really had to wrestle it to the ground before I felt comfortable publishing, and even then it was too wordy.

4) After that, with a wee bitty of a headache, I knew I needed a change of scene. So I ankled down Bradford Street to a place I’d never really visited in Provincetown: the cemetery.

4a) Walking from Bradford to the cemetery, down — oh, I don’t remember the street names, Alden, Standish? — reinforced for me that I really know only a very small part of P’town (even after 25 years) and ought to get out a bit more. What I know is mostly Comical Street from the P’town Inn to the PAAM, the crescent formed by Pleasant and Franklin, and Herring Cove.

5) Well, what a contrast from Forest Hills! Windswept, almost no tree cover but the occasional cypress or something, and yesterday bleached and blasted by the heat. Many tall rectangular slabs of white marble from the 19th century were flush with the ground — either through misadventure or malevolence — and indeed I noted that this cemetery included quite a few modest ground-level markers. From a distance it made the place look even emptier.

6) All the Provincetown communities were there: the Yankees (mostly 19th-century), the Portuguese fishing community, the artists, and the gay/lesbian community. For the first time I felt I was seeing the graves of non-celebrity same-sex couples — beautiful, poignant, and ordinary. For several of them, it appeared that one member of the couple was still living. One stone included the date of their first date and the day of their marriage.

7) One child’s grave from a century or more before had been decorated with beads and a plastic flamingo. Dahlings, when my time comes, I don’t want you bringing plastic to my grave! Bring whiskey, champagne, and the good crystal, and have yourself a little party. And if security or anybody gives you a hard time, tell ‘em I’m gonna come back and haunt ‘em. And I will.

8) But it was hot. I had to adjourn to Ben and Jerry’s for a hot fudge sundae. And then, home.

8a) Mercy goodness people, if you’re in a hurry, take Bradford.

9) I spent the afternoon crunching some numbers (again, the weather), and then figured out how to work my new airpods all by myself without asking anyone. 😇

10) After cocktails, during which I was introduced to Rick and Morty 😱, the household dined in. Since I’d done none of the cooking, I happily washed up. This time this meant witnessing a debate about how to clean a cast-iron skillet, after which I was handed a tiny piece of chain mail. “And what is this? A fetishkini?” I asked. Turns out there is such a thing as a chainmail dishcloth!

10a) The secret ingredient is violet syrup. But . . . to what?

11) So as if discovering a new, unexpected use for chain mail didn’t blow my mind enough, we then switched on the new movie version of In the Heights. Deeply moving on more levels than I expected, and able to go places the stage version couldn’t because movies are magic in a different way. See it.

Wednesday Night, 30 June -- Provincetown, Day On

My schedule is like lasagna for the next several weeks, with alternating layers of home and P’town surrouding a layer of Manhattan. Today marked the start of my second full week on the Cape.

1) You know how I am about arriving on time (read: ridiculously early), especially for travel. With the heat, I chose to wait in the severely air-conditioned lobby of ye Myrriotte Long Wharf rather than broil on the dock for the privilege of being first in line. It was a wise move — and I still got to sit at my own banquette.

2) After walking one block down Comical Street from the ferry I saw a slim Man Younger Than I wearing a strapless red sundress with matching lipstick, sunglasses, and a white Handmaid’s Tale bonnet. There could be no clearer sign that it’s almost Fourth of July.

3) Arriving at Casa Gizmo (née Hochmina-sur-Mer), it was very clear that Gizmo was most eager to see his Uncle Robert. So I abandoned my luggage after I shucked my shoes and hustled upstairs for hugs and kisses. Gizmo just loves me — and he obeyed when I said “No speak!”

3a) Gizmo, for the uninitiated, is a tiny brown toy poodle, the apple of his daddy’s eye.

4) Boston reached 100 degrees for the first time in ten years today, and while it’s still hot on the Cape, it didn’t get that hot. We lunched at ye Rysse’s Grylle, and its being such a dark room (with wonderful windows overlooking the bay) helped lower the temperature.

5) Personal administrivia took up the afternoon, as well as a NAP, thank God, after a poor night’s sleep. And I awoke just in time for the cocktail hour, what a happy coincidence.

6) We dined at 8:15 at the Pilgrim House, where I’d never been — and their seafood risotto is much better than at that other place I went to a couple weeks ago. Also their French 75s are superb. L’hiccup.

7) All through dinner we kept waiting for the rain to fall in torrents — and kept imagining it was actually starting! But it was always something else: the air vent, a bright reflection on a shiny chair, windows that only looked rain-spotted, etc.

8) But we did get caught in the rain on the way home, after we all delayed talking with an acquaintance on Comical Street (as always happens). Whoosh, what a gullywasher! I know the Pina Colada Song was a hit back in the day, but I still haven’t met anyone who truly likes getting caught in the rain.

9) The next few days are likely to be quite damp, but I truly don’t mind, as I have a lot to do and to read. All those books I’m in the middle of I left at home, and Everybody Behaves Badly will soon be commenced.

Sunday Morning, 27 June -- 🐜😱

1) Sometimes things don’t go according to plan. I brought my coffee and notebook out to the back porch, expecting to write al fresco on this cool gray morning in a space made private with the bamboo blinds I got last year. Wiping off the little desk I thought little of noticing a couple microscopically tiny pale bugs. Imagine my horror when I glanced to my left and discovered the bamboo blind alive with hundreds and hundreds of them!

1a) AIGH! followed swifty by EECCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHH!

2) The only possible reaction was to roll up the blinds, retreat inside immediately, strip, and shower. And then bring my coffee and notebook into the study.

3) An internet search reveals how to clean mold off a bamboo blind, which is helpful, but doesn’t mention bugs. I am hoping these are just mealy bugs or bamboo mites or just plain old ants and not actual termites (God help me). They are definitely not bamboo beetles at least.

3a) The nice pest control man is already scheduled July 9 for the quarterly visit, and the remedies suggested (for mold) are household things like baking soda and white vinegar, but still . . . I think I’m gonna have to toss those blinds out.

Friday Evening, 25 June

1) The last two days I have had paralyzing moments of doubt and remorse about things from the past, both near and far, that can kind of be summed up with three quotations from my Bag of Old Sayings Mostly (But Not Always) from Golden Age Hollywood:

• Queen Gertrude: “O Hamlet, speak no more:
  Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
  And there I see such black and grainéd spots
  As will not leave their tinct.”

• From Camille, Robert Taylor as Armand: “I thought you didn’t like sad thoughts.”

  Greta Garbo as Marguerite (smiling): “I don’t, but they come sometimes.”

• From Soapdish, Sally Field as Celeste: “I had my reasons. Maybe they were dumb reasons, but they were reasons. Hellllllllllllllllllllll, I’m not a genius. I’m just a working actress!”

2) Finalmente, I am close to finishing Field of Blood after months and months of false starts. Glad it was the only book I brought to the Cape last week. Then George IV: Inspiration of the Regency, which covers the “painted bag of maraschino’s” influence on fashion, military life, architecture, art, politics, ostentation, and of course fornication and adultery. And then I can really turn my attention to the new biography from Hugo Vickers, The Sphinx: The Life of Gladys Deacon — Duchess of Marlborough. Gladys (pronounced GLAY-dis) was one of those great beauties who would stop at nothing to retain her own beauty, including injecting paraffin into her forehead or something to retain her classic profile. Oops, didn’t work.

3) Sweeping open the parlor curtains this morning, I discovered that the big white hydrangea right outside the window is bursting into bloom. In that moment of surprise it looked like an arrested wave. The only other thing blooming the garden right now is a few random tiger lilies.

Monday Morning, 21 June -- A Few Days in Provincetown

For the first time in about 20 years I have a 1/4 share in Provincetown for the summer and am halfway through my first week.

1) Arriving on Thursday morning was a bit like returning to the Before Times. No one — all right, almost no one — is wearing a mask on Comical Street, except inside shops, and not always then. It’s like a bubble of almost-carefreeness.

2) I did go to tea dance at the Boatslip on Thursday afternoon. While far from the super-crush of August, I still feel cautious about hanging around in big crowds. There were a lot more costumes than I’m used to seeing, including one young man in a thong, which — well, the French may go in for that sort of them, but we are British, thank God! ;-)

2a) One challenging aspect of the post-pandemic is not recognizing people you used to know.

My Thursday dinnertime view.

3) That evening I took myself out to ye Pypy’s Whyrfe for dinner al fresco with a view of McMillan Pier in the sunset. And . . . lobster pizza and rosé. Indulgent, fabulous.

4) As long as I walk around town with Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to the Civil War by Joanne B. Freeman, I’ll never have to read it, ‘cause I keep running into people as soon as I open it up. Friday I treated myself to lunch at the bar at ye Ryss’s Grylle, had just embarked on a chapter with my gin and tonic, and then who should walk in, talking trash about me to the host, by Dahling. Well, I put him in his place . . . which was right beside me at the bar, and we had a fine time talking and talking and talking. It was the first time we’d had Quality Time together, Just the Two fo Us, since before the pandemic.

4a) Even so, I’m making good progress with Field of Blood, which you should all read. The parallels between the 1830s-1850s and today are missing only spittoons, bowie knives, and maybe pistols in the US Capitol.

5) The house party has been — how shall I say this? — rambunctious this weekend, with a lot of laughter, overlapping conversations, and a dramatically broken wineglass. The advantage for me: introduction to the world of Cards Against Humanity. What filthy fun!

Hiking in on Sunday.

6) Yesterday, Sunday, I made it off to the beach in the afternoon, and it was beautiful to be back. But oh, that beach is pebbly! Ouchie!

7) The weather for the rest of the week looks inclement, but I am not letting that get me down. Suddenly I’ve been getting some very challenging questions from Etiquetteer readers, and I want to spend some time focusing on that. I anticipate an atmosphere with more clarity before I return home Wednesday afternoon.

Monday Morning, 24 May -- Morning Meditations

Up early after heavy sleep — besides which the arborist is coming at 7:30 AM (!) to estimate the cost of removing a couple trees from the property line — and three quotes from this morning’s devotional have decided to move in with me — uncomfortably, which of course is the value of meditation:

1) From Baltasar Gracián’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom, number 197: “Never stumble over fools. A fool is someone who doesn’t recognize a fool, and, even more, someone who does, but doesn’t get rid of him [emphasis mine]. Fools are dangerous to deal with, even superficially, and do much harm if you confide in them. For a while they are held back by their own caution or that of others, but the delay serves only to deepen their foolishness. Someone who has no reputation can do only harm to yours . . . “

2) From Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: “No matter how wonderful things used to be, we cannot live in the past. The joy and excitement we feel here and now are more important.”

3) From Paul Arden’s It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be: “Experience is the opposite of being creative.” Also, “If you can’t solve a problem, it’s because you’re playing by the rules.”

Monday Afternoon, 17 May - And It's Gone!

Rest in peace, Robert’s Pandemic Hair

February 20, 2020 — May 17, 2021

1) This morning I returned to the barber shop for the first time in 15 months for a summer shearing. I brought a plain white envelope for my barber, to apologize for having been AWOL for well over a year. And I brought a rubber band to be sure I could carry away as much of a pigtail as possible. I should have brought more; while what you see is substantial, I swear they swept away double or triple that, a whole desert’s worth of tumbleweed.

1a) Already two people have asked “You didn’t donate it?” As long as it was, I gather it was still of insufficient length.

2) This was the right time for a lot of reasons. I’m now at fully-vaccinated status as of last week and mask mandates are being lifted, so I felt safe returning to the barber shop. Wearing hats with such a leonine mane had started to make me look like Tyrone F. Horneigh on Laugh-in. I could not keep it out of my eyes, so I was always wearing a bandana on my head at home. And the snarling and tangling! Mercy goodness, I don’t know how the ladies do it.

May 17, 2021: Pounds lighter.

3) What have I learned during this mane-iacal adventure? That I can no longer “defiantly continue to call” myself a blond. I had no idea I was so exceedingly, exceedingly removed from being a towhead; I wish I was still that blond, but not enough to start drinking with Miss Clairol. Bring on the gray!

3a) My hair is definitely a legacy from my maternal grandmother. Seeing it grow out, I could see how my hair waved the same way hers did, as well as its being so very thick. I am as much a Houska and a Thorson as I am a Dimmick and an Evans, and yet I know comparatively little about that part of my heritage.

3b) I’ve always joked about “being the Franz Liszt of my nursing home,” but 15 month’s growth was actually too long. Five or six months of growth worked better.

4) For everyone who has been lavish with praise and envy all this time, I thank you. My hair is all I’ve got! Perhaps some day I’ll grow it out again. In the meantime, enjoy this slideshow of the rise and rise of my Pandemic Hair.

February, 2020

March, 2020

April, 2020

May, 2020

June, 2020

July, 2020

August, 2020

September, 2020

October, 2020

November, 2020

December, 2020

Repeal Day at the Gibson House!

January, 2021

February, 2021

March, 2021

April, 2021

May, 2021

Sunday Evening, 16 May -- Yard Sale Stories: Bowls

Before next Saturday’s yard sale, I want to record a few of the things that will be on the tables that have had their place in my story.

THE UGLY HAT BOWL

A purchase at the MIT Student Glass Sale early in my career at ye Instytytte, 1990 or 1991. Edged in pink, its color could be described as chartreuse, electric yellow, or snot, depending on a) your mood, or b) your devotion to Christian Bérard. Obviously I was attracted to its resemblance to a hat.

I have actually served lunch for four out of this bowl at the office. Fill the middle with whole fruit, and balance sandwiches around the wide but uneven rim!

TIFFANY DOLPHIN BOWL

At the other end of the spectrum, we find this 6” diameter Tiffany and Co. dolphin bowl, complete with sticker (but not with the famous blue box). I’m at a loss where I got it at the moment — it was not a trinket from my days at the Ballet — but I may have received it at a hotel opening or something like that.

PIERCED POTTERY BOWL

Mother gave me this for Christmas sometime in the 1990s, and it’s a beautiful example of the kind of things she liked: not fancy-looking but good quality. Sometimes Mother would comment about having grown up in a “Touch Me Not” household, because her parents had Nice Things like crystal and cloisonné. What Mother didn’t quite realize was that her household was also “Touch Me Not ,” but most of her things were things you might find at the craft fair: wooden fruit in wooden bowls, stone eggs, burlap and waxed paper flowers, etc.

She said it was for potpourri, but I always found that it flaked out of those leaf-shaped holes. (Also, how many mothers can give their sons potpourri dishes for Christmas and still be praying they meet the right girl?) It’s a nice piece for plums or grapes, or candies, or trinkets.

GOLD CHINA CUP, SAUCER, AND PLATE

From my eBay period in the mis ‘00’s. I was quite a magpie then (and now, I admit). I’ve loved having these, but I have things that capture my fancy more subtly now. :-)

THERE IS A YARD SALE COMING!

Because if I don’t say something publicly about it now, it just won’t happen . . .

Next Saturday, May 22*, starting at 9:00 AM, I will be holding a yard sale for the first time in seven or eight or so years, “moving forward into the Universe” many things that I have loved having but, as Marie Kondo says, no longer spark joy in me. Things will be priced to move!

Very lightly used last autumn during the kitchen renovation.

There will be a great deal of glass, some china and other pottery, some books, random bits of minor furniture, a couple nearly brand-new mini-refrigerators in lipstick red, some artwork and frames, and who knows what else.

There will be things from my eBay Period of the ‘00s — for instance, a lot of Tango glass (see below) — things once won at charity ball silent auctions, treasured acquisitions from the MIT Student Glass and Pottery sales of the 1990s, and even some family things.

So why not come on over to JP next Saturday — DM for directions — and join the fun? Even if you’re not feeling acquisitive, it’s a nice opportunity to be sociable. I don’t know about you, but my social fabric is full of holes since the pandemic started.

An interesting coffee-in-bed service for one from my eBay Period.

A small selection of titles available.

*Which also happens to be National Craft Distillery Day.

Wednesday Afternoon, 5 May -- Avuncular Relics

1) Whether I like it or not, I’m in the final stretch of my New Year’s resolution to complete the Marie Kondo Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up process by Memorial Day. Yesterday that meant attacking any remaining komono — miscellaneous items — lying around in drawers. And I knew that would mean going through one particular drawer in the highboy, which contained personal things considered precious by my Uncle Bill.

Uncle Bill and Mother, taken by their father. I think this must be after they moved to Lake Charles.

2) Bill kept these things in the top drawer of his dresser all his life, but they are things specific to his own story, and not to anyone else’s. Souvenirs from his days in the Boy Scouts were in a little plastic bag. Masonic coins and wooden nickels from his long association with the Shriners. Early photo ID badges from Cities Service (I’m keeping those).

Uncle Bill is second from left at the back, in the white shirt and dark cap. I had trouble recognizing him.

3) The most specific, and poignant, is the baseball. Uncle Bill was a classic mid-century nerd, but in high school he contributed to the athletic community by managing the baseball team — a very important position. It’s interesting to note that his senior yearbook, the Arrow, bills him as “assistant manager,” while he indicates on the back of the team photo that he’s one of three managers.

4) Bill’s yearbooks (both 1943 and 1944) are full of autographs from friends and faculty, and news clippings, permission slips, membership cards, and other ephemera. The day after his high school graduation, the family got in the car and moved to Lake Charles — which is of course how Mother ended up meeting Daddy and how I ultimately come to be telling this story. But I can’t help wonder how Bill’s life might have turned out differently if he’d been able to stay in Glen Rock.

5) After Laura and I went through the house after Mother died, I observed that things lose their stories when they’re put in a sale. It’s still true, but it’s also still poignant. When I go, whenever that is, interest in this little branch of the Thorson family will cease altogether.

Bill is second from left in the top row with other staff members of the school newspaper, the Spectator.

Friday Morning, 23 April -- Shakespeare Day

Turns out today is William Shakespeare’s birthday — surprise! — which makes me think about productions and experiences past:

1) I have performed in three of the Bard’s plays: The Tempest (as Antonio the evil brother, one of my worst performances), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (as Demetrius), and Twelfth Night (my favorite Shakespeare play, as [of course] Sir Andrew Aguecheek). The latter two were with the Old Hometown’s local theatre company’s Shakespeare in the Park, which introduced me to that deathless quotation of the late Gov. Earl Long: “If you ain’t got culture, you ain’t got shit!”

1a) The former was my junior year at Interlochen; a South African actor had been hired for the semester as an artist-in-residence, especially so he could play Prospero. I forget why the word “banana” became such a joke during rehearsals, but I remember many people popping it into their lines here and there, and Prospero saying “Hence, hang not on my banana!”

2) Among her many sayings Mother would include “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry” from Hamlet. But the most dazzling was the wife of one of their high school friends, a lady who once danced with the New York City Ballet, who reeled off the entire speech that begins “Speak the speak, I pray you, trippingly upon the tongue.” Just out of nowhere! I’ve never forgotten that.

3) One of the best classes I ever took at Interlochen was Mr. Hintze’s Shakespeare I; it’s a lasting regret I never got to take more classes with him. But we got into QUITE a discussion in one class about the notion of a king needing to lead troops into battle vs. remaining in the rear to direct maneuvers when reading Henry IV, Part One.

4) I’ve gotten to see some outstanding productions of Twelfth Night over the years:

4a) At the Stratford Festival in Ontario in 1980, with William Hutt as Feste. I forget who played Malvolio, but the most memorable and hilarious moment came when, coming downstairs to get the midnight revelers to shut up, he furiously pointed outside . . . and a teddy bear fell out of his bathrobe!

4b) At the American Repertory Theatre in 1990 or 1991, with Diane Lane as Olivia. This production played with all the gender attraction ambiguity, portraying the ship captain as an openly gay dude totally crushing on Sebastian. As Viola goes off with the Duke at the very end of the play, she casts one desperately longing glance back at Olivia. Broke my heart to see it. When Malvolio gave the line “I can smile,” he launched a facial avalanche taking a full minute to achieve one — comic genius.

4c) At the Huntington with Elizabeth McGovern as Viola. Spanish Colonial production and costume design. You could tell that the actor playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek had been instructed to walk as though afraid to get the soles of his shoes dirty — genius direction. I remember some haunting and sentimental string music at the very beginning, and the Duke actually paused to listen to it before giving the line “Ah, that strain again!” after “. . . that surfeiting, the appetite may sicken and so die.” Who thinks to do that?! Perfection.

5) The Merchant of Venice is another favorite, and I remember seeing the professional company at Syracuse do it in winter, 1982. The production was set in 16th-century Venice, but since the actress playing Portia’s sidekick Nerissa was Asian, they costumed her in clothing inspired by Chinese or Korean court costumes of the same period.

6) “If music be the food of love, play on!” captures my zest for Shakespeare (when I remember to think about him), which is another reason I love the sampler above. The reason I love it most, though, is that my grandmother made it.

7) Oh mercy, and how could I forget Hamlet at the Huntington with Campbell Scott as Hamlet?! This was in the late 1990s, and a colleague who had a friend on the tech staff got me a comp ticket. Campbell Scott was great, but the production overall — not so much. The costuming was sort of 1910. When Ophelia came in for her mad scene she was wearing a half slip and a man’s navy blue blazer. With the way she had her hair arranged, she was a dead ringer for Caroline Kennedy.

7a) But the performance I should have attended was the one the next night! My colleague told me about it. During the duel in the last act, when Gertrude unknowingly picks up the poisoned wine goblet and says “The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet,” someone in the balcony called out “DON’T DRINK IT!” Pandemonium in the house! And clearly the cast had never banked on that reaction. No one paid attention to the king’s “Gertrude, do not drink.” But Gertrude got control back. Instead of addressing her next line to the king, she lifted her goblet in the direction of the balcony for it: “I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.” Masterful, and I wish I’d been there.