1) My breakfast in the hotel breakfast room had an extra serving of drama halfway through, when an angry father (grandfather?) and a little boy sat near me. It seems the little boy had wandered or run away — it wasn’t clear to me where or how long the search had taken — but the father was understandably exercised.
1a) He then said something about going to a museum, and the little boy said “I don’t want to go to the museum.” And it thought, wow, it takes guts or no brains to say that after the dressing-down he just got.
2) After returning to my hosts in Brooklyn, the previous evening’s prosecco caught up with me, and I retired first to the rectory library to work on a column, and then to bed with an ibuprofen. Because I knew I had to be on my best behavior for the evening’s dinner party.
3) Without knowing it, when my hosts arranged their home full of antiques, china, silver, framed photographs, books, and marvelous paintings, they recreated something of the atmosphere of the home of my great-aunts on Moss Street back in Lago di Carlo. That’s always my goal in my own home, of course, but theirs is spotlessly clean — not a speck of dust anywhere — whereas in my house I could practically name the dust bunnies.
4) The resulting evening could not have been more perfect, not least because my hosts handled everything with such poise, from a variety of cocktails to a dry-brined 20-pound turkey. (I envy them their poise; I can’t quite seem to pull that off at my own dinners.) Of the eight gentlemen around the table, I was the oldest by a good 20 years. Conversation took many delightful turns, but sometimes the best part of table talk is only the stimulating impression in left rather than specific recall.
4a) When it was over, one of my hosts commented that “You plan something for days and days, and then in a only a couple hours, it’s all over.” Which kind of distills my career in event planning. “But the memory lingers on,” as the old song goes, and that night provided happy ones.
5) Sunday morning I did stay for mass, which included some impressive Duruflé. There was more in the service to touch my mind than I expected, and I ended up taking Communion for the first time in I can’t even say how long.
6) In the late afternoon, installed in the city, I joined some Interlochen friends for drag bingo at Pieces on Christopher Street. It was mortifying not to recognize someone I’ve known for years (I blame both the pandemic and a backwards baseball cap, but still . . . ), and then it was unexpected that the hostess, Miss Chaka Khanvict, threw her first wig at me during her opening number. But then, as I say so often, Travel is so broadening.
7) Perhaps it was being hit by that wig, but my imagination just ran dry as I was leaving Pieces with no clear plans, so I drifted back to Boucherie for dinner, and then to my hotel. It must be time to head home, because when you run out of ideas in New York, why are you even there?
8) But really, this trip has included wonderful friends, both from high school and Boston; amazing music, generous and flawless hospitality, religious contemplation, and assault with a giant rainbow wig, so I have nothing to complain about — and I know it.
