Return to Lake Charles, Day Two

Foreword: Before I begin, it must be generally understood that Mother saved everything. And while I have always encouraged that, this experience is already challenging my beliefs and making me realize how much attention my things will receive after my death.

1) Laura had a very long day yesterday, and I had a night of no sleep. I decided to get the day going about 5:30 AM - very much like Mamma, actually. She told me once she just didn’t see the point in lying around in bed if you were awake.

2) Chicory coffee and devotional in the living room. I am keeping Mother’s Bible, now bound with wide bands of clear tape and full of her pencilled marginalia. Rather than use bibliomancy, I went to a page that had been bookmarked: Proverbs 9. And verse 13 stood out to me in a way that it would not have stood out to Mother: “He who denies things falsely feeds on winds and pursues fowl of the air; for he has forsaken the way to his vineyard and the paths of his labor, to journey in the wilderness wihtout water; in the places that are trodden he travels thirsty and gains nothing.”

3) I turned to the first page, and was surprised to see an autograph: “With God’s richest blessing. Geo. M. Lamsa Aug 1971.” My goodness, it’s the Lamsa Bible! Then August, 1971, must have been the first of our weeklong summer retreats at Unity, when I remember well that we heard George Lamsa speak and heard about his life story. I spent the rest of devotional researching ye Intyrnytte for more information about him and this controversial translation.

3a) You know the entire trip is going to be like this. An object, most likely a familiar one, will reveal something unexpected that will start a chain of memories.

4) And in fact, the entire morning was like that. Laura and I decided to start with the guest room closet. What remained inside was mostly boxes from Gramma and Uncle Bill’s house, but what came to us first was all Mother’s boxes of vacation materials. My goodness! We threw away SO many tourist brochures from all over the world, from Hawaii to Copenhagen. Postcards were saved for a friend of Laura’s. Laura kept most of the photos. Coins (Mother loved to bring back examples of local currency) were collected together.

4a) Mother saved everything, including posters from my unhappy campaigns for student council in junior high school. Laura said she found them in the attic, and one has to wonder why Mother would have brought them over here from Orchid Street. I certainly didn’t ask her to preserve them.

5) My brother-in-law showed up earlier than expected with a piece of furniture that’s coming to Boston, and he joined us for a time before getting active with lawn care. I had a bottle of top-notch bourbon for him as a thank-you gift.

6) Back in the guest room, I had two “Oh my GOD!” moments (I no longer remember in what order). In one box I found a long necktie box with a small ring box inside, and I knew instantly that these were the boxes that Daddy has used to surprise Mother with an egagement ring Christmas Eve, 1954 - and thereby announce their engagement to his family.

7) At the top of the closet I saw a large box marked FRAGILE and I was pretty sure what it was. And I was right: it was my Mad Hatter hat that Mother made for me out of papier maché - her greatest achievement! But ALSO in the box was something I thought had been lost forever: a Mexican tin shrine to hang on the wall that I had been given in the late 1970s from cousin Delphine’s things.

7a) Even better than those things, a small white jewelry box yielded a cherished memento I thought, too, was lost forever. Along with my wisdom teeth and a glass suncatcher rested a green-tinted ivory snuff bottle. That little bottle was given to me by Miss Emma, a very elderly lady to whom I was very devoted in my early teens. Miss Emma, the strongest pillar of cultural Lake Charles and a friend and neighbor of Gramma, she gave me that little bottle the day she moved to the nursing home in Texas. I was the only one who came to say goodbye when they drove off in the ambulance, and I remember flopping down in a big armchair and crying the rest of the morning. And now this memento is restored to me.

8) We found a WWI photo of Grampa Dimmick neither of us had seen before. No wonder Granny knew she’d marry him as soon as she saw him walking up the walk at the home of whoever it was she was visiting in Opelousas.

9) Laura and I broke for lunch at Big Daddy’s - the Doyle’s of Holly Hill - and I am here to report that they didnt have club soda or ginger ale because, as the waitress said, “We aren’t that fancy.” But they fed me some good gumbo! Thank goodness I didn’t order an Aperol spritz . . . :-)

10) After dropping off about six boxes of books in a couple places, we divided to conquer for the afternoon. Laura wrapped up crystal, and I started boxing up papers from the morning search that will come to Boston with me. So many wonderful photographs, and so much else! The engraving plates from their wedding invitation, their high school graduation invitation and programs, a lot and a lot.

10a) I know you are all saying “Robert, just torch it all!” And you know I just cannot do that, but I am not taking everything, and I am proud of the amount of stuff that is getting tossed out.

10b) But OH . . . there is so much. I have almost every one of Mother’s date books from 2014 back to at least 1971, and probably longer. These aren’t just her appointments, but a guide to what everyone in the family, friends, and church was up to, including obituary clippings, wedding announcements, and sometimes recipes. What am I going to do? If there was a Museum of the Middle Class, these would be the cornerstone documents.

11) Tony expressed interest in early dinner, and we headed off to a new place, Rikenjames, on Ryan Street, that was quite good. We were obviously beating the Friday rush! Beer and catfish for Tony, beer and steak for me.

12) I was dropped back at home while Laura and Tony went to meet local friends. And I was able to discover a box of Mother’s college things. This included not only her diploma and three of four athletic association passes, but also a small box of everything related to Rush her freshman year - including cocktail napkins from the various functions! At last, proof that Mother’s lifelong love of napkins and making sure everyone had one began before marriage! :-) But even more fun, she’d saved all the nametags.

13) I’m gonna have to pick up my pace tomorrow, which will also include seeing Mother’s friends.

Return to Lake Charles, Day One

1) Arrived shortly after 6 PM following delayed departure from DFW. Kid Sister was waiting for me in baggage claim after a long day of both work and driving to Lago di Carlo. She’d already stocked up on groceries and Chinese takeout. I persuaded her to run to ye Hykus Pykus for some firewater, and then home.

2) Driving from the airport, I was surprised and then VERY delighted to hear on her car stereo this arrangement of “You’re Undecided Now So What Are You Gonna Do?” by the Ames Brothers with Les Brown and his Band of Renown. Happy memories of childhood! This was one of my musical obsessions for awhile when I was maybe ten years old. Turns out Laura had the disc Daddy had burned from the LP of “The Memory Years,” and I remembered all the tracks: the jazz arrangement of Chopin’s famous Polonaise, Pearl Bailey singing “The Birth of the Blues,” some old duffer singing “It’s Three O’Clock in the Morning.” Hearing all that, I felt sure we would accomplish everything we needed to.

2a) Now it is very important for you to realize that, although both my sister and I were born in the 1960s, we did not grow up listening to 1960s music. I don’t even think we heard anything about the Beatles until 1975! No, for us it was classical music, popular music of the 1940s and 1950s, and shudder EZ Listening and Mantovani.

3) Laura warned me before we even walked inside that the house now smelled like Gramma’s house because of all the mustiness stirred up while sorting and cleaning through everything. And of course I have absolutely not problem with that, because Gramma’s house was always the best place in the world to go, so . . . so how beautiful to have that olfactory memory.

4) Laura showed me all the progress she and her family (at different times) have been making, and it’s significant. Parts of the house looks just as always, others rather haphazard and makeshift with the absence of furniture and the inevitable piles of things to sort through. Mother’s beautiful hats from before we were born (that she never wore), and so much else.

5) Questions started almost immediately. A small cardboard jewelry box left on my dresser full of U.S. buttons, basketball charms, and tiny plastic chess pieces from a forgotten chess board. Were these Daddy’s? There will be so many questions like this now, and no one to answer them any longer.

6) Laura left quite a few stacks of things like Mother’s old datebooks (going back to at least 1977) on my bed, with photographs, and also a diary. A diary! An entry for 1974, then an entry for 1994, and then pages and pages from 2005, when we were planning their 50th wedding anniversary.. Mother saved every letter, note, or postcard she ever received (thank goodness!). But while Laura is disposing of quite a lot, she’s making sure I’m getting all the cards and letters I sent to Mother. So it’s funny seeing all those greeting cards again. Mother always said I found wonderful and original cards to send her!

7) By Monday morning everything coming back to Boston has to be packed and ready to go and (mostly) confined to my room. So the next three days are going to be a flurry of packing, seeing Mother’s friends, and going to church. Discipline! I can just hear our childhood babysitter Mrs. Johnson saying “Do it now!”

Mother and Daddy’s neighborhood from the air.

Thursday Afternoon, March 21 - En Route

1) The Economist. Fascinating as usual.

2) Late lunch at my beloved DFW Pappadeaux, Terminal A, responding to work email, researching summer vacation, and remembering that today is National Common Courtesy Day.

3) Caterwauling Baby started caterwauling on the way OUT. Good.

Thursday Morning, March 21

1) En route to ye Olde Hymetowne - possibly for the last time - and as I always say, “Better en route than en croute.”

1a) This trip is going to be intense: a finite time to do a LOT of sorting, choosing, and most importantly packing. Add to that seeing friends of my parents, one final Sunday service at First Methodist, and meetings with a mover and the lawyer. Through all this I am sustained in part by two things: a) Daddy always always said he’d pay for as much education as we wanted, and b) the vision of what my home will look like once I jettison much of what I have and replace it with things from home.

2) I guess it’s the first day of spring or something, which makes me think of Michael (it was Michael, wasn’t it?) in The Boys in the Band, who said “In spring a young man’s fancy turns to a fancy young man.”

2a) The original, of course, is “In spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”

3) You’ve heard me say more than once since Mother died that the only direction is forward. But often the least thing - in this case reading a news story - can send me anxiously ploughing furrows of regret through my actions of the past. I’m not unique; I can’t change what’s gone before. I can only use that knowledge to cut a new pattern for myself for the future.

Tuesday Night, March 19

1) For a rarity, I left the office just before 7 PM, and in a good mood.

2) Writer’s block sometimes tastes like bourbon.

3) And for a little night music, the famous 1955 recording of my beloved sextette from Lucia di Lammermoor with Maria Callas and conducted by Herbert von Karajan - which they repeated! I have often called this a “grand machine” and the zenith of the 19th century.

Monday Morning, March 18

1) It wasnt until I saw the date on the page - March 18 - that I remembered that today is Gramma’s birthday. Mercy, she’d be 118!

1a) Somewhere I have a bloodstone - her birthstone - not a family heirloom, just something I picked up at a store. Where is that?

2) On ye Fycebykke this morning two internet friends offered two different, thoughtful meditations on aging: one on health, the other on the progression of his life and its arrival at a state of contentment. They both sort of served as pieces of the puzzle I’m trying to put together right now, but I have no idea what the final picture will look like.

2a) This also ties into a tarot reading I did last night - the first in a long time, since before Mother died probably - which had a couple “wow!” moments in it. When I read I use the cross and staff layout: six cards form a cross, and four a staff to its right. Right next to each other at the bottom left of the cross, in the positions of the past and the outgoing influence, the King (reversed) and Queen of Pentacles: my parents. The other “wow!” thing was seeing both of what I call “the cards of the craftsman” appear: the Three of Pentacles (for the master craftsman) and the Eight of Pentacles (for the apprentice). I’d rather not saw where they showed up in the spread, but it provided a lot to think about. A lot.

3) RANT: Three important meetings today about engaging talent for three different events - and I had the worst night’s sleep in a very long time. This is due in no small part to towering frustration after 10 PM with ye stypidde yCloud. I will say this: when I had my little digital camera all I had to do was plug in the cable and the photos would upload to my computer, no trouble. NOW, with my beautiful new yPhyne, I can’t do that! I have to go through ye stypidde yCloud, so that every unscrupulous Ypple employee could access my stuff if they wanted. All I want is simplicity; all Ypple wants is to force me into an Ypple lifestyle they can monitor every blessed moment.

3a) And get off my lawn! I can’t yell at this cloud if you’re on my lawn! RANT OVER.

Saint Patrick's Day Morning, 2019

1) There’s an air of movement, rush and bustle, and uncertainty in the house today. The third-floor neighbors are moving out much of their stuff this weekend, which has prompted me to empty out all three of my large pine bookcases and (shortly) to clear off my large cherry coffee table - my gifts to them for their new home. In their place, big dusty gaps, piles of books in the study, and drifts of gilt-framed photos and gewgaws. These won’t be filled in for some time.

1a) I am just now remembering the two years Mother and Daddy lived in the rental house between selling Orchid Street and the completion of Bayouwood Court. Mother filled an entire bedroom of that rental house with boxes, floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Everyone said, “If you don’t need it while you’re there, just leave ‘em all!” But of course she didn’t . . . thank goodness!

2) Sunny and cold today. No snow, but not yet spring.

3) This being Saint Patrick’s Day, I remember all the school days when you had to wear green or get pinched. One year a girl in my class, J***** G*******, forgot, and was seen dashing to find a piece of green construction paper to protect her from pinches!

3a) Growing up I also remember the many family night suppers at First Methodist, enormous potluck affairs in the Fellowship Hall. One year when I was about in third grade the theme was Saint Patrick’s Day, and I remember winning a very large lollipop. Mother had decorated a short-brimmed straw hat for me to wear (the kind so fashionable now) with construction paper shamrocks, and I took the prize in my age group for costume.

The Library

This afternoon I felt compelled to start clearing away in preparation for all the family stuff eventually coming up from Lago di Carlo. All my cheap pine bookcases are going away! In the midst of moving all the books into the study, I allowed myself to meditate on the various categories of books I have in my library:

Biography

• Courtesans (including Eva Peron and Lord Nelson, because he was Lady Hamilton’s lover)

• Old Hollywood

• Homosexuals of the Mid-Century

• Adventurers (including Sir Richard Burton and Krakauer’s Into Thin Air)

• Presidents, First Ladies, and Other Prominent Americans

• Europeans, Mostly But Not All Royalty

  • Great Britain

  • Russia (now including Stalin!)

Visual Arts

• Great big old art books

• Great big old photography books

  • Male photography

• Art History

  • A small subset of books on specific works of art (the Portland Vase, Madame X), Victoria Findlay’s books Colour and Jewels, and other books about color like Mauve and The Perfect Red.

Performing Arts

• Ballets Russes (mostly biographies, beginning with my beloved Misia Sert)

• Theatre

• Music History

History

• France

• Venice

• War (includes Vienna and Lincoln’s assassination)

  • Civil War

• Elegant Disasters (Titanic, Lusitania, Hindenburg, Cocoanut Grove)

Etiquette (no kidding!)

Literature

• Fiction

• Non-Fiction

• Short Stories

• Murder and Mystery (Fiction and Non-Fiction)

• Louisiana (mostly Harnett Kane books from Gramma’s house)

Religion (mercy, I think I have four Bibles)

• Devotional/inspirational literature

Nudism

Humor

• Bathroom books: the books I rotate in and out of the bathroom such as Sex: The Most Fun You Can Have Without Laughing, Let’s Bring Back, Encyclopedia of the Exquisite, and Schott’s Original Miscellany.

Genealogy (includes two copies of Scrivelsby, Home of the Champions)

Poetry

Gardening

Cookbooks

• Bar books and cocktail recipes

Reference

• Science

• Words and Word Origins

Throughout all these categories the books themselves fall into other categories:

Gifts

Books by Authors I Actually Know

Books I Have Not Yet Read

Family books

Books purchased at certain bookstores:

• Brattle Books

• Avenue Victor Hugo

• Strand Bookstore

• Trident Bookstore

• Tim’s Used Books

Still shelved

I grew up in a household with a lot of books and I continue to place a value on having - and reading! - a lot of books. Once the transition of old bookcases to new is made, though, I fear I’ll have somewhat less shelving than now, leading to some difficult choices. A bibliophile’s constant lament! :-)

Saturday Morning, March 16

1) Arrested by this sentence from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet during this morning’s devotional: “For it is not lethargy alone which causes human relationships to repeat themselves in the same old way with such unspeakable monotony in instance after instance; it is the fearful shying away from any kind of new, unforeseeable experience which we think we may not be equal to.” It is the fearful shying away from any kind of new, unforeseeable experience which we think we may not be equal to. It is the perpetual dilemma. That sentence stopped me cold.

2) Mother died six weeks ago and a day, and it feels like nothing has changed. Because the rhythm of my daily life continues as it did before and, as I've said before, I feel like I have no time to think. But of course things have changed.

3) Today is my unscheduled day this weekend; in the battle of dry cleaning (closed on Sunday) vs. yoga (only on Sunday), yoga won out for a change. A day to write, to clean, to think, to sort, to plan. I’ve been up since just before 6 (because, and I’m not kidding, I went to bed at 7:30 last night), had devotional and first breakfast, and I already think it’s late. Onward!

Friday Morning, March 15

1) Oooh, gurrrllll . . . beware the Ides of March! She will cut you!

2) As part of yesterday’s 24-hour giving challenge at ye Instytytte, I staffed the call center for two hours in the afternoon with two colleagues, joining the regular crew of student callers. When incoming calls are slow, everyone plays ye Fymily Fyde. And was I surprised when the question was something like “A Southern belle is identified by what things?” . . . and none of those students knew what a Southern belle was! Our team got the question, and my first response was “a Southern accent,” which was correct. A colleague said “Hoopskirt.” “Big dress, that’s right!” The question then came to a young black woman sitting next to me, and after awhile she said “White?” And that just crystallized the situation for me while simultaneously bringing me enlightenment. The world is totally moving beyond that whole Southern belle thing, but I think people should still know what it is.

2a) As Carreen said in my beloved Gone With the Wind, “I guess things like hands and ladies just don’t matter any more.”

2b) The other answers (which we did not get) included Wealth, Manners, and a Plantation.

3) You know the phrase “Move it or lose it”? During and after yoga last night I thought “You haven’t moved it, and you are losing it.”

3a) And again from GWTW, “Just like Pa . . . just like Pa!”

Thoughts on the Admissions Bribery Scandal

1) One of Mother’s many, many sayings was “Honesty is the best policy.”

2) Quotable Quote: “Perhaps it wouldn’t sting so much . . . if we didn’t bill college as the foremost experience for young people, one that sets the tone for their entire lives.” — Rainesford Stauffer in the NYT

2a) Because let’s face it, since World War II, college has acquired the perception that it’s a required rite of passage, especially for the uppermost tax brackets. But is it, really?

2b) Reading about Olivia Jade Giannulli last night, the daughter of actress Lori Loughlin, a 19-year-old social media influencer with her own brand, first I was angry to read her being quoted saying “I don’t really care about school, as you guys all know.” And then I thought, “But of course college is the only path for the wealthy, even if they aren’t very intelligent.” And it made me think that it’s high time to legitimize the roles of debutantes (and dandies, for gender equity) in society again: idle rich young people who can be confined (I choose the word carefully) to the party circuit where they won’t bother anyone but the staff. They need an option that seems legit to keep them away from colleges where they aren’t doing anyone any good.

2c) I mean good heavens, during the Great Depression, all those screwball comedies were about the insanely wealthy doing insane things. Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby, Carole Lombard in just about anything.

2c.1) The dark side of that, of course, is Marsha Hunt’s doomed “prom trotter” in my beloved These Glamor Girls of 1939, whose only purpose in life is to date college men and go to college parties - until she’s so obviously older and more false than everyone else that she becomes the punch line.

3) This is the sort of scandal that helped start the French Revolution. Twenty-five years ago when I was actively reading Claude Manceron’s enormous five-volume Age of the French Revolution in paperback, I remember the bit about the bankruptcy of the de Guéméné family. That revealed to rest of the France just how decadent and extravagant the nobility was.

Tuesday Midday, March 12

Yes, there’s got to be a morning after. “When one has been exaltée ,” as Lady Longstreet said in Willa Cather’s beautiful short story “The Old Beauty,” . . . oh, blah blah, something about the harder they fall the next day. Willa said it a lot better. Go read the whole story.

1) TECHNOLOGY ISSUES: a) for the last couple years I’ve been awkwardly straddling three ISPs, and the original ISP seems to have let its security certificates expire (!), b) installed the new Myjyve operating system over the weekend, and the stupid thing includes Evil Nefarious Siri! I have neutralized her, but . . . but I just don’t want her there at all; and c) yTynes not playing newly downloaded movies.

1a) I have become the old man I always complain about. :-(

2) Interestingly, since Mother died I have just stopped acknowledging birthdays on ye Fycebykke. I have no idea why. For all the February and March birthdays I missed, many belated returns of the day.

3) Ye Fycebykke is overflowing with news of the Yale Admissions Scandal because a prominent Interlochen alumna (with whom I have performed) is implicated. Sadness.

4) BONUS: Pull yourself out of it with this intoxicating (I choose the word carefully) waltz from Madame Bovary featuring Jennifer Jones, now sadly known only for falling from an elevator in The Towering Inferno. I must thank my dear friend Miss Percy Larsen for introducing me to this a year or two ago.

4a) Poor drunk Van Heflin! If he’s not being shot to death by Joan Crawford, he’s being humiliated by Jennifer Jones.

Twenty-Five Years at the Institute

Today at a very swish luncheon I was inducted into the Quarter Century Club at ye Instytytte after 25 total years at the alumni association. It has been an occasion for a lot of thought and reflection for me (always with Robert Morley dying in The African Queen in the background and saying “Mother would be so proud.”). And made a bit more horrifying by this collection of old photos that I left behind when I went to ye Byllet in 1999 - and which were waiting for me when I boomeranged back in 2003.

Caught with my mouth full at my desk in the lobby of 10-110. I think I still have that necktie.

In Killian Court in the early 1990s. So slim, so blond!

In the OLD Tim the Beaver costume during Reunions, 1991. Never again!

Association picnic in the mid-1990s - a rare backwards baseball cap photo!

Hacking up dry ice in the old Bush Room kitchen for the punch at the famous Hallowe’en Sherry Hour of 1992 or 1993. I was known for the awesomeness of my themed sherry hours.

With Original Boss at ALC 2017.

What we wear is symbolic. (I always loved that Pat Nixon wore one of her favorite Adele Davis suits from her First Lady days for her 50th wedding anniversary; Mother took the “old clothes” view of “Couldn’t she afford something new for something this important?”) I did get out the silver polish last night to buff up my beloved silver cufflinks from ye Tyfynny, given to me at my farewell party in 1999. As I originally promised, I monogrammed one with my initials and the other with MIT, and I always wear them for Occasions Such As This. And I had gotten a new bow tie in purple and silver, and put on my “suit of lightweight mourning” as Patrick Dennis said. So I felt like I looked quite respectable.

There’s nothing like feeling all dressed up and nearly landing flat on your ass after slipping on the ice, but that’s almost what happened as soon as I left my front steps! A jogger even passed by and said “Careful, it’s slippery!” So I said “To hell with this!” and splurged on an Yber. And got to the office at 7:30.

There were several kind greetings and drive-by visits during the morning, and I got an especial thrill when a longtime friend and colleague swooped in with a two-tone poster of congratulations. Alas, I was on the phone relating to alumni and couldn’t thank her. This afternoon’s staff meeting included the annual awards, and I was surprised and pleased that they began with a couple special mentions, including this milestone for me. Later I received an award with a contingent of 11 colleagues.

And then OMG - RENEE FLEMING! Renee Fleming Herself gave the annual Compton Lecture on “Music and the Mind,” simply phenomenal. What a capstone to a red-letter day!

After all that, I caught a Doris Day bus (meaning that it showed up as soon as I arrived at the bus stop) hoping to dine at Bar Lyon - but they are closed on Monday. :-( So it was off to Stella in Blackstone Square for a Burning Sensation cocktail (oh my), arancini, roast chicken, and no dessert in a gesture of restraint.

As I said earlier, this has been an occasion for a lot of thought and reflection, about what I’ve achieved and haven’t, how the Association itself has grown in sophistication but lost in weirdness, about the generations of alumni I’ve seen come through and how they, too, have changed. And gratitude. Some really wonderful people have come into my life as a result of this job; I’m grateful for them.

Tomorrow things will be back to normal, but I’ll have a new lapel pin. :-) It’s important to celebrate these milestones!

Saturday Morning, March 9

1) Allowing myself to be downright sluggish this morning; it’s after 11 AM and I’m still in bed with my third cup of coffee! Why so? Yesterday evening I took a friend for an early birthday dinner to Bar Lyon, the new French bistro at the corner of Washington and Mass. Ave. Pre-dinner French 75s chez lui, kir royale at the bar while we waited for our table (seated at 8:15 for an 8 PM reservation), glass of excellent rosé with dinner, and then a nightcap of curaçao brandy on the rocks. That last one set me buzzing . . .

1a) But the dinner! Oysters (I never order oysters), mind-altering cassoulet, and mousse au chocolat. I may very well go back on Monday for dinner. And the staff were all so delightful (although there was one moment when I had to ask myself if this was French French or Disney French).

2) Research assignments this weekend: counter-depth refrigerators, interstate moving companies, mourning stationery (at least that one’s completed).

3) On ye Fycebykke briefly this morning, excitement that a friend was discovering Harriet Craig without any prompting from me got overshadowed by a lot of political stuff that is just . . . well, I just can’t let it into my head this weekend. I just can’t. All I’ll say is that Freedom of Speech is our most valuable freedom, because it helps identify us, and our fellow citizens, for who we really are. Use that freedom wisely. Think before you speak.

Wednesday Morning, March 7

1) Seed catalogs seem to arrive with the snow, leading to expensive daydreams.

2) Yesterday’s conference included a brilliant presentation on loyalty. The word itself always reminds me of fifth grade, when we were hectored about the “What Loyalty Day Means to Me” essay contest sponsored by the local chapter of the DAR (of which my Granny was a proud member). Mrs. Green was annoyed that NO ONE even expressed interest - but then, no one ever explained what Loyalty Day was. It’s not like it’s on the calendar like the Fourth of July, or even Arbor Day! How can you write about what something with no meaning means to you?

3) I have been wickedly lax in responding to so many very kind condolence notes. I’d feel virtuous about getting up and writing six replies this morning if I can’t gone to bed at 7 PM last night.

Tuesday Midday, March 5

1) It just came to me, reading this article, “A new Luxury Retreat Caters to Elders in Tech (Ages 30 and Up”: I don’t have time to think! I’m either on the hamster wheels (work, domesticity, creativity, guilt about lack of creativity) that I don’t have time to think. And of course all the Big Issues are on the table right now, much more so than at any other time in my life.

2) Pink is kind of a borderline color in the mourning palette; mourning is now generally considered as black, white, gray, and purple, while second mourning or half mourning is just the absence of red, blue, green, and yellow. But pink was the only clean dress shirt in the closet, so pink it is today.

2a) When I’m in mourning I tend to notice more when people dress in the mourning palette, and one of my colleagues showed up today in quite a stylish look of black and pale grey with what looked like a bib necklace of faux moonstones. Fabulous.

3) “The blazing sunshine and the biting cold” should be a line in a poem, but it perfectly describes today.

Tuesday Morning, March 5

1) You know, I don’t even remember if I made New Year’s resolutions or not. At this point, who cares? Just keep going forward!

2) As soon as a big packet of snow arrives, so does the seed catalog. I’m sure they do it deliberately. It’s a beautiful dream catalyst, considering all the flowers and herbs.

2a) They all disappear when I remember that spring, when most gardening needs to get done, is the Most Wonderful Time of the Year at the office.

3) Nellie Taft was so discreet. Disabled by a stroke during much of her time as First Lady, she described it only as “an attack of illness” in her memoirs.

Sunday Night, March 3

1) Home! Smooth train and subway rides back to ye Beantown. Mail awaiting me included two really lovely condolence notes (and I read another on the train via Etiquetteer’s page on ye Fycebykke). Laundry started. Gotta get settled for the new week.

Sur le train.

1a) Sunday night after a long trip . . . the perfect time to call Mother and tell her all about it. But she is not there to call now.

2) Third-floor neighbor came down briefly to chat, bringing the newest baby . . . who just makes my heart melt he is so adorable. They were awfully kind while I was away, watering my two plants and keeping the humidifier going.

3) Someone on ye Fycebykke just mentioned the Lawrence Welk Show with a tone of disparagement, which prompted me to reply with this:

3a) Of course I grew up watching the Lawrence Welk Show with both my grandmothers, and have the rare distinction of my generation (along with my sister) of actually having attended the show live on one of their tours! Some day I must tell the story . . .

February 26 - March 3- Highlights of New York

Many weeks ago I was asked by the office to staff an event for volunteers in New York; at the time I decided to extend the trip by adding a couple volunteer meetings and a couple days vacation and the weekend. This was all arranged before Mother died, but I decided to keep my plans. As it happens, I didn’t blog or do much with social media the entire time! So here’s a big catch-up post of the highlights:

TUESDAY: 1) Train down (quiet car), got settled into a budget hotel near 10th Avenue, late lunch in a Greek restaurant, and then ankle over to Carnegie Hall (the restaurant was just across the street. The first thing I saw walking in was a pair of bronze buttocks (female), and there was another pair outside our function room (also female) with a suggestive sign attached. Happily the coat rack was positioned around it, and we staff were able to hang our coats in front of it; not an appropriate greeting for our alumni!

NOT Perfectly Proper!

2) The event went well and I got to have some wonderful conversations with people I did not already know. 3) The event ended at 9 PM, and at 10 PM one of my volunteers showed up for a late night meeting in the restaurant’s dining room. We had a super discussion not only about his volunteer work but about all the Big Issues. After a day that started at 5:15 AM, I returned to my hotel not feeling at all tired!

The Algonquin Cat, aggressively searching for treats while I checked in.

WEDNESDAY: 1) Early morning transfer to my beloved Algonquin Hotel (‘cause if it’s my time and my dime . . . ) and then lunch with a colleague and another volunteer down by Union Square. With the weather turning in the evening, I was perfectly happy not to do any Big New York Thing and just have dinner at ye Ryd Flymme Diner next door and hunker down in my cosy little room to respond to condolence notes.

THURSDAY: 1) Alumni relations often means being a therapist, but this morning I got to be the patient instead of the therapist over a call from Interlochen with my friend Carolyn, who is back on staff there. I was delighted to catch up with her on many topics. I then took an unexpected tour through Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, and was surprised to find myself lighting a candle for Mother.

Interior of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

2) Whooshed off to take the 6 train uptown for lunch near the Cooper Hewitt (grilled salmon salad). Met my wonderful friend Saverio at the Cooper Hewitt; he had very kindly arranged for comp access for to that museum as well as the Guggenheim and the Neue Galerie (wow! what a friend!), but then his own plans changed and he was unable to accompany me personally. Fantastic exhibitions at all three, but I was particularly interested in the Tablescapes show at the CH.

The stunning Thomire surtout de table, centerpiece of the Tablescapes exhibition. They stole my life!

2a) The Guggenheim had a scandalous show of Robert Mapplethorpe images to observe the 30th anniversary of his death, but the Big Deal at the Goog right now is a show of paintings by Hilda af Klint (who has nothing at all to do with Gustav Klimt, don’t get them mixed). Few people have heard of this Norwegian artist who applied abstract principles to theology, but it’s worth a long look.

Works by Hilda af Klint.

2b) At the Neue Galerie I was starting to wear down, especially after I got reprimanded for taking a photograph. At the NG, photos are only allowed where you wouldn’t particularly be interested in taking them.

Maxfield Parrish’s famous mural of Old King Cole in the bar at the Saint Regis. You can see the fiddlers three at far left. The pageboy with the pipe and the steward with the bowl are out of range on the right.

3) After a very brief NAP, went off for my very first drink at the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis. What a jam! Just like that scene in Brigadoon. Two manhattans and many salty bar snacks later, I cabbed over to my beloved Café Luxembourg to celebrate the wedding last year of my friend Christina and her husband Chas. Wonderful to catch up with them. (And because one does not wear mourning to celebrate a wedding, I wore a bold new bow tie in red white and blue.)

Me and the newlyweds Chas and Christina at the Café Luxembourg.

FRIDAY: Packed up my gear and stowed it at the front desk, then off to see the Frick Collection for the first time in about 20 years. The collection is no longer hung as Mr. Frick had it (naughty naughty!) but there was a stunning special exhibition of the Venetian(ish) portraitist Moroni.

Moroni’s Man in Pink visible from the Palm Court at the Frick - the only place where photographs are allowed.

2) Then grabbed my gear and a 5 train to head out to Brooklyn for the weekend. My Flickr friend Julien met me at Winthrop Station and I was introduced to his dazzling, audaciously decorated flat. We dined at a super Italian restaurant, Camilo, where he had goat and I had beef cheeks with magnificent pasta. In the evening, after bits of a documentary about Halston, Julien screened a movie I had never seen (and I know this will shock you): Victor/Victoria.

Julien’s very comfortable and colorful guest room.

SATURDAY: What did I do Saturday? NOTHING! After staggering out for breakfast at a place with superb breakfast croissants, I did absolutely nothing but nap, read, and then nap. Absolute biss. 2) In the evening Julien threw a little cocktail party in my honor and I got to meet about ten of his friends who were all really nice. Halfway through the evening I realized that I had not had lunch OR dinner. The party officially ended at midnight, but I fell into bed like a stone before the last three guests had gone.

You absolutely must go here.

SUNDAY (Today): I actually got up and made coffee about 8:15, and just before 10 AM we sallied forth for brunch at a marvelous place called Bonafini. Coffee, aperol spritz, steak and eggs with salad greens. We got there just before the rush! GREAT conversation with the couple at the next table (who had never had an aperol spritz, but it looked so good with her hairdo she had to try it). Afterward Julien took me around to see more of Prospect Park and the architecture of Flatbush, after which I packed up and caught a 2 train to Penn Station. And here I am, ensconced in the club room’s business center waiting for my train.

It’s been quite a week . . . and now there will be quite a week to come back at home, at work, in life!

Tuesday Morning, February 26

1) Awake at 5:19 AM, decided to start the day. Chicory coffee black (I never did got grocery shopping over the weekend) in the parlor. Devotional included the last chapter of Galatians "(Let every man prove his own work”), Walt Whitman, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (“Never outshine your boss”), and the daily rituals of Gertrude Stein in Daily Rituals: How Artists Work.

1a) I’ve said this before, but I do love the dark, quiet pre-dawn hour (though I see that dawn is just beginning out there). It defines cosiness.

2) Who knows what the rest of this year will be like?

3) I have a black thumb, to be sure, but I have managed to keep this white hydrangea and this pink azalea going on my coffee table since I came home from Lago di Carlo, and that gives me a great deal of satisfaction. They are very pretty, and I hope they will transplant well to the garden this spring.