Saturday Midday, 25 September -- Retiree Stuff

1) I spent a sizeable part of yesterday morning calling Organizations That Send Bulk Rate Mail to get off their mailing lists. Already I have a great deal of experience with this task, having handled many such items for Mother. Poor thing, she received a daily avalanche of bulk rate trash, sometimes over 30 pieces a day. While the kinds of organizations mailing her are not the kind mailing me, her experience has prejudiced me against all of these bulk rate organizations, no matter how noble or urgent their causes.

1a) My desk drawer is filling with personalized address labels, just like Mother’s did. These organizations want to make you feel guilty enough to make a donation because they sent you a gift. I, however, feel no such guilt.

2) My new battery-operated bathroom scale arrived, and I’m delighted to report I’ve lost just about ten pounds from my starting weight (on the old scale) of 235 pounds. Interestingly, I seem to be down a pound or two almost every time I step on it. At this rate by New Year’s I’ll be down to my birth weight.

3) A friend recommended trying a wedge pillow to help with my ferocious snoring. While it’s still an adjustment learning to sleep on it, the snoring app I use is recording a dramatic reduction in frequency and volume. This may be the low-tech solution I need instead of a CPAP machine.

Monday, 20 September

1) Today was the sort of September beach day I’ve always longed for but rarely enjoyed. Blank blue sky, just enough clouds just far away enough to be interesting, not so much breeze to compromise the umbrella (unlike yesterday — what a sirocco!), not many people, a good book — perfection.

2) Sally Gable’s Palladian Days: Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House continues to absorb me. To my surprise I’m about halfway through it! I’m going to have to learn a lot more about the Villa Cornaro, but several of the stories make me think twice about living as the Lord of the Manor. For instance, having the circuit breaker fail when you’re naked in the bathtub in pitch dark blackness, and you’re not quite sure where the circuit breaker is to begin with. Or discovering and killing three-inch scorpions throughout the house.

3) For awhile I thought the price of the day would be steep: my embossed silver pen on a chain, which I put on specially so I could write. At one point on the beach I realized it wasn’t around my neck. I couldn’t find it anywhere! And the worst words came from the Nice Man at the Counter at Gale Force: “No, I remember you had it on when you stopped by this morning.”

3a) Happily for me, I found it in a secret pocket inside my backpack, where I must have put it absentmindedly. So very relieved I won’t have to return next month with a rake!

Saturday, 18 September -- In Provincetown

1) The standard definition of New England weather — “if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes” — certainly applied yesterday. The day began with thick, unpromising fog, then gave way to blazing sun, then fog again, and so on, back and forth for the rest of the day. All of it was beautiful.

2) Lunch with Craig at Pepe’s Wharf, where we got one of the best tables on the upper deck. Sparkling rosé and lobster salad for me, and then coconut cake. The ladies at the next table got all excited about our desserts, and when someone asked “What cake is that?” I answered “Mine!”

3) After lunch, I had the sort of experience I could only share with Mother or Aunt Betty, because only they would truly appreciate it. The Provincetown Library was having its book sale in front of the library, so of course I had to browse through. Have you ever browsed through a used bookstore and found a book written by someone you knew? Well, there was the name Carl I. Gable on a book, and it just so happened that he came to the Dimmick-Evans family reunion in Atlanta way back in 1985. And this book, Palladian Days: Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House, just happens to be by his wife Sally (who did not come to the reunion), and just happens to be about how they bought one of the most important surviving villas by Palladio a couple years after Carl attended our family reunion. I’m already finding it an absorbing read.

3a) Just how did Carl happen to attend that reunion, and how is he related to us? I feel sure that Aunt Betty had something to do with it, as she was the one in her generation most interested in genealogy. Mother would have been delighted with the whole experience of discovering the book and remembering that reunion meeting.

4) The fog returned early in the evening. It reinforced somehow how reluctant I’ve been to mix and mingle in a large way in Provincetown due to the pandemic. And that was underscored on Comical Street by two chance meetings with two dear friends I have barely seen in 18 months, and a near collision with two neighborhood acquaintances en route for takeout. Those unplanned, unexpected interactions fed my soul.

5) After dinner I unwisely got a hot fudge sundae and went to the end of MacMillan Pier to stare at the moon through the fog. At times it was amazingly sharp in detail, surrounded by a luminous ring; no photograph of mine could do it justice. But at the end of the pier, it was often almost completely shrouded from view.

5a) While there, I also saw the Salacious passing the jetty into the pier, a small collection of lights in the dark. I was very glad not to be embarking for a return trip!

6) This morning, Sunday, uncompromising sunshine has returned, but not sunny temperatures. The Housemate and I ended up discussing seasoning blends, of all things, over our coffee. My passing reference to herbes de Provence led to the Housemate sharing info about Ernest Hemingway’s hamburger recipe, which includes ingredients that are no longer manufactured like India relish, beau monde seasoning, and Mei Yen powder (which seems to be a mixture of salt and sugar with a bit of MSG mixed with a bit of soy sauce). So who knows where today will lead?!

Thursday Night, 16 September -- Songs of Jane Powell

1) A friend just tipped me off to the news that Jane Powell died today. I confess I’ve never paid much attention to her — my first memory of her is her guest appearance on Fantasy Island — but in the last few years some of her songs have become momentary obsessions.

I don’t really remember how I happened upon this clip of Jane in Three Daring Daughters*, but what struck me most was not her performance, but her resemblance to my Aunt M.F. when she was young. Like two peas in a pod . . .

Call me a heretic, but I just can’t stand Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And even though I still haven’t seen all of A Date With Judy, another obsession was Jane’s rendition of “Love Is Where You Find It.” (Note also teenage Elizabeth Taylor and teenage Robert Stack.)

“Love Is Like This” from Nancy Goes to Rio occupied my head for a couple weeks, but now it feels a bit percussive to me. “And when you feel the glorious glow of someone’s ‘Hello,’ then your heart will know the meaning of bliss . . . for love is like this.”

Finalmente, her special appearance in Deep in my Heart singing “Sweetheart” from Sigmund Romberg’s Maytime with Vic Damone.

*My favorite number from Three Daring Daughters will always be Jeanette MacDonald singing “Where There’s Love.”

Thursday Midday, 16 September

1) Provincetown is wet and gray and forecast to remain so through Sunday. But I am not moping. This is a wonderful opportunity to plot out the next few months.

2) I hesitate to use the term “cosmic occurrences,” but there have been some interesting coincidences in the last week. For instance, wakeful in the night, my thoughts turned to an internet friend who had practically disappeared. One of the first IG posts I saw Wednesday morning was his first post in four months.

2a) On the ferry to Provincetown Wednesday afternoon, I saw a beautiful little sailboat zipping along at a fine clip, all sails unfurled, which made me wonder about a volunteer couple I knew well in my days at ye Instytytte. When I popped open my laptop after arriving at Casa Gizmo, one of the first emails I saw was from them!

2b) And when I went up to Gloucester last weekend, atop the dollar box in front of a used bookstore, was a paperback book written by the grandmother of a friend I haven’t seen in a very long time. I really need to call her.

3) The Bryvo Network show Below Deck seems to be taking hold here at Casa Gizmo, and I find myself getting interested a little against my will.

Tuesday Morning, 14 September -- Mostly the News

1) Yesterday evening I went into town to hang out with a friend — who does that any more? — who really wanted to talk about today’s mayoral and City Council primary elections. Who knew there were 17 candidates for the four at-large seats?! Read more about them here.

1a) Several people I know, and many neighbors, are all riding the Wu Train, but my vote is going to Andrea Campbell.

2) The Met Gala - who are these people anyway? America’s Best Christian Mrs. Betty Bowers is already comparing the exercise to Marie Antoinette having a party at Versailles, and considering the exuberant overindulgence on display, and the protesters who were arrested near the start of the event, it’s hard not to agree.

3) Today’s horoscope from Gold River Astrology makes sense for an election day: “Sun opposite Neptune challenges us to see the truth amidst our beliefs. Mars enters Libra: from now to 10/30, collaboration leads to progress. In the Chinese calendar, it's the best day of the week to carry out important tasks w/ the Ox trine the Rooster month.”

BONUS: WTF, Apple security update?! FREAKING OUT!

Thursday Midday, 9 September

1) After quite a bit of time away, on the Cape and in Vermont, I am enjoying time back in my home. Labor Day weekend at the Vermont home of friends rarely seen during the pandemic was really special and included the full spectrum of New England weather — blazing sunshine to stormy tempest — good cooking, All About Eve and Law of Desire, some light yoga and hiking, and the story of an ancient Egyptian amulet lost in the Vermont woods.

A riven tree on Putney Mountain, Vermont.

2) Yesterday afternoon I scanned through a lot of my old Etiquetteer columns and was struck by how very, very bad some of them are. Everyone’s style evolves; thank God mine has, and continues to.

3) Reading yesterday’s news about the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue in Richmond made me think of my cousin Susan (may she rest in peace) and how she would have welcomed this development. One of the commenters on that article tried to point to Lee’s postwar achievements, citing his presidency of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University). Well, that’s nice, but a) I know I’m not the only American who didn’t already know that, and b) when that statue was erected in 1890, Lee was not depicted in an academic cap and gown but in his Confederate uniform astride his horse. it’s obvious that statue was not erected to celebrate Lee the Man but Lee the Rebel General.

3a) I remember when the memorial to Confederate POWs was removed from George’s Island in 2017 how one historian questioned why it was even there in the first place, and I just ferreted it out of the Globe’s archives: “The thing about the Georges Island plaque, it doesn’t say all that much, but in that regard it doesn’t add much either,” [Professor Nina Silber of Boston University] said. “In a sense, all it’s doing is allowing the United Daughters of the Confederacy to have a place of legitimacy in a national historic landmark. I see no reason why they should.” The Confederacy lost the Civil War and stood for principles that are antithetical to American values, Silber said. “The memorial might be innocuous,” she said, “but why give it a place?” [emphasis mine]

Thursday Morning, 2 September -- Back Home

1) Yesterday, after an uneventful ferry ride home, I was surprised to see a welcoming committee assembled on the neighbor’s picnic table as I walked by with my suitcase: a quartet of turkeys! Quite different from the pair of rabbits seen the night before in the garden of Casa Gizmo.

1a) Thank goodness I wasn’t wearing Nile green.

2) Yesterday, for the first time, I had to take a rapid antigen test at home (at the request of next weekend’s hosts, which I was happy to do). To spare any suspense, the result was negative, so I am cleared to go. In my naivete, I just expected to take the test and get the result. But no, the only tests available at the pharmacy I went to involved downloading an app, allowing notifications, and enabling Bluetooth. Insert the Usual Get Off My Lawn Whargarbbbbl Here. As soon as I got my negative test result I deleted the damn thing and rechecked phone settings in every possible place. In the future I’ll be looking out for the BinaxNOW text from Abbott, which doesn’t involve downloading anything.

3) Well, enough of that. Summarizing last week in Provincetown, it included three really nice beach days, one sick day (Thursday, after too much sun), The Splendid and the Vile, a surprise breakfast with two friends at a new-to-Provincetown French bakery, three good dinners out (Pepe’s Wharf a seul, The Patio with the Housemate, and Victor’s with Dartin), one middling dinner (Pilgrim House with Dartin), and an introduction to Below Deck Mediterranean that makes me want to see just how Lexi got fired.

Taken by Dan for National Dog Day.

3a) And also Gizmo. I have discovered that I can drive him into a state of frantic delight by climbing the stairs as sloooowly as possible while he waits at the top to greet me. Bwaaahahahahahaha.

Saturday Morning, 28 August -- Provincetown, Day Four

1) Two restaurant experiences this trip: Wednesday night we were asked to show our vaccination cards at the restaurant where we dined, even though we were sitting outside — a first for all of us. This morning, at breakfast I was offered a space at the bar instead of waiting for 45 minutes for a table outside. I left after 30 seconds. It just felt too crowded and uncomfortable.

2) The heat broke last night, and it is beautifully cool today. And yet I am not motivated to go anywhere or do anything, including — or perhaps especially — going to the beach.

3) Truly P’town is where good habits go to die. While my diet isn’t exactly hanging in tatters about me, I have certainly not kept up with any morning exercise.

Friday Morning, 27 August -- Provincetown Day Three

1) Up early, and brought my first coffee and my notebook out onto the front balcony to enjoy the sunrise over the bay. Cool and beautiful, including the distant hooting of an owl and the pulsations of crickets.

2) A brisk walk down Comical Street brought me to the new French bakery near the hardware store in the East End to meet my friends Ric and Paul for an early breakfast. Have not seen them in person for a year and it was really wonderful to catch with them over excellent coffee and turkey and cheese croissants.

2a) What a bougie addition to the culinary landscape of Comical Street!

2b) Provincetown is where good habits go to die. I am still mostly holding to my diet, but morning exercise is just not happening. I think it has to do with a) sharing a house with other people and b) usually being the first one up by several hours.

3) The rest of the morning has seen me ensconced on the sofa reading and watching the news. Staying with friends is always a cultural education because this is where I see television. News shows, commercials . . . it’s a whole new world.

Thursday Midday, 26 August -- Provincetown, Day One

1) Yesterday I returned for my fourth week on the Cape this summer, completely abandoning my morning routine to make the 9 AM ferry. Yesterday was a day of perfect weather, so I was able to sit in the shade on the stern and read The Economist all the way.

2) It takes 20 minutes walking at a brisk clip with my luggage to get from the pier to the house. Once there, I was able to drop my luggage, change clothes, refill my thermos, start recharging my phone, and grab my (already packed) beach backpack to go to the beach before the housekeepers arrived a little before noon. (The rule now is that no one at all is allowed in the house while the housekeepers work their magic.) I felt like I’d earned a gold star, timing it so well.

3) When I was in New York last month I tried to walk with Lady Longstreet’s “peculiar, drifting ease*” because it was so exceedingly hot. Yesterday I tried that again, not because of the heat, but due to two large, broken blisters inside my smallest right toes. The walk in and out was a good workout for me as it was high tide, which usually involves walking through knee-high water part of the way.

4) The pandemic has made me wary of being around lots of people. At the beach, that means hiking even further. Later in town, walking down Comical Street, I saw a cocktail party in progress on a front porch, 20 or so men all standing in close proximity, and I thought “Wow, my life used to be like that.” When is that going to happen again?

5) I found Erik Larsen’s The Splendid and the Vile at Tim’s Used Books, which I brought with me to dinner at the Post Office Café. I broke my diet to have a manhattan with dinner, and later I’d wished I hadn’t.

6) I turned out the lights at 9:45 and slept like a hunk of concrete until 3:30 AM.

7) Today, Thursday, headache and blister anxiety might keep me closer to him. it’s a gorgeous beach day . . . but I’m allowing myself the luxury of not feeling guilty about it.

*From Willa Cather’s beautiful short story “The Old Beauty.”

Tuesday Afternoon, 24 August -- Books

1) Last week it was eight to ten boxes of books that left this house when the More Than Words folks came to collect them. This afternoon it was two boxes of CDs and DVDs that I toted over to Boomerangs to donate. Slowly but surely I am purging this house of the dross!

1a) I was especially relieved to get the books out. Reboxing last week I could remember where almost every one of them came from — from Mother, from Gramma’s house, gifts from long-ago friends, the bookstores where I discovered them — and I could have weakened over a few volumes. But they got into those boxes for a reason, and I did not waver. This time.

2) It was fun returning to Edith Wharton for Sunday’s column on cutting, but I don’t feel like bringing her along to the beach this week. I have a two-foot stack of “new” books on the coffee table (where it doubles as a tripod for Facetime calls) — some of which go back a couple years — but none of those titles are calling out to me now. I will probably tote along Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to the Civil War by Joanne Freeman just because I would love to have finished it. (It’s a very good book, but my goodness, the parallels to today . . . )

3) But really, sometimes the best read is a NAP.

3)

Sunday Evening, 22 August -- The Randomness That Is Who I Am

1) Not that long ago, someone pointed out that it was Madonna’s birthday. Which inexplicably led me to get reacquainted with her I’m Breathless album from Dick Tracy. First, I used to own this album on cassette. And second, how can “Vogue” be 30 years old?!

1a) Gawd, 30 years ago I was living under the stairs on Beacon Street. Furniture from old apartments and trash days. Popcorn-sprayed walls. Mice. But I had some fabulous parties there. You’ve come a long way, baby.

2) It took a tropical storm warning to get me to clear the back porch of everything left over from the yard sale three months ago. But it’s done now!

3) All afternoon I’ve been marinating a piece of skirt steak in a mixture of red wine, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and rosemary, so let’s see how that turns out.

BONUS: When I came back from P’town at the start of the month I made a sincere and dedicated return to my diet, and I’ve lost ~six pounds since then. “Slow but steady wins the race” and all that, but the point is that I’ve stuck with it.

Kitchen Renovation: THE BIG REVEAL, Part II

When most people think kitchens they immediately think appliances. Whereas my attention was captured by color, art, and decorative touches. So, thank goodness everything works (except for that niggling issue of the wash machine wanting to break through the exterior wall to freedom), and let’s take a look at the decorative elements that led to the, um, unique theme of Howard Johnson’s at Versailles.

The first thing is always “Work with what you’ve got,” right? So, what did I have? Some wonderful midcentury furniture from Gramma’s house, vintage Fiestaware (including several pieces in the famous Radioactive Orange* that were actually made with uranium oxide), and some beat-up Franciscan Starburst. I also had The Urn, and after 17 years in the cellar it was time for it to make a comeback.

In the words of the late Cole Porter, “It’s appalling! It’s appealing!”

Back in the early 1990s when Daddy was on the hospital board of directors, he was given The Urn as a Christmas gift; everyone else on the board got one, too, I gather. Mother, of course, thought it was awful and wouldn’t have it in the house. I, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious and begged to have it to put on top of the john. It played a prominent role in my bathroom decor at both Beacon Street and Columbus Avenue, but when I moved to Maison Robaire there was no obvious place for it, so off it went to storage. It was the linchpin of the Versailles half of the scheme.

In the old kitchen I’d used beautiful orange sarongs patterned with green leaves on vines for curtains, and they cast a wonderful glow in the room late in the day. The view is inconsequential, so I never open the curtains in here. “How,” I asked myself, “could I incorporate a view of Versailles in this room?” The answer turned out to be screening early 18th-century illustrations of Versailles gardens and fountains onto “tapestries” from Fine Art America, getting the dry cleaner to hem them at the top, and hanging them on café curtain rods. In front of them I hung white gauze curtains and tied them back with roughly color-coordinated ribbon left over from Christmas or birthday gifts. (Always save the ribbon if it’s pretty.)

Pastelitos and Boston Cream Pie by Kurt Walters, hanging over the desk between the windows.

At the Simie Maryles Gallery in Provincetown in 2019 I discovered the Dessert Series by Brooklyn artist Kurt Walters, and was completely charmed by his work. While I missed out on the Apple Crisp that first captivated me, I was delighted to bring home his Pastelitos, a handsome Cubano offering a basket of traditional Cuban pastries in a beach atmosphere of blue and sand — with just enough hints of orange to make it work the Howard Johnson’s half of the scheme. Last month I snapped up one of Kurt’s latest series, Boston Cream Pie. Aside from its Boston roots, this smiling baseball player has the added advantage of coordinating completely with the curtains.

Now, if you’re talking desserts and Versailles in the same sentence, you are of course going to think of a famous queen who lost her head and something she was supposed to have said about eating cake that she didn’t actually say. I talked Kurt into painting Marie Antoinette with a cake in front of the Petit Trianon, and I love having her as a presiding spirit in here. At the moment she’s been displaced by Boston Cream Pie, but I need to talk Kurt into a companion piece for her, a Howard Johnson’s soda jerk with a hot fudge sundae, so . . .

Notice wire sculptor Brian Murphy’s wire head of Marie Antoinette.

So that’s the Versailles half of things. The Hojo half starts with their colors: blue, orange, and white. Originally I was flirting with a, shall we say, bolder, more authentic color scheme having found some vinyl floor covering on the internet in koi orange. I was persuaded to lighten up, and eventually my English friends steered me to a wonderful tile company that made a vinyl floor tile in pale blue (almost an exact match with the Franciscan Starburst). So I painted the ceiling a pale orange that really turned out to be a bold yellow, but I still love it.

Mother’s pill basket.

Orange turns up elsewhere: in Fiestaware, in my new teakettle, and drawer pulls and cupboard handles. Whatever the cabinets came with was just too ordinary! The orange throw rugs from the old kitchen work just fine in here, too. Mother’s little medicine basket has a peach ribbon running through it. She made it herself in an art class, and kept all her pill bottles in it for years. She even brought it with her to the hospital on that last day. I love having it, but I keep fruit or other kitchen things in it.

During construction, one of the surprises (for me, anyway) was the need for a new circuit breaker located in the kitchen. Circuit breakers are notoriously unattractive, and I knew I’d need to mask it somehow. The poster everyone signed for my Boston Ballet farewell party in 2003 works perfectly, and with the added benefit of featuring Adriana Suarez. Every room benefits from the presence of Adriana!

By the door I have three generations of family needlework. Mother’s “Be It Ever So Humble There’s No Place Like Home” I have always loved. Laura made especially for me the coffee and beignet still life for Christmas! How special is that?! And over the door is Gramma’s “No Matter Where I Serve My Guests, It Seems They Like My Kitchen Best.” This hung in her kitchen next do the dining room door, and it takes me right back to her house when I see it.

The refrigerator in the old kitchen had been covered in magnets and postcards, but that approach wasn’t going to work with my tall, slim, handsome new Bosch. When my English friends came to visit in 2016 they brought me these beautiful magnets from the Alhambra, and they couldn’t be more perfect.

Note the orange handle.

Finally, I keep a special message over the sink.

Green Red Wing Pottery vases, Franciscan Starburst butter dish, salt and pepper from Gramma’s kitchen, all on a counter of Eternal Noir Suede quartz. (Or granite. Whatever.)

*Yes, Fiestaware fans, I know that color is officially red, but it’s orange.

Kitchen Renovation: THE BIG REVEAL, Part I

Bienvenue chez Howard Johnson à Versailles!

“Finalmente!” I know all of you are thinking. Yes, it took me awhile to get my head bent around putting this Big Reveal of the kitchen renovation together, and I apologize. It is, however, very appropriate to post it today, August 13, because it just happens to be the 18th anniversary of my closing on Maison Robaire. I have now officially lived in this condominium longer than I lived in my hometown.

So here we go with some time lapses of the renovation, from each corner of the room.

Southeast corner.

Southwest corner.

Northwest corner, the Cozy Nook.

Northeast corner.

How does it feel a year later? Fantastic! The room feels lighter with all the white and the paler-than-I-originally-intended colors, brighter with all the new can lights, larger with the choice of a narrower refrigerator and its new location next to the stove, and taller with the high cabinets. Gramma’s Cushman Colonial desk fits exactly between the windows and makes the perfect coffee station, just as I’d planned. My Cozy Nook now truly is cozy, especially when I keep from dumping stuff on the chairs. The new ceiling fan pleases me every time I turn it on; it never looks like it’s going to shake its way free of the ceiling.

The big deep sink makes housework easier, but the most enormous improvement has been the dishwasher. For 17 years* I lived here with no dishwasher, so dishwashing took up a lot of my domestic time. Now that glass, china, and silverware can all go in there, I can dispatch with pots and pans and other things in something like ten minutes. I’m no longer settling in for the long haul!

What’s been unexpected? How much I end up using that desk. I imagined it would only be for coffee and a kitchen countertop. Instead, it’s my domestic HQ for all accounting and condo association business, home base for my laptop, and sometimes where I eat. I also didn’t plan on an empty shelf in the cabinet directly over the sink, but it’s a great position for my laptop if there’s something I want to watch while dishwashing.

And, there are some things I need out where I can get to them and not tucked away. It’s great to have the recycling hidden in a cabinet, but I need the trashcan out in the open to toss stuff in without any fuss. Same with my working tote bags. I hang ‘em on the pantry doorknob and not on a hook in the pantry, and that’s OK.

I also didn’t expect to be completely happy with a blank wall. Originally I’d planned to mount the Fiestaware on that wall, but that simply isn’t going to happen. I’m perfectly happy with that blank white space, but I know it will eventually fill with art of some sort.

There’s still a few things that need to be taken care of. The wash machine needs to be anchored to the floor somehow. The two times I’ve tried to use it it’s tried to break out of the house! I need to order a glass top for the desk, not only to preserve the desktop but also so I can display my small collection of Hotel Vendome postcards underneath. I don’t understand why nails in the door sills keep wanting to pop out of the floor. But I’ll get to it all at some point. In the meantime, it is a pleasure to be in the room instead of a necessity. I’m really very happy with it overall.

Big Reveal Part II, when it comes, will look at some of the decorative elements.

*The same amount of time Casper Gutman searched for the Maltese Falcon.

Tuesday Afternoon, 3 August -- A Few Days in Provincetown

1) I arrived last Thursday afternoon for my third week in Provincetown this summer. What a change from July Fourth! That week was like the Before Times: very little masking or social distancing, dining out in restaurants, overall a freedom from fear. Since Miss Delta raised her head, it’s been like a return to 2020. This visit I haven’t been down Comical Street once since I arrived, and I have only dined al fresco a few times.

Only traveling al fresco, too, when possible.

2) Mistralino is truly the secret garden of P’town this summer. A restaurant off Bradford with a charming small brick terrace (some of you may remember it as the old Ten Tables), I went there Friday evening for a lateish dinner with the Other Housemate. For me, a rye manhattan, arancini, and chicken parm. We talked about insects (we had to get the waiter to relight some citronella candles), gardening, herb gardening (I was surprised he had an interest in that, and was able to recommend Beston’s Herbs and the Earth), COVID (of course), and The Boys in the Band.

A beautiful little spot for socially distanced cocktails.

3) This trip has included some really nice encounters with friends rarely seen:

• Early on, a rarely seen friend and his new-to-me husband and their new-to-be little girl, absolutely adorable.

• Sunday, two friends who moved to Palm Springs during the pandemic dropped by for drinks on the terrace, which was lovely.

• And today, Tuesday, I met two friends from Boston here on vacation for a ramble through the small Winthrop Court Cemetery, a common interest.

4) Friday, Sunday, and Monday were my beach days, and very grateful for them I was, too — especially after how gray and damp everything was over July Fourth. I’d get into my rags and tatters, fill up the thermos with ice and water, and trudge off to Herring Cove with a stop at Gale Force for necessities. It’s pleasant to think of Herring Cove not being crowded at all, but that’s all it would be, a pleasant thought. Each day the area in front of the dunes would be consistently paved by 1:30 PM. Too close for comfort for me! So Monday, when I arrived after 2, I just trudged even further to the area in front of the roped-off bird nesting area, with no one around me for at least 30 feet, and that was wonderful.

Every rock an ouchie.

4a) The best, most beautiful part of these beach visits was simply floating in the water and feeling its chill in my ears and the back of my neck.

5) The Other Housemate ended up leaving Sunday afternoon, which created an opportunity for one of my Best Friends (with whom I’m splitting a half share) to pop up for a couple nights. This included dining in on Sunday night, and the viewing of the Halston documentary, during which I’m embarrassed to say I fell asleep for about ten minutes. In my defense, it was after 11 PM by then.

6) And now I’m preparing to return to town tomorrow, to pick up the threads of credit card fraud resolutions, Konmari, preparing for my talk for the Gibson House on August 17, and praying that COVID will spare the people I love. When I arrived on Thursday, I felt like a stressed mess. But these last few days of trudging back and forth to the beach, quiet dinners, good conversations, and some writing has helped restore my balance. A lot.

Monday Evening, 26 July -- Fraud and Pork

1) The horoscope today began with something like “Nourish yourself with what is beautiful.” As the day progressed I could tell why, because my mood depressed as I considered more and more the global and national situations.

2) Late in the afternoon I got an email from Ypple about my new yPhyne being delivered tomorrow to my home address at [Insert Address Definitely Not My Home Address Here]. Wait, what?! First I had to call Ypple to say “What on earth, dahlings?!” and they took care of it with their legal department or whatever. They also confirmed the last four digits of the credit card involved — yup, it was one of mine. The card company was helpful via their chat function, and my card has been successfully cancelled. So yay for the Ypple email system working as it should! But I am doing figure eights about my information being hacked.

2a) Insert Fulminations about a Credit Rating Agency with Impossible Customer Service Systems Here.

3) By then it was decidedly time to “prepare the burnt offering” for dinner. There were things I needed to use soon, so I ended up tossing a chopped onion, a peeled and sliced red apple, a very small clove of garlic, a small handful of raisins, and a package of thin-sliced pork cutlets into a skillet with some olive oil and a bit of nutmeg — just to see what would happen — and you know, it came out quite palatable. Doing the dress dinner challenge the last two winters and experimenting with new recipes has also made me a bit more willing to improvise in the kitchen.

Ten New (or New to Me) Things About New York, July 2021

Earlier this month I spent few days in New York, my first real vacation since the pandemic, but I didn’t end up blogging it every blessed day. So now that the trip has ended — when I wrote this I was sitting in the lush and plush Metropolitan Lounge at the glistening new Moynihan Train Hall — here are ten new things I saw or did that made the trip extra special. There were familiar friends and places that made this trip special, too, but I want to focus on what was different this time. In chronological order:

Hangin’ with Tiny Marie Antoinette at the Campbell.

1) FIRST FIST BUMP: Wednesday night, Bastille Day, I was supposed to be hanging out with a friend who ended up being called out of town for work. I rolled with the punches and trotted over to the Campbell Bar at Grand Central with Tiny Marie Antoinette for a couple drinks, and then walked back to my hotel in Chelsea. En route I stopped at a corner deli to pick up some sustenance, and wouldn’t you know it, a man there with his wife was very impressed with my new shoes (off-white wingtips with sneaker soles; I laced them with purple laces.) So impressed, in fact, that he just had to give me a fist bump. After that I felt that no only had I arrived, I had a place here!

1a) The hostess at the Campbell saw my citrine pendant, which led us into a very excitable discussion about crystals — she makes jewelry — and the presentation of her card. I’m sure she’ll be my new best friend until I don’t buy anything.

Rita! How discreet not to include dates of birth . . .

2) GRAVE MATTERS: On Thursday another schedule change allowed me to do something I’d comtemplated for awhile: take the 1 train all the way up to 157th Street, ankle over to 770 Riverside, the Trinity Church Wall Street Uptown Cemetery, and search out the grave of Rita de Acosta Lydig, “the fabulous Mrs. Lydig” who so captivated Cecil Beaton, and her sister, Mercedes de Acosta, who spent her life having relationships with celebrities like Greta Garbo.

Thursday morning it was hot, and I was both wearing long pants and carrying a jacket. This trip I really made an effort to walk slowly, to try to cultivate the “peculiar drifting ease” Willa Cather used to describe Lady Longstreet in her short story “The Old Beauty.” That came in handy at the cemetery, which is many things, but few of them are flat. I knew from the internet that I was looking for a flat stone slab. Trudging up a steep winding path in the sun, I spotted something, but . . . “No,” I said, “that isn’t it. No wait . . . it is! It IS it!” And so I found scandalous Mrs. Lydig and her scandalous sister Mercedes, buried with their unscandalous mother and their aunt. And I felt great joy.

It was so hot.

2a) This is also important to me because the grave of the love of her life, Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, is in my neighborhood cemetery at home. I pay a call on him whenever I’m in his area.

Amber Cowan, Dance of the Pacific Coast Highway at Sunset, 2019

3) AHTSY CRAFTSY: The Museum of Art and Design on Columbus Circle turned out to have some very thought-provoking exhibitions, including a beautiful dollhouse in the style of a Venetian palazzo created and furnished during the pandemic, a celebration of craft, and some eye-popping displays of glass. It was great to see what all the fuss was about.

4) POWER LUNCH: Thursday included lunch with a professional etiquette colleague, conveniently at the restaurant (like me, named Robert), atop the Museum of Art and Design. That’s why I was wearing long pants and toting a jacket. We didn’t rise from the table until almost 4 PM, and the conversation had not flagged. I had been to Robert once before, a couple years ago, in winter at night. Having had the impressive night view, this time I was able to enjoy the majestic summer daytime view of Central Park and the Upper West Side even more. Long story short, I left feeling very encouraged about the direction I want to take, and I floated away on a cloud into the hot streets.

5) THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW TO SEE AT A MUSEUM: Or at least something to see in a new way. Friday I went to the Frick Madison* first, to see some familiar paintings hung in a way that I could concentrate only on them not on them within in the context of the environment. Absolutely wonderful.

5a) Yes, I also saw new-to-me works of art at the Met, but what was really new there was that . . . I didn’t buy any books in the gift shop!

Not showing me a Whole New World . . .

6) CHELSEA FLEA: I’d been hearing more lately about the Chelsea Flea market on West 25th Street, and decided I would go on Saturday (in the blazing heat) to see what all the fuss was about. Anthony and Pedro joined me, too, but I left asking the Peggy Lee Question: “Is that all there is?” It must have been the heat.

The base of the Farragut Memorial with its exquisite carving.

7) Instead, we drifted over to Madison Square Park nearby, to which I’d never been and which contained two beautiful, thought-provoking works of art: a memorial to Admiral Farragut designed by sensationally murdered Stanford White and sculpted by Augustus Saint Gaudens, and Ghost Forest by Maya Lin, best known for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.

In front of Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest. That Hawaiian shirt was my dad’s.

8) DINING FINELY: Some weeks ago a friend pointed out the NYT review for Gage & Tollner in Brooklyn. And I thought, “Hmmm, that’s close to the friends I’m staying with on Sunday night!” So off we went for a very early dinner (because no one was in favor of a very late dinner) that was completely superb. Manhattans, oysters Rockefeller, monkfish with fingerling potatoes and the aura of bacon, an icy cold bottle of Sancerre, and whatever the chocolate cake was. IN. HEAVEN.

Oysters Rockefeller

9) I was invited to stay in the rectory next door to St. Paul’s Carroll Street, a charming little church. It’s a secret gem as well as a vibrant church community, and I was so enthralled by my private tour that I didn’t take any photographs at all. Everything about the rectory had been arranged charmingly, too, down to a copy of Mouseton Abbey in the guest room. Everywhere I turned there was something to delight my eye.

Even the guest room view of all the interesting angles formed by the church roof fascinated me.

10) The astonishing comfort of the Metropolitan Lounge at the newly-opened Moynihan Train Hall concluded my trip. Anyone who’s ever been in the tiny, cramped, and not entirely clean old Acela Lounge at Penn Station will be very surprised by this spacious room filled with plush-lined armchairs, a balcony overlooking the main hall, sunlight, and a downright palatial snack bar. When I mentioned the old club to the Nice Man at the snack bar, he smiled at me and said “We never speak of it.”

There’s no other city like it!

So, that was New York July, 2021. This trip I also enjoyed many things I’ve done and friends I’ve seen before, including Ballet colleagues, Flickr friends, the 1 and 6 trains, Macy’s, and at least one aperol spritz. Everything on this trip contributed to my joy; while I was sorry to miss friends whose plans changed, even the necessary changes to my own schedule resulted in wonderful experiences. I’m very grateful.

*The Frick Collection is closed to renovations, so they’ve skimmed off the cream of a creamy collection and hung it at the Breuer Building not far away.

Independence Day, 2021

1) As has become my tradition, this morning I read the Declaration of Independence aloud. I think it gains from being heard as well as read.

1a) You should, too. And you’ll find it online at the National Archives.

2) Before this, however, I had an early breakfast with two friends who a) I didn’t know would be in Provincetown, and b) I haven’t seen in person in over two years. So we rendezvoused at Liz’s Café for a mighty good breakfast and mighty good talk about flea markets, pets, politics, and how the pandemic has changed our daily routines.

2a) We are also approaching the age at which the “organ recital” appears on a meal program, and we each had a piece to play on the program, whether digestive, arthritic, or just achey.

3) It’s gray and sort of bleak in Provincetown today, which I’m sorry to say is having an effect on my motivation. Daddy needs to pump out a column today! But the pages of Everybody Behaves Badly beckon, too . . .

Saturday, 3 July -- Provincetown, Day Four

Yesterday was pleasant but unremarkable, so here we are with today.

1) Coffee chatter with a housemate on, among other things, project management.

2) Late on a gray morning I decided to take the recommendation of a friend and explore a different cemetery, the Winthrop Street Cemetery, which is Provincetown’s very first burying ground. Essentially an overgrown sand dune, I was impressed with the near-pristine condition of many of its marble tombstones, the piney tree cover, and the presence of Mrs. on several of the tombstones.

3) Notable graves included an obelisk listing the three husbands of one woman (usually it’s the other way around, isn’t it?), a small stone for five young children, and a couple whose graves were divided by the sandy path.

And in death they shall just appear divided.

4) Then a late breakfast at the bar the Post Office Café, where I was immersed in an atmosphere of exceedingly loud “Oh Mary!” style camp (which I often practice myself, as you very well know.)

5) Vodka was always the bottle to bring to Casa Gizmo, but suddenly everyone’s drinking gin. So I picked up a bottle and was amused by the sign on the exit door. And then later by the tip jar at Pop and Dutch. My love to double entendre is going to get me in trouble.

6) Shoals of confused people on Comical Street just standing in the way while the rain came down like Shakespeare’s Quality of Mercy.

7) Connie’s Bakery turned out to be the perfect place to pick up dessert for dinner this evening. I ended up with four slices of their Walk of Shame pastry; I don’t remember the schtick the counterman used to describe it, but sweet mercy goodness.

7a) The woman behind the counter added to that with the cheerful rhyme “You’ve got no class if you don’t eat ___.” And I thought “I need to floss now.”

8) Back at the house the weekend guests had arrived. Over a light late lunch we covered many topics, not least the comparative virtues and vices of the two ferry companies.

7) And now, it’s naptime!