December 21-27. Solstice Week

Saturday December 21

"It is the day's midnight and the year's".  (John Donne's Nocturne to St. Lucy's Day.  First critical paper I ever wrote that made me believe I could think was on this poem.  An A from Howard Nemerov.)

Spent the morning doing random tasks: folding boxes, making fruit compote, and skimming pictures in Weeds of the Northeast, which I had bought just to identify a wicked invasive plant that Michael and I had mistakenly (but justifiably) thought was called "beggar tick". It's a vegetable assault weapon that shoots out hundreds of tiny burs, which hook into clothing and can be only be removed by painstakingly picking them out one by one. They ruined by favorite pea coat after I thrashed through the acres of brush and thorns that were later cleared for our house, meadow, and pond. Even now that the area has been civilized the weed continues to pop up randomly through the wildflowers. I leafed through hundreds of pictures of far more harmless invasives but failed to find a picture that matched this demonic plant, so Michael turned to the Great Google and located the villain under the name "Virginia stickseed" or, alternatively and better, "beggar's lice". 

Michael commented, “It’s not as bad as a goat head.” These thorny bastards grow in the Southwest and not only tear the skin but secrete a toxin to seal the deal. The desert is filled with survivors with cruel defenses: venomous animals and stabbing plants that make it while the gentler life forms can't. Is that why humans all over the world are now turning meaner? As our environment becomes increasingly threatening is our response not to be cooperative but to be self protective and venomous to outsiders? I hope not. I would far rather be the Northeastern beggar lice, sticky and annoying and a danger to wool jackets, than the desert goat head that inflicts pain and injects poison.  

We met Jim Dolan at Gracie's Luncheonette across the river. He was in good form, having cheerfully hired his lawyer to make a claim against Virginia and her assistant Diane for damages resulting from his dismissal. He has a good case. Virginia gave no cause for firing him, which wasn't clever given Jim's propensity for revenge. And it wasn't smart to get rid of him anyway before this very difficult election, with its early voting and new technologies.  Jim's back off his diet. He’s obese and I don’t know how he can live much longer with that apple belly. 

After lunch Michael and I went to the Alpine Pork Store down the road from Gracie's. Under a sloping roof, the building is a cheap cartoon of Teutonic half-timbering, the first floor rigged with a stone façade and the top pasted with tan slabs that look like giant tongue depressors. Inside two square women with golden blonde hair and lips pressed into disapproval were cutting meat at the counter. Behind them hung several plates painted with Germanic heraldic symbols next to scolding signs that threatened you not to smoke and warned of no public restrooms: "Please don't ask." A few ceramic pigs, a Hummel figure, and a couple plaster dwarves leering under red caps perched on a shelf underneath. Jars of sauerkraut, mustard, smoked paprika, herring, and other items in WWII vintage packaging lined the shelves opposite the counter. Ones strongly held principles against all things Nazi bund-ish fail, however, after one bite into their pigs, which are delicious. Bought pork chops, pork butt, and Weisswurst. No information on where the porkers lived or how happy they were before they were transported into hog heaven.  I didn’t ask. 

Jillian emailed me pictures of Livy and Harrison, both beautiful. Said she’s sending me green chilies. The batch I ordered myself came today, so with hers we should be ok through the winter. Jeremy called with a review off the new Star Wars movie (“Bring a handkerchief”).

Made polenta and spooned reheated meatballs over it. Watched more of His Dark Materials. 

Sunday December 22

Slept late letting the nighttime warmth generated by Michael pour over into light. 

Spent the morning reading cookbooks and Saveur’s 25th Anniversary edition. I think I’ve subscribed to it that long. 

After lunch I tried out my new snowshoes. After staring blankly at the simple instructions and then ineffectually twisting and wrestling my boots to conform to the binders, I called Michael for help. He glanced down, “You have them backwards.” Once he had fixed them in place, I made the decision to leave them lodged in their binders for the rest of the winter. I took off into the field, propped up by two poles, and shuffled down to the pond, with it’s classy gray winter shimmer, watched the doughty brown winter birds leap back and forth among the brush and reeds that line the water, poked at the dock, and then plodded back to the house. No hip pain at all. My muscles are very weak so I didn't get far, but it was gratifying to go as far as I did and if I can go out regularly I should gain strength.

Lunch was a reheat, and I spent the afternoon wrapping presents with my usual wonton raccoon skillset. 

Met Richard Wallace and Ann at Wunderbar later. I texted them that I had made a reservation, and Richard was walking in when we got there. The front room was crowded so they put us in the back. I asked the girl at the desk to watch out for Ann, who still hadn’t arrived fifteen minutes later. Richard went into the front of the restaurant to check for her and they both returned a couple minutes later, with Ann cross as a bear. “I came in and didn’t see you. So I went back and sat in my car. I almost went home.”

“We told them to look for you.”

“Well no one did. And the tables in the front were all empty so I didn’t think you were in the back room.”

Since I had texted her that there was a reservation, logically she should have asked about it, but she didn’t. Ann enjoys being aggrieved, and it's gotten worse recently. Generally, everyone listens to her litany of annoyances until someone can paste a new subject over them. She's heading out to Ohio for Christmas to see her sullen son. and Richard is going north to visit his late sister’s son, who hadn’t spoken to his mother in years and never did, even as she was dying this summer. (Jill and I have been exchanging emails almost daily lately but I haven’t heard her voice in nearly two years nor seen her in nearly four. It's very hard. Still, I’ll take what I can get.)

Monday December 23

Everything I do is in slow motion these days: moving, thinking, changing positions. Once I land in a spot either in bed or on a chair, I’ll remain there until some residual energy gets me up for a bathroom run or a critical task. It is already 11:00 and all I’ve done is compose yesterday’s diary entry and talk briefly to Harris about the olive oil subscription I ordered for him and Neville for Christmas. 

After writing this, we drove to Great Barrington, Massachusetts so Michael could buy pot at Theory Wellness, the only accessible legal marijuana dispensary. After waiting behind a half dozen cars, plated for either Connecticut or New York, we were waved into a parking slot by two young people, who were screaming at each other and frantically tearing back and forth between the exiting cars and the traffic build-up at the entrance.  Fortunately, they herded us to a parking spot near the store, so I had a short walk. There, we waited outside the building in a long queue of mixed generations, marked by a rope blinking feebly in the sun with Xmas lights. The day was warm, a speaker plunked on a picnic table played Dire Straits, and the crowd was mellow. When we finally got into the store, we were placed at the end of one of several very long lines leading to clerks standing behind an extensive L-shaped counter that displayed multiple marijuana products. In spite of the wait both inside and out, everyone—clerks and consumers—were friendly and cheerful, which was no surprise given the skunky smell, which was so powerful that it would be impossible to work there or even wait long enough without becoming stoned. A clerk heading the line next to ours accidentally swiped a receipt from a neighboring clerk, which caused them both to giggle uncontrollably.  A young women heading the line on the other side of us introduced herself to her customer as "Than" or something. She was holding tongs in one hand and supporting a huge glass jar under her other arm. She very slowly and carefully retrieved a fuzzy jelly-bean-sized bud and extended it to the young man in front of her with a soft smile, saying very gently, “You’ve come a long way so take all the time you need. Let me help you with any information you need." The long line behind her customer seemed to sway with approval. Michael bought a tiny amount of pot in a beautiful box for an exorbitant amount of money, and we went off to eat at the local Bagel place.

After lunch we faced the crowd at Guido's, the high end supermarket in Great Barrington, to buy Christmas meat. The crowd and small cramped aisles reminded me of Fairway during the holidays in New York, although Guido's lacked the rage that permeated those festive West Side shopping experiences. 

Back home exhausted. Slept in the tub after reading some Norway noire. Then, too tired to cook, I reheated the meatballs for their final take-down. Still tasted great. Watched Dark Materials.

Tuesday December 24

Started Christmas Eve off this morning by denting the Golf fender on my way out of the garage by trying and failing to avoid hitting the side wall.  Michael advised me later to not turn the wheel at all while I backed up or turn it opposite to what my capricious directional instincts told me to do. 

Made it to the Army without further mishaps where we exchanged presents. Faye gave out scratch-off lottery cards, which once again failed to reveal a prize. Charlie gave me a Canadian commemoration coin from his massive collection of other commemoration coins, which he's in the process of trying to sell but getting dismal responses.  Ria gave me an odd set of wooden spoons with a paisley design. We baked chicken legs and stir fried vegetables, which were ok. It's my last day at the Army for a while since I start radiation next week. Love these guys.

Spent the afternoon processing chilies and putting the Xmas posole together. Dave dropped by about five and nearly slipped on the ice rink that forms every winter over the concrete slab outside our garage. Our friendly but over-booked HVAC neighbor, Jim Grabowski, has failed to hook up the radiant heat under it since the house was built three years ago.  Michael calls him every Monday morning to remind him and sometimes Jim answers with the cheerful lie that "we're on his schedule" and he'll be by "in a week or two". More often he doesn't  answer at all or respond to the voice mail.  In any case he never comes.  I'm sure he thinks this is not an emergency and that it's easily remedied with rock salt or sand.  And, indeed, Michael went out and spread sand over the area. 

Dave didn’t stay long. Five years ago before the fight I had with him we would have gone over to his house on a night like this when Janet wasn’t there, eaten some grilled meat, listened to Neil Young, Stephen Stills or some new album Dave had just brought, and become happily sodden with nostalgia and wine and dope. Our evenings together as couples had already ended as the friendship between Janet and me eroded from my gross intrusions up here into her languid space. (Or maybe we were never friends, even in New York. Maybe she only wanted to keep contact with me while Andrew was alive so I could pass on information about him. I don't think she ever got over him).  But those boozy nights with Dave continued for a few years until I threw him out of our apartment one summer evening while hosting a dinner for our friends. I had felt for some time that our routine banter had turned hostile. And that night I weathered a couple of insults while we were having drinks, and then at dinner he threw out what I perceived as the final attack and I yelled, "That's enough. Fuck you", and he left echoing "fuck you", while Michael,  Ann, Liz, and Geoff watched. He and I didn't speak for months, although Michael and he continued to work on various projects together. It took about another two years before he started dropping by and occasionally having a glass of wine together on Janet-less Thursdays but we always went back to our respective homes for dinner. Janet is now in California with her sisters as she is every Christmas. He’s alone tomorrow as we are and I invited him for posole. “ He responded, I’m doing a brisket, but let’s get together and have wine.” Since Janet and I became sick, things have considerably warmed up between all of us, but not to the extent that we've shared a meal.

We're now upstairs listening to our favorite folk/country music (no Xmas) and reading. Our neurotic cat Diana has been sitting between us, but I think the joy of having our attention got into the tormented spaces of her brain. She gave me two gentle bites and jumped off. 

Posole was fine. Watched the last episodes of Strange Materials.

 I used to love Christmas Eve and all its myths, lit up by candles and strings of colors. Our new house would be brilliant if we had a tree framed in the big window and candles along the edges for our windows. But we do nothing now. I distributed all our ornaments to the kids before we moved out of the city.  Michael does not punctuate his year with celebrations—no birthdays, no anniversaries, no holidays. At first this was very difficult and sad for me, but over time I’ve learned to adapt by celebrating for myself (buying great birthday and Xmas presents for me) or for other people (throwing dinner, buying them presents).  Michael I don't exchange gifts, so my resentment has resolved into indifference. Only on occasion does his "existential" pretention really piss me off.

Finally, tonight I miss my daughter so much, and particularly because the next time I see her will undoubtedly be my last. The certainty of that is the only event I'm not sure I can bear with this disease. 

Wednesday December 25

A day in minor key: gray and steely, with the icy driveway a worry. Put together the fruit for the mince pie I'm making an our anniversary and added bourbon, which has a slight vanilla flavor. It may be too sweet. Spent much of the day sending put the Amazon gift cards and cash to kids and grand kids and responding to Xmas messages. I had a nice email exchange with Jill but didn’t have the nerve to call. Willie FaceTimed a talking avatar of himself and then changed it to a mouse, which was weirdly adorable. Dave dropped by with wine in the late afternoon, which was a pleasant echo of our old times together. After he left we ate posole and then watched a supercharged action movie that was too violent and stupid to finish. We switched to a comedy series that parodied the Vikings that was too stupid and violent to finish. Should have watched Christmas Carol but Michael’s indifference to celebrations has rubbed off.  Went to bed and woke up to meditate. 

Thursday December 26

Spent the morning at the grocery store supplying the pantry and kitchen with food for Willie and his friend Alex, who are arriving today. I ran into Stephanie Sussman, one of my few friends from the CCDC, who is having a mother's dream holiday—both her daughters, grandkids, and sons-in-law have been up for Xmas. Although she and her husband Dave are Jewish, some goyim have sneaked into the family, and her last couple of days have been marked by tree chopping and decorating with grand-kid-made ornaments. Everyone is getting along and no political talk. Happy for her. Home to make apple crisp and pastry for the mince pie. 

Willie and Alex arrived about three. They were friends from the seminary, and Alex is now a priest, ordained this spring in Korea, where Willie traveled to watch and celebrate. He seems to be very happy with his vocation, coincidentally stationed at Bayside Sacred Heart, where Kim went as a kid and my grandsons were baptized. He brought a poinsettia, cheese, sausage and wine. Now Christmas can begin.

Before dinner we all drank a lot of wine, and Michael and Alex dozed through the Snowman, which we watched and then we ate lemon chicken, broccoli rabe, and sweet potatoes. Apple crisp was weird because I made it with maple syrup. 

After diner we went through a list of every movie ever made before finally deciding to watch Holmes and Watson, a comedy that had rated a dismal eleven on Rotten Tomatoes. It was completely stupid and silly and I laughed through it, just what I wanted. Willie is just so sad, though. I see it in the pauses within our conversations. Nevertheless, I'm very happy to have him and Alex here.

Dave called Michael and said that he and Janet would like to come to our anniversary party tomorrow, which makes me happy. Liz and Geoff and Richard Wallace will also be there.

Friday December 27

Our 30th anniversary. Alex and Willie off to church in the morning. I rolled out the pastry for the mince pie, while muddling up my previous plans for the rest of the meal.  I came up with the anti-clever idea to roast the rutabaga in order to soften the skin, as I do with pumpkins and squash, forgetting that a rutabaga is coated in wax. I heated the oven to 400 degrees and popped it onto the top rack. Within about fifteen minutes the kitchen started smelling like crayons. I opened the oven door and toxic black smoke spilled into the room. Michael turned off the smoke alarms and we opened windows and doors. “It’s coated in wax.” He unnecessarily reminded me a few times as we scrambled about trying to de-fumigate the house. I told him it was my anniversary present to him. 

Alex had to get back to his parish by five, so I set the dinner hour to three, and texted the change to everyone. Not much time to finish everything. The wax finally burned off the oven enough so I could open the door without introducing a  noxious event and put the pie into it, hoping it wouldn't end up tasting like mince petroleum. I peeled the villainous rutabaga, cut it into chunks and tumbled them with baby carrots into a pot of water. I opened a jar of homemade red cabbage sauerkraut, sliced a red onion, and put both in a saucepan smeared a purée I made from roasted red peppers and tomatoes. I whisked together a Yorkshire pudding batter and stored it in the fridge. And finally I took out two precious bags of defrosted Hatch green chilies and stuffed them with Muenster cheese, laying them out so they would fit in the roasting pan. At one I took the pie out, let the oven cool down to 275 and pushed the sirloin roast beast into it. 

Alex and Willie were sitting at the table entertaining me and each other. After all the food preparation was done and we still had time before people arrived, Willie suggested playing Clue, which we had last played when Samantha was here. He was shut down with emotional pain, and it wasn’t clear if the game would cheer him up or make him feel worse. Fortunately Alex has the cheeriest persona of almost anyone I’ve ever been and he engaged enthusiastically with the game and its somewhat complicated rules.  We couldn’t quite finish it before three so Willie valiantly threw himself on his sword and made an incorrect accusation. Bolstered by Alex's indefatigable good humor, playing it was more cheerful than I had feared,  

I asked Alex to give me a blessing before the guests arrived. He put his hands on my head, which were warm and soothing, and said a quick prayer to Jesus, mom, and Saint Peregrine.  

“Who’s he?” I asked. 

“He’s the saint for cancer.” 

“I hope it’s not because he likes it.”

Everyone arrived at about the same time. I pulled the beef out and put it on a plate to rest, and pushed the oven temperature back up to 450. I heated up the roasting pan on the burners, laid out the chilies, poured the batter over everything and put it back in the over. Yorkshire chili relleno, my only and favorite contribution to fusion cuisine.

It was a cheerful dinner although Willie was quiet and obviously depressed. Geoff Leckie and Richard Wallace supervised the conversational directions. Toward the end, Geoff was explaining why restoration could harm old masters, but it was hard to follow, since he was vaguely drunk and kept back-tracking and complicating his narrative.  Liz finally provided a straightforward explanation: restoration can rub out not only the old dark varnish but the glaze that the artist applied over the original paint, which adds shadows and nuances.

 I sat across the table from Janet. We’re comfortable together and genial, but we aren’t friends, and I believe we’re both comfortable with that non-relationship. Michael didn’t mention our anniversary tonight except once to wish me a happy one. It has taken me years not to be hurt by his lack of celebration, and it was hardest to get over my resentment on our anniversaries, particularly those that fell on the decade or midway. So once again I celebrated this one alone by cooking a dinner I was proud of and by toasting and thanking Dave and Janet for introducing us and being there tonight.

The food turned out well, better than I thought it would, given the rutabaga grenade. People were gone by seven, and Willie wanted to watch Daytrippers, an independent film from the nineties with a great cast, but we couldn’t find a site that streamed it. Annoying and unusual. So Willie’s next choice was, inexplicably, a recent version of Cinderella, which weirdly Michael stayed awake for. 

December 14-20 Ginny's Birthday, Upcoming Xmas, Food and more Food

Saturday December 14

Rained all night. Snow is gone. 

It's Ginny’s birthday. Lee and I are the only ones to have known Ginny from the day she was born.  When Mom went into the hospital, Dad had parked us overnight with our neighbors the Bermases. Anna and Morris were ex-New Yorkers, moved down from the Bronx, exotic and Jewish. They had two sons, both a little older than Lee, who were handsome, very funny, and provoked early sexually terrifying dreams. That night, by eight o'clock and with still no word from Dad, Donny, who was about six at the time, was sent upstairs to bed. Anna, with her fabulous strange liberalism, saw no reason not to let Lee and me wait up.  The Ed Sullivan show was playing on Kinescope, a pre-video tape method for delivering TV shows to the boonies by pointing a camera at a cathode ray monitor and recording the show on film. Kinescopes were memorable because they were so awful, disappointing our viewing experience with wavy lines and broken images. While we watched Ed stiffly shifting in analog shards the call came in. Ginny had arrived. We woke Donny up all little-girlie excited. He stood at the top of the stairs and asked. “Is it a girl or a boy?” “Girl!” “Oh.” He turned and went back to bed. 

Ginny was adorable but my initial enthusiasm cracked as her presence relegated me to second daughter and frequent baby sitter. When Patty arrived two years later and Lee became pregnant and left home, I more or less disappeared into the family cosmic glue.  I wrote sad poetry, learned to cook, and cursed the simultaneous desire to protect my younger siblings (from what?) and to escape my home.  I was an inadequate protector and eventually we lived our tricky lives without each other. Now that Ginny has fallen into the lap of Christ, although he remains a chilly myth to me. I'm inexplicably pleased.  She's finally safe.  

This morning I responded to a nagging text from Gene, and reconciled the finances from his campaign. Have procrastinated long enough anyway. He expressed textual sympathy for Willie after I told him about the breakup. He was also mourning, not only the loss of his wife but of Molina's, the local bar from which most of the Hudson alcoholics had graduated.  Gene nostalgically recalled his first beer there when he turned 18. (Does everyone remember where they had first drink? Mine was crème de menthe, glugged at about age 13 from a beautiful green bottle, discovered in the sideboard of my friend Claire's home.)

Had lunch at Casa Latina, a cheery place in the middle of a gray day, the ceiling hung with paper flags the colors of Mexico, with Frida Kayla’s vivid portrait dominating one wall and photographs and slogans about the equivalency between food and love on the other. Latino music is lively and plays with the colors of the room.  I had very decent enchiladas. It all made me happy.

In the afternoon we went to Harris and Neville’s, where she had staged a gathering to sell some of her beautiful ceramics. I bought four small bowls as Christmas presents for Liz, Ann, Stuart, and Richard. Several of their friends from Kingston were there, including Susan whom I had talked to for some time at Harris’ birthday party. In spite of liking her and having a long lively discussion, I didn't recognized her until she mentioned her job (owning a kiln and making ceramics) and recall kicked in. Could just be old age or shallow party talk that rattles into the ether after a few moments. Hope it's the latter. I talked to her briefly, then sat by myself in the living room and munched Neville's good snacks.  Michael does better than I do at these gatherings and he spent his time talking to some people about the old days of early computers, when main frames ruled and desktops were a gleam in the eyes of primal geeks. David and Janet showed up briefly. After everyone had gone, Michael and I went to dinner with Harris and Neville at Armadillo, a Latino restaurant up the street. More enchiladas, four in a day! Neville became pretty bombed after hours of showing her stuff, making food, and wine drinking. She becomes intensively earnest, telling the same story several times, she's but never mean or judgy. Best human I know.

Sunday December 15

Finished my bathtub reading of Barbara Vines book House of Stairs. Very disappointing ending, no twist at the end of the mystery, or if there is one I didn’t get it.

We met Jim Dolan and his sister Lynn Polluck at the monthly all-you-can-eat breakfast at the Becraft Pumper, our volunteer firehouse and polling place down the road. The county's firehouses are where Republican white males nest, with most of them backed by generations of firefighting forebears. In general the company members are now old. It's getting increasingly difficult to find young volunteers. Occasionally, a Democrat newly moved up to the area will join, but they are rare, typically retired, and as old as the native firefighters. The Becraft used to have an active women's auxiliary but there aren't enough ladies left, so it's been disbanded. 

The Becraft breakfast costs $8.00, runs from seven to noon, and is a terrific fundraiser. The trucks are pulled out and two large rooms are lined as closely as possible with long paper-covered tables, where the denim bottoms of hefty neighbors spill over metal fold up chairs, rotating in and out over the course of the morning. The firemen and their families serve and cook all the food--two pancakes (plain and blueberry), scrambled eggs (plain and my favorite, the Chef's special, made with peppers and onions), corned beef hash, sausage, bacon, fried potatoes, bagels, English muffins, toast, fruit cup, juice, and coffee.  (A fireman in the back room will also make eggs any style on demand), Santa showed up today and the place was more crowded than ever. Sadly, they had run out of the Chefs special, but this left plenty of choices. The trick is restraint. Jimmy loaded up his plate twice with lots of fat— his “diet” based very casually on the Atkins. With his big belly, he's a heart attack waiting for a snow shovel.  I like his sister Lynn and we talked kids, until Jim took over with a rehash of the commissioner election. He's considering charges against Virginia for wrongful firing. Guy Apicella is one of the Becraft volunteers and was serving.  We spoke briefly about the election and his relief in winning again.

At home I shopped online for Christmas presents. I ordered a heating pad for Faye's shoulders, but I have a feeling that her daughter has already given her the same brand.  I bought socks rolled, shaped, and packaged to look like sushi and burritos for Darcy and Ria. I subscribed to an olive oil service for Harris and Neville and Jillian and Al, and ordered books on plants for Geoff Leckie. All our kids and grands will get money or Amazon cards. 

Jeremy called and I asked about the new company that has bought his supermarket chain. “Nothing will change, they told us.” Everything changes. Always worrisome. 

Then Willie texted me a screen shot of a text conversation with Samantha—a flat brief exchange involving a pick up of her desk that Richard and Carol had been storing in Connecticut. Impersonal and heart breaking. I talked to him for a while. Something is wrong with her. Not because she doesn’t love my son (although I personally believe that this is a strong indication of wrongness) but because her charade of loving him was so convincing. 

Was supposed to meet Ann and go caroling in Hudson this evening, but I was tired and texted her that I couldn’t make it. I knew Michael wouldn’t mind cancelling. I had left over enchiladas, which I heated up for dinner. I like mine better than those from the two restaurants yesterday. Watched Marriage Story after dinner. Acting and writing were good, although something was off about it. Not as moving as I'd hoped.  Started new book that Alex Cohen has given me, Weight. Also started new Cadfael mystery on my Kindle. 

Monday, December 16

Went to St. Peter’s to be “mapped” for the upcoming radiotherapy to my mediastina lymph node. I'm nervous about the proximity to my esophagus and potential side effects (difficulty swallowing, sore throat).  Talked to Duncan Savage, the physician with the best name ever, who doesn’t think they will be very severe.  “Not like last summer.”  Which my brain has, in its stupidity, blocked out, so I'm willing to undertake radiation again in order to avoid the chemo partner in crime. (However, if the tumors in the liver and other areas have fattened up on the next scan, I'll have to go on chemo regardless of the radiation success.) I'm also confused about what's being zapped, since the last report showed cancer increasing in the precarinal lymph node—is that part of the mediastinum?  My anatomical knowledge is dismal.  When I was writing patient reports for Well-Connected I bought an anatomical coloring book, which was highly detailed and created for medical students, but I only got through a few sections in the body, and packed it in because I was never any good staying within the lines, which you have to do if you want to read the labels next to the blood vessels that you're coloring in. 

At home made tuna melt sandwiches for lunch.  In late afternoon, Ann came by and we all went to Red Hook to watch Knives Out, an engaging WASPy mystery ala neo-Agatha Christie, with great cast, especially Daniel Craig and Christopher Plummer. Lots of fun.

After the movie we ate at Savona, a near-by Italian restaurant that compensated for its lackluster eggplant parm and soggy pasta by being very expensive and crowded.  

I’m getting increasingly agitated by Ann's agitation and her snipes at me. Michael thinks I’m exaggerating.  On the way home, someone mentioned Marguerite, a dramatic and flamboyant friend of Geoff and Liz, who was born in Morocco (I think) and has maintained a pan European accent during the 50-odd years that she's lived in the US. She was married to some musician and survives on buying and selling dramatic homes up here (a church, a huge mansion in Albany). I was surprised when Ann commented that she had two kids, a boy and a girl. 

“She never talks about them.” 

“Well, you talk about your kids all the time. Not everybody does.”

Of course everyone talks about their kids. Ann, in fact, will talk about her son Eamon with the least nudging.  Our mutual friends up either here don’t have kids (Dave and Janet, Liz and Geoff) or they rarely see or talk to them (Richard Wallace,) Michael and I have five of them, with five twigs that have branched off.  They're a key part of our world and I hope their stories might be of occasional interest, as the stories in my friends' lives are for me. It’s not like I brag about their accomplishments all the time.  Which I could do if I wanted.  Really bothered me.

Tuesday, December 17

Went to the Army this morning.  Weather was rotten—sleety with unplowed and unsalted roads.  With my father’s advice in my head (“In snow and sleet drive 30 miles per hour, no more, no less") I drove our excellent BMW to the army with no problems, passing a car that was tipped sideways up a bank, a young woman standing next to it, angrily tapping her phone. (Don't young women get tired of being irate?)

Jay had called in sick, which might be code for drinking again. When Faye worked with him in the factories she said he was always drunk but highly functional and added. “You can still be an alcoholic and do your work. “ 

Faye and I did, I think, the best lunch ever.  Someone had donated Kombucha squash, which we baked for 30 minutes, then peeled and cut into chunks.  Faye added tons of butter, cinnamon, and a little brown sugar to it.  She had seasoned some pork roasts when I came in.  One of the stores had donated bags of mandarin oranges, which we peeled and I sautéed with red onions and some curry powder, then spooned them over the roasts and baked them, covered in foil, in the oven. Then Darcy appeared with fresh green beans. Yay.  We chopped up and fried bacon that we added to the beans with a little rosemary and then steamed everything.  It was a wonderful lunch, but unfortunately the weather was so bad only about ten guys showed up. Lucky for them, they were very complimentary and got to have two or three helpings.

And Glinda did not show up. Ria told me she had been in the day before and complained about the food. Yesterday’s cook, I think her name is Marlene, was dealing with lunch all by herself, which is really tough. Glinda had gotten the last serving from the first tray and her neighbor had gotten a steaming plate from the first serving of the second tray.  “My lunch is cold,” Glinda brayed to Marline (I use the word "bray" because that's how she typically sounds, even if she isn’t complaining). Marlene then offered to heat it up.

  

Glinda said, “No.” 

So Marlene offered to exchange the plate for one from the second tray.  

Glinda, who thrives on martyrdom, refused. 

Marlene went back into the kitchen and Ria came out and asked what the matter was. 

Glinda responded. "Nothing", but when Ria returned to the office, she heard Glinda loudly denouncing our staff (I can see her angrily aiming her good eye toward the back office). "They pretend to be all righteous and good, but they get paid. They aren’t volunteers.  They get money.”  (Ria, Darcy, and Faye do indeed get paid--a low wage for incredibly hard work, with Ria and Darcy working well beyond the hours in their contract.) It's possible Glinda resented her own unpaid minimal labor as a volunteer on Tuesdays, coming in at ten after all the prep is done and then treating us to her loud zealotry, quoting vengeful Biblical passages directed at her ex-husband, interspersed with "Yes Jesus" and "Amen." 

At the end of service, Darcy told Glinda that because I was going into treatment, they needed somebody who could come in earlier on Tuesday to help Faye out.  So no Glinda today.  And we made the best lunch ever!

Marlene called the dish that had offended Glinda American Chop Suey. Curious, since we rarely had Asian spices or sauces in the Army kitchen, I asked Faye what had been in it. Faye said that it was just ground beef, tomato sauce, and macaroni, in other words, Upstate Goulash. I can only conclude that this combination of ingredients had originally been so exotic to the housewives in northern and western New York, that the dish required a foreign affiliation, its national origin—whether China or Hungary--dependent on the favorite ignorant biases of our local home cooks. Weirdly, it was never attributed to Italy. 

I walked out of the Army kitchen to find my car coated in ice, and skittering and sliding, I drove home against walls of sleet.

Geoff sent me a photo of his amazing painting, a literal copy of Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne overlaid by a modern industrial landscape. Bacchus’ entourage is encased within a sixties-constructed project, while Bacchus is partly trapped and yearning out toward Ariadne, who is escaping into a distant primal landscape. Incredible.

Worried all afternoon that Dr. Savage is relying on the last inaccurate written report to identify the tumor that he plans to zap, which is unlikely, but cancer patients obsess.

Michael is a member of the Greenport Planning Board and went to the meeting tonight, the main discussion covering the final approval for a detox center. Hudson progressives had rallied each other to attend the meeting with dire predictions of massive opposition from the Greenport right wing peasants. Les Miserable. The roads were still relatively icy and only three Hudsonians appeared to make impassioned speeches in support of the detox center against zero opposition. Michael pointed out after that, given Greenport's lack of zoning, even if there was opposition, the center was a done deal. The detox center will be built in the middle of a dead industrial tract. No one cares.  

The Hudson-Greenport schism rests on the classic cultural/political divide between two adjoining communities—one of urban upper middle class Democrats and the other blue collar Republicans.  The antagonism is currently intensified by a plan from Greenport's major family business— Colarusso Gravel-- to run a haul road west from the company quarry down to the river, where it ends at its docks on Hudson's waterfront.  Colarusso now trucks its gravel through the streets of Hudson, spewing dust and creating pothole craters.  The haul road would give the trucks a direct route to the river and circumvent the city streets.  You'd think the people in Hudson would like this, but instead, they are using the proposal to evict Colarusso altogether from their waterfront, arguing that by changing the terms of an old agreement the company's whole basis for dumping the gravel there is up for grabs.  Our Greenport planning board supports our local business, of course, while the Hudson board is litigating to get rid of an industrial eyesore and accelerate the gentrification now well in process that is driving its poor citizens out over the border into Greenport. Welcome, I say. 

I heated up the leftover enchiladas when he came home, and we watched The Art of Crime. 

Wednesday December 18

At St. Peter for pre-infusion consultation, hoping to obtain certainty that the right tumor is being zapped. While I was waiting to be called I went to the bathroom, opened the door, and a very old woman—even older than I am—with severe scoliosis was wrestling with her Depends. We both apologized and I went back to the waiting room where a tall heavyset woman with long ratty blonde hair hobbled in wearing a stained khaki Carhart jacket, a Santa hat and jingle bell boots. I was called in for the routine phlebotomy and she was led jingling and dismal into the same room a few minutes later, unhappy with the small size of her chair and her sciatica She’s alone, has cancer and chronic pain, and is offsetting her misery with holiday clothing clichés. The crippled old lady, the fat woman with Christmas misery clothes, and I, anticipating the endgame, are here to stay alive. That shrieking baby intent on survival at all costs wrestles with the suffering adult who wonders if it's worth the loss of joy. 

We talked to Dr. Gray, a small woman with an island lilt. She was standing in for Dr. Luyun, whose mother-in-law has died. She very carefully went through the scan records, including the radiation plan, and reassured me that the right tumor would be targeted 

Stopped at Relish in Catskill for lunch and bought spices for Faye's Christmas present. We were pleased to hear that Dana is moving back to Hudson in a new lunch place up on eighth and Columbus. Her mother Janet, who works behind the counter with Dana and looks like an Italian Mama Avatar, offered to do “energy work” on me. 

Jim Dolan called when we got home. He had heard that we were alone on Christmas and invited us to his sister Lynn’s house. Nice. We’re having Richard Wallace over so won’t be totally in Xmas solitude.

Spent most of the remaining day listening to House impeachment speeches. Made Neapolitan meatballs in the afternoon. Came out pretty well. 

Watched the vote in the evening then another episode of Art of the Crime. 

Sarah called. Impeachment has put her in good spirits. I find it dreary. Our president isn’t Hitler.  He’s like a seal barking for fish from the crowds. That’s his ideology. And as long as his base keeps him in mackerel in response to his snorting and honking, the Republicans will keep him in office. But that’s how they’ve always played it. Letting dopes play the crowd (Reagan, little Bush) while the main evil players (Roger Stone, Cheney, McConnell) craft their greedy policies in the dark to keep their party entrenched. Democrats, on the other hand, play a noisy and discordant band of issues to their ever-hopeful base, stumbling into each other as they wobble toward an ever evasive equality.

Thursday December 19

Chiropractor at noon, home and then back in town for lunch at Cascade. Eavesdropping on conversation between three young men want to to start up a cannabis dispensary across the Massachusetts border in Great Barrington. After acknowledging my vice for eavesdropping, I got more information out of one of them, who is here with his brother and his brother's partner after recently moving from Utah via Portland. He rides a Harley and skis. I asked if he misses Utah, given the icy baby ski trails in the Northeast. “I miss the mountains, not so much the family.” Most likely raised as a Mormon (he's very clean looking), but given his Harley and gay brother he's undoubtedly lapsed. Anticipating marijuana legalization in New York, he's scouting Hudson as well as Great Barrington. It occurred to me that Greenport would be a great location for a dispensary. Right next to Hudson, but lots of parking. No one who goes there would care that it wasn’t quaint or cleanly historical. The store in Great Barrington is outside the posh area in a tiny strip mall where two young people direct traffic-- one running back and forth locating empty spots a cars exit and the other pointing the way to them for cars coming in. The flow is constant. The dreary location hasn't stopped the mobs from New York and Connecticut. Greenport would be perfect.

Went home and unpacked a pile of Amazon and UPS boxes, half for Christmas and half for me. My new snowshoes came in. I’ll try them tomorrow. Also trying to cut down on plastic and had ordered silicon freezer bags. Soaking them in salt as instructed online. Excited. Wrapped Jeanine’s present, a heating pad for shoulders and back, which I originally bought it for Faye but found out on Tuesday that she already has it. I thought of keeping it then remembered Jeanine's chronic aches and pains.  

Dave came over briefly. Has been worried about a cough Janet has developed over the week but turned out it’s just a cough. Cancer paranoia.  

Dinner was the last reheat of the enchiladas, followed by the Democrat debate. Down to seven candidates and it was far livelier than the previous mass meet ups. PBS and Politico hosted it so the questions were substantive and the pundits, mostly young non-blonde women, were super nerdy. I find myself leaning now toward Amy Klobuchar, who was focused, smart, and more appealing than I’ve seen her before. She has a crosspatch look when she's in repose that doesn't do her any good with the electorate. 

For my bathtub real-book read I found a detective novel set in Minnesota and written by a Norwegian. Without any guilt I exchanged it for "Weight", the latest eccentric highly praised book from Alex Cohen. This one retells the Atlas-Hercules myth, with sweeping poetic descriptions of the cosmos and the earth that atlas is hoisting up, while Hercules depicted as a swaggering oaf. Maybe I’ll pick it up again. Meanwhile, yay, back to Nordic gore with the gloomy divorced cop (why are so many older women addicted to this genre?)

Friday December 20

Infusion day. Also annual Christmas sweater competition at St Peters. Last year most of the nurses were all twinkling with lights and wires spilling down their chests and dangling from their necks, wearing sweaters embossed across their backs and breasts with fuzzy reindeer and elves. They wore antlers and Santa caps. This year the chemo unit was a great disappointment. Very few lights and antlers and in fact few sweaters. Many of the nurses only wore t-shirts or light sweatshirts with dreary cynical holiday graphics. One explained, “Those sweaters were too hot. We nearly died last year." When I had my radiology appointment earlier this week, I had been encouraged to learn that the nurses there had strict instructions to be decorative. After the infusion I had a minor urge to go downstairs and check them out, but thought it might be a little weird. I have been in some kind of treatment now for two years. How time flies when you have a terminal disease. 

Got home to more boxes. Jeanine had cleaned. Someone other than me has cleaned my homes for thirty years.  I’ll never stop feeling intensely guilty and grateful for this service.

We went back into town for hamburgers at Grazin’, which I always look forward to even though I leave bloated and fat laden. 

Spent the afternoon writing. Too cold to try my new snowshoes. Tomorrow.

Lee left me a message excited about their neighbor concert. They’ve recruited two girls who live down the road to play the drums and tambourines.  She thanked me for my comments and said that they had added more vocals to the music. It sounds like it will be fun. 

Refrigerated my fermented red cabbage and preserved lemons that had been percolating in the pantry for a month. The lemon had a gray mold on top that can be peeled off like a zombie skin. According to all the online advice, it won't hurt us. Tasted the cabbage, which did not have any mold. I used a lemon in tonight’s quick meal of farro, chicken sausage, broccoli, and shallots. Not bad. Hope we don't die. 

Finished off the French series, Art of the Crime and started the new HBO fantasy series,

December 7-13: Eating Ashes, Dreams of NYC, and an Xmas Concert

Saturday December 7, 2019

Had horrible persistent leg spasms when I woke up. At 11:30, I went to Julia Wilson, my chiropractor, whose approach-- a very gentle touch-stretch of some fibrous/neural network between the base of my skull and my hip--usually magically relieves the arthritis. Today, however, I remained very stiff, with major hobbling through the supermarket to replenish my dairy and produce supplies. 

Went to Harris and Neville’s in early evening for dinner with two of their other friends—Alex Cohen and Nancy Nichols. 

Nancy and Neville have known each other for years. Nancy and her husband Joel Leffert were both working actors when they met, and Joel is still one of a tiny minority who has been able to cobble together a career out of regional theater, understudy work, small parts in major plays, large parts in minor plays, and the occasional lines in Law and Order (the bread and butter of New York actors, until the program finally ended after 20 years). Right now, Joel is in San Francisco until next October understudying five actors in the Harry Potter musical.  Nancy had been an ideal ingénue: petit, cute, blonde with blue eyes and a big singing voice that got her roles into her thirties. She and Joel also put together a small Shakespeare company in the city, which they managed, directed, and acted in for years, with Nancy and Neville constructing the costumes. However, after adopting two biological siblings, Joel and Nancy needed a reliable income and benefits, so she left theater work and found an administrative job at CUNY where she worked for 16 years. Tonight she celebrated both her 70^th birthday and her retirement, and, having outlived the ingénue curse, she wants to act again. She’s a soothing and funny presence and I was glad to see her. 

Alex is a freelance writer, and she met Harris and Neville a few years ago after interviewing Harris for a small art publication. Among her writing assignments is reviewing Broadway plays for another small on-line magazine, and shortly after they met, she asked Neville to go with her to the next one she was reviewing, free tickets. Lucky Neville became Alex’ “date” from then on, seeing shows like Hamilton with exorbitant price tags that are impossible to get tickets for.  Alex is not a soothing presence, however. Although she has attractive features that have held up well after 60 years, she has a loud barking voice that dominates a conversation with obvious ideas. An eagerness to please and loneliness is translucent under all that assertive persistence, and she has not been successful with men.  Alex has been very kind to me during my illness, however, sending me interesting novels, and she loves Willie. Mostly, she makes me sad. 

At dinner I became bored and irritated after Harris interrupted an interesting talk that Neville, Nancy, and I were having about videos we've been streaming, He wanted to recount a long stoned description of his friend's funeral, which was poignant but I'd heard it three or four times already, and I didn't know the friend or his two wives who reconciled while dumping baggies of their late husband's ashes under a cathedral of pines in the Catskills. So I was still irritated when he rambled on and I snapped at him. ”So where’s the segue?” 

He stopped.  “What?”

“The segue between the conversation that Neville, Nancy and I were having about streaming and your friend's funeral.” 

Harris laughed. “No segue.” He then added, “I wanted to eat some of the ashes.”

I forgave him immediately.  He had shifted the conversation to weird and interesting.  “What? Eeuuu. No you didn’t.” 

“I did. I wanted to taste my friend's body.”

“But it’s ashes and bone. It has no taste.” Alex remarked sensibly, although I thought this was beside the point.

“They do it in other cultures,” Harris argued, not sensibly.

“New Guinea! And they get kuru.” I pointed out.

Alex asked what kuru was and Nancy and I both exclaimed at once that it was like mad cow disease.”

“I just want a taste a little bit.” Harris said. 

The idea of Harris tasting my ashes was horrifying. I turned to Michael, “Keep him away from my baggie.” 

Willie called me toward the end of dinner, and I left the room to answer because of concern that he might have emotionally tanked. Fortunately, he was in good spirits, had visited his friend Alex in Bayside during the week and gone to an all-you-can eat Korean barbecue restaurant. And today he saw the Rosary Ladies, a group of Haitian and Hispanic older women who regularly meet at a church in the Lower East Side to pray and slide beads together. Will had started doing his rosary at their church after his conversion. Being possibly the only young man to join this practice ever, as well as being kind and a potential priest, they became cult like followers, even after he quit the seminary. (I met them once and was congratulated for being his mother with more enthusiasm than for anything else I've done ever.) He told them about Samantha and her rejection today and how sad he felt. One of the Haitian women said, “This is Jesus showing you how you broke his heart when you left him.” Wow. When Catholicism sings like that there’s no other religion like it.

As we drove home, Michael said he believed Harris was putting everyone on when he expressed interest in the ashes as a snack, but I’m not so sure. He’s an incorrigible romantic and sensualist. Whatever his motives, however, his support of cannibalism did liven up the evening. 

Sunday December 8

The new renters of our old apartment in the barn came by: Farrell Brickhouse, an expressionist painter, and his wife Beverly Peterson, a documentarian. Only a little younger than we are, I'm interested in knowing them better. Went into town for grilled cheese and tomato soup at Grazin'. The sandwich was costly and a little bland. Inspired by the movie Ford vs Ferrari, I spent afternoon watching a documentary on Carroll Shelby as a fact checker. Later I made sausage-stuffed acorns. After dinner we watched the end of The Accident, a British drama with Sarah Lancashire one of my favorite actresses.

Monday December 9

I don't cook at the Army on Mondays, but their regular volunteer couldn't make it, and Darcy and Ria are drowning in Kettle Season, so I told them Friday I could make it. My plan was to make it easy with a one-pot meal of rice, chicken and sausage. I made the mistake on Friday, however, of asking them to set aside drumsticks instead of boneless thighs or breasts. Cutting meat off the legs, with all their sinews, was slow and tedious, particularly with our bad knives, and I ended up with dismal shards of dark meat, to join the rice and sausage.  I found boxes and boxed of donated carrots in the cooler, which I decided would make an easy vegetable to roast. Unfortunately, I didn't turn the oven temperature high enough and they weren't soft by the time service started. (This was a stupid mistake. Our oven never heats high enough unless we dial it all the way up). Since I was by myself, while I cooked I listened on my IPhone to the latest episode of the House impeachment hearings. I’m afraid that Trump's guilt is being diluted by these long-winded hearings, and that the corruption and criminality implicit in the evidence are not obvious enough to feed the public's greed for drama. Darcy was in and out delivering kettles looking exhausted, as was I by the end of service. Not a lot of diners, and I thought the food was mediocre at best, but three of them wanted seconds, so that was gratifying. Home to my bathtub. 

Hard rain in the early evening, when I picked up Michael at the train station from his dentist appointment in New York.  As he leaned into the car, he told me, somewhat sheepishly, that he had sat next to Steve Dunn for the ride north, who asked if we could drive him ride home. Michael added that he wanted to apologize to me. The rain was unrelenting and Steve only lived a few blocks from the station, so it would have been churlish and mean-spirited to refuse.  Michael gestured over to him, who was crouching pathetically in the downpour under the station lights. He splashed over, rattling on about something as he ducked into the back seat. 

When he was settled in, he muttered, "I want to apologize for the other night.' It was not convincing.

I looked back at him, “You were horrible,” I said. “I was wrestling with the computer and you just kept yelling at me. I was very tense. You made it worse.” That ended the apology talk.  

He turned the subject toward Virginia and his support for her as BOE commissioner, as if that made up for his abuse the night she was nominated by the CCDC. I said I liked her personally but thought she had made too many mistakes in the November election. He babbled on until we dropped him off at a house he owns on State Street, the poor side of town, which he likes to point out. Rumor is that he has a lot of money. I have rarely been subjected to male abuse but the verbal battering I got from him at the Commissioner election still remains with me. I usually feel sorry for people I dislike—a reverse arrogance—particularly when they are a physical wreck, but I have no pity for gnarly Steve.

Michael and I got together with Tim Hollis later at Helsinki. He talked about his strange difficult Polish girlfriend, and then went on to describe work that he did at Siemens, one of the modern kingdoms that rules the world, reducing the 6% interest on a multi-billion Euro debt with lower rates from multiple loans from multiple banks. The pressure from additional global projects only increased after this until he finally burned out last year, moving back here full time, restoring his Hudson house, managing its apartment, and taking care of an aging aunt. Given that he's young and noticing the excitement in his voice while describing his successful massive debt reduction, I can't imagine that he will live at this slow upstate pace indefinitely.

Tuesday December 10

Woke up and was too exhausted to move. Cooking yesterday did me in and I had to skip it today. Lee and Tom are coming this afternoon, so if I did cook this morning, I'd be comatose by the time they arrived.

Went to Cascades for lunch and had a conversation with two women at the next table, Eileen Weglarz, our local Episcopal minister, and her companion, who is Catholic. The church has a midnight mass at Christmas, which I’d like to go to if I get up the energy and Michael will drive me. Rev. Weglarz told us that her sermon will be based on a picture she saw of a church in California, where, instead of a crèche, three cages had been set, with Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus in each one to represent the treatment of immigrants at the border. Very strong.  I talked to them for such a long time that Michael had to yell. “Sister!” as a reminder that Lee was due to arrive. We got home just as they did.

Lee and Tom are always ready to perform if they anticipate any size audience. I joked earlier that they would probably bring their instruments with them, even though they were spending the night with just Michael and me. But there they were, his guitar and her mandolin, leaning against the wall in the mudroom. 

Tom explained that they wanted to rehearse a Christmas concert they were hosting for their numbers and would we preview it.  “I’m not sure about it.” For the first time ever, I heard Tom being uncertain about performing.  And, he wasn’t wrong, since it could be interpreted as presumptuous to invite neighbors to a concert where only Lee and Tom are playing.  I thought, however, that might not be a bad idea for neighborhood Christmas party, if it was short and lots food and wine followed. 

Tom developed this plan after he discovered instrumentals arrangements of several carols specifically for the guitar and mandolin.  He was eager to learn them, but also, typically, wanted an audience to hear them. 

They played for us in the afternoon. It ran too long and although they included vocals for a few carols, it was too heavy on the instruments. Also, Lee is less skilled on the mandolin than Tom is on the guitar and unfortunately her instrument predominated. I was reminded of the piano recitals when she and I were young, and our fingers had become very strong from milking the goats. Dad would say proudly at the end, “You girls were the loudest!” I suggested that Tom might play closer to the mic and Lee further back to balance the sound.  Tom, never shy, was pleased with that recommendation.  I also suggested they shorten the carols, particularly those that were strictly instrumental (five verses without lyrics is onerous) and that they might add vocals to more songs. They took my comments cheerfully. A shorter concert with more singing could make a very pleasant introduction to the holidays and to neighbors who might not know each other.  

I made a soup with Asian chicken meatballs, kale, and reconstituted mushrooms. Lee and I talked about our various kids and grandkids, who are all doing ok except for her son Jim, whose bipolar disorder is currently spiking his Facebook posts with delusions and extreme right wing sentiments.  He's also sending crazy emails to Lee, filled with vitriol and resentment, which she's taking very hard. It is impossible for her to objectify Jim’s attacks that so clearly originate with his disease. She continues to insist that his fury at her and at the world is something he can control with common sense. And she doesn’t consider that the somewhat wanton sexual behavior of our youth might have had a less than healthy effect on our children. Married at sixteen with four kids by the time she was 21 did nothing to jumpstart her adulthood.  Her husband Matt was borderline abusive and negligent, although to be fair he was 17 when they were married and had been employed, although low paid, consistently after that. With four kids and Matt's low income, they were very poor, but managed with some minimal subsistence from Mom and Dad.  Lee emotionally survived her life at home by existing in a cocoon of mental haze around which her kids spun out. She effectively survived outside the home by getting her BA and Masters in education, financed by our parents. When she was 28, Matt told her he was in love with a local beauty queen, and she happily kicked him out. She got a job working for the teachers union and lived in a communal situation for a couple of years, hooking up with George, a good-natured physics grad student.  He was in love, she wasn't and she dropped him peremptorily when she met Tom, whom she married and then went on to get a law degree when she was 40. Through it all Wendy, her daughter and the oldest, served as her brothers' caretaker, which trained her to become a super mother later on to three handsome, great sons. Danny, Lee's youngest, buffered by his older siblings, grew up with a dry wit to marry well and produce a beautiful daughter who is now working for a bank and living in Manhattan with her own apartment.  Jim and Tommy, Lee's middle two boys, became troubled. Tommy became a criminal after leaving home at 16. Jim’s illness didn’t manifest itself until much later, stabilized for a long time by a steady kind friend and a stint in the Navy's submarine service. When it did Lee was supportive for years, taking him back home when his illness became extreme and sending him money. It’s only recently that Jim has turned against her and used those early years as a bludgeon, which confuses and angers her. (My relationship with Jill in its occasional rags is my own lesson in memory differentials between mother and child.) 

After dinner we watched opening episodes of two programs, one they recommended (Art of the Crime) and one we did (Schitt’s Creek).

Wednesday December 11

Went to breakfast at Cascade’s, after which Lee and Tom headed out. In the afternoon I had an appointment with my gynecologist Dr. Marici, who declared my ass free of lichen sclerosis. I spent the rest of the day reading and sitting. Very lazy. We didn’t even watch anything at night. I had a dream in which I was hanging around with two handsome guys in a warehouse-like space in lower Manhattan. I heard one of the young men say to the other that he’d probably sleep with me. I thought, “Doesn’t he know I'm 76?” The next moment I’m running along the street past old brownstones and other residential buildings built in the nineteenth century, happy and thinking, ”I’m back in New York! Thank god, I’m back in New York.”  This dream is obviously about my physical youth, not returning to contemporary Manhattan.

Thursday December 12

An email from Jillian gave good news that her medical tests were normal.

Cold and clear today. Julia Wilson's magic chiropractic hands relieved some of the winter ache, but I’m still tired and sore.  I had vague intentions to do some Christmas shopping in Hudson, but didn’t find a parking place, so I went home.  Am feeling lazy, sluggish, and mildly depressed.  I don’t want to do anything worthy or far from my computer. 

Forced myself to walk up and down the drive and then over to the pond, which made me cheerier. The pond is filled with iced-over water flowing out through the ditch at the end.  Maybe if I’m still alive in the summer, the water level will be high enough to swim even if Paul doesn't fix the outflow.  Another reason to live. 

Went to Ca Mea for dinner, and had salmon. I told Michael how depressed I was, with no interest in anything and unhappy about Willie, the upcoming radiation treatments, and not seeing any kids for Christmas, with it possibly being my last. Just gloomy.  I skipped an Executive Committee meeting last night. I don't care about politics, burned out by Gene's campaign and Steve Dunn’s crazy attack. I agreed, when Carl Atkins asked me, to help him with a report on health care for the Democrat Issues subcommittee, but I have no urge to dig into this or research the issues on criminal justice reform or addiction, which I promised to do. 

Speaking of Gene, his wife Donna is leaving him after Christmas, he just had cosmetic surgery for man boobs, which, he said, only showed him how big his belly was, and he is suffering from a severe hiatal hernia. And he lost the DA race. Maybe I should stop complaining.

I meditated later and felt better. Another New York dream. I was walking with someone at night along an avenue lined with spectacular gleaming white marble mansions, sweeping upward in exaggerated Renaissance style. The person with me said they had just been cleaned. Again, I had a strong feeling of satisfaction and happiness at living in New York again.

Friday December 13

The Board of Supervisors in Hudson voted against Virginia Martin last night, who only got three votes out of 20. That means nomination process starts all over again with the CCDC; we can't recommend Virginia again, so it looks good for Erin.  

My hair became a sudden emergency and I drove into town where Ken cut it back into shape. He updated me on his new doublewide mobile home, which he loves. Before we moved upstate, the snob in me thought of mobile homes only as the last refuge between destitution and homelessness. It didn't occur to me that living in a trailer park could be a positive. But in these rural places, where there are few affordable houses for sale, this is a totally acceptable form of home ownership, doublewides having two or more bedrooms, large interior spaces, and opportunities for gardens. Ken showed me pictures of his place, with a kitchen like my own—a long table in its center, appliances lined up under the window, and pantry shelves opposite them. Original rugs and antique furnishings warmed up the living spaces. And he pays only $750 a month for everything. “I can live on my social security here.” Nice. And my hair looks sane again. He told me I had a great head of hair, about which I have mixed feelings since at some point he'll probably have to shave it off again.

Worked this afternoon on the issues report on addiction, which got me out of my slump. Later Michael called upstairs to tell me Dave and Janet were coming by. Janet had her brain MRI this morning at Sloan. Since she never comes by I was sure the results were bad or at the least complicated and they were looking to talk over the options. Instead I was happy to learn that the two brain tumors had shrunk slightly and she is looking at radiotherapy both for her brain and her lungs, which also harbor two small and shrinking tumors. Neither of us are doing New Years Eve. I said I might have a dinner on Michael’s and my 30th anniversary on the 27th and they were welcome if they were around, She will just be back from California that day, so we are all relieved to have an excuse not to socialize. When she first came in the door and I thought the news might be grimmer than it was I hugged her without thinking. She was a friend for years and it’s an old habit. Were no longer friends, but we aren't enemies either.

I swamped two steaks in the sous vide, and made rice and broccoli for dinner. Watched the French detective series Art and Crime after. This was a better day than yesterday.