Thursday, November 14 - Jumpy

1) My day at home was punctuated with long stretches of the smoke detectors going off all over the building, complete with an audio voice crying “Evacuate! Evacuate!” All this because the new second-floor neighbors began their kitchen renovation today. A friend on FB suggested that they had neglected to cover the smoke detectors with shower caps - a brilliant idea I will certainly utilize when my kitchen reno begins this winter! At any rate, all that ear-splitting noise was enough to knot my back like an old pine tree.

1a) While dining a seul in Harvard Square, neighbors texted that apparently the alarms went off again, repeatedly, during the evening, but that they seem to be under control and to call if they went off again during the night. Somehow this doesn’t indicate a restful night of sleep to me . . .

2) Now the really lovely thing today was getting to attend a cocktail party held to honor a dear friend’s major employment anniversary. I was a wee bit anxious, as I expected to know only the honoree and perhaps one other person. Instead, it was about five or six acquaintances, which was enough for me to be comfortable. Luscious autumnal drinks, tasty bits, and the best kind of remarks: heartfelt and brief.

3) Walking past English High School on the way home (as usual) I was surprised to see a man (for a moment I thought he had a dog) come out of the shadows near the trees and benches, slowly walking in the other direction. But it was like he emerged from nowhere.

3a) This set me to thinking about February, 2012, when I was thrown to the ground from behind by two men and had my tote bag stolen; this happened on the same street, just a couple blocks away. Remembering that, I turned to look behind me on a dark stretch a couple houses down from my house . . . and there was a man following me about 20 feet away. Maybe it was the same man; I can’t be sure. But he saw me see him, and I certainly felt my blood pressure spike. When I turned back again, before going up my front stairs, he was gone.

3b) I’m grateful something prompted me to turn around.

Veteran's Day 2019 - Grampa

1) For my devotional this morning, as is my Veteran’s Day custom, I took out my Grampa Dimmick’s Complete Poems of Robert W. Service to read his favorite poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”

1a) Every year I also look through it for “In Flanders Field,” because every year I forget that Service didn’t write it, John McCrae did. Oops.

2) Laura found the doughboy photo of him above when we were going through Mother’s house last March. Neither of us had seen it before, and of course Grampa looked very different as a young man compared to the bald old Grampa we knew. This must have been how he looked when Granny first saw him in Opelousas, when she turned to her friend in the kitchen and said “That’s the man I’m going to marry.” (That story, and the Pole Vaulter from Manila story, may be found here.)

3) Grampa was a real all-American success story in the Horatio Alger tradition. He came from nothing, orphaned in early childhood, deceived the Army about his age so he could serve his country, didn’t make a success until he started the family business in his forties during the Great Depression. “Luck and Pluck,” indeed! He was a great American, and our family owes him a lot.

My History with the Rocky Horror Picture Show

This Hallowe’en I have been given a ticket to a 7 PM screening of 1975’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Coolidge. It is reminding me of screenings from earlier times in my life.

Thanksgiving, 1981. School made the unwise decision to close the dormitories. I was not going to be able to fly home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas; thankfully a classmate persuaded her parents to welcome me and another classmate into their home in or near Detroit. (I think we must’ve taken the bus down; I honestly don’t remember now how we got there and back.)

It must’ve been the Saturday after Thanksgiving that we went to some cinema on the outskirts of Detroit to lose my virginity; I was going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time. One friend was already an Old Hand at All This, whereas I had no idea what I was getting myself into, really. I at least knew there was audience participation. She may have tried to explain the plot. We got there. I’d never been to a cinema where they confiscated switchblades at the door. There was another group of classmates from high school there, too, including the Only Boy in the World (at that time). They were sitting elsewhere.

The film began. Chaos. I could not hear what was going on on screen. I had no idea why people in maid’s costumes were running up and down the aisle. All I knew was that you were supposed to scream ASSHOLE after Brad’s name and SLUT after Janet’s name. Every time the white-haired man with the cravat came on screen a woman behind me screamed “WHERE’S YA NECK?! WHERE’S YA FUCKIN’ NECK?!” and all I wanted was to understand what he was saying!

Needless to say, they did not make a social success of me in Detroit. I haven’t returned since.

One year later, only marginally more sophisticated, I had arrived in the Big City, Boston, for college. One night I went the decaying Exeter Street Theatre* with a girl from high school and a friend of hers to the midnight screening of RHPS. This time I wore a black-and-gold paisley acetate smoking jacket had been a hand-me-down from someone to my dad (which was clearly not his style). We had seats on the aisle in the center of the house, and 20 minutes into the movie the girls went to the ladies room and never returned. I mean, they were gone over 30 minutes, and I was deeply uncomfortable just sitting there on the aisle next to two empty seats in the middle of all that crazy. So, in an age before cell phones, I assumed they’d abandoned me and I just left.

I will never forget waiting in line one time and the theatre manager was asking everyone if they wanted to be Frank in the floor show.

There were a few other screenings in those first two years of college, and the best thing to do was to walk back from the Exeter Street to the dorm on Commonwealth Avenue (a loong walk) via Greek restaurant in Kenmore Square that was open until 4AM to get avgolemono soup and a gyro or something. Every city needs some good unpretentious late-night restaurants.

After the Exeter Street closed the RHPS moved over to Harvard Square Cinema, and after that was acquired by a Great Big Cinema Chain they kept the midnight screening. I went a few times over the years - not very often, but it was always fun. I can’t remember the last time; it couldn’t be later than the mid-1990s.

The last time I saw RHPS in public was about ten years ago in P’town as part of its International Film Festival. They screened it in Town Hall, Glinda the Good Witch appeared to introduce it, and there was a floor show. I was with the Much Younger Boyfriend of a friend, and a couple other friends. The former was perhaps seeing it for the first time, and he had done a lot of research about the audience participation. He even brought a deck of cards to scatter for the “cards for pain” lyric in Frank’s last song.

After all these years, my favorite audience participation line remains one of the most obscure: “I’d like to see something in green, please!” And while I’m definitely going to what amounts to the Early Bird Special screening, at this stage in my life, that feels exactly right.

Does anybody here know how to Madison?

*I miss the Exeter Street Theatre! Based in an old church, the Spiritual Temple at the corner of Exeter and Newbury, it was just a rundown moviehouse of the most magical kind. In 1985 it was turned into a Conran’s, and then Waterstone’s, and now it’s offices.

Phantom of the Opera 1943

There are many filmed and staged versions of Gaston Leroux’s masterpiece of horror, the novel Phantom of the Opera. The original film version with Lon Chaney remains a classic of the silent era; I’ll never forget seeing it in college with a live pipe organ accompaniment. There was a TV version with Charles Dance as the Phantom. Without question, though, my favorite is the 1943 film with Claude Rains as the Phantom, Nelson Eddy, Suzanne Foster as Christine, Hume Cronyn as the second detective, and Gladys Blake, who also shows up in The Women and in These Glamour Girls as the cashier at the dance hall.

Why my favorite? Well, not because of Claude Rains (much as I love him), and not because of the traditional Hollywood liberties taken with the plot. Nelson Eddy is fantastic; the trailer says that it is his “most vigorous performance.” I adore Suzanne Foster, one of the birdlike sopranos of the period. Jane Farrar as the wicked soprano Biancarolli scintillates with evil. (“Why, I was drugged! And you ALL know by who. Anatole Garron DID IT . . . to make room for that . . . for that BAGGAGE!”) And it seems so incongruous to see Hume Cronyn cast in such a meaningless throwaway part when he went on to achieve such fame (and had already started to do so on the Broadway stage . . . ) The costumes are magnificent.

Mostly, it’s the music. This movie begins with the Paris Opera performing Martha, now little known but at one time such a standard part of the repertoire that it had to be performed annually. “Mag der himmel euch vergeben,” which I think is the finale of Act III, comes near the beginning of the film, and for awhile it was one of my musical obsessions. It’s sung in French here. I just love it.

But far and above that is the opera the filmmakers cobbled together from the music of Chopin, Amour et Gloire. Because of WWII, for some reason they couldn’t secure copyright from all the traditional operas they wanted, so they had to improvise. You definitely recognize all the tunes! (Go to 03:42 on this clip for the start.) During the opera, Biancarolli is directed to drink something from a goblet (the words “creme de menthe” are audible in her lyrics). The Phantom, knowing this, has already added poison to it. When Biancarolli leaves the stage, she is taken ill, collapses, and is taken to her dressing room. Christine, her understudy, has to be made ready to go in in her place - and fast! Nelson Eddy, on stage, and the conductor in the pit have no idea anything is wrong.

Suddenly, during the ball, Nelson Eddy receives a message from Napoleon that the troops are required in battle. He calls out to the assembly “Comrades! L’Empereur nous appelle!” The sound then comes of what is supposed to be Biancarolli’s character singing offstage. The voice, we know, is Christine’s. We see Nelson, and then the conductor, look up expectantly, and then . . . and then . . . and then Christine makes her entrance at the top of a grand staircase, singing her big aria. Nelson Eddy falls back, dazzled by the dream of performing at last with the lady he loves on the stage of the Paris Opera.

And that’s all well and good, but what is exciting about this is the music! When they were cobbling together this Chopin opera for the movie, the music they chose for this was his famous nocturne opus 9, No. 2 - which my gramma played, which Mother played, and which I was learning to play at the time I first saw this movie. The thrill remains with me every time I see this, even erty-farf years later. And it is thrilling! “MOM, C’MERE!”

Oddly enough I started thinking about this ‘cause I was watching Charlie Chan at the Opera with Boris Karloff (and William Demarest as the racist police sergeant) - go figure!

Saturday Night, October 26, 2019 - The Last Night at Doyle's

1) The unthinkable became inevitable when the closing of Doyle’s was announced in September. The inevitable became unavoidable yesterday, the planned-but-unannounced closing night. It was my desire to be the last customer out, and to get my favorite little booth in the center room. So I packed a bag and ankled over about 4 PM. in the words of the late Countess of Trentham, “I don’t want to miss anything.”

1a) Yes, I packed a bag! Laptop, journal, notebook, pen, Cecil Beaton’s The Glass of Fashion, a history of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia (in case I finished the Beaton), Weeping Baby Pumpkin Head (because it’s October), and three clean white handkerchiefs, which I was sure I’d need. I expected to be bawling at the end of the night.

2) They had reserved my little booth for me. And I’d barely sat down and ordered a cup of coffee before Rick Berlin Himself, Jill, and a couple other staff ambushed me with a couple gifts: a limited-edition wooden Christmas ornament with the Doyle’s logo and the dates, and a framed photo of me with several of the staff, taken night before last and signed by almost everyone. I was truly not expecting that, and I was deeply moved.

2a) I knew I was settling in for the long haul, so I ordered a coffee when I arrived, my first manhattan of the night at 5, my customary order of wing dings with bleu cheese at 6, and then dinner about 7.

3) The place felt quite full when I arrived, and word was getting around that this was The End. Across the aisle from me was a family party with a little blonde girl about three years old and her attentive young uncle (I hope he was her uncle) with such an attractive voice I could’ve listened to him read the phone book for days.

4) Suddenly my phone went off. A text message from a friend from ye Instytytte with a photo of her and her boyfriend at Doyle’s. “Are you here now?!” I replied. I dashed to the back room - and nearly collided with her coming to find me! A joyous reunion - we hadn’t seen each other since I left the office in July. This was not the sort of meeting I expected on the last night at Doyle’s - but how wonderful it was!

4a) Later she found another former colleague and dragged him in from the front room, and we three stood about chatting - and were then approached by still another colleague from ye Instytytte. Again, how wonderful!

5) My second manhattan came around the time my dinner did. For my last dinner I ordered the steak tips (which I almost never did) with rice and broccoli. This may sound disloyal, but it’s not news: one didn’t go to Doyle’s for the food, which was solid but quite ordinary (although their pizza is fabulous). In fact, one dear friend just refused point blank to return for brunch ever again because of the coffee. And yet their buffalo chicken mac and cheese was the best comfort food ever. I never really had any complaints.

5a) The one possible advantage to Doyle’s closing is that I am very likely to lose some weight!

6) Just before dinner, I was surprised to recognize a pair of eyes looking at me from the booth on the other side of the partition: a friend I’d never seen here before with his husband. So we had some good chat.

7) More than a few times I’d just look up from my book and take in the vista of the center room (I always sit facing in, not toward the windows; I have no idea why). The painted tin ceiling, the double row of milk glass pendant lights - so representative of a particular period of American architecture and design, so basic and unpretentious, and . . . and soon this room will no longer be here. People forget that authenticity is simple, not precious.

8) I was having one of those moments after my dinner dishes had been cleared when the face of my best friend unexpectedly filled my view. “What are you doing here?!” Craig’s arrival shifted my focus from the occasion to conversation, and to Weeping Baby Pumpkin Head, which Craig enjoyed playing with. He stayed for a couple hours, leaving about 10:30.

9) Throughout the evening I was, and then wasn’t, counting the hours. By the time Craig left, only I and another party of two were seated in the center room, while the front room sounded quite rowdy and standees were getting pushed into the center room entrance. My attention was diverted by a group text with friends until about 11:30ish.

10) But all I’ve ever wanted is to sit in my booth and read my book. This night was no different, but at times I found myself getting impatient with Beaton’s longwinded fawning over Dior and Balenciaga. His comments on other personalities, trends, and situations were much more engaging. I’ve read so many books here, from every possibie category of my library.

Rick Berlin Himself!

11) After 11:30 various people would stop by to talk or say thanks or farewell, including Rick Berlin Himself, always a favorite. And from a couple of the young women on the staff I heard about how they’d have to call people out for trying to take pictures off the walls, especially during the last week. The perpetrators allegedly had family connections to the memorabilia they were trying to steal - but that doesn’t make it right, especially since these people hadn’t been back to Doyle’s in about 25 years!

With Andrea. Notice her beautiful white granite pendant! I am wearing the Doyle’s Christmas ornament I’d been given earlier in the evening.

11a) From the Small World Smaller Department: Andrea, another favorite, has as her roommate the gentleman who was my buyer’s agent when I bought my condo in 2003! We’d met at Doyle’s a couple times before, but he was there for the last night, too, and we three had a good conversation.

12) While Rick was at my table, we heard some sort of commotion in the front room. I heard later that it was the announcement of last call. The last last call.

13) Truly I wanted to be the last customer out the door, but people just would not leave. About 1:15 AM I decided it was time to pack up and go home. I took a last tour of the place, starting in the back room, where Mickey was totaling up the night’s receipts at the big round table. Then I went through to the front room, where there were maybe 30 people hanging around. None of them looked familiar, but then I wasn’t accustomed to being at Doyle’s after 10 PM on any given night. :-)

With Young Mr. Burke in the Governor’s Box by the front door.

14) And I said good night and thank you to Young Mr. Burke, who worked so valiantly to keep the place going. He looked like he was in a happy place, and I’m glad for him.

15) Because it was after closing time, the front door was already closed and locked. I had to exit from the street door in the center room, onto Washington Street. Turning left, an ambulance filled my view at the corner. No idea what was going on - in the background I could see some of the usual spillover crowd from the Midway, where a live performance was audible on the street - but it didn’t seem to involve anyone from Doyle’s.

16) So I didn’t need any of those clean white handkerchiefs after all. No tears, not really - just the occasional spasm.

17) And that’s how it ends. As Ruth Sebag-Montefiore said at the end of that wonderful BBC documentary Debutantes, “It was unique. It’ll never come again. So, it’s a lovely memory.” And the second Mrs. DeWinter: “We can never go back to Manderley. But sometimes, in my dreams, I do go back.” I never had just one go-to place until I moved down the street from Doyle’s in 2003, and I doubt that I will in the future. But there was never a better place in Boston to curl up with a drink and a good book.

The front door, now shut forever.

Saturday Afternoon, October 26

1) Last night, walking home from the subway after 11 PM, Before I’d even left Amory Street I could hear loud singing coming from a great distance away: “Country ROAAAAAADS, take me HOOOOOOOME . . . “ I said to me myself “Please . . . please let that be at the Midway and not at Doyle’s.” But no, it was coming from Doyle’s, so I felt I must drift in for an extremely, extremely rare nightcap.

1a) Several staff came up to talk to me as I sat at a table in the center room, watching the occasional conga line of costumed revelers pass by. (In the words of the late Anna Russell, “I’m not making this up, you know!”) One elderly lady on the staff sat with me awhile with her own drink so we could talk. And I got to see Young Mr. Burke briefly as I squeezed out when I finished my drink.

2) I’d been warned that if I wanted a T-shirt that I’d better get in line in the parking lot by 10:30 in the morning, and I did - and I was not the first person there. One wily old lady - with shoulder length hair that may have had a more than a touch of henna in it - tried to insinuate herself in the front of the line by asking the question “Does anybawdy heah remembah when it wz just one room? Theah oughta be three lines: one room, two rooms, three rooms!” And I thought to myself “I’ve been coming here twice a week for 16 years and I’ve never seen YOU here! Who the hell are you anyway?” I gather I am not the only one frustrated by these “last-timers” who have rushed back, smiling through tears to close the place down, making their first trip back in 20 years. But, as Ruth Draper taught us in “The Italian Lesson,” “And even if we think those things we don’t say them!”

3) To my horror, the time has now come to sweep The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up through my library. What you see represents perhaps only a half to two-thirds of my total library, mostly encompassing Old Hollywood, European history, British, French, and Russian nobility; reference, Civil War, disasters (Titanic, Lusitania, Hindenburg, Cocoanut Grove), cookbooks, art and art history, and homosexuals of the mid-century. Still to come: fiction, US Presidents and First Ladies, American history, mysteries, genealogy, travel, humor, random, and three shelves of books related to etiquette.

3a) I have always - always - placed a high value on having an extensive library. When I was in first grade I learned to read instantly. My parents had a lot of books, and made sure that my sister I did, too. Books are civilization, knowledge, intelligence, Truth. But more than a few times parking this half of the library on the floor I found myself looking askance. “When did I last reread that book? Did I even read that? Is this here only because it was Daddy’s?” The creative tension between my fierce defense of a large library vs. both the Konmari requirement to keep only things that create joyous feelings and not unreasonable space constraints already feels challenging. But this is where wisdom I received from my subconscious comes into play . . .

3b) . . . THE DREAM OF THE BLACK ZEN BUDDHIST BASKETBALL PLAYERS. My freshman year of college I dreamt of three black Zen Buddhist basketball players on a team with three white hippies. They were leaving the third quarter of a game, and one of the hippies was blessing out the head Zen Buddhist. And the head Zen Buddhist turned to him and said “Our attitudes can accept our changes, but our changes cannot accept our attitudes.” What a powerful message to receive from a dream! And that is exactly where I find myself with my beloved library today.

Thursday Afternoon, October 24

1) This afternoon I witnessed a near-collision between a bicyclist and a van. They were both traveling in the same direction; the cyclist, in the bike lane, was going straight ahead, while the van was turning right. The cyclist very nearly made contact with the van, and then almost fell flat to one side, before the van stopped. To me it seemd obvious that the van driver just hadn’t seen the cyclist. Rejoicing that no one was injured physically.

2) New neighbors closed today and, I gather, are moving in! They seem like a very nice young couple, with no children . . . so far . . .

3) This afternoon I rediscovered Star!, in which the legendary Julie Andrews appears as the legendary Gertrude Lawrence. For awhile in the 1990s I was obsessed with this movie, even though it - how shall I say this? - isn’t the finest moment for anyone in it. The real problem, of course, is that Julie Andrews is not at all like Gertrude Lawrence, a unique talent, “a bright particular star.” Agnes de Mille once said of Gertie “She can’t sing, she can’t dance, she can’t act, but who cares?”

3a) Still, it’s a musical romp of sorts for almost three hours, and we have the rare privilege of seeing Robert Reed in something that isn’t The Brady Bunch.

Wednesday Morning, October 23

The last few days have yielded some interesting connections and possibilities:

1) Monday afternoon I met with a couple friends affiliated with a local organization about a possible collaboration with Etiquetteer that yielded two good ideas. Later that evening I attended the monthly meetup of ye Ypus Yffayre, where I met a woman who invited me to a private dinner/performance of a small local dance company on Tuesday night. I did attend that function, and it yielded a possible connection for the two ideas I discussed with the first local organization. That sounds very convoluted.

1a) Long story short: it’s good to be out and about and talking to people.

2) Yesterday afternoon, the contractors came to talk about transforming my kitchen into Howard Johnson’s at Versailles. It was a very productive conversation! Ideas all over the place. Work should start in mid-January.

2a) These contractors were recommended by a friend. During our conversation they mentioned the name of a local realtor. At the dance dinner I went to last night a woman mentioned the name of the same realtor. I said “I just heard his name today! Contractors who were meeting with me . . . “ and wouldn’t you know it, the woman also knows the contractors very well! See 1a) above.

3) Lurking underneath all this is the elephant in the room, the closing of Doyle’s forever before the end of the month. I’m trying to be in denial, but before the end of the month I’ll walk by one day and there will be a big CLOSED sign on the door, and that will be that. I hate to think of it.

Sunday Morning, October 20

1) I must say, this Sunday is starting off well: column from an unsolicited reader question posted before 8 AM, cheese omelette with spinach, and the discovery of a new-to-me waltz, “Don’t Say Goodnight” sung by Dick Powell in 1934’s Wonder Bar.

2) Because yesterday . . . yesterday was the lowest-energy day I can even think of in the last 20 years. I slept for two hours in the morning - let that sink in for a moment - and in the afternoon, and was in bed with the lights out by 10 PM. Ridiculous.

3) Reading Robert Klara’s book about the White House rescue of the Truman administration simultaneously with Elsie de Wolfe’s The House in Good Taste. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, especially since B. Altman’s (who did the interior design for the WH) should’ve received the Veda Pierce Distinctly Middle Class Award for their work.

Friday Late Afternoon, October 18

1) Rarer than the unicorn, an unbroken night’s sleep. I followed that up with almost three exquisite hours of a NAP after a brisk, vigorous hike through the arboretum. That sound so . . . so retired . . . but it is really that I want so much to be done with this cold! Shniffle, shnuffle.

2) The sweet, savory goodness of my first bowl of tom kha gai in who knows how long. The new Thai place at the old Wonder Spice location is worth revisiting.

3) Yesterday I began the Very Important Cleanout of the pantry; next week contractors are coming to talk officially about transforming my old, decrepit kitchen into Howard Johnson’s at Versailles. I have been . . . almost afraid to go into the pantry because it is just so full. Turns out this is in part because I had carpeted it with tote bags and other luggage. Nineteen of them, in fact! I am tossing out ten immediately; sorry to say that many of them were from ye Instytytte. The remaining nine include a) three very nice canvas totes from ye Instytytte (one was a gift from the Commencement Office when I left), b) one from the neighborhood framer, c) a small tote from Sir John Soane’s Museum that might just as well be made of cheesecloth, but I love it, d) a shoulder bag from a conference at ye Instytytte in 2010 that was my everyday bag at work; the conference logo has completely flaked off it, e) my favorite piece of luggage ever, the blue fauxlligator valise my boss gave me when I left the weekly newspaper in 1989, and f) one or two black leather gym bags left behind by the Final Roommate (in lieu of three week’s rent).

I love this city.

Tuesday Morning, October 15 - Influences

As I contemplate the future of my domestic environment, these interior design iconoclasts are influencing my thoughts. In random order:

• Sir John Soane

• Elise de Wolfe

• Cecil Beaton

• Marie Kondo

This could get interesting!

Friday, October 11 - Gratitude and Crankiness

It might as well be said right up front that I’ve had a cold since Wednesday afternoon, so everything I’m thinking and expressing is filtered through a filter of congestion, a wee bit of fever, and a river of snot.

1) Every day, every moment, I am conscious of how much I have to be grateful for. Even having this cold - I can have it without worrying about inconveniencing anyone in an office, or volunteers! I can just sit here in my comfortable, crowded, messy house, blowing my nose every five minutes yesterday - and not inconvenience anyone.

2) A friend said “Chicken soup and old movies” for a cold, and right now I’m watching The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. In the words of the late Mrs. Lloyd Richards (Karen), “The things you remember, and the things you don’t.” I remember seeing this movie for the first time late at night in the den on Orchid Street, when it was broadcast by some local Texas TV station (and interrupted every five minutes by local election results). Because it was after bedtime, I had the volume down as low as possible and was practically sitting inside the television.

2a) Watching it this evening, it’s like the perfect romance for introverts. And at the end, after Lucy dies and she and Captain Gregg walk out of the house into the fog! Of course Bernard Hermann’s score creates the right atmosphere . . .

3) The crankiness, as so often, comes from tech-related issues; I swear I need a butler with a BS in computer science! And frankly, I am not in a place where I want to think about anything.

4) National Coming Out Day - always October 11 - brings up different thoughts, too. This year I’ve been out for 30 years. Thirty! And every day I’m thankful for the community of friends around me love and support me through all my craziness and enthusiasms. And every day I’m thankful to have been able to make Massachusetts my home, a state where Men of the Oscar Wilde Sort are welcomed much more so than in other states . . . such as ahem Louisiana.

4a) It makes me think about my parents, too, who had a lot of trouble with my decision but didn’t want me not to be in their lives.

5) Sorry to be such a crankypants, friends! Thanks for sticking with me. All I want now is a solid night’s sleep.

Friday, August 9: Kenilworth, Day Six - Kenilworth

1) For my last full day with them, the boys planned a light day seeing the neighborhood historic house: Kenilworth Castle! It’s a 20-minute walk from their home! All JP has to offer is the Loring-Greenough House, which is a postage stamp compared to this expansive ruin.

And there it was!

2) There are so many little twisty ways in and out of Paul and Christian’s little neighborhood of wide streets and big sky (I didn’t see any large old trees in the immediate vicinity). This time we went a different way, and before you knew it, a big ol’ honkin’ section of ruin came into view.

3) We three walked along, sometimes single file, sometimes three abreast as the walkway permitted. To enter the castle grounds we had to cross the roadway at a curve where I couldn’t see what was coming in either direction and NO crosswalk or traffic light or stop sign. So, since I was far too busy enjoying this vacation to get into some sort of accident requiring hospitalization, I had a bit of a moment mauvais.

Of course England looks like this.

4) The whole ruinous mass, including the approach, is just what We Americans think England is - and ought to be. (Not a ruin, of course, but of a majestic natural beauty that appears to have been tamed satisfactorily.)

The approach.

5) We paid our money and I went through the wrong turnstile or something, and then off we went into the grounds. First stop: the gatehouse, which had been used as a private residence as late as the 1930s. These were the only interiors there were to see, and this included the last room that had anything left over from the Actual Castle Before It Fell Apart, as well as some museum exhibition rooms on upper floors. What we saw was charming.

The entrance to the gatehouse.

An interior in the gatehouse. The mantel used to be in the castle.

6) After that, though, we came to the real Piece of Resistance (as the French say): the recreated Elizabethan privy garden. Opened in 2009 after painstaking research, Whoever Was Responsible For This looked not only at period documents and illustrations, but archeological evidence of exactly where the garden was, and what was planted where and how. Needless to say, I was enchanted.

My last view of the garden, but I include it at the start of my tour of it to give an idea of its scope.

We were so fortunate with the weather!

There was a great deal of lavender in the garden.

6a) This was also a helpful reminder that the Elizabethans planted their gardens for scent as much as sight, if not more so. This very day (in October) I was explaining to a friend that the Tudor court moved from castle to castle so often so they could scrub up, since all the men just pissed in the corners wherever they were. Fancy living in a toilet! Bleah! And bathing wasn’t exactly a daily custom, either. So the people of this period valued plants with a sweet smell, perhaps even more than those with a pretty blossom.

Yip, yip, yip!

6b) Oh yes, I was all “Yip yip yip!” excited going through this garden, and having inspired thoughts about my condo association’s triangular plot - just like I did in 2008 after getting to visit Versailles and the kitchen gardens of Marie Antoinette’s fantasy farm village Le Hameau. The difference now, of course, is that my time is my own in the spring!

My patient hosts.

7) Paul and Christian made it up the stairs sooner than I did (they were very patient - but then, they’ve seen it all before, more than once), and we continued our tour through the ruins. Looking at the photos now, two months later, I think “Who cares if that’s the kitchen, or what part of the castle it is? The garden is so beautiful!” But these ruins had true scope and grandeur, and it was thrilling - and a bit scary - to ascend to the windswept heights to look over the surrounding countryside.

The garden from far above.

7a) Insert John of Gaunt’s Speech Here.

The joy that is Christian. It really was windy up there!

7b) Marvelous, too, to see how the wind was carving furrows in the stones of the castle. It made me think immediately of the tombstones in Whitby, which I got to see in 2013.

8) The time came for us to head out, and of course we stopped by the shop. I was mad to get a book about the garden, but the only one they had was gulp 40 euros. Worth the investment, but sweet mercy goodness. I was hoping for a pamphlet along the lines of How We Did It.

9) Back across the road - another moment mauvais pour moi - to lunch at the neighborhood pub, the Clarendon Arms. (There were other neighborhood institutions we never did get to take in during this busy week. I will have to return . . .) I remember a pleasant atmosphere, and aperol spritzes for me.

My only shot in the Indian restaurant.

10) In the evening we boarded a bus and went across Kenilworth to a superb Indian restaurant where Paul and Christian were well known and the décor was maybe a bit Blade Runner nightclub: gold and silver brocade, blue neon. My test of an Indian restaurant is tandoori chicken or chicken tikka masala. Curry just doesn’t sit well with me; it gives me bad dreams. Everything we ordered was just superb.

11) By the time dinner ended it was chucking down rain, and the nice maitre d’ called a taxi for us. I’m afraid I created some confusion because I keep forgetting that English cars have their steering wheels on the other side.

Monday Morning, October 7 - Wedding Ring

1) One of the big discoveries after Mother died was finding my father's wedding ring (which he never wore - he wasn't a ring guy), which had been his mother’s. I don’t think she wore it much either, which might explain why she gave it to Daddy for his wedding in 1955.

2) Grampa, who was so poor he had to get married in his Army uniform ‘cause he couldn’t afford a suit, obviously didn’t have a lot of money to spend on a ring, either. For all I know he picked this one up at a dime store.

3) We’d always been told that it was engraved on the inside “Love is reflected in love.” I’m wearing it today, stacked with a couple jade and rose quartz rings I got in Provincetown, and I took it off to look at the inscription. There it is, in capital letters: “LOVE IS REFLECTED IN LOVE.” But right after it I noticed for the first time in smaller letters: “To M.E.” (Granny’s name was Mary Ella.) I love that Grampa personalized the ring for her in that way; it makes it that much more special.

Thursday, August 8: Kenilworth, Day Five - Oxford!

1) Of all the excursions Paul and Christian had planned for me, I was looking forward to visiting Oxford most. Because I actually have a family connection there. Way back in the 1930s, my cousin Rhodes Dunlap was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and I determined that we would find the college where he studied.

1a) An internet search before I left home revealed it to be St. Edmund Hall, also known as Teddy Hall, which is not one of those Oxford colleges anyone in American has ever heard of.

2) Christian arranged for first-class rail tickets for us, so we traveled in some comfort to Oxford. Leaving the station, I felt we had to swim our way through a sea of parked bicycles to get to the road.

Me in front of cousin Rhodes’s college, Teddy Hall.

3) And before I realized it, poof! We were in front of Teddy Hall! Christian had actually looked it up beforehand. Those boys have a genius for finding a destination by artless wandering. Alas, Teddy Hall wasn’t open to tourists.

I don’t even know what an Aularian is, so couldn’t pretend to be one.

4) I loved getting to experience Oxford as a small city, which helped me to visualize more clearly scenes from Nancy Mitford’s novels The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate.

Aren’t they adorable?

5) We continued our meandering and stopped at a near-empty pub for a bottle elevenses.

6) Then we toured Magdalen College (which is pronounced maudlin, as in “You’re maudlin and full of self-pity. You’re magnificent”). Beautiful, austere, and deserted except for the tourists.

6a) It really is just as beautiful as it is in the movies.

7) So if the main event for me was tracking down Teddy Hall, for Christian it was a swish luncheon at Brasserie Blanc, a very discreet and subtle restaurant of slated-painted wainscoting and marvelous food and wine. I wish I had taken photos. As it was, I rose from the table in a semi-somnambulant state.

8) We passed an old haberdasher, which turned out to be the famous Walter’s of Oxford. Paul and Christian insisted that I purchase for myself a bow tie they saw in the window. While inside, I browsed through their selection of waistcoats and found something splendid to wear on the Queen Mary II: peacock blue satin embroidered with silver and blue peacock feathers.

Walter’s really does care about their customers.

8a) I kept imagining what it was like when cousin Rhodes shopped there; he must have.

9) Our promenade through Oxford ended up in an enormous bookstore, where I was most eager to attend to an Angry Ounce. Later I got so engrossed in a book that Paul had to text me that they were out on the street. Oops!

10) We then had a pint in an obscure-but-famous pub a few storefronts down. En route, I overheard a mother blessing out her young child in French (they were probably actually French, not academics raising their children bilingually), which just proved that no matter what it is, it sounds better in French.

11) By this time the mood was a bit subdued - and getting closer to train time - and I was allowed to pop into a shop to do a bit of Christmas shopping in advance. And then we retraced our steps through busy, picturesque Oxford for our train.

12) I remember jolly conversation and complimentary bags of chips in first class on the journey home.

Saturday Morning, October 5 - The Week That Was

“First the bees left the hive. Then I washed my hair. Those were the two exciting events of my day.”

— Greta Garbo in Camille (1936)

My week was more exciting that Greta Garbo’s day in the country, but like hers, it was punctuated with specific events that left an impression:

1) Now we all know my home could be described as Polly’s in Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate: “. . . her household arrangements were casual to the verge of chaos.” Since 2003 I’ve had some beautiful Oriental rugs that belonged to my grandmother, but I have not stewarded them as well as they deserve. Wednesday the Nice Men from the Rug Company came to collect them for cleaning, which involved a lot of furniture moving. Until they are returned a month or so from now, I’ll be getting reacquainted with my wood floors.

2) Wednesday night I saw the BLO’s new production of I Pagliacci, which I had never seen staged before. I especially sought this out because they chose to stage it very differently; instead of pairing it with Cavalleria Rusticana in a theatre, as is typical, they converted an ice rink into a circus tent set in a fairground. You spent an hour-ish in the fairgrounds playing games of chance and watching acrobats and clowns do their stuff (and talking over the community chorus singing church music, the only off-topic element of the evening), and then entered the big top. A one-ring circus in a tent of blue and orange stripes, the orchestra was squashed into a pie shape behind the round stage. At the beginning I was startled by two things: a) the opera was sung in English and I was expecting Italian, and b) the costumes were all modern dress. After reflection though, the decisions were entirely right - and the evening was riveting.

3) Thursday evening I attended the HistoryMaker Awards, now at the St. Botolph Club. An evening to see old friends and make new ones - and to reflect on the future in an atmosphere of the past.

4) Friday I met a Friend of Noted Opinion for lunch in Back Bay - mighty good talk, mighty good talk! Afterward we passed the time shopping, and I was surprised to find myself picking up a sweater and house shoes for the coming winter. For all my love of Bold, Uncompromising Color, one of my very favorite colors is pale grey, and these new things absolutely delighted me.

5) The impending close of Doyle’s . . . I ignore it, but I can’t escape it. Yesterday I noticed that the October placemat pretty much acknowledges that they won’t make it to November.

Friday Night, October 4

1) Let’s get this weekend started!

2) I told you I was reading about World War I.

2a) This is, of course, Gloria Paul as Crepes Suzette in Darling Lili.

2b) And this is what Julie Andrews did with that information.

3) God bless musical theatre.

Wednesday Morning, October 2

1) Back porch coffee on this soft morning: soft light, soft green colors, soft cool breeze. It’s like late spring or early summer. The sleepiness in my head is not soft, though. Which is why God made coffee.

1a) The honking of Canada geese betrays that this is really autumn.

2) Coming and going. Today the rain is coming. Also the rug people, who will cart away my gramma’s Oriental rugs for a good deep cleaning. And I am going, in the rain, to the opera. BLO is performing I Pagliacci tonight, which I have never seen.

3) It’s been eight months.

Monday, September 30

1) The coverage of the impeachment inquiry starting in Washington has made me think a lot about Mother today, wondering how she would react. She raised us on “Honesty is the best policy.”

1a) And in this case, the corollary - which Mother would not have said - comes from Florence Jefferson: “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the turkey!”

2) I confess I’m having a bit of trouble establishing a daily routine that’s productive for writing (not helped by the continuing chaos in this house). A fabulous piece by Amy Alkon via ye Twyttre is helping: “There’s No Such Thing as Writer’s Block.”

3) The great singer, and Interlochen camper, Jessye Norman has died. I vaguely remember a news story in the Globe (I can’t find it in their online archive) about her helping, with her chauffeur, to foil a bank robbery near the stage entrance of Symphony Hall.

3a) Her recording of Strauss’s Four Last Songs is truly beautiful. And it reminds me so vividly of Boston Ballet’s production of the ballet to those songs by Rudi van Dantzig.

Wednesday, August 7: Kenilworth, Day Four - Birmingham

1) Up and at ‘em! We faced a fairly early start by train to today’s destination: Birmingham and its Museum of the Jewellery Quarter. I confess I was feeling a few affer effects of the splendid wines we’d enjoyed over dinner at the Cross the previous evening.

2) The view of Birmingham from the train as we arrived was spacious, modern, and industrial. As we left the station and proceeded to the museum, that changed to an atmosphere that was gritty, antique, decaying, and industrial.

3) This view I took in at quickening speed and with mounting impatience. While Etiquetteer is giving me the Hairy Eyeball for Referring to Bodily Function, it’s necessary to mention that I was afflicted by an Angry Ounce. In short . . . .Daddy had to pee real bad. And none of the intersections we crossed were ever the turn to the museum!

Me thinking about jewelry. :-)

4) Now in planning for the trip, Paul had mentioned going to a jewelry museum, and I thought “Fabulous! Enormous glittering gemstones and innovative design!” Well . . . as it turned out, not quite. The museum is actually based on the workshop and office of Smith & Pepper, a venerable old firm mostly known for its gold snake bracelets. The place is exactly as they left it in 1981 when they walked out, locked the doors, and never came back. Imagine!

5) As soon as the tickets had been bought I bolted for the men’s room, and then had to bolt for the start of the guided tour. At least I wasn’t the last one to join the group.

Jewelers’ smocks hung at the workroom entrance.

6) The tour was fascinating, actually - zero regrets about the absence of egg-sized emeralds or other Important Jewels. First the office, where jewelry was given its final touches and where all the accounting and things got done, and then the workroom floor, where the jewelers worked. Smith and Pepper actually made gold buttons for uniforms, and we were all shown how the stamps and other presses worked. Everyone on the tour was given a tiny brass Scottie dog and a button stamp with a Roman head on it as samples.

7) I then had to take care of another Angry Ounce - most frustratining! - after which I resumed touring the museum’s galleries of 19th- and 20th-century British jewelry. I am consternated that I don’t seem to have any photos of the jewelry.

8) After one final visit to the men’s room - Christian made a point of commenting on this unusual frequency - and bypassing the shop which didn’t look compelling, we set out to see a bit of his very old neighborhood. An interesting mix of dereliction and up-and-coming edginess.

9) Before embarking for home, we stopped at a delightful little wine bar near the station to be refreshed. Christian and Paul had been there before, and we enjoyed tapas and a bottle of 2012 syrah. It was also a wine store, and I was pleased to find a bottle of that stimulating rioja we’d enjoyed the night I arrived in Kenilworth.

10) We dined in that night - those boys took such good care of me! - and watched a 2017 film I hadn’t seen, God’s Own Country, daring, original, emotionally brutal. And it reminded me how many different, and difficult, choices actors make when creating and inhabiting a character.