Tuesday Late Afternoon, 17 November

I am about to become that Boring Old Man at the Cocktail Party*:

1) Second Cousin Alice emailed a link to a video of a book talk about Lisa Wingate’s The Book of Lost Friends, which is just coming out. She sent it in part because one of the women in the video, not the author, just happened to be the wife of a man whose grandmother was her third grade Sunday School teacher back at First Methodist in Lago di Carlo, Mrs. Plauche (pronounced PLOH-shay). And wouldn’t you know it, Mrs. Plauche had also been MY third-grade Sunday School teacher back at First Methodist! Several years later, of course; I was as properly dressed four-year-old in the congregation when Alice was married.

2) Alice’s grandmother Lal and my grandmother Mary Ella were sisters, and they and their sister Kate were very good friends of Mrs. Plauche. They probably all played canasta together.

2a) Somewhere I have Mrs. Plauche’s copy of Lily Daché’s memoir Talking Through My Hats, which in retrospect seems like a very frivolous thing for her to have. But then we still haven’t figured out why or how my Gramma Thorson ended up owning a copy of The Myra Breckinridge Cookbook, so there you are.

3) The Book of Lost Friends sounds both heartbreaking and fascinating, which means it is probably not a book for me to pick up in 2020.

*Certain friends of mine are going to sprain their eyes rolling them over that assertion!

Friday Morning, 13 November -- Friday the 13th in 2020

1) Technically my stacking bracket, so long awaited, is arriving before 1 PM from ye Byste Byyye, but I’ll believe it after it’s in the kitchen and I’ve tipped the delivery driver. Then I can schedule the return of the contractor to install the washer/dryer and the carbon filter for the recirculating range hood . . . and my kitchen renovation will be complete! Finalmente!

1a) Well . . . except for a few things that I’m responsible for, like actually, finishing filling the cabinets and drawers, hanging the Fiestaware plates, and other “deft and tasteful suggestions.”

2) On the cooking front, earlier this week I made my first attempt at eggs cocotte, or shirred eggs, which ended up a bit of a mixed bag. It was the first time I’d ever used the tiny orange ramekin I bought in Paris for cooking and not just to be pretty and orange! Long story short, next time I won’t add raw veggies straight from the fridge. But there will be a next time.

3) The kitchen’s nearly nearly finished, a Biden presidency is assured in January, but I am still feeling unsettled. Is it the continuing coronavirus crisis, or something else?

Tuesday Morning, 10 November

1) My practice of morning devotional fell away in August when the kitchen renovation began. Aside from the workmen arriving every day at 7, the entire house was in chaos*. Yesterday Mother came into my mind a lot; morning devotional was very much her daily routine. And since I was unable to get back to sleep after 4:20 AM, this was the right day to resume my own devotional.

1a) I must say, I slept very heavily for at least four hours. How beautiful!

2) I practice bibliomancy; there’s a lesson you may not know you need when you open up a book. Today Mother’s Bible came open at Corinthians II, chapter 1. And Mother had bracketed this verse with the date 3/23/75: “Who comforts us in all our roubles, so that we also may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, by the very comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

2a) But the verse that spoke to me was 1:12: “For our joy is this, the testimony of our conscience, in sincerity and in purity with the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in this world, and not through the wisdom of the flesh; and above all, we have so dealt with you.”

3) And then Gracián’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom #159, which begins “Know how to suffer fools.” Gurrrrllll, have we had to suffer a fool these last four years, and those who revere him! But it’s a complicated aphorism, including “The wise are the least tolerant, for learning has diminished their patience,” and “. . . the person who does not know how to put up with others should retire into himself, if indeed he can suffer even himself.”

*It still is.

Monday Night, 9 November -- Indian Summer

1) The weather has been phenomenal the last few days, exceptionally warm for early November, though the leaves remain gold, russet, and/or fallen. You will not be surprised to learn that I have tried even harder to walk daily in the cemetery. Saturday I wandered through with a friend and her husband, neither of whom I’d seen since before quarantine in March; it was really nice to exchange knowledge (they had been before several times) and point out landmarks of interest with people of similar tastes.

Really, it’s a bit too early for Christmas decorations still.

2) Yesterday and today I took my usual brisk walk, just over an hour, allowing myself to go where I would as long as I avoided contact with other strollers. Today that goal led me off the paved paths more than usual, and even brought me to the lakeshore. I was surprised to find this sculpture of a farmboy.

2a) Wandering off the pavement also led me to find this tiny, poignant grave of an infant not yet a year old.

3) The real sound of autumn isn’t rustling leaves underfoot, it’s the honk of a flock of Canada geese.

4) All this in a T-shirt! In November! True Indian summer.

Wednesday Morning, November 4

1) I finally turned out the lights at 1:30 AM, but I started the day earlier than I wanted to, about 7ish. Physically my back hurts and my stomach is churning. There’s not enough antacid in the world.

1a) But I did this to myself! I knew we wouldn’t get a final result to the election last night, but I stayed up anyway. It’s my own fault I feel like this now.

2) And now we wait — on Pennsylvania, just like in Gone With the Wind, but also a handful of other states, including Georgia.

Just the first 30 seconds.

3) Another line from GWTW stands out this morning: India Wilkes, directing her icy contempt at Scarlett with “You’ve done everything you can to lower the prestige of decent people.” Speaks volumes, doesn’t it?

Monday Morning, November 2 - Shopping List

1) On the day before Election Day, just returned from my weekly errands at the neighborhood town center with these in my canvas shopping bags:

• Toilet paper

• Coffee filters

• Wipes

• Hydrogen peroxide

• Antacid tablets (it never hurts to have extra supplies on hand)

• Burrito for today’s lunch

• Five avocados for five dollars - what a bargain! (Especially when one considers that everything else at this fahncy general store is brushed with gold dust and dew from angels’ wings…)

• Jack cheese

• Water crackers

• Economy-sized bourbon

• Red vermouth

2) The weather is beautiful: sunny, brisk, and a bit chilly. I was glad to be out.

3) The pre-Hallowe’en snowfall broke off a couple limbs of the star magnolia in front of the house. I was able to cart them off, but I can only wonder how many downed tree limbs we’ll have here at Maison Robaire this winter.

Friday Night, October 30 -- Actresses of Old Hollywood

1) I’m in a Joan Crawford group on ye Fycebykke, and in discussing A Woman’s Face of 1941, a major JC fan said that Joan was one of the first actresses to sacrifice her glamor for the sake of a part. Let’s just say that, at this point, I know better than to mention Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage in 1934, seven years before. No matter how true it is, these JC queens just will not hear it if it’s Bette Davis. #artisticdifferences

2) Because of “Now, after 17 years” I put on The Maltese Falcon this evening. Truly it is Mary Astor’s more vivid and enduring performance.

3) All I want on November 4 is to wake up and be reassured that Miss Elly was always played by Barbara Bel Geddes and that whole business with Donna Reed was just a dream.

Friday Evening, October 30 -- Kitchen Renovation: The Urn

“Now, after 17 years . . . “ — Sidney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon*

1) Finally today, after all this time, I dug out The Urn from everything in the cellar, washed it in my new deep kitchen sink, and installed it in the Cozy Nook. It’s an important element in my Howard Johnson’s at Versailles kitchen.

2) It’s really all a big joke funny only to myself. About 30 years ago Daddy served a term on the local hospital board of directors. The directors would get terribly pretentious gifts every Christmas. The first was this three-part German porcelain urn. It’s the kind of thing that neither Daddy nor Mother would ever have chosen themselves. Of course this made me laugh like a drain, and I begged to have it to put on top of the toilet in my apartment. (I was still in my 20s then . . . ) Had Mother been able to raise one eyebrow, she would have done so, but she acquiesed and mailed it to me. And for four years on Beacon Street it was proudly displayed on top of the john, and then for nine years afterward on the bathroom counter on Columbus Avenue.

Not at all overdone.

3) When I moved to to Maison Robaire in 2003, I knew in advance that there wouldn’t be a place for The Urn. So I stashed it in the cellar, and “Now, after 17 years . . . “ to quote Sidney Greenstreet, its time has come.

3a) Because so many of you would expect this gesture, I expect The Urn will be used for my ashes at the funeral.

*Yes, there is a movie quote for everything. Everything!

Sunday Evening, October 25 -- World Opera Day

My graduate school roommate Tom tipped me off that today was World Opera Day; you’d think Etiquetteer would already have known! To celebrate the day, let me share some favorite selections, some of which I haven’t taken the trouble to seek out for a very long time.

All good operas begin with an overture (I can just hear the late Mame Dennis now, “I can’t wait to hear that overture!” — but of course she was thinking of Chu Chin Chow, which is not my fault), so I have to begin this escapade with the overture to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (which i discovered by chance in college). This is wonderful music if you have to practice going up and down stairs without looking down.

Even more important is Smetana’s overture to the Czech national opera The Bartered Bride. To me this is what sailing must sound like. Two stories:

• World War II cryptoanalyst George Kreamer (also the organist at my parents’ wedding) told me the story at least once (and likely twice) about being part of the Allied liberation of Prague. The Nazis had forbidden performances of Bride, and as soon as they where gone chalk notices appeared on sidewalks throughout the city: “Bartered Bride tomorrow noon.” George managed to get there. “How was the performance?” I asked him. “It didn’t matter,” he told me. “Everyone was crying too much.”

• When I went to Paris in 2008 for my erty-farf birthday, I was fortunate enough to see a matinée of Bride at the Opéra Garnier. And I’ll admit to having shed a few tears during the overture.

The very first opera I saw live was La Boheme*, when I was nine years old. Some small touring company was doing it on the Community Concerts circuit at the Civic Center, which must have been barely a year old. We got to sit in the front row (Mother was a long-serving vice president of membership), and I can still see the scaffolding-style sets with slide projector images of Paris on screens, the soloists hanging paper lanterns in the Café Momus to misspell NOEL as LEON, and especially the appearance of Musetta, in emerald green velvet carrying a peacock feather fan. So I must begin with Mirella Freni singing Musetta’s Waltz.

Mother used to play Chopin’s nocturne opus 9 no. 2 - you know, the famous one that everyone used to play - and Gramma had played it, and at some point when I was still taking lessons I could stumble through it, too. (And I still love it.) So you can imagine the wildness of my teenage enthusiasm when the 1943 Phantom of the Opera** came on TV and . . . and there was an opera using that nocturne! It comes at a pivotal point in the story, when Mlle. Biancarolli has been poisoned and Christine has to go on as her understudy. The nocturne had been turned into a duet between Susanne Foster (one of the bird-like sopranos so fashionable then) and Nelson Eddy as Himself. I wish I could show you the clip from the film, but all the Yewtybbe can offer me this evening is the audio.

The 1943 Phantom begins with the Paris Opéra performing Martha, and for awhile I was obsessed with what I discovered many years later is “Mag der himmel euch vergeben,” one of the most famous parts of the opera (which no one performs any more). Who cares what it means, just pass the Kleenex!

In college I discovered the famous sextette from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, which I will always regard as one of the greatest achievements of the 19th century, right up there with anesthesia, indoor plumbing, and the color mauve. I have written about this before; no need to repeat. This evening I give you the famous 1955 Callas performance conducted by Karajan (my God, listen to that applause before the sing it a second time!), and … AND … Enrico Caruso Himself in the famous “Seven Dollar Sextet” recording:

HONK!

Speaking of Caruso, dahlings, that inevitably leads up to “that famous Irish tenor, Mari O’Lanza” as Caruso in 1951’s The Great Caruso. Of course the best line in the whole film is from the indignant Viennese soprano — “Tenor isn’t a voice. It’s a DISEASE!” — but the best moment is when Caruso has to do Lucia while his wife (Ann Blyth) is giving birth to their first child. You have to watch to find out what happens. It always made my daddy laugh, which is a happy memory to have.

I’ve gotten to see some amazing live performances in the last 40 years, including (but not limited to):

• 2000-1: Aida, Salomé, The Magic Flute, all Boston Lyric Opera, part of the Egypt in Boston season.

• October, 2008: Rigoletto, Opéra Bastille, Paris. Here, an impossibly young Pavarotti sings “La donna é mobile.”

• Hallowe’en, 2013: Madama Butterfly, La Fenice, Venice - and on closing night! I’ve always loved Licia Albanese and James Melton singing the duet at the end of Act I. My God, the urgency!

• Autumn, 2019: Pagiiacci, Boston Lyric Opera, an astonishing production

At different times different arias and selections have been musical obsessions, including (but far from limited to):

• Leontyne Price singing La Mamma Morta at her 1965 Carnegie Hall recital. Somehow it sounds more immediate without an orchestra, only a piano.

• In the 1990s I was given a CD of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf songs, including Einer Wird Kommen (“One will come”) from The Tsarevitch by Léhar. I can’t find the English translation now, but I know it includes the lyric “Will I tremble at his kisses?”)

• “Libiamo,” the fabulous drinking waltz from La Traviata.

• January, 1996, I was vacationing with friends on Kauai, and snapped up the four-CD set of Callas tracks, La Divina. And I was instantly obsessed with “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” from Samson et Dalila. My poor friends had to listen to that with me over and over.

I love me some Richard Tauber, and seeing and hearing him since Schumann’s Devotion in Heart’s Desire is a real treat:

But his “My Heart and I” from his own opera In Old Chelsea. I mean, it’s in English, but who cares what it means, just pass the Kleenex! It’s not at ALL overdone!

My ambition now is to hear Der Rosenkavalier in Vienna. I had daydreamed this winter about going over — there were performances in April on the schedule — but the coronavirus pandemic put an end to that.

Just for Tom, Fritz Wunderlich’s rendition of the tenor aria, what my friend Michael calls “my favorite interrupted aria,” because the Baron abruptly silences the tenor while he is singing to the Marschallin.

And to conclude (because sweet mercy goodness, this could obviously go on ALL NIGHT), the final trio and duet. Love triumphant and acknowledgment of having reached a certain age. Who cares what it means, just pass the Kleenex!

I don’t mind telling you, I’m a vibrating mess. But then Anna Russell would be likely to say that’s because I have resonance where my brains ought to be.

Hallowe’en: at La Fenice, Venice, for the closing night of Madama Butterfly.

*I believe most Americans know at most two operas, and they are very likely to be La Boheme and Aida, though I gather that Madama Butterfly runs a close second.

**Other versions of Phantom are better than this one - one might argue that all of them are - but with all its faults, you’ll pry this one from my cold dead fingers.

Thursday Night, October 15

1) Such beautiful weather today, and even so, I had to force myself out of the house after a mostly productive morning writing, followed by a slump. And it was a beautiful afternoon in the cemetery. The wind in the trees, the leaves changing for the autumn, fewer than 12 other strollers, beauty, peace and quiet.

You can see the wound in the tree trunk where the limb came out, and the limb (in shadow) on the ground.

1a) A couple cemetery workers started working on that enormous maple limb that came down in the last week. Tomorrow (or whenever I go next) I’ll have to see if they retained, took, or otherwise sorted out the fragments of that marble tombstone that the tree limb broke. I’m not looking to scavenge a piece, but I hope they repair it.

2) The election is coming and the stakes are high, and yet part of me feels like I’m living in limbo. Even making plans for December feels unreal. We don’t know what’s going to happen.

3) Tonight I spent two hours (!) Facetiming with a friend too little seen - as who is not these days? - and it was the best thing. I miss having a true social life!

I saw quite a few pumpkins on graves, but none with cartoon faces . . . except this one.

Tuesday Afternoon, October 13

1) Today would have been Daddy’s 91st birthday. Because it’s raining here today, I think a bit about some of our return drives from the camp on Toledo Bend (two hours in a full station wagon) passing through little towns like Center, Merryville, and Longville, and listening to Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto on the tape deck.

2) Daddy was also an admirer of the actor Frederic March; I only learned this much later in life. While Advise and Consent is a favorite all-star cast political thriller for me, Daddy introduced me to Seven Days in May, which stars Frederic March as a US President who faces a coup from high-ranking military officers. Both films are worth a look right now, as well as Inherit the Wind, a dramatic retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial with March as William Jennings Bryan and Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow.

2a) You have your viewing assigments. Now get on with it! :-)

3) Like all the Dimmicks, he had an expansive smile and an open heart, but he was also more intellectual than he was given a platform for in his life or his business. The New Thought of the 19th century — propounded by Charles Fillmore and now put forward by Unity — was where he found his true spiritual fulfillment.

Friday Night, October 9 - My Hair is Fabulous

1) Being a webmaster has — how to put it? — given me many opportunities to practice Patience, as Mother would say. But it’s all in a good cause, and knowledge I can use later. If I don’t throw myself out a window.

2) For my first trip to the cemetery in several days I decided to search out Anne Sexton, fairly clearly marked on the map near department store magnate Eben Jordan. (I feel sure they never met.) And after a bit, I found her, with some interesting funerary offerings atop the family tomb.

2a) After the Big Blow earlier this week, I was sure there’d be more tree limbs down, and I was right. Most were already stacked up tidily by the cemetery staff, but one big honkin’ maple limb — the size of many young trees already — was prone on the ground having taken out a few gravestones.

2b) Notice how that glistening snow-white marble has weathered to gray-black over the decades! Moral: granite endures, dahling.

3) If you are not on board with how fabulous my hair is, then you are not on board, and there will be no lifelines thrown.

Thursday Evening, October 8 - Picture Mommy Dead

1) I remember seeing this movie on television in the early 1970s, in the summertime. Picture Mommy Dead, with Don Ameche (!), Maxwell Reed (who is not Anthony Newley), Martha Hyer, child actress Susan Gordon, and cameos from Wendell Corey, Anna Lee (I adore her), and Signe Hasso (!). And the unforgettable performance of Zsa Zsa Gabor as herself in a red wig being burnt to death.

1a) Worth your time in the spooky season, especially this year. I won’t go into the plot, but there are issues you could just drive a truck through.

2) About ten years ago I rediscovered it on the Yewtybbe, and it’s funny how you can remember a movie not quite exactly the way it really is. I remembered Zsa Zsa in flames, but I remembered her face, her gown, her hair differently.

2a) The set design of this allegedly grand house is like a mashup of the renovated Truman White House, Barbie’s Dream House, World War II surplus green paint, and a gallon or two of Pepto-Bismol.

3) You can tell Zsa Zsa’s career is on the way down, because of the two blondes, she had to dye her hair red.

Thursday Morning, October 8

1) Yesterday evening, during a brief pummeling of wind and rain, more very large tree limbs came down and are suspended above ground by power lines - just like last spring. This morning’s photos tell it all.

1a) Was it a derecho? That seems to be the fashionable word everyone’s using suddenly. It might have been.

2) My sluggish experience with 911 resulted in the fire department coming by, taping off our parking spaces, and leaving. An upstairs neighbor had better results with the power company, who should be out later today to get ‘em down. Last spring it took 18 hours for them to arrive.

3) I really have had quite enough of 2020, but at this point I don’t have confidence that 2021 will be any better.

Wednesday Afternoon, October 7

1) Yesterday morning I made a rare trip away from home, this time back to ye Instytytte, ye olde Place o’Toil, to pick up a presecription and get my flu shot. Three months ago, on my last visit, sidewalk-level scaffolding was still up all over Kendall Square, but not now! Incredible to see all the progress on the new buildings. Kendall Square is now truly a part of Manhattan.

1a) Also my very first glimpse of the new dormitory on Vassar Street, on the site of the olf West Garage. One reason I’m grateful to have retired when I did was ye Instytytte’s decision to build buildings on all the parking lots elderly alumni made the most use of.

2) I went yesterday because, then, today’s forecast didn’t look so good. Now, today’s weather looks fabulous!

3) And then I walked all the way from campus to Mass. Ave. station, about half an hour. I am unaware of the significance of this new 333rd Smoot, but it’s alarming!

Monday Morning, October 5

1) Mental clarity, divine insight, a shift in consciousness - whatever you want to call it - comes when it’s unexpected, sometimes unwanted. But for it to have an effect, the mind has to be quiet enough to receive it; your personal radio has to be set to the correct frequency. Yesterday morning it happened to me in the hour before getting out of bed, when I half-knew I was awake, definitely knew I would not get back to sleep, but too warm and comfortable to care. And then it came, the sudden arrival of unhappy knowledge about how I’m handling a particular situation and the need for immediate change. So powerful it tied me up in knots all day.

2) Which might explain why I slept like the Rock of Ages last night - just worn out by my own mental energy.

3) Receiving insight like this is a little bit like the stages of grief. Instead of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, I have realization, horror, anger, depression, resolution. The receipt of insight is the negation of denial. Now I have to move past all this to action.

Wednesday, September 30 - Falling Leaves and Limbs

1) As indicated yesterday on ye Fycebykke, the neighborhood had a Big Blow yesterday morning, bringing down yet another tree on the property line, the second this year. Happily, the back fence neighbors had scheduled an appointment with an arborist for late in the morning! Result: the tree at the center of the shared property line will come down entirely at the end of the month, and today’s broken tree at the same time.

Chez moi. Freshly broken tree at left, remains of spring’s felled tree at right.

1a) Additional pruning on other trees in the garden, including our enormous redbud tree, will wait until spring.

2) After all that weather in the morning, the afternoon offered perfect weather — which of course brought me to the cemetery. Limbs large and small could be found scattered throughout my favorite section, what I call the Back Forty, sections 19-31 on the map.

Notice that his name is spelled in ALL CAPS, perhaps his family’s way of saying they’d have enough of his pretensions?

3) Yesterday’s walk also seemed a good time to ferret out the grave of e.e. cummings, one of the more famous residents. It took much more time that expected, in part since his grave is marked only by a small flat plaque on the ground. Admirers had ringed it with rocks, making it the perfect container for falling leaves. In addition, his grave is set almost against a wall of hill. My first clue that I was in the right place was spotting from above a flat plaque with Cummings on it. But it turned out to be someone else - perhaps his sister?

3a) If you decide to go search for it (and I’m not with you), you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble by looking for a very large granite block lettered CLARKE. The poet’s grave is to the left.

Kitchen Renovation, Day Thirty-Eight

If this kitchen renovation had been a movie, Friday, September 18, would have been the end of principal photography, which means that retakes would begin the next day. That Friday was the official end of the kitchen renovation, barring a couple things pending the arrival of necessary parts in a couple weeks.

That morning I welcomed the electrician in at 7:00 AM for his final task, to wire the dishwasher. Because the dishwasher finally arrived Thursday, although it was not the dishwasher I’d originally ordered. Long story short (too late!), “expected date of delivery” actually means “we have no blessed clue when the damn thing will get here.” With no Bosch in sight, I compromised by getting a Frigidaire dishwasher the local appliance dealer had in stock. It’s here now, and that’s all that matters at this point.

Another victory last week was finding the pin thingies to hold up cabinet shelves. The contractor’s partner said they hadn’t come. I found them in an unopened box while boiling a pot of water on my new stove for the first time (yes, the gas leak got fixed the week before!) Moral: open every box yourself. Thursday I got to put most of the shelves in place and start filling them, a source of great satisfaction.

It has been an even greater satisfaction to wash the heaps of china that have been stacked about in the dining room and cellar in the new dishwasher. In the 36 years I’ve spent living on my own, I’ve had a dishwasher for only nine. This is going to be wonderful!

The Bearded One was supposed to come at 11 AM to handle a few things. But 1 PM he hadn’t shown, and I texted the contractor, who replied they’d be there at 3 PM. Which of course meant that the Bearded One showed up at 1:30. And he got right onto screwing in all the cupboard doorknobs and drawer pulls. Another victory: the missing pantry doorknobs mysteriously arrived overnight on the back porch.

At 3 the contractor and the rest of the crew showed up, and they all got very busy with the final tasks: installing the curtain rods, cleaning up the kitchen floor (the word acetone got tossed around a lot), masking the nail holes at the base of the crown molding, and planing the door into the parlor so it could actually close. I could only stand in the doorway fascinated by everything going on, feeling the end of this enormous project, unable to look away.

“You know why you have all these Irishmen in your kitchen, Rrrrrobert?” the contractor asked me. And with my usual candor I replied “Because we’re all gonna drink champagne!” And we did. I cracked open a couple bottles of Mumm Napa (and one of ginger ale for the teetotallers), which we enjoyed over 20-30 minutes of good talk.

My joy in the completion of this project disappeared with the news of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg - which is why you’re hearing about this now and not earlier. Since then I have kept myself busy filling the cabinets, washing mountains of china, and adjusting myself to a very different space. Once most everything is in place I’ll have a Big Reveal, but that’ll be sometime in mid-October.

The transition of old kitchen to new, for the moment, is best expressed in the photo at top, of my 36-year-old Revere tea kettle, which has been with me in seven apartments and looks every year of its age, and my new orange tea kettle, which should last me the rest of my life. Now that the room is almost done, I need to start inhabiting it and making it home . . . but without spotting it up too quickly!

Kitchen Renovation, Day Thirty-Five

Let me start today by acknowledging how very grateful I am to be in a position to renovate my kitchen in the first place, and to have a kitchen to renovate at all. Annoyances and aggravations can all be solved - there’s a solution for everything! - even if sometimes that solution is only Patience.

Today was kind of a mixed bag, but I’d rather concentrate on the good things. The electrician arrived about 8:00 AM to wrap up his remaining work. By the time I returned from errands at 11 he was gone, which meant that the new hallway Moravian star lantern was successfully installed. And it is beautiful, just what I had hoped.

Today also gave me my first little taste of what my new daily life can be like. To walk into the kitchen from errands, have a counter right there at the door on which to put the grocery bag, and a tall slim refrigerator for a tall portly dude like me where most everything is at eye level — that is all great. This also means I can start stocking the refrigerator. It is the only one of the four appliances to be installed yesterday that is actually working. And it is beautiful, just what I had hoped.

I brought home a couple bottles of champagne to celebrate the renovation completion on Friday. But . . . but it doesn’t look like the job will be completed by Friday. Though it is highly unlikely that will keep me from celebrating anyway!

My two big assignments today were to a) find out about the carbon filter and b) find out about the missing stacking bracket for the washer/dryer, which was supposed to come with the washer/dryer. Or so we all thought. The buzzards at ye Heaumeau Depeau sell it separately, I learned calling the 800 number this morning. “How,” my contractor asked incredulously, “can they sell a stackable washer/dryer without something to stack it with?” One word: profit. And then their delivery fee is almost the cost of the item, and they can’t get it before September 29 anyway. September 29. You will observe that that is not the end of this week, or even the end of next week. But . . . what’s the worst thing that can happen?*

Now I must say, even though I didn’t get the information I wanted, my 800 number experience with ye Heaumeau Depeau today was much better than hitherto. They have probably tagged my number as “Really courteous unless you keep him waiting very long.” The Nice Customer Service Representative told me he’d call the recirculating vent manufacturer to find out why the carbon filter wasn’t there; after a few minutes on hold, he had to tell me that they don’t open until 9 AM PDT, so I then had to call them after noon.

Calling this company was the first time I ever heard “If you do not wish your call to be recorded, please disconnect now.” In other words, we don’t care whether you like doing business with our company or not. Then after five minutes on hold, “All customer service representatives are still busy. Please hold to leave a voicemail, and someone will return your call shortly.” Frankly, this is not promising. And it’s almost 5 PM and I still haven’t heard back.

The contractor and his partner came over during the midday hour, essentially for a punch list meeting. They stacked the washer and dryer in place (without the stacking bracket, and without hooking them up) to get them out of the way. They swept up, and it was surprising to see how dirty the floor had gotten with everyone mucking about. It’ll get a good mopping on Friday. The counters, backsplash, and paint job all got high marks.

They surprised me, though, when they told me that there had been no pins with the cabinetry to fix all the shelves into place. Might’ve been nice to know that a couple weeks ago when they got installed! So I won’t be able to start loading the pantry shelves just yet. When I call the kitchen designer, I need to get pins for the shelves, a black touch-up kit for the pantry cabinetry, and a replacement door in exchange for the one with the damaged corner.

Besides the all-important dishwasher, at this point the only items remaining to be delivered are the drawer knobs and pulls, which should come tomorrow. On Friday, the Bearded One will install them all, install the curtain rods, solve the problem of the floor tile coming up by the parlor door threshold (either by “banging down on the tile” or replacing the new threshold with a new threshold of double width, like the old threshold), and plane down the parlor door so that it can actually close. Friday the plumber will also install the dishwasher (assuming it does, of course, arrive by Thursday), replace the faulty fitting on the gas line in the basement, and reinstall the stove. And once the dishwasher is in, it will actually be safe to use the new garbage disposal.

But, to end this meeting on a high note*, the best good thing to happen today was picking up a decorative element for the kitchen this morning on my round of errands. I’m not going to tell you what it is until the Big Reveal (whenever that will end up being) but let’s just say I have been waiting a long time for this. And it is beautiful, just what I had hoped.

*Yes, I’m aware that that isn’t the wisest question to ask in 2020!

**Thank you, Cloris Leachman.

Kitchen Renovation, Day Thirty-Four

The moral of the story is: don’t say no one’s coming until the afternoon if the first person is actually going to arrive at 8:30 AM. Which is what happened today. I really am trying my hardest to be flexible during this unique period, but for the rest of the day I could not throw off the expectation that I had been told I’d have the house to myself in the morning, and then didn’t. But that’s on me, not on anyone else.

At least I had a bathrobe and a mask on when the interruptions started.

The backsplash came out nicely, especially considering how not-so-nice the previous backsplash was.

The two planned big events today were the installation of the appliances and the tile backsplash. They had to summon me from the bathtub (!) to confirm where the backsplash was to go (I knew it wouldn’t have been helpful to say “On the wall, dearie”). By the time I was dry and dressed, two other issues had surfaced with the recirculating vent thingy. First, the carbon filter that was supposed to come with it wasn’t in the box. Second, to everyone’s surprise, the round thing on the top to fit it into a duct (if it weren’t recirculating) wasn’t removable, so they were going to need to cut into the bottom of the upper cabinet and then put a lid on that duct thingy.

As long as they put a cap on it, it’s not a problem.

Late in the afternoon, another call to come back to the kitchen. The stove had been installed, and they were just getting ready to install the fridge. “Rrrrrobert, there’s no ice maker on this refrigerator!” Well . . . hell, at this point I don’t know if I ordered one and I don’t care. They are installing it without an ice maker, even though they’ve plumbed for one. Can’t this just please end?! (Turns out I did not order an ice maker.)

The installed stove and refrigerator . . . before . . .

I had to spend the cocktail hour with a back fence neighbor, as they are planning to prune trees on our property that overhang their parking lot. When I returned, the contractor’s partner had gone, and the plumber told me that they couldn’t install the washer/dryer because they need a stacking bracket. Which was supposed to be in the box. And apparently I have to call ye Heaueau Depeau to find out what’s going on with that. Oh dear.

My home from behind. I had never seen it from the neighbors’ parking lot!

After they’d gone and I walked back into the house, my immediate reaction was “Who farted, and is that why the bathroom door is closed?” Unfortunately, the gas I was smelling wasn’t that sort, and in the kitchen it was prominent. So I texted the contractor. He responded to open the windows, and sent the plumber back to look things over. Apparently when you install a stove or reopen a gas line you have to “bleed the system” or something, so he moved the stove out from the wall, draped himself over the counter to reach behind, made some adjustments, moved the stove back into position, and lit all the burners one by one to be sure they worked. Then he waited about a bit, and perhaps the smell dissipated a bit, and took off.

Waiting for his arrival, the neighbors texted “Does anyone else smell gas? Should we call 911?” So at least I was able to tell them the source. But half an hour later they could still smell it, and so could I. I texted the contractor again, and abandoned my plan to dine out. By 7:30 he was back, and finally identified the problem: a faulty fitting in the basement. He turned off the valve - so I won’t be using my new stove yet - and will replace the faulty fitting when he returns Friday to install the dishwasher.

So - that’s enough excitement for today! Whew!