Saturday November 9, 2019
Took Jeremy to the train at 10:30 for his overnight to New York for Slayer concert. He had a list of all the bars where he used to hang out and which he’s going to visit this afternoon.
Back home, Samantha and Willie were in the kitchen. After coffee (Willie and me) and tea (Samantha), she pulled games out of her bag, the first was a box with colored tiles used for a game similar to rummy but without cards. After a couple rounds I made sandwiches. Then Willie, Samantha, and I took a brief walk. Weather was clear but cold. I left them to trudge on after a short turn by the pond. When they came back to the house, Michael joined us for Clue, which my family had played when I was a kid. We played until Samantha had to leave for her parent's house and after she, Willie, and I won one game each.
For dinner, as I had promised Willie, we crossed the river to Catskill to eat at J&J Smokehouse, opened a couple months ago by Jill Wishon, the ex-director of the Salvation Army, and her husband Jim, who had quit his job as head of food services at Columbia Memorial Hospital. Big risk. So far Jill reported that it has been successful, although it was empty except for a couple when we got there. . I ordered brisket, coleslaw and garlic mashed, Michael ribs, and Willie an enormous platter of three kinds of meat, which he wasn't able to finish. I was able to talk to Jill a bit before 20 young members of a college wrestling team showed up. Jill and Jim ran out of brisket and pulled pork. We got there just in time.
When we got home I commented to Willie on how affectionate and easy he and Samantha seemed, but Willie said that she spent the rest of their walk up the hill crying. She cries a lot, he said, her mind twisting over their future together, but he added hopefully that this might be a good thing because she never cried before. Peculiar.
Later we watched Annie Hall, which was still charming, funny, and deeply sad. It raised memories of my own funny and deeply sad history with Richard and thoughts on our son’s uncertain current romance. Woody Allen made a lot of good movies after that but never with its soul. Willie and I then watched Larry Sanders and Ted Heidegger's Online Cinema. Then ice cream, then bed.
Sunday November 10
Woke up too late to go to church with Willie. Prepared meat and vegetables for pot roast in the slow cooker. Then Willie and I embarked on the next chapter of a video adventure game—The Book of Unwritten Tales, which we started last time he was here. We began playing adventure games together when Willie was about eight—Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, Day of the Tentacles, all story games requiring the solution of clues to complete the game. When I was getting treatment last summer, he came up and we revived this nice bonding routine with the purchase of a PS4 and several more recent games.
Jeremy returned from New York in the afternoon. He had found a room on 38th and Sixth Avenue at the unbelievably low price of $115 a night, which, it turned out was due to the shared bathroom down the hall and the sink in his room. In the afternoon before the concert, he visited a few of his old bar hangouts but none of bartenders or waiters he had known were there. He told us stories, however, of running into people who recognized him at the bar, and, although they probably weren't true, relating harmless fantasies that engage him in the normal world cheers him up.
After dinner Jeremy seemed enthusiastic about following our video game so we went upstairs, and he and I watched Willie drive the adventure while Michael dozed on the couch.
Later I sat in the tub and finished the book Richard had given me, The Dakota Winters, about the Upper West Side during two of the years we lived there, but, although well written, it reflected a celebrity perspective (too much John Lennon) and not the happy edgy grunge of that place and time, when two mid level publishing salaries could pay for a 6-room rental in a pre war buildings. And when your kids could attend the public schools, which, although ground down with budget cuts, had special programs for interesting smart kids that they could tunnel through until they graduated. These elite tracks have always been questioned for the segregated results, but I am still grateful for them. And almost everyone Geoff and Jill hung out with was not rich enough to afford the eighties danger drugs of the era, which were generally fed to the kids in private school, who were.
Monday November 11
Columbus (or Indigenous People—please) Day Weekend, so Willie was still here and Jeremy was not leaving until tomorrow. Went to Wunderbar for lunch. Had half a chicken parm sandwich and sweet potato curry soup. Always reliably ok food.
At home Will and I continued our game while Jeremy and Michael lugged the parts to our greenhouse into the garage, which have been lying on the ground shrouded in plastic for three years. Two sections of the frame are missing, and it's unlikely Michael will make the effort to replace them. I will probably never see the greenhouse built or used, but I will regret leaving other things undone more.
Will and I continued our game until Samantha arrived to pick him up for the drive back to the city. She helped us fuss with two challenges but they remained unsolved after they left.
Michael, Jeremy, and I had dinner at Helsinki. We were only one of two groups of customers there. A lonely guitarist played gentle cords on the landing leading up to the event room. Dozens of candles and soft chandelier lights charmed the dark spaces of the beautiful large empty dining room, as soothing as a ship in the upcoming winter night. The food is pretty heavy and Southern, so it's not as appealing in the summer but it felt right tonight. I had seared salmon and corn bread. They have music and dining in their club, which can be closed off or be opened up to the dining room. We've seen some good semi-famous musicians there, and Geoff and Kim played there a couple of Tuesdays when they have open mic. It seems to have fewer artists scheduled this year than it has in the past. That and the empty restaurant were worrisome.
At home Jeremy and I watched Ghost Busters while Michael dozed. Still holds up although not as funny as it was in the eighties.
Will called and said that Samantha was calmer going back to the city. May be PMS, in which case there’s no help for it until menopause.
Tuesday November 12
Woke up to the first snow of the season, and off with Jeremy to the airport for his trip back to Portland. His visit was too short. He looks good and seems so much happier than the Old Grim Jeremy who strode the streets of New York like a Golum.
We made it back to Hudson and to Cascades in time for breakfast, then home to reconcile Gene’s campaign expenses with my spreadsheet. As his co-campaign manager, one my jobs is to maintain a budget and report his finances on the State Board of Election app, which I also use as treasurer of the Greenport Democrat Committee. We ended up with just enough money to do what we wanted.
I talked to Lee and Tom and made plans for them to come here in a couple weeks. They had gone to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the regional theater in Wappinger Falls where our cousin BIll directs and does production work. Lee was exuberant (as only my sister can be) over the actor who played Big Daddy: intense, passionate, raucous, he dominated the stage—in other words, he chewed scenery. Tom muttered in the background about not liking the play that much. They are usually in such agreement! Maybe he was envious. Tom gnaws a bit on the scenery himself when he's on stage.
Talked later to Gail Lee, our former sweet natured neighbor, who has been separated for almost a month from her beloved new home in the Villages of South Carolina. She's taking care of her mean, demented, fecally incontinent mother, and needs to find a home for her mother's cat, two years old and cute. Emailed around to friends but don't have much hope of getting an adoption here for her.
Watched the Great British Baking Show Holiday Special around five, in which four previous contests in compete in a slightly depressing cut-down version of the much Greater Contest.
Michael and I drank wine in the living room and listened to music, until we became a little buzzed, went downstairs and shuffle-danced around the kitchen. It was a sweet thing to do, holding each other, with me hobbling mostly in place.
I reheated a left-over apple-stuffed acorn squash after adding chopped turkey sausage and more cheese. Worked out well.
Michael commented about how helpful Jeremy had been, and I said that I wished Michael would talk to him more.
He responded, “I’m like my father was to me. In fact I’m like my father.”
Which he is: quiet, smart, and critical but with obvious great affection for his family. A good thing, but I wish he’d find some reference point for talking a bit to Jeremy. I'm nervous that they will be cut off from each other when I’m gone. Right now, Jeremy calls me on Sundays but doesn't talk to his father unless I force the phone into Michael's hand. I'm very glad they worked together.
Upstairs to watch Meryl Streep in The Laundromat about the Panama Papers—based on real frauds, but too full of fictional tricks and characters to be truly interesting. I'll forget it in a nanosecond.
Full moon tonight, cooling the snowy earth with ashen light.
Wednesday, November 13
Cold clear morning. Here's my daily routine. Every other day I take a bath or a shower. Today is bath day, when I do water exercises: splashing the legs and knees up and down to unstiffen the joints, crunching up for core, and stretching down to loosen the hips. Works pretty well. (On shower days I wash my hair and bend into a minimal squat, pressing my back against the wall for about half a minute while the hot water pours down. I then stand upright and press my whole backside against the wall for another 30 seconds. A pretty successful way to unstiffen after sleep.) I then fortify myself with two Advil, fish oil, B12 and B complex vitamins for my brain, probiotics for my GI tract and lungs, vitamin D for bones and cancer, baby aspirin for stroke, magnesium for leg cramps (1 in the morning and 2 at night), Preservision (antioxidants for macular degeneration), and my statin. (At night, in addition to magnesium I add l-theanine, a green tea extract to reduce anxiety.) Right now I’m also using a heavy duty steroid cream (Clobetasol) to treat lichen sclerosis in my groin—an autoimmune bi-product of my immunotherapy and radiation treatment. My facial skin care involves slapping on Aveeno Radiant Moisturizer sunscreen in the morning and Rox retinal cream at night, a reduced and less costly regimen than I used over the past years but I think just as effective (or ineffective) in keep wrinkles at bay. Then I stick a dribble pad onto my underwear. (I avoided the Pad as long as possible, rationalizing that my leakage was infrequent, but I was making myself wake up every hour at night to go to the bathroom and fretting on long trips. And too often just looking at a toilet would trigger The Flow. No more!! Hurrah for the dribble pads. I sleep better and ride carefree! I’m a living advertisement for Poise!
Watched impeachment hearings today as Bill Taylor and George Kent hemmed, with careful verbal stitches, the lining of the Ukrainian case against Trump. Not that this hearing is doing much to change opinion. It's discouraging how few people care about his corrupt behavior.
Broke for lunch at Cascades where we met Jim (Fingers) Dolan, and talked about his firing from the County Board of Elections by Virginia Martin, the Democrat commissioner, and the screwed up processes leading to the chaotic finish of this year's race. We also discussed what to do with the Greenport Democrat Committee now that George Super's increasing frailty (he's well over 80) has led to his resignation as both member and chairman. Jim had already resigned as well, which leaves us with two vacancies, but he still works in the background, for better or worse, to control any town candidates or committee membership. Even without any official membership, he wants to limit the committee to people he trusts and to keep out the citiot newcomers, whose loyalty is suspect and who tend to be progressive.
Jim still drives, when he can, the old-fashioned upstate political machinery, which is oiled by personal loyalties and vendettas. He recently succeeded in removing from the ballot our Town Highway Supervisor, Mark Gaylord, whom I like and is a neighbor who clears our road efficiently and quickly after every snowfall. Last year, Mark had promised to hire Jim's nephew but instead went for someone who had the proper driver's license. This sent Jim on a crusade to ruin Mark's chances for reelection this year and he didn’t even make the Democratic caucus in June, where Jim had collected enough voters to endorse John Massouf, a local truck driver who already had two relatives working in the town government. John had been a Republican but Jim got him to switch to independent (or NOP) as part of the deal to get him elected by the Democrats, which didn't prevent the Republicans to cross endorse him as part of a secondary deal that Jim had made. Mark, in the meantime, feeling Jim's political boulder rolling toward him, dropped out. Jim's strategic prowess is admirable when it's supporting good candidates, but he has little interest in issues, only in boosting the Democrat Party and maintaining control of the process. He's after Virginia Martin now. Watch out, Virginia.
Finished the day at Harris and Neville’s celebrating his birthday and one of their Kingston friends who was born on the same date, so I didn't know many people who came to the party. Talked with Harris' daughter Zoe, who's a year younger than Jillian, and whom I've known since she was a little over a year. Although imperious and self-involved I'm fond of her. She dotes on her son and probably most of the conversation was about him, but I forget. Also had a conversation with Brian, Neville’s brother, whose last few years have been disastrous. He started out as a Catholic convert with a thriving business, a gorgeous blonde wife, and two beautiful daughters. Then he was diagnosed with a form of late onset muscular dystrophy, and a couple years later his wife decided she would have more fun with a healthy guy who had a lot of money. Catholicism failed to cheer him up the way it was supposed to, so he left the church, and he and is wife are currently in the middle of a mean divorce. The only slight silver lining is a clinical trial he may qualify for using losmapimod, a drug that might have some effect on his disease. I looked it up before I came to the party and talked to him about it. He might qualify for the trial but he’d have to travel to Maryland or Rochester for treatments.
Toward the end of the party, I met Susan, a ceramic artist and friend of Neville's. We bonded over our previous lives on Manhattan's upper west side and the Calhoun school, which Willie and her son had attended (didn't know each other). An historical aside: Susan was a more active Calhoun volunteer than I was, although she managed to avoid security duty and the fluorescent puffy vest, which I didn't. It was my only day of volunteering during Willie's entire school career. I walked with another mother, a well-known literary agent, for several blocks near Calhoun for an hour. We looked like two big shiny oranges scanning the shadows of the post-war apartment buildings for suspicious characters lurking there who might pose a threat to our children. We each had a whistle in case of danger. I thought all of this was pretty funny. She didn't and wore her bright vest proudly while expressing firm humorless ideas on the value of the vests and potential life-saving effect of the whistle. I still dislike her after 20 years.
Thursday, November 14
Very cold today. I slept late and my joints were achy. Went to the chiropractor at eleven, which had some effect.
Back for lunch, where I heated up the leftover pot roast. Spent most of afternoon finishing Dem Exec Committee minutes and trying to pin down my ever-so-great witch grandmother on ancestry.com. So many Sarah Howes and Sarah Bridges, who may or may not be the same person, and may or may not be the witch grandmoether. (http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/n19.html) . Also trying to organize thanksgiving and be sure it doesn’t run over ten people.
Took a walk to the mailbox in this miserable cold steely weather. But joints loosened up as I trudged up and down the hill. Arthritic pain is the norm now. That nice woman Susan said at the party that she and her husband refer to standing up as The Great Unbending.
Dinner with Ann and Stuart at a relatively new fish restaurant in a big red barn (called, appropriately, The Red Barn). Stuart has his real estate license and is waiting tables at the Stissing House in Pine Plains, a high-end French bistro. I asked and he agreed to join the Greenport Dem committee, filling the vacancy left by George Super. We were the only ones in the restaurant, which appeared to have no heat. We brought our own wine, and the fish, which is delivered daily, was terrific. I had flounder with basil cream sauce and fabulous mashed potatoes. The chef owner Jessica, a culinary school graduate, is a sweet overworked woman. I hope she can make it. I worry about the frequent failure of good restaurants around here, and hers lies off Route 66 in the depths of Greenport, not even on classy Warren in Hudson.
Friday November 15
Daniel Krasner showed up with a full crew of cute millennials to video an interview with Michael about his history at Bell Labs in the 80s as part of a documentary Daniel is shooting on inventions that influenced the future of computers. Michael's patent on the thumb drive and his development of the first actual smart phone ware unremarked historically. This won't bring any big change into his life, but getting some recognition would be a good thing.
They shot in our living room while I hid out all day downstairs in the bedroom watching the impeachment hearing on my IPhone, with Maria Yovanovich as its heroine. These hearings aren't like those for Watergate, however, which were like a season of Perry Mason, a thriller about a break-in with an evil cast of characters, including the President, shocking revelatory tapes, and a starring role for John Dean. The drama now is all pretense and political badgering, designed to smudge the corruption underlying a series of events that fail to emerge with any clear cartoon of guilt. We have a pretend president, which half our population and its representatives prop up like raggedy Andy, his crude stiches barely holding back the know-nothing, feel-nothing stuffing. Meanwhile in the living room upstairs Michael was providing a narrative on a couple technological changes that have led to all this.
Daniel Krasner is a scruffy young physicist, whose long straggly strands of hair fail to cover and actually draws attention to his increasing baldness, suggesting a man without vanity. The funky T-shirt he wears, however, is emblematic Brooklyn, sporting mysterious icons and looking a little old and ratty—but which is probably expensive.
I talked to him a bit while we ate sandwiches picked up from Cascade by one of his partners, a funny, kind, and smart woman with a compelling androgynous beauty. Daniel pontificates, with a rambling professorial style, about technology and the implications of early inventions. I try to follow it, and I ask questions that I hope relate remotely to his subject matter, while despising myself slightly for these abject attempts to impress. He told me that Jack Kerouac wrote a book on one long scroll, which no publisher would touch but which is now in the Morgan library. I responded that Kerouac would probably like the current devices with their scrollable screens, to which Daniel made some scornful noise. Implying perhaps some empathetic connection with Kerouac, he claimed that himself hadn’t owned a computer until seven years ago. (Although, long before this purchase, he worked as a programmer on a super computer, so I wasn’t entirely impressed by his failure to buy a home-Mac until 2012.) He also claimed never to look at the news. I found him humorless, difficult, and smug. I'd like to believe he's not as smart as he thinks he is, but unfortunately I'm certain he is. His partner Eric, on the other hand, is a gentle bearded young man, with kind eyes and an appealing modesty. He’s the writer who will take Daniel's ebb and flow and, with luck, pool it altogether. Michael forgot to free me from the bedroom when the shoot was over, which was annoying and suggested that his day of minor stardom may have puffed his self-regard up a bit.
That night, after everyone had gone, we drove to Ca Mea, in Hudson and I scrolled the car window down to yell at citiots who were crossing in front of us against the light. It was a somewhat satisfying release of my day's self-diminishment although not Zen.
