Kitchen Renovation, Day Nine

Aaaaaannnnnnnd, today the first signs of a train wreck became apparent.

All the inspections were supposed to be done by yesterday: the plumbing inspector, the electrical inspector, and the inspector inspector. Today the plasterer was supposed be here to do the walls, just in time for the cabinetry to arrive on Friday morning. Tomorrow morning. And then of course the appliances on Monday.

Well, Man plans, and God laughs.

I gather the plumbing inspector has signed off. The inspector inspector showed up this morning and, according to the contractor’s partner, left “somewhat happy” and told him to spray some more red caulk at a couple important areas. But the electrical inspector hasn’t been here yet, and I don’t think he’s been scheduled yet. The partner told me that the City office has been overwhelmed due to COVID-19 and inspections are proceeding very slowly. That’s understandable.

The plasterer cannot begin sheetrocking the walls until the electrical inspectors sign off. The plasterer also cannot plaster a room that is filled with enormous boxes of cabinetry and/or appliances. So the contractor is going to have to figure this one out.

I am remarkably calm. Twenty years ago I’d be hysterical. But I am anxious.

An interior designer friend stopped by (what a delightful, random surprise!) specifically to look things over. He was favorably impressed with the work so far, and sympathetic to the current dilemma.

Thank goodness it’s almost the cocktail hour! On my midday walk through the cemetery I spotted a corroding marble obelisk that included the epitaph “An excellent spirit was in him.” In less than half an hour I’m going to have an excellent spirit in ME, which will help!

Kitchen Renovation, Day Eight

This morning, walking home from the cemetery, I got a text from the contractor that someone would be coming in in about 20 minutes to finish the insulation in the pantry before tomorrow’s inspection. And about 11:30, that workman rang the doorbell to let me know he’d finished.

Late in the afternoon I went over to see how things were going. I keep forgetting that I’m going to have recessed lighting! So the holes in the ceiling surprised me for a moment. And I was nonplussed to see that the threshold between the kitchen and parlor had split, but it’s being replaced anyway.

Oops!

In the pantry I took measurements of the window. The real production was finding a tape measure. The tape measures (I have more than one) were always in the far right drawer in the kitchen! Not now! Eventually I found a couple on top of the piano.

Holes in the ceiling for recessed lighting. The square hole at center is for the ceiling fan.

Why measure that window? Because I am tired of the old plastic mini-blinds that were over that window, and daydream about installing a stained-glass window there. Nothing ridiculously elaborate, just opalescent milk glass with a crimson border, and some sort of motif at top center. Perhaps the Dymoke coat of arms. It will be beautiful in the late afternoon with the sun coming in!

Wednesday Morning, August 19 - The Birds

1) If you’re feeling the heat this summer, I can recommend something that will give you a quick chill: watching a hawk fly into your range of vision at roughly 30 feet. That’s what happened this morning when I was walking through what I call the “back forty” at the cemetery. I was just about to turn onto a new path and then whoosh, a very large wingspan appeared through a shaft of sunlight and settled atop a bush. Wow! I wasn’t going to get any closer and have it claw out my eyes like in The Exorcist or that movie with that Damien kid or whatever the movie was - and don’t tell me, either! - but this definitely felt like a special message I need to decode. Later it lit atop a monument, and then it flew away low through a shady section of graves.

1a) Birders love cemeteries for experiences like this. No, I don’t see myself becoming a birder, but I’ll be on the lookout for more of these big ol’ hawks.

2) Seeing that hawk lent a sinister note to the calls of shrikes in the trees as I continued my walk.

3) And then, walking down a path I rarely take, another scary bird of prey entered my range of vision. Only this one was a sculpture marking the grave of a soldier who was killed in 1923.

Intimidating, isn’t it?!

Kitchen Renovation, Days Six and Seven

Yesterday the electrician was messing about for awhile. I confess I was most incurious, but stuck my nose in about 4:30, when I came back from my walk through the cemetery. It did indeed look like he’d been busy . . . not that I could explain it.

Today I heard from the contractor that the inspection is now scheduled for early Thursday morning. The idea had been for it to be completed by Wednesday evening so the plasterer could come in to do the sheetrock walls before the cabinets arrive on Friday. I’m very much afraid that the crew will end up doing a lot of shifting enormous boxes of cabinetry back and forth. The contractor said they would “move them on the porch for plaster and move them back in the kitchen that evening. We are better looking at the cabinets than looking for them.” To which I replied, “I’ll drink to that!”

In other news, you know the cemetery has become my favorite place to walk this year. One of the creepier graves there is the Boy in the Boat, little Louis Mieusset, whose heartbroken mother erected a marble statue of him in his last moments. As the story goes, little Louis saw his pet bunny on the riverbank, reached to bring him into the boat, fell into the water, and drowned. Now, look what someone did. Someone left a ceramic bunny in front of the grave . . . WHERE HE STILL CANNOT REACH IT! Look down there, by the carved dove at bottom left. That’s a ceramic bunny vase! I swear this could be on the Twilight Zone or something.

Kitchen Renovation, Days Four and Five

Quiet days in the schedule right now, with inspections coming between Monday and Wednesday and the sheetrock guy coming on Thursday. So the weekend was really for getting the dining room truly organized as a field kitchen and cooking a full meal.

A couple weeks before demolition day, I cleared out the secretary in the dining room to make it a pantry. This is the only heirloom I have from Granny and Grampa’s house. It was between the French windows in their little living room, and Granny had set up her card table next to it to play solitaire while she watched television. In the panel at bottom left she kept a bottle of creme de menthe (only to top vanilla ice cream) and a bottle of Taylor sherry, like all genteel old Southern ladies. It makes a great pantry. The sideboard makes an adequate home for the convection oven, hot plate, coffeemaker, and toaster. And lots of storage for other kitchen stuff. Why do I have so many coffee mugs?

Clearing off the table turned out to take less time than expected. My centerpiece for the duration will be bouquets of utensils and fruits and vegetables. Half the table will serve as the kitchen counter, and the other half for dining.

Saturday night I planned to cook my first real dinner - chicken and risotto - but the chicken just refused to defrost in my lipstick red mini-fridge. So that meant boiling up a pot of pasta. And that went fine. But to keep this place organized means washing the dishes right away. The bathroom sink is small, and the logistics are a bit complicated, but I didn’t slosh too much soapy water on the floor.

Sunday night was a slightly different story. Risotto went according to plan on the hot plate. The water was heating for a small pot of frozen green beans. I slid the (finally defrosted) chicken into the convection oven and started it. I became engrossed in Seven Days in May. Just another cooking-at-home night at Maison Robaire.

And then the lights went out.

Consternation! First, unplug everything. Then I knew I’d have to take a trip to the circuit breaker, which meant going outside in the rain to get into the basement. And then moving a couple boxes of yard sale items in order to stand in front of my circuit breaker. After a couple minutes even I could figure out which switch to flip. So that was fairly easy.

Not being able to find an additional outlet within reach of the oven (I knew I should have gotten an extension cord longer than six feet!), I ended up cooking dinner in equipment shifts. First I finished the risotto. With the hot plate off, I could then switch on the oven. Oy!

But it was all delicious, if late, especially the risotto. Om nom nom.

I’ll say this. It beats cooking sausages over a gas jet like poor Magnolia Ravenal in Show Boat, but I may end up eating out more than expected.

Kitchen Renovation, Day Three

Yesterday about 5:30 PM I popped my head into the kitchen and saw the electrician vacuuming up, wearing an enormous industrial mask. And before him on the floor was the large white ceiling fan, like a shot bird of prey. It served me well (it was old when I moved in), but for the last four years it has wobbled dangerously if set on any but one particular setting. So I don’t mourn its passing, but instead eagerly await the installation of the new ceiling fan waiting in the cellar to blossom in the new kitchen.

Today the contractor showed up at 7:30 (I was grateful for the extra 30 minutes) with the guys who were going to lay the new plywood subflooring. When I was back from my walk through the cemetery at 9, it was tough to find a quiet place for a teleconference; a staple gun or something else kept going off in the kitchen, and a workman was using a circular saw in the garden to cut plywood to measure.

Everyone had gone for the day by the time I returned from a meeting in town, 4:30 PM. A tour of the kitchen showed the plywood subfloor completely laid, all the extraneous piping removed, the condo association pipes rerouted not to be outside the walls, and the new circuit breaker added. And . . . the exterior walls completely insulated, which I was not really expecting. So, the work is moving swiftly.

For the next several days the job will be in the hands of the inspectors. Thursday the sheetrock guy has been scheduled, so it will be rather quiet until then.

Kitchen Renovation, Day Two

Adjustment to daily routines continues. I can no longer walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night through the kitchen, so thank goodness I cleared a path through the parlor before I turned out the lights! More involved, though, is getting to the back porch via the front door. Negotiating keys, (not yet drunk) coffee, laptop, notebook, and unlocking and relocking two doors is a bit of a production. Wearing something with pockets is very important.

Last night I sent the contractor specs for the washer/dryer, which resulted in a call from him that I’d need an additional circuit breaker in the kitchen. “I’ll need you to have your noggin workin’ in the mornin’ to decide where it goes,” he said in his Actual-Irish-Not-Southie-Irish brogue. I told him that, having had a couple gimlets-and-waters, my noggin was not quite working at the moment, but I’d be sure to have enough coffee for it to be working in the morning.

At 7 AM. That seems to be a popular hour for contractors.

And right on schedule, he appeared with the electrician at 7 AM this morning, and I was ready on the back porch, appropriately caffeinated, to greet them. We established a discreet location for the new circuit breaker, worked out where all the outlets would go (that late-night call reminded that I wanted an additional one), and then the issue of the garbage disposal came up.

“There’s no garbage disposal here, Robert,” said the contractor.

“Well, that’s not right,” I told him. “Daddy needs a garbage disposal!” More discussion. I finally said, “There’s a solution for everything!” (Something I often had to say to my reunion committees in Days of Yore.) “And you know what that solution usually is?” the contractor asked, his eyes crinkling at the corners. I said “Yeah, money!” smiling through my mask. We understand each other. But this is still my favorite solution.

A hasty search through my inbox revealed that a) allowance for a garbage disposal was in the contract, and b) I had never ordered a garbage disposal. I can tell I’ll be referring to that contract as often as I used to with hotels and caterers. He’s going to pick up a garbage disposal for me.

Then the plumber showed up, nice young man, who needs to shut off the water for the entire building for half an hour. Now I am deeply uncomfortable inconveniencing the neighbors without adequate notice, knowing how I’d feel myself. And it’s a myth that people respond more quickly to texts than email. As of this writing I have heard from only 50% of the building, but the other 50% are not really morning people. Hoping for the best.

I have a couple commitments in town today - how rare, in the Time of the Coronavirus! - so will be leaving this merry band in the afternoon to get on with it. So far the only surprises have really been the need for plywood for the floors, a new circuit breaker, and my forgetting to order a garbage disposal. That doesn’t seem too bad for 36 hours.

Kitchen Renovation: Preparation and Day One

When I moved to Maison Robaire 17 years ago tomorrow, I didn’t do anything to the kitchen but buy a refrigerator and paint the walls yellow. It was a dreadful old kitchen to begin with, and 17 years of my entertaining and neglect did nothing for it. At last, the time for a new kitchen, Howard Johnson’s at Versailles, has come. This autumn I expect to celebrate my birthday in it.

There’s nothing like beginning a project by spending a week on vacation. But when I returned yesterday afternoon from Provincetown, I knew that I would have to a) empty what little was left in the kitchen cabinets, b) clear out the few remaining items in the pantry, c) hook up the new mini-fridge in the dining room, d) empty out the large old fridge, and e) buy some three-prong industrial-strength extension cords for appliances. Getting started, I was glad I had done so much already! By 8:30 PM I had completed it all, leaving only two armchairs and a very large box of papers for the construction crew to tote down to the cellar.

Oddly, the most involved part of all this was setting up the new fridge. Naive little me thought all I’d have to do was take it out of the box and plug it in. Not so! First the blesséd door handles had to be attached, the tape and plastic had to be removed from interior shelves, and then it had to be plugged in for four hours before anything could get into it. Kneeling on the floor so long, for a moment I was stuck, unable to get myself standing. And I thought “This is what you get for joking the last 20 years that you’d inherit your father’s body. Ta-da!” #badlifechoices

Cleaning out the fridge involved finally tossing out the three bottles of sparkling apple cider people bring to my parties that doesn’t end up getting served somehow, and more than a few aging condiments. This standard-size fridge has been far too large for me as a Bachelor Living Alone; the new fridge is a narrow counter-depth model that will conserve space and energy more efficiently.

After a rough night, I was up at 5:45 this morning for coffee, and the contractor and crew arrived on time a whisper after 7 AM. By 9 AM demolition was well under way. I confined myself to the dining room to sort the mountains of kitchen clutter. So many things are changing now in how I live daily life. My mail has always gone in the mail slots in the kitchen; they aren’t there now, so where am I going to put my mail? Suddenly I have to move the drain rack out of the bathtub when I bathe, and put it back when I wash my hands - or dishes.

Two issues came up during the day: the insulation inside the exterior walls (an unexpected type), and the galaxy of pipes underneath where the sink had been (most no longer needed at all). When I was called back about 4:00 for an end-of-day meeting, the demolition was complete. Fabulous! The contractor told me three layers of flooring had been taken up: two lino (ugly from even before I moved in), and what they said was a very old and warped hardwood floor (which I rather wish they’d let me see). They are now going to need to get plywood sheets to put over the subflooring, over which the vinyl tile I already have will go.

Walking into that stripped-down room it felt both smaller and larger. I am sustained by my vision of what the new room will be, more wisely laid out, with more amenities in less space.

Tomorrow I think both the plumber and electrician are coming, and then there will be several days of inspections. All the new outlets will be at counter height, whether there’s a counter under it or not. And recessed lighting in the ceiling with a dimmer switch.

Stay tuned for more of the adventure!

Sunday Night, 2 August - Forty Years Ago

1) At the very back of the very bottom of the pantry was a narrow three-foot-long package wrapped in thick brown paper. Unwrapped, it revealed something I’d occasionally wondered where it had gone: a three-tiered tea table I bought on my first overseas trip in 1980, on a work camp with my church to Haiti. And that suddenly made me remember what a watershed summer that was for me. So much happened.

1a) Now I know what you’re thinking: teenage boy + tea table purchased on vacation = gay gay gay gay gay. And you’d be right. I wish I’d figured all that out at the time!

1b) That tea table was broken on the return flight from Haiti, and Daddy got a friend of his to repair it. It got broken again when it was shipped up here in 2003, and is still broken. They obviously built it for the tourist trade.

2) Five big events took place in the three months of that summer. The first was a multi-state tour of our church youth choir that took about two weeks. I cannot say I have pleasant memories of it, but I did convince one Texas preacher that I was English. After the performance at his church someone told me the look on his face when I began speaking in my real voice was one of priceless consternation.

3) The second was the work camp in Haiti. One of the missing things from Mother’s house was the diary with photos that I made of that trip. It was memorable and emotional for a lot of different reasons, but I remember the squalor of Port au Prince, the missionary hotel where we stayed (surrounded by a high wall topped with broken glass), the beachside spectacle of a local removing sea urchin spines from the foot of someone with my church using nothing but limes and a safety pin, hearing one of our counselors and the proprietor of the hotel sight-reading Vivaldi piano duets on two highly-polished spinets in his private sitting room, and weeping uncontrollably in first love on the veranda of a tiny hotel in Cap Haitien that doubled as the Danish consulate. Then there was the trip up to the Citadel . . .

4) I think it was after this that my family took a two week vacation to Our Nation’s Capital, where we got to tour the White House for the first time. Along the way we stayed with cousins in Bay St. Louis, Atlanta to see my aunt and uncle, visited Charleston, and toured Kenmore (home of my slave-owning ancestor Fielding Lewis, a hero of the Revolution). In Washington, we stayed with a high school friend of Mother and Daddy’s and his second wife, who had danced in New York with a prominent company in the 1950s. Besides the White House, we toured all the Smithsonians, the National Gallery, saw the Gower Champion revival of 42nd Street at the Kennedy Center before it went to New York (and therefore just before Champion died), and were guests at a military tattoo. At that time tours of the WH were still guided, and I’m afraid I was a bit of a nuisance to ours because I answered all his questions correctly, and then asked where the portrait of Caroline Scott Harrison was hanging. When you’re sixteen . . .

Uncle Clinton, Aunt Eleanor, me, and Daddy, in their back yard outside Atlanta. Aunt Eleanor and I read The Thorn Birds together in 1977.

5) So you’d think that would be enough for one summer, but not long after we returned home, I had all four of my impacted wisdom teeth taken out. Mother drove me to the surgical center early in the morning. I was wheeled into the operating room, heard the nice words from Dr. dela******** before he finally put me under, and then I came to lying on my side, feeling ice cold and drooling blood. As it happened, another boy from my school and church was lying on the other side of the room, having just had his wisdom teeth removed by the same dentist! And there we were, both trying to talk while our heads were packed in with icepacks! The next thing I knew I was watching the tall tops of the pine trees spin past while lying on the back seat as Mother drove me home.

Outside the Jefferson Memorial with Daddy. Surgical scrubs were still en vogue. My cousin Terri had gotten me that shirt.

6) And then a week later, an enormous white envelope appeared in the mailbox, from Interlochen, with my acceptance into the Class of 1982, and my life truly changed forever, for the better. The mailman Mr. Ney always came to our house during the noon hour or a whisper after, and from the time we came home from Washington I had been using the front door peephole overtime to see when the mail had come - and been disappointed every day. And then that day came that delivered me from disappointment. My father is the one who made it possible, who had the idea in the first place. I’ll always be grateful.

7) The rest of that summer passed in a blur of school preparations: buying towels with Mother at Muller’s, letting different groups of people know that I would be away that fall, and then loading everything into the Ford Fairmont to drive to Michigan with Mother and Daddy. In all my life, I don’t think there was as eventful a summer as that one.

Sunday Afternoon, 2 August

1) Well, the pantry is empty at last. OK, almost empty. Just need to move out one large box of papers, a small collection of trophies, an old can of paint, and a couple other things. Progress!

2) All these time capsules to ferret through! And while most of my friends are all like this (and by “help” they mean “mental help”), I can only respond like this*. I have to take this at my own pace, and at my own time. Though with the renovations coming so soon, that pace is quickening.

2a) I’d by lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about going through Mother and Daddy’s house with my sister last year in March, and the unbelievable volume of stuff we went through. That one, warm, gritty Sunday afternoon in the garage and the absolute despair of opening yet another box to find . . . only more letters. You think you’re leaving a record of your life, and really your heirs are going to shovel most of it into the trash. If I save some of this stuff long enough, the children will be able to kindle my funeral pyre with it.

2a.1) If we’d just left everything in that house intact - not thrown out anything, including the plastic supermarket bag full of plastic supermarket bags - it would’ve made a perfect Museum of the American Middle Class. But that was not our assignment.

A fourth-grade creation of Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged. I’m afraid the clacking sound it makes isn’t as restful as traditional wind chimes.

3) Some happy discoveries that I’m retaining: a couple bottles of port (!), my college diploma (looking a bit worse for wear), the satchel Mother and Daddy brought me from Rome in 1977, the cowhorn they brought me from Switzerland in 1970, some enormous wall fans (including the one I used for the Ig Nobel Prizes back in 1993 or 1994), the heavily-spangled silk and velvet Indian umbrellas used at the beach parties in 2005-2006, and (among the large, glacial deposits of papers of all kinds), a sweet note from 1996 written on the back of a business card of a sweet beau who became a dear friend. It has a hole punched through it, and clearly came attached to a bouquet.

4) But don’t worry, I am also disposing of things: outdated technology, a broken cutting board, many extra copies of a graduate school magazine project, a 1994 calendar of Japanese prints, two mobiles the children made when they were children, the two-cassette box of La Traviata sung by Anna Moffo that had briefly been stolen by a Corrupt Roommate in the late 1980s back when I lived in Allston, Ghetto to the Stars (and recovered when I spotted it in his room); a ceramic Pierrot wall mask from New Orleans my sister gave me one Christmas in the early 1980s, a bottle of homemade mead, and a rare, nearly evaporated bottle of Chateau LaTecque ‘54, vintage 1999, homemade wine from an alumnus that I would not even use as vinegar in salad dressing. And that’s just the beginning!

5) It’s been an adventure, and that was only a couple of hours!

*Yes, this is a quote from a movie, and yes, I have a movie quote for just about everything. It’s my defense mechanism! :-)

Sunday Morning, 2 August

1) Any Sunday on which I can complete and post a column by 11 AM is a good Sunday.

1a) Today is a good Sunday.

2) Yesterday afternoon a friend came out to JP and we tromped through the cemetery for about two hours, going where we would, not with any particular goal (beyond me wanting him to see the two Creepy Children’s Graves). He discovered a random staircase up a hillside which I had not noticed before. We took it, found a large grouping of Perkins tombstones, found another short staircase, and popped up near the monument to Col. Joseph Warren (which I had seen before), who died at the Battle of Bunker Hill and was an ancestor of the founder of the Gibson House, Charlie Junior. My friend, roaming more freely than I, discovered more Warrens behind the monument, including Charlie’s maternal grandparents, Dr. Something Something Warren and his wife Annie Crowninshield Warren. What a bonus!

2a) Headed downhill, we found this stone in someone’s family plot for Josie, Our Darling. Mother’s nickname in her family was Josie - and really, I think everyone called her Josie before she graduated from college. Certainly by the time my sister and I came along everyone called her JoAnn except her mother and brother. So this discovery was a poignant one for me.

3) In spite of that tromp through the cemetery, yesterday was Low Energy Day, and I fell into bed like a cracked hunk of concrete. Since 6:30 (!) I have been lounging on the Robert B. Dimmick Memorial Banquette West, reading and writing, but I am going to have to shift from first gear to high for the afternoon, whether I like it or not. The kitchen and pantry must be empty before end of day Monday - and that’s tomorrow!

3a) This Joyous Ritual has led to many discoveries (and the surprising-to-those-who-know-me question “Why on earth do I own all this stuff?”). The latest is a pair of glass coffee mugs from the 1993 wedding of a dear friend which a) I use very rarely and b) they’re no longer together, so I am casting them out. They have served their purpose.

Wednesday Evening, July 29 - Rediscovery

1) God bless whoever was programming the Eight O’Clock Movie on KHTV Houston Channel 39 back in the 1970s, because that’s how I ended up getting introduced to every Shirley Temple movie, Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, and so many other Golden Age Hollywood Movies - all interspersed with commercials and News Before the Hour.

1a) Some of those movies I saw on the TV in Granny and Grampa’s living room next door, especially after the two times that Daddy cut the cord to our TV because he thought we were watching too much!

2) “The things you remember, and the things you don’t.” Vague memories of one of these old black-and-white movies: a body discovered in a dressing room, with a message in lipstick across a mirror and women screaming; a singer walking into her old abandoned nightclub and, suddenly, applause, the lights come up, and everyone is there. And everyone is there. What could be better than that?! I always hoped I’d figure out what movie that was.

3) Tonight, at last, I rediscovered it: The Helen Morgan Story of 1957, with Ann Blyth, Paul Newman, Richard Carlson (so wonderful in These Glamour Girls), Leonid Kinskey, Juanita Moore, my beloved Corinna Mura from Casablanca (and her guitar!), and Iris Adrian from Lady in Burlesque as the secretary. I’d had a hunch for awhile that this might be it, watching the trailer on the Yewtybbe, and it turns out I was right. There was the suicide; it wasn’t in a dressing room, but a bathroom during a rent party (the actress is Virginia Vincent, also in the Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Shattered Dream*.”)

3a) And there, at the end, just as I’d hoped, is Ann Blyth (fresh out of detox) being brought back to her empty nightclub by Paul Newman (fresh out of prison). “Whatever made you think I’d want to come here again?” “I don’t know. Old time’s sake, maybe.” “It scares me. Maybe because I’ve never seen it so empty before.” And then the applause starts, in the dark, and the lights come up and you see the whole room filled with friends. And everybody is there. Isn’t that what we all want right now, for everybody to be there?

3b) “I don’t know how many lights it takes to spell out the name Helen Morgan. But the number must be very great, because even now that they have stopped shining for her, they still leave a bright glow over the Great White Way.”

3c) Insert Tears Here.

*What would I do without IMDB?!

Monday Afternoon, July 27

1) Just writing the words “Monday, July 27” this morning underlined how little time there is between now and the official start of kitchen demolition on August 12. So this morning I finally finished selecting appliances, but for the kitchen and for the field kitchen I’ll need to set up in the dining room for the duration. Besides my coffee maker and convection oven, I will now have a two-burner hot plate and a retro* mini-refrigerator in lipstick red. As soon as I saw it I said “Cheerful!” And I’ll need that to keep my spirits up . . . not to mention iced.

1a) Since I’m not a gourmet cook, I was looking at a less-expensive gas stove, which a friend discouraged. “Buy the best!” he said. Consumer Reports, to my surprise, actually rated my selection a wee bit higher in a couple categories than the stove made by the company making my fridge, so I’m sticking with my original choice.

2) Carting stacks of plates and other gear down to the cellar, I kept asking myself when it would be safe for me to give a party at home again. The last time I had people in my house was February! I am like my Granny Dimmick in that way; I like to have a lot of people around.

2a) Granny, of course (as I may have mentioned before), grew up in her mother’s New Orleans boarding house surrounded by her parents, six siblings (Bess, Fannie, Lal, Johnnie, Kate, and Uncle Jim [who really belongs near the top of the line, but he’s the only boy in a family of powerful women]); around 30 boarders (often Tulane Medical students), the cook, and a hall boy. So you could have almost 40 people sitting around in the parlor after dinner - and all this before even radio, much less the Yewtybbe.

2b) Aunt Kate remembered that everyone would keep their places as long as they possibly could, because as soon as someone made a move there’d be a chorus of “While you’re up, could you please get me . . .?”

3) SCIENCE! A very interesting article about using ultraviolet light in the battle against the coronavirus (without introducing it into the body). “One approach to battling such airborne-spread of coronavirus that’s capturing attention is a century-old technology, known as germicidal ultraviolet air disinfection, or GUV, that zaps harmful airborne germs.

*Translation: darling!

Sunday Afternoon, July 26 - Olivia de Haviland and Other Things

1) Olivia de Haviland died today at the astonishing age of 104. A rich, full life indeed! Memorial screenings of The Heiress, The Dark Mirror, Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte; and of course Gone With the Wind are all in order, as well as a glass of champagne. She did enjoy champagne! Her life proved that you could have a bitter feud with your only sibling and still be a lady.

1a) Some appropriate clips.

The Dark Mirror, in which Olivia plays good and evil twins accused of murder AND in love with the same man!

My Cousin Rachel! This is supposed to be one of her greatest films, and I’ve never seen it.

Her comprehensive interview with the Academy:

The trailer for The Heiress:

2) One year ago today I packed up my office at ye Instytytte and moved out for good. “And what a lot has happened since,” as they say in the novels.

3) One hundred days from today is Election Day. Be sure you plan to vote, and then actually vote!

Tuesday Morning, July 21

1) Up very early - before 5:30 AM - with the old psalm “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer.” I just had to look up where it came from; it’s Psalms 19:14. Somehow I always associate this with Mother, and right now, especially with her sense of calm.

1a) And the meditations of my heart. Which are troubled. And it is so important for me to be - how shall I say this? - more considered in how I communicate and respond, because Anger blunts my message and reduces my effectiveness.

2) Before the day got too hot, and because I needed to pick up a couple things at the local market, I left just before 8 AM to walk vigorously through the arboretum. My first time there in quite awhile, now that the cemetery has become my happy place. I paid attention to how many people I saw, and stopped counting after 45 (including six bicyclists). The real drawback to the arboretum is the number of people there at any given time, which really does mean wearing a mask at all times (and they have signs up to make sure you know). But the advantages are more of a workout because of the hills and the beautiful view of the city from atop Peters Hill.

Worth it. Every time. I love this city.

2a) The cemetery’s drawback is the vague undercurrent of surveillance with all the various employee vehicles driving about, as well as its flatter terrain compared to the arboretum. But there are far fewer people there - usually I count less than ten - heaps of historical and artistic interest, and the whole place is beautifully maintained.

3) I am truly entering on the Last Days in the Old Kitchen, as the renovation begins August 12 and both it and the pantry need to be completely empty. Aside from setting up a field kitchen in the dining room and hauling a lot of stuff down to the cellar, it also means tossing out things that won’t have a place in the new kitchen. At the moment it’s this collection of Veuve Clicquot bottles, all souvenirs of a good time. Three of them came from the Margo Channing Memorial in 2004 (one aspect of which was my housewarming), and one of those was brought by my realtor. I always liked how they looked over the sink, but . . . not in the new kitchen. So out they go!

Tuesday Afternoon, Bastille Day, 2020

1) I do love me some Bastille Day, but somehow I haven’t yet gotten to my two usual traditions: a memorial screening of Casablanca, and a rereading of Stefan Zweig’s account of Marie Antoinette’s trial and execution in Marie Antoinette: Portrait of an Average Woman.

1a) Instead, this evening I am going out for my first restaurant dinner with a friend since Leap Day. Quite by happy accident, we have a reservation at the French Bistro We Call Little Bobby’s in the Derrière du Sud, which I will get to on the Ligne d’Orange. Like several Boston restaurants, apparently they’ve expanded outdoor seating into on-street parking spaces.

2) Five errands: lunch pickup, post office, bank, jewelry repair, dry cleaner.

3) I’m always on the trailng edge of current trends, so you will not be at all surprised that my latest musical obsession, the song “Short Skirt, Long Jacket," by some musical group called Cake (and why not?), is at least four years old. How can you not love a song that includes the lyric “She’s touring the facility and picking up slack”? Enjoy this video tribute to Emma Peel.

Friday Afternoon, June 10 - Home Improvement

1) My official summer vacation arrived today: a new wicker sofa for the back porch, long the most neglected part of Maison Robaire. With a) retirement, b) the coronavirus curtailing almost all travel, and c) approaching next month the 17th anniversary of moving here, it made sense to upgrade the space. This is mighty comfy!

1a) I had always wanted the beautiful white wicker sofa and armchair from Mother and Daddy’s house, but this new one is long enough for me to stretch out full length - for a NAP!

2) Last weekend I finally ordered new cabinets and counters for my new kitchen, my dream vision of Howard Johnson’s at Versailles. And they will arrve in August, whether I have a contractor or not . . .

3) Floor samples arrived yesterday from ye Hyrvy Myrya, which look like they will do.

Thursday, Late Afternoon, July 2

1) This might have been my first weekday trip downtown since March 13 or so. I had to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy back at ye Instytytte, which meant two subway lines. No issues beyond noticing one nerdy dude without a mask in the subway car (not near me), and a dude in a white basketball shirt groovin’ on something on the Downtown Crossing platform and trying to direct traffic through slow-motion interpretative dance. But then, Downtown Crossing is not a neighborhood noted for excessive sanity . . .

1a) This was the first time I ever had to have my temperature taken before entering a building. 97.7 = good to go.

2) Walked from Kendall Square over the Longfellow Bridge, down Chahles Street, and through the Common to get to the supermarket. A good walk on a sunny day, and nice to see people out and about - though not everyone has the same ideas or patience with social distancing, which can be a bit frustrating.

3) BRATTLE BOOKS IS OPEN! My first visit to a bookstore in MONTHS. I picked up a book from the mid-1990s on all the art the Soviets looted after WWII, the so-called “trophy art,” and a 2002 or 2012 book on the history of caviar. The former will make great followup to other books I’ve read about art during the War (The Rape of Europa, The Amber Room, Lost Treasures of the Reich, and some other titles), as well as Stalin’s biography which I read last year, The Court of the Red Tsar, which is brutal and terrifying. The latter is just a whim, but I think National Caviar Day is coming up soon.

3a) Besides, long ago someone gave me an actual caviar dish, monogrammed with my initials (!), with a traditional horn spoon, and I might as well figure out what I ought to do with it.

3b) But then I always remember what Joan Crawford said in Grand Hotel: “Have caviar if y’like, but it tastes like herring to me!”

Thursday Midday, July 2

1) Four months and two days of quarantine. Some days I feel like this horrible dream will never end; we will never wake up again.

2) Massachusetts begins Phase 3 of reopening on Monday - hurrah! But I am still not inclined to rush about willy nilly. I’ve been so good about going out only twice a week, if that: Saturday mornings to the supermarket, and once during the week to Centre Street for errands. Now suddenly I’ll have to be out three days in a row: pharmacy this afternoon back at ye Instytytte, which I will try to combine with a supermarket trip, Centre Street errands Friday (read: liquor store), and now Saturday morning, Independence Day, off to ye Heaumeau Depeau to finalize my new kitchen cabinetry, counters, and appliances.

3) In ordinary times it would be SO AWESOME to have July 4 on a Saturday, but frankly, I will be Perfectly Happy staying at home drinking something appropriate and watching . . . oh, I don’t know, political thrillers like Advise and Consent, The Manchurian Candidate, and Seven Days in May.

Wednesday Evening, June 17 - Time Capsule

1) For about the last week I have finally been sorting through massive piles of unsorted, unfiled papers in the pantry. This has really involved a) shredding a shit ton of old utility bills and similar Documents With Numbers, and b) unjamming the shredder. This evening I got through a large gift box stuffed with papers and other ephemera that has been sitting, open, in the pantry since about 2017. Among all the Outdated Documents With Numbers I found:

• A 2015/2016 program for Spring Awakening at Boston Conservatory, the first student production I’d ever seen there.

• A thank-you letter from a friend sent following a post-concert dinner sometime. “Please forgive the block print. I wanted you to be able to read this.”

• A fragment of the spine of my sweet Gramma’s copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayaam, of which I was not a good steward. (I do still have the book.)

• A Post-It from the Final Roommate that he owed me rent for February, 2017.

• A silhouette of me that I think might have been cut in Branson on family vacation in 2006, but I honestly can’t remember. No, that can’t be it, ‘cause I have a bow tie on. It makes me look like a cross between Harry Potter and Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged.

• A thank-you letter from the Gibson House after my presentation at their afternoon tea in 2012. Must have been “Failures of Brahmin Entertaining.”

• The vote tally of the one class officer election I had to moderate/adjudicate in my entire alumni relations career.

2) These leavings, and some of the other contents, reminded me how extremely difficult 2016-2017 were for me, for so many different reasons. And that somehow I managed to survive it all.

3) Speaking of time capsules, tonight I tuned into John Richardson’s Virtual Piano Bar at 5 PM, which really hit home the duration of this quarantine. For me it’s now three and a half months! Grateful for my continued health - and yours! - but damn, I want to have a party.