Tuesday Morning, April 23

1) Today’s the day the movers are supposed to arrive from Lago di Carlo. I confirmed with the moving company yesterday, and they gave me an arrival time of 8:00 - 10:00 AM. It’s 8:55, and no sign yet.

2) Over three weeks ago I reserved the parking spaces in front of the house with the city, and I posted all the flyers and placards as directed. So you can imagine my anxiety when I looked out the window just before 8 and saw a car parked right in the middle! Consternation! And what to do?! I really didn’t want to be That Person and call the city for a tow, but I also needed those bought-and-paid-for spaces to make things easy. “Things will all work out,” I said to myself . . . and they did. About 8:30 I saw the driver putting something into the trunk, and I bolted onto the porch to ask (very sweetly) “Would you mind awfully moving your car?” And the driver was going anyway, so things did work out.

2a) But now I feel like I have to check every five minutes to be sure no one else has parked there. :-/

3) It’s very much a Harriet Craig kind of day. “Those you live to themselves are left to themselves.”

Easter Sunday, 2019

1) I won the cocktail hour at afternoon Easter dinner at the home of friends in Malden by asking “Alexa! Why is Wikipedia considered a reliable resource?” I suggest you try it.

2) The three weeks of the year when the star magnolia is in bloom are the prettiest my house gets all year.

3) The moving van is allegedly arriving on Tuesday with everything from my mother’s house. I am not really ready. I don’t care. It will all work out one way or another.

Memories of Notre Dame

1) Heartbroken over the news from Paris of the Notre Dame fire. It’s a loss to Paris, to France, to the world.

2) What I remember most from my 2008 visit there: the carving of St. Denis holding his head in the entrance, the spot where Paul Claudel experienced his conversion, and touring the sacristy to view its treasures.

The entrance of Notre Dame, including St. Denis carrying his own head. October, 2008

Paul Claudel’s card, seen in the sacristy of Notre Dame, October, 2008. In the cathedral itself was a small plaque on the floor at the exact spot where M. Claudel experienced his conversion.

One of the treasures in the sacristy of Notre Dame, October, 2008.

3) Beyond religion, Notre Dame is like the Taj Mahal of Paris. (Versailles would be the Taj Mahal of France.) It’s a cultural monument, an icon, deeply rooted into the identity of Paris and, for me, into a world that values what is beautiful and true. It’s always been there. For Bostonians, I can’t even imagine an equivalent. The State House? The Old North Church is of simliar stature, but can’t command the skyline. The Hancock Tower is instantly identifiable, but it’s not even 50 years old.

4) My hope, and I’m sure I’m not alone, is that Notre Dame will be restored in just the same way that the campanile in Venice was restored: com’era, dov’era - as it was, where it was. It will take more than money. It will take knowledge and talent.

Notre Dame from the rear, October, 2008.

Monday Morning, Patriot's Day (Observed) 2019

1) Remember all those great Don’t Panic T-shirts from the 1990s? Remember the one that said “Next Mood Swing in 6 Minutes”? That’s my weekend! So excited yesterday finally to publish Etiquetteer’s review of Lizzie Post’s Higher Etiquette, then absolutely sunk observing that it didn’t get much internet exposure (and for other reasons). And now, back to feeling good after seeing that the author liked my tweet of the review. It’s a roller coaster over here!

2) Also reflected in this morning’s soundtrack, from Kellee Patterson’s “If It Don’t Fit, Don’t Force It” to Richard Tauber in Heart’s Delight singing Schumann.

3) During this morning’s devotional I looked out at the pelting rain and thought both of how tough it would be for everyone running (and viewing) the marathon, and also for the health and welfare of the just-blossomed star magnolia in front of the house. And now, a few hours later, the sun is out. Next mood swing in 6 minutes!

Saturday Morning, April 13

1) While the April 14-15 observation in Massachusetts this year is that sporty thing under the veneer of Patriots Day, the real historical observations to make are Lincoln’s assassination (1865) and (and you knew this was coming, since it’s coming from me) the sinking of the Titanic (1912). I have too much going on to whip out either Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer or any of my many books on the Titanic, but I may well put on A Night to Remember for some audio/visual wallpaper.

1a) The James Cameron Titanic doesn’t make good a/v wallpaper for me (it’s the music), nor does the Nazi Titanic commanded by Goebbels (aside from the gross inaccuracies in service of wicked and evil Nazi propaganda, there’s too much yelling in German - and I mean from the very beginning of the movie, not just during the sinking.)

1b) Y’know, I think it’s in a box on the moving van, but I’ll also have Mother and Daddy’s copy of Lincoln and his Generals by the eminent historian T. Harry Williams, a familiar sight on the family bookcase from childhood. I haven’t yet read it, but Daddy spoke admiringly once about taking a class with him at LSU.

1c) Actual Patriots Day is, as everyone should know, April 19.

2) When I went downstairs to start the laundry, the basement common space was entirely empty! This is nothing short of a miracle - but let me hasten to point that none of the stuff cluttering up the common space belonged to me.

3) When the alarm clock went off I was explaining Auntie Mame’s love life to Gene Kelly. The only possible explanation is that I was listening to his recording of “Nina” from The Pirate yesterday evening.

Friday Evening, April 12

1) I will not deny that the last two days haven’t been the easiest. Yesterday a colleague very kindly expressed the wish that I had time right now for a long vacation to sort things out for myself. “I wish I had time for that, too,” I replied, “but it simply isn’t there with Reunions less then two months away.”

2) Scrolling through ye Fycebykke tonight, how very depressing to see how much an angry, vindictive celebration of stupidity and ignorance has taken hold of America. I can’t even fathom it.

3) Going back to the very beginning of my life, there was Sheherezade. Mother remembered that as a toddler I would stop whatever I was doing to listen to the violin solos (which represent Sheherezade telling her tales of the 1,001 nights to Shahriar). Since then, like most other people, I am most enamored of the first movement, “The Sea,” and its majestic, undulating rhythms.

3a) And I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence that I got so interested in the Ballets Russes back in college, because the hit sensation of their first season in Paris was Sheherezade starring Nijinsky and Karsavina, choreographed by Fokine and with sets and costumes by the revolutionary Bakst.

Wednesday Morning, April 10

1) The funnest thing I’ve done in awhile is pick up a copy of the new etiquette book about marijuana, Higher Etiquette, and post an Etiquetteer photo about it last night. The reactions have been encouraging, and I am really looking forward to reviewing the book this weekend. There hasn’t been a lot of time or space for Etiquetteer this winter, so this really makes me happy.

2) Planning and speculating fill my head - that and the gray cotton wool of sleepiness, which obscures everything.

3) Mother always remembered four-year-old me saying to the Community Concert ladies “I have to do my income tax!” in that serious way that children have. Fifty-something years later, I still do.

Tuesday Night, April 9

1) The undeniable glamor of meeting a friend for drinks at the Parker House after work was gilded by learning it was his birthday, and then mitigated by the unglamor of grocery shopping afterward.

2) Between these two essential engagements, I was horrified to see that ye Gucky was inspired by my pink leopard skin wrapping paper (see above). Just . . . no.

3) And for a little night music, the finale of Ein Walzertraum.

Tuesday Morning, April 9

1) My third-floor neighbor has been working like a farmer, dawn to well after dark, preparing the property for their open house, which I think is this weekend. Scraping and fixing and repainting steps and trim and porches, installing a new rain chain, etc. Last night I came home and he was spreading a truckload of mulch! I’m in awe of his energy.

2) Parlor coffee and devotional just after 5 AM; couldn’t sleep. In the Lamsa Bible a #MeToo story: Tamar taken by her brother Amnon. Saddening and angering in turn. Mother’s marginalia: “COUNT THE COST. BETTER TO DO ACCORDING TO CUSTOM.”

3) Last night I came home full of action items, and then . . . and then I saw a post on ye Fycebykke about some doofus trying to dry off a football field with gasoline, and I thought “Oh, I’ll comment with one of those fail videos about some doofus making his grill explode by using too much lighter fluid.” Bad idea. It led me down a rabbit hole of fail videos that distracted me over half an hour.

3a) Worse, I could feel myself becoming stupider, but could not look away. My brain was rotting, and I could tell. Back in 2008 or so I went through my phase with ye Failleblygge (this coincided roughly with the end of my eBay phase) - but I got out of it! It’s not even a good way to relax, watching all this fail. Needless to say, I didn’t accomplish as much as I’d hoped.

Sunday Evening, April 7

1) Doyle’s Road Race today, the first one in quite a few years on which I didn’t hold an open house. Just didn’t have it in me, but when I heard the motorcycle sirens go off, I ran out immediately to see the first runners pass by. As they often do, the Boston Gaelic Column - that’s the bagpipers associated with the police department - set up right across the street from Maison Robaire. They were wonderful, as always, honking away for about 20 minutes.

2) I had to run errands on ye Cyntre Strytte, including the hardware store for a large can of custom-tinted primer, exterior wood filler, and paintable caulk. The third floor has undertaken some serious labor on our exterior in preparation for their open house soon. I admire his energy, and freely acknowledge that I’d just hire a conrtractor.

3) This evening, prosecco in hand, I feel a bit like Lily Bart waiting in the drawing room for that lawyer to call.

BONUS: I don’t care what anyone says, “Beautiful Girls” from Follies is the greatest song Sondheim has ever written. Period.

Saturday Morning, April 6 - Domesticity/My So-Called Glamorous Life

1) It’s a Day of Domesticity at Maison Robaire! I simply had to recognize that the house was out of control, and this morning two housekeepers showed up to give the place a thorough cleaning. I’ve only ever done this once before, two years ago before a VIP friend visited - but now I get to be my own VIP. Just as good as an hour of therapy.

1a) Besides, the moving van should be arriving week after next. The decks need to be cleared for the onslaught! Once the housekeepers go I’ll be targeting things for my own tag sale.

2) On ye Fycebykke, a friend made a comment about my allegedly glamorous life, contrasting it with the alleged dreariness of her own. It immediately made me think of Grace Kelly talking about her day in Rear Window (start at 03:53): “Oh, what I day I’ve had! . . . I was all morning in a sales meeting, and then I had to dash to the Waldorf for a quick drink with Madame Dufrene, who’s over from Paris with her spy reports. And then I had to go to 21 and have lunch with the Harper’s Bazaar people. (That’s when I ordered the dinner.) Then I had two fall showings 20 blocks apart. Then I had to have a cocktail with Leland and Slim Hayward; we’re trying to get his new show. And then I had to dash back and change.”

2a) And I admit, I can (and do) make it sound like that. For instance, there are two ways to describe last night:

• Interpretation 1: Before dinner I saw on social media that two friends from New York were overnighting in Boston. We met for after-dinner drinks at their hotel and had a good catch-up.

• Interpretation 2: Imagine the excitement of discovering that Jonathan and William were up from the City - quite impromptu and I had no idea! Eager to dine with them on Saturday, but alas, they were just overnighting. After dinner I rushed down to the Parker House and we flung ourselves into deep chairs by the window in the bar so we could exchange all the news over cocktails.

2a.1) If you read Dorothy Parker’s short story “Diary of a New York Lady” you’ll get the general idea.

2b) But more often than not it’s just commuting drudgery, Doyle’s, and dishwashing, and who wants to read about that? As Bette Davis memorably said in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex: “. . . an empty, glittering husk.”

3) All the curtains are open right now in all the rooms, something that almost never happens (as most previous roommates will complain). The crocuses are coming up. Spring, renewal, is on the way.

Thursday Midday, April 4

1) Back in the 1980s I read both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged for my father, and I hope I never have to read them again. I say this in spite of Ayn Rand’s beautiful descriptive prose, which is often swamped by her dogma*. This morning, reading this article about Guns Down America grading American banks on their dealings with the gun industry reminded me of the lesson of Ellsworth Toohy in the former novel. He advised whichever young architect it was who wasn’t Howard Roark just to get out there and create one’s own structure. About one third through the novel this little nothing architectural group started making statements about issues in the public eye. By the end of the novel that little upstart group was the dominant force in the industry. And that’s just what Guns Down America is doing.

2) The horoscope indicated that this is a day for diplomacy, and it certainly is.

3) Remembering my first trip to Versailles in 2008: my initial disappointment seeing the front of the palace clogged with tour buses and scaffolding, the special exhibition of Jeff Koons sculptures all over the place, the crowds, the beauty, lunch in the old boathouse, bicycling around the canal. How can that have been ten years ago?!

*Her opening of The Fountainhead describing naked Howard Roark diving from a rocky cliff and swimming across a lake . . . I don’t remember the words, but I remember the impact they had on a closeted twentysomething. Twwwwaaaaaannnnnnngggg!

Thursday Morning, April 4

1) Yesterday my wonderful sister supervised the move-out of my things from our parents’ home; their journey to Boston has begun, and I had better be ready!

1a) How fortunate that I’m now able to give away furniture that has been given to me over the last 35 years. The cedar chest from a redecorating tenant at ye Vyndyme in college, the pine nightstand someone left behind in the foyer on Beacon Street, the beautiful cherry coffee table from ye Hyrtwood from a redecorating friend - these and my pine bookcases are all being received gladly by my upstairs neighbors, who are themselves moving.

2) Yoga last night at the home of friends. I really needed that.

3) They taught me that if you open the Bible at the middle it’ll automatically come to Psalms. Surprise! Mother’s Lamsa Bible opens to Job 17, and how’s this for a morning wakeup call, verse 4: “For thou hast hid their heart from understanding; therefore they shall exalt themselves in their deception.”

Tuesday Evening, April 2

1) I must direct you all to read my dear friend Paul Fallon’s blog post “First Kiss Girl/First Kiss Boy.” It’s just wonderful.

2) To be honest, I have just had it. Really, all I want to do is sleep. But, in the words of the late Boris Lermontov, “That great pleasure must be denied me.”

3) ONE reason I’ve just had it is (surprise!) my beautiful new yPhone. Today I actually dropped it (the new middle-class nightmare) and permanently nicked the leather cover! Since then, the blasted thing will give off ringtones and alert tones no matter how many times I mute it. And I want a silent phone. I’m damned if it’ll be my phone going off during a meeting or a concert or something . . .argh!

Morning, April Fools Day, 2019 - Words

1) The word that came out of my dream last night was concatenation: “a group of things linked together or occurring together in a way that produces a particular result or effect.”

2) Reading the NYT on an early bus this morning, I was delighted to read about the name of the new imperial era in Japan, “reiwa,” It is “a term with multiple meanings, including ‘order and peace,’ ‘auspicious harmony’ and ‘joyful harmony,’ according to scholars quoted in the local news media.” The Japanese are all excited about it. Imagine if we Americans could get as excited about something poetic.

3) One of the word games I play with myself every once in awhile involves finding substitute verbs for “to be” and “to have.” ‘Cause let’s face it, “am,” “is,” and “have” are three of the most overused words we use.

Return to Lake Charles, Days Four and Five: Packing, People, and Departure

Foreword: I am beginning this entry in the second floor waiting area of the Lake Charles airport outside Jenn and Jean’s Creole Café. The last two days have brought both a lot of activity and weariness. But if I don’t get this down now, I never will.

Note: And, in fact, I am completing this entry almost six days later.

SUNDAY, MARCH 24

1) Up early and needing to breathe air without dust, I took my second cup of coffee and my laptop out to the front porch in the white terrycloth bathrobe I always wear at home. To appear outdoors in one’s pajamas Simply Isn’t Done, but . . . too tired to care. After about an hour, Laura bolted outside, just to see where I was. Which just goes to show how rare it is for anyone to use the front porch!

2) Laura ended up on the phone with her family a lot on Sunday morning, while my focus was on going to Sunday worship at First Methodist for the last time. Mother’s car battery had died; while Laura was starting to consider the time it would take her to drop me off and collect me from church, I said “Gurrrrlllll, rest yo’sef! I’ll take ye Lift!”

3) It transpired the nice young woman driving ye Lift had a day job at one of the local nursing homes, so we ended up talking a lot about that community and about Daddy.

4) Arrived at church about an hour before the service was to start, which gave me time to have a cup of coffee or two, roam the halls and remember, and talk to a Gentleman Slightly Older Than Myself who’d spent his life at First Methodist, and who caught me up on a lot of inside information from back in the day.

5) In her later years, Mother had taken to sitting with her friends in the third pew on the left, and I made for that pew at the right time and got to sit with Louise, Mary Ann, Dot, and a couple others. Many kind greetings from many people.

6) A sweet little baby was baptized early in the service, and I reflected on the symmetry of things as this young child’s life in the church was beginning as mine was ending. (This was all the more present as we’d discovered the outfit I was christened in - and yes, I’m taking it back home.)

6a) Speaking of clothes, I made a point of looking sharp and well-dressed, honoring my father’s training and remembering all the church men of my childhood. Heavens, Mr. D*****s, who was always one of the ushers, and his crisp dark suits and white shirts and perfect neckties! Nowadays there are more shirtsleeves than suits, and while that saddens me, I had to remind myself “Robert, this isn’t your church any more, so STFU.”

7) The preacher is really spot on, and has been doing a series of sermons on popular music. In this case, “You’re So Vain,” on the sin of Pride, and it made me think how Mother and I would (or would not) recognize Certain National Figures in what was shared.

8) No, we didn’t sing “God of Our Fathers” or “The Church’s One Foundation,” but the choir sounded just like they ought to - and even now, so many familiar faces in the choir loft.

Waiting for ye Lift.

9) I took another ride on ye Lift home, and after leftovers for lunch, Laura decreed that we needed to start working on . . . the garage! With so much junk - almost all of it coated with insulation from the attic - piled in the middle, no other vehicle could be pulled in to jump the battery. (Laura may also have decided that it was too daunting a job just for her, and I agree.) So I got out of my good suit and into my jeans, and we began tackling the Forgotten Items.

The garage after we cleaned it out. All the space between the trashcans (which are from Granny Dimmick’s house) and where I’m standing was full of stuff.

9a) You have to remember, as we may have forgotten, that Mother and Daddy had to leave Orchid Street much sooner than expected when the house sold in 1984 and move to a rental house while Bayouwood Court was being designed and built. Mother likely packed everything in a hurry, and then just moved everything to the new house, consigning boxes to the attic if they weren’t immediately needed.

From our Hallowe’en tableau of 1973. Note wedding invitation received in college at upper right.

9b) Cups and saucers in patterns I found unattractive, the white and green glass shelves from their bathroom on Orchid Street, an enamel bedpan, florist’s vases, an old leather suitcase in fairly good condition with acres of fabric scraps, my old Hot Wheels garage, old cheese crocks and decorative tins, all Mother’s French and geology homework from college, two beautiful old evening dresses from Before We Were Born, a pottery cake stand from the 1970s . . . and of course, more boxes of papers. We found the papier maché skull and Frankenstein feet from the Hallowe’en tableau we staged in 1973! As I said before, Mother saved everything.

An old Dorman Products cabinet from the store. I used to want desperately to have this in my kitchen. Aside from its being a large object with many small compartments, it’s orange, and no one else would have one. But of course it would be wildly impractical and it’s as heavy as Original Sin.

9c) Opening a box and discovering yet more correspondence sent my weariness into overdrive. Full of stuff from high school and early college years. We took a half-hour break.

10) Later in the afternoon we tackled the big glassed-in bookcase in the den, which Mother had arranged as a display of a lot of antique detritus, as well as the encyclopedia they bought in 1973 and a whole series of books about music from the early 1950s. Just about all I wanted from this case was a plastic Dimmick Supply ashtray in 1970s avocado green. Laura found an old book on home entertaining she felt Etiquetteer should have, and i of course I agreed.

11) The rest of Sunday is kind of a blur at this point, but I know I tried to have a NAP at some point, and that Youngest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged Showed Up at some point, and then left without saying goodbye.

12) And it must have been on Sunday that I found yet another gone-forever thing: my father’s wedding ring! Now Daddy just didn’t wear rings; it wasn’t his style. But we had always been told that he had his mother’s ring for his wedding ring, and had engraved on the inside “And love is reflected in love.” But whenever we went to search his jewelry box, it couldn’t be found. Now you’ll recall that we’d thought that jewelry box had been lifted by a health aide and was gone forever, but we found it in a box under Daddy’s desk after Mother’s funeral. Picking through it while packing, I tumped out the contents on my bed - and among all the tietacks and lapel pins was a thin gold ring. And faintly seen inside it was engraving: “And love . . . is . . . “ “OH MY GOD, LAURA! I FOUND DADDY’S WEDDING RING!”

12a) I’m afraid our family, and especially me, haven’t been good with rings. To my shame, I’ve lost three: my dad’s high school ring, and two rings my gramma gave me from their trip to the Grand Canyon in 1947. I’m now hanging on tenaciously to two: my uncle’s ring from that same Grand Canyon trip, and now my father’s wedding ring.

12b) But I also was surprised to find myself turning over for the estate sale a lot of those tietacks and tie bars. When you wear bow ties, you don’t need that stuff. But I did keep the cufflinks!

MONDAY, MARCH 25

1) Monday was designed to be out and about, while also wrapping up things at home. We got a very early start for our first stop, the Shriner’s Center north of town, to drop off Uncle Bill’s fezzes and other memorabilia. We’d also found our great-grandfather Thorson’s Masonic apron to include; we just didn’t feel right keeping these things.

A picturesque bit of bayou beyond the Shriner’s parking lot. This is the sort of scene I’ve always associated with this section of Lake Charles.

2) The center is waaaay out near Highway 171 in the northeast of Lake Charles. We passed an old Dimmick Supply location on the way. We passed a Medora Street, and I reflected that some lady’s names just go out of fashion. No one’s been called Medora for over a century!

3) The center is gigantic, and when we got there before 8 AM the place was desolate. After some confusion, a handyman directed us through a kitchen and a gigantic function room to an obscure office, where the lady I’d spoken to on the phone was chatting with an elderly gent. They were very happy to see us, and they both remembered Uncle Bill well - and the old gent had done business with Dimmick Supply back in the 1940s! We had a pleasant chat.

4) Then it was back to the library to drop off the encyclopedia and all those music books, and then home.

5) Youngest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged and His Lovely Wife showed up so we could all go to lunch together. No one wanted to make the call on where to go, and after about five minutes of ridiculousness, we decided to return to ye Y’Charley’s. It had the advantage of being near the house. I was really glad to catch up with them over lunch. Lovely Wife is actually in three community theatre productions right now.

My parents’ room.

6) We returned to the house, and they made some final decisions about things to take with them. Since Lovely Wife has an interest in vintage clothes, I was really happy to see her choose Mother’s black velvet evening cape (which I never ever saw her wear) and several Hats from Before I Was Born. (Again, why did Mother preserve all these things so meticulously not to use them? Why do any of us do this?)

7) Laura and I then drove to the church to meet with the preacher, both to talk some business and just to talk. Since my day the church offices have been moved out of the church. They are across the street behind the church in a large old house that had been a law firm’s offices. My embarrassment at not recognizing the kindly church administrator who met with us in February can be imagined.

8) The preacher loved both our parents. At her funeral he talked about Mother’s inquisitive mind. He and my father were able to bond over all the old movies. (This sometimes makes me wonder why Daddy and I didn’t bond over old movies more, ‘cause we really didn’t, and not just ‘cause he didn’t like Joan Crawford.) The dark red walls and spacious dark wood bookcases on every wall spoke less of the 19th-century parson and more of the 21st-century sports fan. We had a really good meeting.

9) Then it was down the street to see the lawyer. We drove past the former location of Scarlett O’s behind the post office, a popular, very fancy and lively restaurant for a generation or two after my parents, and the site of my unforgettable pre-prom dinner my sophomore year at Catholic school. The beautiful old house there is gone; I don’t remember if it burned down or not.

10) The lawyer’s office is also in an old house - smaller than the church offices - with the added advantage (to me) of being right next door to Aunt Kate and Aunt Lal’s old house on Moss Street, full of memories for me. The ladies at the lawyer’s office all loved Mother, and so they like seeing us. Our meeting went well, but I kept hearing the cry of Mary Haines: “Papers! I never knew there could be so many!”

11) Since we were out that way, Laura and I had an early dinner at my beloved Seafood Palace for my last night in Lake Charles. There’s nothin’ like their good chicken and sausage gumbo! I started off with an order of boudin balls and a bourbon. I asked Laura why we never went to Seafood Palace when we were children, and she reminded me that back then it was the Crab Palace and that maybe it was a little too honky-tonk back then.

11a) Do you remember the restaurants where your parents brought you when you were little? The more frequent for us were the Piccadilly Cafeterias (both on Ryan and, when the mall opened in 1971 or so, the one at the mall), but I also remember going once or twice to Paul’s B-B-Q, and once Daddy took us to Day’s Café, an obscure hole-in-the-wall behind Ryan Street near Kroger’s. Good home cookin’.

11b) Seafood Palace is just down Enterprise Boulevard from where the old Burger Chef was, and I used to love when we’d go there and get a chocolate shake.

My room, known as “The Room” from when it was also where young grandchildren went to play.

12) Well, after all that gadding about town and eating good food, we had to go home so I could finish the daunting task of packing. Having arrived with a mostly-full suitcase and a laptop bag, I was leaving with two very full suitcases, a very full carry-on, and a laptop bag. I was in fear and tremblin’, more than usual, that I’d pack something only to have it arrive broken. The final result was a somewhat organized jumble of old papers and photos, fragile china teacups and saucers, pristine table linens, jewelry boxes, and a large mohair blanket that had been in a cedar chest most of the last 60 years.

13) And then, then, walking down the hall I suddenly said “Dammit, we never went through the Christmas stuff!” Heavy sigh. That’s what cleaning out a house is like. You’re dead beat, sure you’ve done everything you need to have done, and then something that absolutely cannot be neglected gets you right between the eyes.

13a) Laura reminded me that she had said we still needed to do this. And of course she had.

This is just one container of ornaments.

14) The larger of the two front hall closets was devoted to Christmas things and craft supplies, along with some table linens. I started to get down the six or seven large flat boxes of ornaments, searching methodically for particular ornaments that were mine. I came away with about half a dozen ornaments only - shocking! But they are all very special to me.

14a) Turns out I picked one that belonged to Laura - that egghead Scottish girl - but I surrendered it cheerfully when she told me.

14b) Still missing, two ornaments made specially for me by P*** D****, a young mother in the church who worked with our age group when I was ten or so: a little drummer boy and a santa in long johns. Perhaps they’re gone for good, perhaps they are already in Boston? Laura said she’d send them to me if she found them.

15) Then it was time to unroll the big roll of old sheet in which Mother kept all the important fabric decorations: our stockings, the Christmas tree skirt, etc. Things Gramma made. I snatched up my stocking PDQ, and also chose a severely simple red felt tablecloth edged in green braid and gold fringe.

A light moment with an elaborate art glass perfume bottle Gramma gave Mother long ago - and which Mother asked Gramma to keep for her, fearing its survival in a household with two young children. Gramma kept it in her bathroom, and I would always play with it when we visited. As you see it makes a perfect monocle, and the beak is a perfect pretend phonograph needle.

16) I made a brief tour through the house, photographing things that would no longer be special after I left, and then did my best to get some sleep.

A Mother’s Day gift from second grade or so. As I said, Mother saved everything.

TUESDAY, MARCH 26

1) Laura wisely decreed an early day, and I think I set my alarm clock for 5:30, but was up maybe a whisper earlier - or later, who can remember precisely? She was already up and dressed by the time I opened my door, and I struggled into some clothes so we could go out to breakfast.

2) Laura also decreed breakfast at ye Pytt Grylle, so that we wouldn’t have to wash any dishes. We were one of three parties in the place - dawn was just breaking - and we sort of made conversation over bacon and cheese omelettes and coffee. Each of us faced TV screens showing ye Fyx & Frynds and ESPN, and we both tacitly agreed that we would not talk politics. Damn, it was just too early in the day anyway!

3) Return to the house, where we started to bring out the overflowing trashcans since it was trash day. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a car pulling out and then stopping. And then the voice: “Robert?!” Mother’s across-the-street neighbors! They didn’t know I’d been there, and we had to chat for about ten minutes before they headed off to work. After the funeral we’d let their little boy choose any of the children’s books he wanted.

4) There was even more trash in the house, and Lago di Carlo prohibits just leaving trashbags on the curb. You must have them in a trashcan that can be picked up by the big claw on the garbage truck. So I suggested calling the next door neighbor to see if they had room in theirs. This led to a 20-minute visit and a completely empty trashcan which we were able to fill easily. This elderly gentleman looked after all the ladies in the subdivision, including Mother, in his own way, like by bringing the newspaper right up to the front door on his morning walk so Mother wouldn’t have to walk all the way down the yard to get it. Talking with him you could just tell he thought the world of Mother, and he said quite openly that it still hurt to think she was gone.

4a) And he underscored all the interest there is in the neighborhood about the future of the house. My parents lived there 33 years and were among the residents of longest tenure. They were always there.

5) Back to packing and the usual pre-departure tasks. I wrote a note at the kitchen table to one neighbor thanking them for the use of their trashcan, but my brain just froze when trying to compose another.

Could this be “The Baby Picture of Dorian Gray”? :-)

6) Walking through the house one last time, the rooms full of disorder, my eyes full of tears that would not fall. Things my grandparents and my mother made that we will not be taking with us. Memories of things that happened.

7) I asked Laura to take my picture in front of the house. And then it was time to leave the house, the subdivision, the neighborhood.

8) We had two important stops to make en route. First, and most important, the cemetery. They’d added the scroll with Mother’s name and dates to the plaque. The grass has not yet grown back over her side since she and Uncle Bill were interred. The silk flowers that Mother brought there during the holidays still look beautiful. (This cemetery discourages live flowers, which I think is akin to blasphemy.) I thanked the three of them - Daddy, Mother, and Uncle Bill - and off we went.

9) Next, the post office, to mail a copy of Scrivelsby: Home of the Champions and an overelaborate shield-and-eagle doorknocker engraved “The Dimmicks” to our cousin Christopher in Alaska. I think the doorknocker was a wedding gift they never used; Laura thinks it might have been a Christmas gift. Regardless, Mother never threw it away. Mother saved everything.

My sister is a rock star.

10) At the airport, Laura helped me drag in my luggage - over 100 pounds all told. They were having computer troubles at the check-in counter so I had to wait patiently about ten minutes while they got those resolved. Then I gave Laura my key to the house with its black rubber cover (from a Christmas cracker) and a big hug, and she was off.

11) Two parting gestures: call me childish, but before I boarded the plane I cast the dust of Lake Charles from my shoes; changing planes at DFW, I deleted Lake Charles from the weather app on my phone.

A last view.

12) Now the next phase of my life begins, and I wonder if it’s possible to recapture some of the happiness of this little boy.

13) That will be the big assignment once I have some time to think!

Friday Night, March 29

1) When I told a friend a day or two ago that my life at the moment was a like a carousel I couldn’t get off, he helpfully sent me this iconic scene from a movie I haven’t seen, Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train:

2) For one reason or another, I have barely had a free moment since I returned to Boston. I’ve either been writhing in pain (that was Wednesday), at the office, or dining out. Just call me Greta “Recluse About Town” Garbo.

2a) Seriously, tonight I was in my loungewear, munching away on the dinner the neighbors had made when I got a text about a dear friend’s birthday dinner - about which I had completely forgotten since Wednesday night. I had to get into street clothes and hail an Yber to the waterfront to be embarrassingly late. And you know how much I hate to be late . . .

3) Having seen this scene now, I would like to report that I will never, never see Strangers on a Train. I’m already never, never seeing Psycho because I enjoy showering too much. I don’t mind adding Strangers on a Train to the list.

Return to Lake Charles, Day Five: The Last Night

1) Tonight is my last night in the home of my parents. The place feels adrift with furniture out of place, things scattered on the floor, uncertainty in the air.

2) But at this point I'm so weary I will just have to be comfortable with missing something.

3) After next week (or whenever my own things are shipped out), nothing that remains here will be special any longer. They will be items without history for strangers to make their own.

4) Everything is packed as well as I can pack it - and if that isn't good enough for the movers, then I had better be prepared for heartbreak. Visions of smashed crystal and broken furniture dance in my head.

5) Should have been blogging yesterday and today, but so very much to do, so many people to see and talk to, and so much trash to take out . . . my head didn’t have the space.

6) Tomorrow morning we have to put out the trash, go out to breakfast, finish my packing, visit the cemetery one last time, and then go to the airport.

7) And then I begin the third phase of my life. The first phase ended when I completed my education and joined the workforce full time. The second phase ended now. What will the last third of my life be like? What will I make of it?

Return to Lake Charles, Day Three, Part Two

Foreword: I write this on Sunday morning (Day Four), drinking my second cup of chicory coffee on the front porch wearing the white terrycloth bathrobe I always wear here and lstening to the sounds of birdcall and distant traffic.

1) We were the Early Bird Special Kids, leaving promptly at 5 PM with a 20% off coupon for ye Y’Chyrley’s (which is not far from the house, the principal criterion). A rich, and therefore Very Bad But Tasty Dinner: spinach artichoke dip, chicken and pasta with whiskey cream sauce, and French silk pie. Is there anything better than French silk pie?

2) Having both had naps, we set to work almost as soon as we got back home. First assignment: packing up my things for the mover to review on Monday. I confess I always have anxiety about this - can anything ever be packed safely enough? - and like Hepzibah Pyncheon and her teacups in The House of the Seven Gables, we submerged things in bubble wrap that, should they break, would break my heart, too. That Mexican tin shrine, for instance.

2a) And the Thorson Clock, which my great-grandfather Otto purchased (if I recall aright) not too long after he arrived in America. Gramma gave this to our family in the late 1970s, and I remember how exciting it was to have a clock that actually chimed on the hour! It no longer works, alas . . . Laura directed me to fill the inside gently with bubble wrap to stabilize the pendulum.

3) I must say, I am full of admiration for my sister’s ability to deal with packing stuff. Dayum, she’s a pro!

4) All this took less time than we thought - not even a complete screening of The Wizard of Oz, in fact - and then it was on to the next, bigger assignment: going through all the papers and other items that we heaped on Daddy’s bed back in February. This took us until midnight (though we each took time out at different points for a bath). About two thirds was from Gramma and Uncle Bill’s house, and the remaining third was Mother’s. Laura took apart photo albums to retain the photos of people we knew. “Who’s this?” she would ask, and more often than not my answer would be “I don’t know, Laura.” (These were mostly Minnesota relatives and friends of Uncle Bill, I suspect.) I ended up finding lots of correspondence, again, mostly from Minnesota relatives, including Mother’s cousin Laddy John, for whom she always expressed affection, and Laddy’s mother (or was it sister?) Jeannette, who was an especial friend of Gramma’s when they were young. In fact I found Jeannette’s condolence letter to Mother after Gramma died, which was so very sweet, and told stories about their growing up in Saint Paul. There was also quite a bit of college stuff to and from Mother.

4a) Things thrown away: Mother’s college French homework and other homework, and boatloads of Christmas cards from the 1970s and 1980s. Also a speech Mother gave to ye Cympfyre Gyrls about the importance of knowing about banking.

We also threw away this issue of the paper with the full spread announcing the opening of the Opelousas store. That’s Uncle Hutch at bottom left, and Grampa two spots up.

5) To be honest, this was weary work punctuated with moments of insight and nostalgia. And when I came to the next box of manila folders browning to mahogany I said “Oh Laura, I just want to throw the whole thing away.” And then the very first folder I opened proved me wrong! Among other things it contained brief stories from our childhoods that Mother had written and dated, thank goodness. Seven-year-old me cleaning up some spilled cocoa powder by blowing it all away, for instance. Dialogue in the supermarket (in 1971) about what 1990 would be like after an episode of Captain Kangaroo in which they’d pretended it was 1990 to fool Bunny. Needless to say, I didn’t remember these incidents . . . and I was ready to toss out the entire box! You see, people?! It really is necessary to check everything!

Laura’s rainbow hand. We tossed it.

6) It turned out to be Judy Garland Night at Bayouwood Court, as just after The Wizard of Oz, and me being too tired to think about a movie to have in the background, Laura chose the 1954 A Star Is Born for our A/V wallpaper.

7) Mother had retained all kinds of grade school paperwork, and all the horrifying decorating magazines of the early 1970s from when they added the den to our house on Orchid Street. Toss! There was also a pamphlet called something like What’s New With Marijuana? which certainly surprised me, ‘cause my parents were not that way. Keep!

7a) And again, why on earth did Mother cart all this from Orchid Street to that rental house to Bayouwood Court? Just didn’t think about it? Force of habit?

I had to laugh when I saw the “Urgent!’ part. Obviously nothing was ever done about this. :-)

8) About this time I retreated to the bath, where I read the news on my phone, while Laura kept at it. When I emerged, she gave me another flat box, and retreated to the bath herself. I brought it to the kitchen table, and discovered it was full of genealogy info from Mother’s side of the family (particularly correspondence from a distant cousin she discovered in the 1990s but never met), sheaves of vacation information from Minnesota (toss!), one dead, flaking cockroach (faugh!), and . . . lots of loose photographs from when Gramma was a girl. Treasures!

9) At midnight we’d both had enough. And I tell you, I slept without waking for over five hours - and I needed it!

My sweet Gramma as a little girl.

Return to Lake Charles, Day Three, Part One

1) We were all in bed before 11:15. I got up a couple times in the night (as one does), but when I got up at 5:30, this time I said “Forget it - back to bed!” Walking into my room, I peered down the hall, but I couldn’t quite tell with my glasses off if I saw my brother-in-law or not.

2) By 7:18 I was able to start the day. Tony had made the coffee - and gone! Back to Mandeville for him, where he had his own extensive set of action items waiiting.

3) The pace had slowed, but Laura surfaced just before I finished devotional and my second cup of coffee. After breakfast, a trip to ye Wyllemyrtte for bubble wrap. LOTS of bubble wrap.

4) At home, I had an uncomfortable task to attend to. One of the voicemail messages Laura played the night before was from Ella Mae, who was our once-a-week maid when we were little and someone Mother valued a lot for her spiritual guidance. She did not know that Mother had died, and it became my duty to call and tell her. Turns out she’s deafer than I thought, and just when I thought I’d managed to tell all the sad news, I had to reconfirm who I was and the news in a slightly louder tone of voice. This led to some wonderful conversation about both my parents, and even more important, about Ella Mae’s 100th birthday (!) last January!

4a) Ella Mae also told me that, throughout his last years, she had been praying for my father. And she had a vision of him around the time he died, coming to her to thank her for all the prayers. It was very powerful to hear that.

5) Then we started on the closet with all the Christmas ornaments and craft supplies and seasonal decorations and table linens and whatnot. Thank goodness Laura isn’t interested in the candelabra! (I think they were Granny’s.) There were many things to put out on the dining room table, which we were arranging for Mother’s friends to select a memento.

6) Suddenly it was time to leave for ye Cyttyn’s for cheeseburgers with “the Dots,” Mother’s group of friends from church (in this instance led by Dot) who gather there every Saturday. When Laura and I pulled up at 11:15 - surprise! ye Cyttyn’s was closed for the installation of new cooking equipment! Dot and Flo drove up ten minutes later, and they told us they had an automatic Plan B: ye Prynya’s on Kirkman. So we followed them there.

7) We were table of nine: Sylvia and her daughter Sally, Dot, Flo, Abbie, Louise, and Virginia, and of course Laura and me. So hungry I had half a muffaletta, and it was so good. And we all talked about driving, health issues (but it wasn’t an “organ recital”), and Mother and her last days. And clearing out the house. I was really glad we got to do this; some of these ladies went to high school with Mother and Daddy, and they’ve all worshiped together at First Methodist for decades.

8) We invited the ladies back to choose a memento if they wished, and Louise and Virginia took us up on the offer. They were agog at all the work Laura had done, and we got to have more good talk. Louise chose a small glass screen I had given my Granny Dimmick as a gift some 45 years ago that said “Along the road of life, take time to smell the roses.” Virginia chose one of the many baskets.

A shelf of decorative items, including some of her egg collection, in the back hall.

9) By now it was only just after 12:30, and I decided that, come what may, I needed a NAP. And I had one, too, until 1:37. In the kitchen my phone went off; it was Mother’s friend Andrea. “Are you in the house?” “Why yes!” “Then will you answer the back door?” :-)

10) There are lifelong friends, and there are friends we only meet after we’re more than 3/4 through our journey. Andrea falls into the latter category for Mother, and we all love her. Like Mother, Andrea is a creator, but she creates differently; she told us she’s taking a welding class! And she does a lot of the craft fair things that Mother used to do. She also has a particular interest in jewelry, especially broken jewelry, so we had a good time with her going through the remnants of Mother’s and Gramma’s junk.

11) Since then, directionless and a bit lost while Laura is taking a NAP, I felt I’d be better served if I concentrated all the moveables I have to pack into one space in which I wasn’t also sleeping. It feels more manageable this way, even if it isn’t.

12) Next I emptied out the drawers of the tallboy and the dresser in my room. One unfinished lace tablecloth that my gramma clearly was making smells so much like her house! A small pile of white and red felt pieces accompanied the handmade pattern for the beautiful sequined white felt Christmas card rack shaped like a Christmas tree. And a large crocheted coverlet of cream wool with elaborate fuschia roses and green leaves. Mother had told me last year (when we took it out of the cedar chest) that it was important because her grandmother made it, “but who’s going to care about it?” And indeed that is the question. We are facing bales of beautiful needlework of different kinds, more than half of it spoiled by age spots or something. Why have all these things if you aren’t going to use them?

12a) I intend to use the things I’m bringing with me!

13) But the best find of all is the cardboard tube containing the portrait on linen of Gramma Houska’s family (see above). Gramma Houska, Anna, is my mother’s mother’s mother; her maiden name was Wondra, so this is the Wondra family. Around it I found the key to who’s who that I typed up with Gramma only three weeks before she died in July, 1983. This portrait is going to be the key to identifying several of the people in some of the albums we’ve found.

14) It is almost 5, and we are running off for an early dinner before a late night of packing.