Saturday January 25
Spent all day making little plates for movie night with Harris and Neville. I boiled artichokes (mistake; overcooked and watery) and made mayonnaise for it with aqua faba (mistake: added miso, too bitter and salty. Trying to compensate with sugar didn’t help much). Wrapped cabbage, fennel, radish, tuna, with lemon dressing in spring rolls (mistake: tasted ok but huge and sloppy) with dipping sauce of soy, sesame, rice vinegar (tasted ok). Baked turkey meatballs with Greek seasoning (mistake: too bumpy and slightly over baked but tasted ok). Roasted chickpeas tossed with lemon and fried sage (mistake: I had wanted to roast white beans but over cooked them and they were too mushy. ). Neville arrived with beautiful little plates for her perfect small spring rolls with avocado and cucumber; endive spoons with Feta drizzled with balsamic, little pickles, beautiful deviled eggs. No errors. Ah well. It was really fun and easy to cook this way.
Harris, Neville and Michael smoked some dope and we all drank wine. Harris has had an ear infection for weeks, which finally cleared up, but he had been sober throughout and wasn’t used to high spirits. Got really stoned.
Watched Two Popes, charming and elegant presentation of the schism in the church as represented by Francis and Benedict. Also the struggle between keeping faith and maintaining the church's power. Harris is annoyed by anything religious and went downstairs to satisfy munchies with the rest of my garbanzo beans and a chicken leg he had brought.
Sunday January 26
Off to too precious Otto’s for breakfast with Harris and Neville before returning to our separate homes. Spent the day doing the diary and responding to a piece in Imby.com, our aggregator of everything local—culture, politics. Enid, woman who runs it, has been campaigning for Virginia in our local political drama and sent a rather scurrilous email to a select group personally attacking Erin, suggesting that she's mentally imbalanced (she's not). Hate this stuff. Another Virginia supporter posted a passionately progressive essay on imby.com complaining about our corrupt partisan election system (it's not), so I responded.
Talked to Lee, sort of half listening while I worked on a pivot table Virginia sent me to help make the ballot counting easier. Was actually pretty clever. I certainly don’t dislike her. Just think as the current BOE commissioner she’s over her head now with all the new changes (electronic poll book, early voting for nine days in three sites).
Michael and I went to Staples to get supplies for the next commissioner go-round this week. Different colored index cards to use as ballots and boxes with lift-off tops that that we can cut a slot into for the ballots.
Whipped up dinner from leftover chicken and shredded cabbage. It was good. Watched Mandalorian, recommended by Jeremy. Pretty good.
Michael went to bed and I watched finally episodes of Master Chef. Christine the appealing blind girl won against Josh the tall black appealing basketball player, who wanted to use the money to start a cooking school somewhere in the South. I always Google for follow up stories on the contestants and was unhappy to discover that Josh had a psychotic break and shot and killed himself two years later.
Monday January 27
CT scan today. The tech nurse and I exchanged career stories. She had worked in oncology in Los Angeles and then in the mid eighties was invited to work in a special unit for patients with a new disease, which turned out to be AIDS. She worked there for ten years, until the development of the protease inhibitors, which effectively closed down her unit. She then worked with hospice patients until she was asked to go East and train as an obstetrics nurse. I said that must have been a good change and she glowered. “I hated it!” “Why. Do you hate babies?” “No. I hate pain. You can always relieve suffering in AIDS and dying patients, but I couldn't go anything to stop labor pain.”
We drove back to Hudson and Dr. Splendid Savage called to tell me that he had read the scan and all the bumps were shrinking. “You can hardly see the liver tumors.” Since he's my radiotherapist and not my oncology the ethics of calling me are unclear. "When you see Dr. Luyun (my oncologist) act surprised."
Went home to fix diary. At six we went down the road to drink wine with Marc Brian-Brown, a public school Brit who’s a successful photographer in New York. Married to wonderful Flory, who manages the Manhattan Theater. They have an autistic son Alastair, who has an almost-perfect memory for everyone's birthday and sends out cards to all their friends. Their daughter Angela lives in London and has recently come out as gay. Although a weekender Marc is an expert gardener, specializing in garlic but everything he grows does splendidly. He's also a knowledgeable gossip on local matters. This time however he was relying on us for news, not that we had much except for exasperating Democrat cannibalism. Went to Wunderbar after, had steak celebrating the shrinking tumors. Home to watch Avenue5, new HBP comedy.
My brother’s birthday, and he sent me good news through the ether.
Tuesday January 28
Crazy day at the Army today. Noticed dozens of donated containers of Sahara hummus, as well as cans of olives, lots of tomatoes and, just as I said I wish we had pita bread, the Salvation Army god via Charlie and Richard brought in packages of them from their food pick up. Karma! “Middle East chicken!”
Faye had her gentle troubled look that she reserves for some of my more questionable lunch ideas. She said quietly, “Oh I don’t know how that tastes.”
“It’s great! You'll love it.”
So Faye warily seasoned and browned the chicken while I prepped and cooked the sauce. Darcy came in and told us that the van from the Gavin motel would be coming with seven adults and three kids. We worried about quantity so Faye made extra rice, and I created a terrible extra dish of sausage and chicken in a tomato sauce for the kids (who, it turned out, didn’t want it and we grilled cheese sandwiches instead).
Wild morning. Thank god Margaret, who usually cooks with Jim on Thursday, came in to help. We ended up serving 38 people, a high number, although not the highest. One of the diners from the motel said that if he owned a restaurant he’d hire us.
The motel was the center of much noise among local Greenportians a year or so ago after plans were made public that the Gavin Foundation was going to fix it up for the Homeless. Formerly the Sunset Motel, it squats along Route 23 between the Taconic Highway and Hudson. In its previous life it had also housed homeless people, although not officially. John Alverez, who has a thriving mobile home business within a mile of the mote, had been vandalized a couple of times when the Sunset was in operation and was vehemently opposed to its resurrection specifically for the homeless, despite promises that this time it would have security and social services on site. Another opponent was the Liberi School across the highway, where precious children were infused with expensive liberal ideas, which were locked up in the compassion cellar at the prospect of pederasts and drug addicts freighting into the neighborhood and attacking the Darlings. With the motel skulking in zoneless Greenport, the opposing business and school couldn’t do anything to stop the construction. It's been active for a few months now, and the residents who have come in to have lunch are generally mothers and kids and a couple older guys. Not scary.
So this brings me to the second part of the day. At home that afternoon Enid Futterman called Michael and solemnly told him that poor Erin was mentally ill and no one should vote for her for election commissioner. (Enid, a dedicated Virginia supporter, had sent an email last week to some selected Democrats also making this charge. Michael responded with typical measured reason, but when he reported the call to me I went into fury mode and without Enid there to accept my rage I blasted Michael instead for not being harder on Enid. “You just don’t want people to think you’re not a perfect person.” Sneaking through my anger was a meek understanding that my husband was not the villain so I called my friend Bernie, a fellow Erin supporter, so I could vent harmlessly and come up with a plan to offset this poison at the meeting Thursday when we’ll be holding the next round of votes. After talking to Bernie I called Erin asking her how I could help. The insanity accusations are based on two events. Erin had been working on a congressional campaign in 2017 when her father died suddenly in the middle of it. The loss was devastating and as often happens accompanied by intense family drama. Erin went into a depression (not insanity) and disappeared from the campaign. The second craziness occurred when she had an altercation with a wealthy woman in New Lebanon who had hired Erin to manage her store. The work turned out not to be what Erin had been hired to do. She also was working 60 hours a week and paid for 40. So they had what seems to have been a noisy confrontation, and the boss later claimed she felt threatened physically. Which, knowing Erin, is ludicrous. Finally, she had a run-in with Virginia the day before early voting, when after working till midnight, Erin found out that the ballots hadn't been printed out. Erin apparently went ballistic and used the F word. So the proof of her insanity is that she's yelled at two bosses. Then of course, the usual accusation from the local Democrats if all else fails—that Jim Dolan is controlling her.
Michael went to the Greenport planning meeting where a bunch of Democrats had rallied to support a detox center being built outside of town. No one was opposing it.
I had a surprisingly good pumpkin-white bean soup with seared radicchio and chicken sausage waiting for him when he got home. Apologized to him for my overly hasty emotion. Watched Mandalorian.
Wednesday January 29
Off to hyperactive oncologist at St Peter's who delivered my positive results and showed me the CT scan while chatting about his tribulations moving from one house to another interspersed with complaints that he didn’t have enough patients even though they were backed up.
Home to leftover lunch and writing a supportive speech for Erin in preparation for meeting tomorrow. She gave me two names to call of people she’d worked with who she thinks who give me positive remotes to offset the miserable emails and phone calls from Enid. By the end of today they hadn’t called. Got a call from Erin’s other main competitor who just joined the race, Ken Dow, a lawyer and a feasible opponent. Not going to be easy. Dreading tomorrow. Made a frittata for dinner. Good,
Thursday January 30
Worked on diary until lunch with Jim Dolan at Cascade where we talked about the commissioner race and his health (“in a medical miracle” said the obese guy with over extended belly, sleep apnea, bad knee, atrial fibrillation, and heart valve issues.
Later the election did not go well. Room was packed. Virginia is no longer allowed to be a candidate after the County Board of Supervisors and the Democratic caucus within the BOS didn't approve her. So the next round for endorsing a candidate included Erin, and her main opponent, Ken Dow a soothing lawyer who represents a number of towns, including Greenport's planning board (Michael didn’t recognize him at first because he’s so calm and quiet.)
Erin had many enthusiastic supporters, like Michael and me, who had worked with her on many campaigns and had experienced nothing but competence and knowledge. I made a useless short speech in her support but several others were very strong. Nothing worked, however. She was unable to come back from Enid's attacks on her mental stability. Dow won because he’s a lawyer and he’s “so calm”, as his one of his boosters pointed out. (I’ve had “calm” male bosses; they either hid in their offices while the women did all the work or exhibited nasty passive aggressive behavior against their staff.) The killer arguments came from a couple smarmy people who “admired Erin’s skills and talent” but “thought she should continue to use them assisting candidates in campaigns and leave management to someone with experience." Dow did indeed run the BOE over a decade ago, but according to Billy Hughes, a Hudson supervisor, was not effective and the county was glad when he quit. And that’s his only management experience! Other than that he does legal work for a few towns. Erin is the only candidate who has a deep understanding of the new election processes and the problems involved with early and electronic voting.
Let’s wave a magic wand and turn her into a guy. Smart, competent, and experienced at his work but tends to get pissed off at an incompetent boss. Hmmm. Would he have lost our election to a calm opponent woman whose only experience with managing the vote was when it involved pulling a lever? I looked for Ken Dow on LinkedIn and his resume only included the legal work he does for the towns. Items for a career from 1983 when he graduated from Harvard until he graduated from law school in 2005 are missing. Was he in jail?
Friday January 31
Hideouts night spasms curling my foot into a claw. Could only relieve it in the bathtub.
Off to infusion. Jim called while we were in the car lamenting the good old days and loss of committee leaders who controlled political appointments, which were limited to loyal party members. And everything was done in the back rooms. None of this bogus modern transparency and full committee votes. Jim thinks Keith should have taken control. Jim lives in the past. These days Keith would keep his position as chair for 30 seconds if he behaved like the old hack autocrats.
Had lunch at Jill Wishon's BBQ smoke house after the infusion. She's still beaming in her restaurant, and doesn't miss the Army, although she's still on the Board and being useful. She still ridicules my general ADD behavior but the mean edge is gone. She’s just phoning it in. Had a great Cuban.
On the way home, Michael dropped me off at the end of the driveway and I crossed the road to see Dave and Janet’s new possession, a full-size Victorian marble sculpture, which they’ve positioned so she has a long view of their beautiful property: gardens, ponds, rock walls. She’s a bit peculiar. Has a beautiful face, tilted on a graceful neck, but her body is slightly cloddish, as if the sculptor was in love with his subject's face, but bored with the rest of her, whacking away at the Grecian folds and the lumpy fruit (or flowers) that she is hold in rather muscular arms. Or maybe two sculptors did it.
Back home Dave dropped by and he and Michael discussed geeky goggles that will control his super expensive drone.
Geoff called. He and Kim talked to the NYU neurologist who changed Kim’s meds and referred them to a neurosurgeon.
Roasted a chicken using the skillet method. No reason to do this any other way. Watched Motherless Brooklyn, an attempt to adapt Jonathan Lethem's novel. Beautiful with great acting. Worth seeing, but as I recall the book was more imaginative.
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