fair warning: on block island or manhattan or in missouri, we can be a little salty
Fanny and Ryan (and of course Donna). Ryan finished the puzzle.
Then they left and the next arrived. Yes, that's Donna in the blue-and-yellow hair.
Simon and his friend Ben came in from Providence on Spring break. Not much odf a Spring Break, but a break from their parents anyway!
Here's why: The Old Story
And that necessitated replacement of interior trim. I asked Waldyn to keep it simple so that he didn't show up the remains of my effort. But I suppose he couldn't help himself. So it's better too. I can't wait to see it. I barely remember what my house looks like, not having been there for almost a year.
All photos by Waldyn Santana.
And in a T'ville update, it looked like the river might flood, so Randy and Virginia went down to my house and moved all my paintings upstairs, which I had neglected to do. Really, one painting (and my beautiful old refrigerator) is the only thing I regret about the previous flood. Actually, the old refrigerator still exists, under a tarp in Randy and Virginia's woods.
Yes, and then I met friends for lunch at an outdoor cafe. Socializing! In the time of Covid! Well Ed and I have had two shots and Barb has had one. And I got a parking space. And ate many things I shouldn't have. And it was very fun.
I did not, however, buy kangaroo meat or alligator meat or python meat. Maybe next time!
And to everyone reading this.
For were not you all born to a woman?
You'd be nowhere without us.
We landed jobs at a place called the Fitzwilliam Inn. The apron was required wear for the inn, and I sewed it by hand and cross-stitched it myself, with pockets and everything. Hired as a pair, probably because the red-faced host thought two young things added to his staff would bring in lunch trade—the other waitresses being bent over with age and withered by cigarette smoke. The way one of them, a Mainer, described the ham omelet was by saying the ham "ran through there with rubber boots on." The place had pretentions. For instance, the waitresses had to recite the appetizers and desserts, one of which was called "fudge nut balls." Many of the gentlemen who lunched there took great delight in asking me, "Fudge nut WHAT?" And I was too shy to shout, "BALLS!" The ladies who lunched, on the other hand, always asked whether I went to Monadnock High. "No, I just graduated from college." "Really? Where?" "Vassar." Taken aback. "What did you major in?" "Chinese." "Well you should be working at a Chinese restaurant!"
Laura and I didn't last long, and neither did the summer. My boyfriend visited once, but he was a city boy and had nothing to do while Laura and I were at work except play with the ugly Holstein-spotted dog we called Cow that hung around our wrong-side-of-the-tracks apartment building. So we packed up the truck, said goodbye to the creepy neighbors, got in the truck and headed off down the road that would soon lead us to Hawaii and a step up to bartending.
And I have no idea what to do with that damn apron.
Now plastic grocery bags are outlawed (as in Rhode Island as well). However, what is the use of plastic shopping bags being outlawed, and everything being recycled if recycled items are a) packed in plastic bags and b) no country will take our shit.
I hate also to see on the street all the wonderful things that have been thrown out. Fortunately (because I am drowning in those wonderful things that have furnished four places in three different states), there are many sites that will flag you if they see great stuff curbside and the pandemic has brought on a rash of trash. Or you can leave them in the giveaway shed at the town dump. Or you can call Goodwill or someplace to pick up good stuff, and someone else will buy it for charity. That's what my neighbor and I did when we cleaned out our closets. It was a beautiful thing.
I know. It's weird. The people who don't like chocolate are few and far between. One of them is my grandson. I have met a couple others. So I'm in a bit of a fix when it comes to the classic New York cookie, the black-and-white. (I like classic black-and-white photographs, too.) What I really need is another person who likes chocolate to share with. Takers?
Anyway, there's a great review of her new book, Holy, in the Washington Post today. Check it out here. And here's an interview and more pix from a London journal. And I got Donna back from making me go outside to have my picture taken.
I know, only old people talk about the weather, but, word, the weather is worth talking about. All the places I go to get away from the cold are colder than where I am now.
"Ay dios mio, how can you talk about having A Valentine's Day without love? What about zee chocolates, zee flowers, my leetle petunia, zee moments listening to Freddy Fender ("I will be there until the last teardrop falls") and zee magnificent Diana Ross and the "Stop in the Name of Love" Supremes? And you, my dahling, showing up with zee roses and zee wonnerful leetle Valentine's Day card that I will fohever treasure in my heart....Oh, Ms. Surf City, you have zee most love then you can ever eeemagine.....As Edith Piaf seengs in A Hymn to Love: "If the sky should fall into the sea and the stars played all around me, all the time that we have known thee, we will sing a hymn to love....We have lived and dreamed we could do it all ...in a world that seemed our very own ...with its memory forever grateful...just for you we will seeeng a hymn to love....Ok, it goes something like that. Love you lots."
Love you, Elaine, and all of y'all!
I sent the picture of the pockets to Ping, whose birthday by the lunar calendar is in three days, and I thought how amazing it is that we are still close after all of those years. We probably wouldn't be had she not moved to the States maybe twenty years ago. But here we are.
Our epic trip to the Goose and Graceland a couple years ago confirmed the fact that we can still live together in harmony despite culture shock and language issues (I having forgotten my Chinese and her having forgotten, though rather less, her English).
Anyway, this puts me in mind of something my sister Chang Ping taught me last week. I asked her if she was still mad at an ex boyfriend, and she said, "Fang xia!" I did not know what that meant, and she said it literally meant put it down. To take something and put it down. Basically, let it go.
She said at our age, it is time to fang xia everything: anger, concern about beauty, desire for wealth—everything. All that striving, all that controlling, all those emotions of youth are over. Fang xia. Let it go.
Word for the new year: Fang xia.
The Morning After, we listened to the half-time show and watched some of the commercials on You Tube. Kind of. Substances were consumed. Pictures were taken. Sunshine enjoyed. And, for me at least, all plans for the day postponed. I didn't even finish the Monday crossword puzzle, which typically takes me about 12 minutes.
