July 4-10. Letter to My Professor, Wendy's Covid Stress Move

Saturday July 4

 Slept till ten, No fireworks. No BBQs. Just Trump spreading intolerance and lies. Can we recover?

 

Out to the garden for sweaty weeding, lunch, and then editing my diary. I’m up to the first week of quarantine in mid-March and Killick's death. During that week I told Jeremy to call me every day and he has been.  He might be getting a little tired of it, but I like hearing from him and know he's ok. 

 

Still not talking to Jill. It just makes me feel terrible. I don’t know what to do,

 

Went into the pond. So restorative with my dragonfly protectors dashing in to grab the merciless black flies hunting my big white whale body floating around aimlessly. Michael walked down just as I was getting out and we went up the meadow path to the drive pulling out the dreaded knapweed. I checked the raspberries along the edge of the brush across the drive. Almost enough to pick. There should be a lot next year but probably not a lot of me. I have to fight the fatigue now all the time. I’m not getting better. Constantly have to push myself. 

 

Milkweed is pretty prolific this summer, but the only butterflies I see are those annoying white cabbage moths, frenetic and darting about like little yappy dogs. 

 

Sitting on the deck now reading Dorothy. 

 

Made leftover chicken and watched North by Northwest in honor of Trump's absurd Mount Rushmore speech. Carrie Grant and Eva Marie Saint are pleasures—not even guilty-- and help mellow out this grotesque year's non-celebration of the Fourth of July. Michael dozed through the beginning of the movie but was mostly awake for most of it. When I see him nod off I shout to him that he’s asleep. He's lifts is head and insists he's awake and watching the movie.  I think he believes this, because often he'll start to describe the plot, which has nothing to do with the real film, more of a dream he's been having. I used to be annoyed because I thought I had to start the movie or episode from the beginning but I realize now that he doesn't really care about the narrative so I just continue on. (He generally stays awake if a movie involves lots of weapons and or car chases.)

 

 I’m missing live people and don’t know how to reintroduce them into my life. As I feared, given the national spikes in the virus, New York is starting to rise again. 

 

The moon is beyond full by one night, still brilliant and annoying, keeping me awake as usual.  I have to believe there's some tidal pull on the nerves that run down the back of my calves and make them twitchy.

 

Sunday July 5

We went down to the river this morning and met up with Richard, Geoff, and Liz, whom we hadn’t seen since March. We were there to watch the destroyer escort Slater slide by on its way between Albany and New York. Richard Wallace has been volunteering on this ship for a few years, giving tours and helping make repairs.  It’s now heading for the city to go into dry dock down there for additional fixes. Richard was supposed to ride with it but the virus killed this adventure, as it has so many others, so he watched it with the rest of us. It was beautiful down by the river. I don't know why we don't go there more often.  We stayed for a while and talked to Richard for a while. We then went to La Gamin h for the first time in months. Tables have been set up outside and everyone was wearing masks. I’ve so missed it. 

 

I shot off an email to Jill with a link to an article I thought she might like and a neutral question about how she is. She responded with a very nice email describing what she did yesterday and a skirmish she’s having with some ex Jefferson relatives. So we’re back on neutral ground. This makes me happy. \

 

Dave dropped by in the afternoon. 

 

I finished weeding the garden, and was delighted to be able to pick sorrel and some spicy mustard greens to use in a steak and soba salad for dinner. We sat on the deck and with some trepidation let Stevie out to cautiously explore the area next to it. She didn’t go far, but I know it’s only a matter of time before she heads into the brush. 

 

Got an email from Carrie forwarding an attack on her minutes by Greg Vogler. This is getting absurd. 

 

Watched Better Things. 

 

Then I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote an email to my favorite college professor (still alive) to end a 55-year guilt trip. This is what I wrote:

 

Dear Dr. Herrnstein Smith,

In 1963 I took a course from you at Bennington on Milton, Pope, and Keats, which was transformative for me. To this day I still have my copy of Paradise Lost and my scribbled notes in the margins on the exuberance of Hell and the fallacy of falling in love with Satan. After Milton’s dramatic iambic Pope’s constricted couplets seemed dried up and contrived to us, so we dismissed him at first with some snarky comments. Then you appeared in class with an elegant lecture that convinced us of his own specific depth and beauty, which changed not only my thinking about Pope but how the textures of language could layer emotion so differently from one poet to another. Keats was easy after that. 

 

And then I failed you. Another student and I sublet your apartment on East seventh and Avenue A for the summer, during which I met two handsome Australian boys who were charming their way around the world. They came over to the apartment one night, and when I returned to Bennington in the fall you asked, “Did you make a call to Australia?” I was horrified. The cost was $30, I was on scholarship, and this was an impossible amount of money for me, so I lied. “Gosh no.” You let it go. My dishonesty after your gift of that class has bothered me for nearly 60 years. Therefore I finally Googled and found that you are still listed at Duke. I am therefore sending you a check for $100, still probably less than that phone call would now be worth and so not totally repaying the debt, but maybe I’ll finally stop repeating Pope’s line, “and round and round the ghosts of beauty glide, haunting the places where their honor died”. Not quite apropos but close enough. Thank you for that wonderful class.

Regards,

Carol Peckham 

Class of 1965,

 

Monday July 6

 Got a surprising response from my old professor. 

 

"Thanks for the charming but, I think, misplaced confession. Your recollections of the Milton, Pope and Keats class are wonderfully accurate (and those lines from Pope are indeed endlessly haunting), but I recall no such sublet and cannot imagine when I could have had such an apartment (in, I gather, NYC). I should also note that, although I retain "professor emerita" status at Duke, I'm no longer located there, having moved to Maine several years ago. So, if you've mailed your check and it finds its way to me from some office at Duke, I shall, as its improper recipient, simply destroy it. But your message will continue to bring me delight.”

 

So I answered, "Well that’s peculiar. Is it possible you knew someone who had the apartment and you told us about it? Actually I think that may have been the case. Your mentioning the phone call was indelible and I don’t think that was a false memory, although over time I must have given you ownership of the place. In any case I have always wanted you to know what a powerful effect that peculiar and wonderful class had on my thinking. And it’s a wonderful relief that I cheated someone else and not you. I sent the check to the Maine address on your website. Please accept it with my ancient thanks."

 

She in turn did remember friends who lived in the lower east side so the exchange ended happily, with my memory only falsifying Dr. Smith's ownership of the apartment but not the phone bill itself. At least I wasn’t totally demented. 

 

She was only about ten years older than the girls in our class, which makes her about 85.  When I Googled her, I was happy to see that her later career, with many awards and highly cited papers, justified my academic crush on her. I was happy to bring closure to my guilt, but the experience confirmed how inaccurate memory is.  The question for this one being why I would chose to invent a betrayal of someone I so admired.  

 

Went raspberry picking, with few berries and very rough and hot walking. Jumped into the pond afterward, and the water was too warm but still good to paddle in. 

 

Stevie escapes now when we are on the deck, and tonight she wandered down the path stalking a pair of deer at the end of it. They must have turned toward her and she realized she was out of her hunt depth because she suddenly hurtled back, jumped on the deck, and batted on the door to be let back inside.  

 

Sausage with sautéed summer squash for dinner

 

Watched Better Things, 

 

Tuesday July 7

 Ordered copies of leaflets describing the SNAP program to deliver to the food pantries for distribution to clients.

 

Patty called and suggested that we celebrate Lee's 80^th birthday with separate videos from family and friends. She and Dominique would put them together. I tried but couldn't figure out how to put together a slideshow with photos of Lee and a narrative.  Instead I created a video for her, which I think worked out ok, which used Thackeray's Rose and the Ring as a metaphor for her life.  Sent it off to patty and she liked it even though it was long. 

 

Very humid today. Tried to find more raspberries on the south side of our property but they were green, small, and dismal.

 

Didn’t want to cook so we picked up food from Ca Mea, which was unexpectedly awful. I had super tough chicken parm and Michael’s papperdelle, which was overwhelmed with tree ears. 

 

Watched John Stewart’s movie Irresistible, a parody on our current political nightmare, which has a low Metacritic score but we thought it was smart and important. I guess the critics who didn’t like it wanted bathroom jokes and Steve Corell mugging at the camera.  

 

Wednesday July 8

Picked up the leaflets and spent the afternoon counting and organizing them for the food pantries. Each pantry is open on different days and they are scattered all over the county. 

 

I actually called into the CCDC Officer's meeting this morning to discuss how to avoid attacks on the minutes that Carrie and I do. Had very cordial exchange with Brenda Gevertz. No point in holding grudges. 

 

Defrosted turkey burgers for dinner and we ate on the deck, watching Stevie cavort around it. Periodically she’d freak out from some strange taste, smell, or crawly creature and leap back up the stairs, but, unfortunately, each night she’s getting braver and braver.

 

Watched Better Things and a Chopped episode with soup kitchen chefs.

 

Thursday July 9 

 

Delivered leaflets today to a few pantries, including the Army.  It was so good to see Charlie and Jay, but whose cirrhotic belly looks worse than ever. Talked to Darcy a little, who said she's spoken to Faye about coming back in two weeks and working Thursdays with Jessica. I called Faye later on, who's uneasy about coming back in two weeks and her kids don’t want her to. I'll wait a few weeks to see if New York is going to spike up. 

 

We went to Relish for lunch, and later in the afternoon I dropped leaflets off at the Episcopal Church for the Recovery Kitchen drivers to distribute with the daily dinners.

 

The afternoon was hot too hot to do anything outside. 

 

The British woman from the ersatz Food Insecurity Group sent a proposal for creating a new county job that would organize distribution of produce. She paid no attention to the presence of Long Harvest Table, a real organization that actually does this.  I need to slip out of this group.  \

 

Went over to Dave’s at 6:30 for wine, which was really nice. Janet was in the city. I love our chaos meadow, but it's very pleasant to look out on their carefully planted and sculptured landscape. He and Janet are thinking of selling their apartment and buying one with an elevator access. Everyone is avoiding the possible reality that Janet (and I) might not be around next year, but it's not bad to hover on denial. 

 

Watched Better Things. 

 

Friday July 10 

Spent the morning at the computer. 

 

Dave gave me a physical therapy exercise that had helped his mother, which is to sit in a chair and then stand up and down 10 times in a row, four times a day. I did it this morning and it seemed to do some good//

 

Drove to Kingston and across Roundout Creek to see the house that Harris and Neville want to buy. It's about 100 years old and cute, but sits in the middle of a shabby town that looks like it was frozen in 1950, supported by three marinas along the waterfront with small weather-abused houses shuffling along the streets. No stores. No restaurants.  I hope someone who lives there listens to NPR or at least watches CNN. 

 

Home to work on a financial spreadsheet for the Recovery Kitchen.

 

Made chicken tacos for dinner. Inspired by Jeremy we rewatched Anchorman, which was pretty funny.

Wendy called, anxious and stressed.  Alan has gotten a job in Connecticut and they will be moving there from Wisconsin, where they've lived and where Wendy has been happy for about five years.  They have been in Connecticut this week looking at houses and planning to stay through Lee's birthday. She was weeping while she told me she had broken out in a rash, has chest pain, and is afraid she has covid. She's getting tested in the morning and then she and Alan are driving back to Wisconsin because she doesn't want to infect her mother. I told her that these symptoms sounded like stress, not covid. They have to sell their house in Wisconsin, where she's been living happily, and then find a place in Connecticut, where she grew up but hasn't lived in for over 20 years. It's possible going back to live near her mother and old high school friends may not be that easy a transition

June 27-July 3. Willie to the City, Harris and Neville Buy a House

Saturday June 27

 

Only record today was a dream. Had the recurrent dream of being with Joe again and feeling that sense of home. This time Michael and I were in the same house as he was, and I saw them together. In comparison, Joe seemed skinny and frail and Michael seemed very solemn and strong (Old Testament?). When I woke up I was filled with love for my husband. Dorothy Day effect?

 

Sunday June 28

 

Took Willie to Wappinger's Falls to drop him off for a friend’s deacon ordination. After it's over a former fellow seminarian who is also there, will drive him to Scarsdale, where another former seminarian is performing his first mass. Then he’s heading for the city and spending the weekend with the alter family. Virus is spiking all over the country. It's low in New York but how long will that last? All these religious crowds make me nervous. 

 

On the way down, we needed to stop for breakfast. We were driving through Rhinebeck where the main street was studded with tables for outside dining. I suggested we stop and Willie shouted, “This town is full of Chestneys." I then remembered that this is where Samantha's family lived and it was possible she was quarantining with her family as Willie was with us. So we traveled on and found a small breakfast place in Hyde Park. The staff and other diners were all wearing masks and there was small table outside. After we sat down, a woman charged out of the restaurant and tore off her mask. "Thank god," she said, "Why the hell are we still wearing these?" I pointed out the rising numbers in the states where people weren't. "Oh, those numbers are all lies." And she disappeared into the parking lot before I could come up with some effective response that would change her mind and vote forever. Who are these people? And what twisted thought processes lurked in the crevasses of their minds? Trump has created a cult of nearly 40% of the country. He speaks. They believe. 

 

After we dropped Willie off at the church and headed north, we stopped at Samuel Morse's Locust Grove Estate, where we went for a very brief hot walk. Arthritis acting up today as well. 

 

At home I sent the results of my pantry survey to the formless food insecurity group. Edited a diary entry from March when we toured Troy's historic district where several teenage traumas had occurred and composed a more formal essay out of it. After searching for Cluett Peabody, which manufactured Arrow Shirts and where Dad worked, I found an article about their factories in Minnesota, which were responsible for about 2000 jobs, mostly for women, and helped to salvage the state's economy after its iron mines failed. Although the Amalgamated Clothing Workers had unionized them, the pay for women was still lower than for men, and so provided the cheap labor Cluett was looking for. Former miners expressed resentment in the article that women were supporting the economy. Interviews with a couple long-time female workers suggested that they generally liked the work and took pride in it. They echoed Faye's recollections of her factory work in Hudson, which she took pride in. "It beat the cotton fields." Occasionally Dad took trips to Duluth, which he never talked about and were marked by general glumness at home and Swanson chicken potpie dinners (with very little chicken). Meeting him at the airport was always a joy, because his presence cheered everyone up and he usually brought back small presents (although I can't imagine or remember what they were.)

 

Willie called, having had a miserable day filled with Samantha associations. He's been isolated with us for three months, and suddenly hyper-exposed to old friends and places that they had known together. I don't want to tell him that it took me twenty years and two marriages to get over my first broken heart. 

 

Reading on with Dorothy Day. We had chili tonight. 

 

Michael and I were alone for the first time after three months He got stoned and I watched Marvel's Agents of Shield while he dozed.

 

Monday June 29

 

Protests in Washington Square outside Richard Ex's building last night. Hope Willie comes back soon.

 

Dorothy Day is opening my brain. 

 

We ran errands, including dump run, a visit to the meat automat, CVS for my new and costly incontinence drug, and then to Kohl's to return the second terrifying not fun Mini-Dragon Garden Torch.

 

Had a late lunch so no dinner. It was a lazy evening with me watching cooking shows while Michael browsed car porn, 

 

Harris and Neville called. Harris, at 82, and Neville, at 70-ish, are become house owners for the first time in their lives. Very exciting and scary. We had a long stoned and drunken conversation with them about the whole process. 

 

 

Wednesday July 1

 

Went to the supermarket, which generally is the most exciting event in this Covid-isolated time. 

 

Worked on CCDC lists. Watched Cuomo‘s latest briefing, which blasted both Trump and De Blasio. New York has managed to reduce its cases to an almost normal level, but with the country spiking all around us and New Yorkers getting tired of compliance, it's unlikely we can maintain these levels, even with Father Cuomo's daily badgering.

.

Very hot this afternoon and Michael urged me to jump in the pond, since the algae have gone, but I'm still uneasy with its low depth and in any case I felt lazy. After a hot and gimpy walk to look for raspberries, however, I changed my mind. So I pulled an orange sundress over my head, walked down to the pond and jumped in. It was a little weedy and two feet lower than it should be, but it was swimmable and felt wonderful. We need rain and if we don't get a good drenching soon, this is probably the last time I'll go int. 

 

Made chicken for dinner. 

 

We went upstairs to stream a movie. Michael had drunk too much wine and smoked too much dope and when I looked at him after turning the computer on, he was unconscious. After the last experience, I knew he wouldn't die, but I am not rational about this. Part of me was frightened but most of me was furious that he would lose such control again, so I hit him, partly to jar him awake but mostly because my mother emerged in a rage. He woke up a few minutes later and wandered around, not remembering me hitting him. That doesn’t excuse me, speaking of losing control. I'm no Dorothy day.

 

Thursday July 2

 

Made lunch for Harris and Neville: salad from celery, red peppers, cherry tomatoes, onions, goat cheese, and chickpeas; cucumber, yogurt, and avocado soup; and turkey burgers. The conversation focused on their upcoming house and how they want to fix it up. Harris is flush right now from sales of his art early this year to a Turkish real estate dealer in Los Angeles, but as always there's no telling where the next dollar coming from. Neville is making beautiful ceramics, but no money. On the positive side, the taxes and mortgage on the house are significantly less than the rent for their current apartment.  Company with friends is so rare these days, and it was really nice to have them over but I had to take a nap after they left. 

 

Friday July 3

 

Feeling fatigued and achy but we drove to The Mount in Stockbridge, and I hobbled around Edith Wharton’s beautiful gardens, so lovely now, particularly the spectacular Gothic folly, with its stone walls coated cool green leaves and sprites of tiny white flowers, and, in the center, a small fountain surrounded by drifts of green hostas and white lacy flowers. The house was closed but the cafe was open on the wide porch that swung around it. We had lemonade and mediocre sandwiches, which were welcome after the muggy day we waded through. 

 

At home, I was very sleepy but I fought a nap and watched a moving documentary about Nora Effron. I will also be grateful for her novel Heartburn, it's humor and embedded recipes keeping me distracted and sane while Willie was in intensive care the days after his birth. I talked to grown up Willie, who is getting dental and physical checkups while he's in the city. Says he’ll be back next weekend. I talked to Richard too, and offered to put his Coney Island poem on Kindle if he got some I’ve to type it. Maybe I’ll do it myself. I can always dictate it into notes first. It's so good. I hate to see it lost in time. 

 

Made a steak for dinner and watched Marvel and Pamela Adlon's Better Things, a funny tough series about raising three daughters alone. It was originally co-produced and co-written with Louis CK, but the collaboration ended after his sad and weird scandal. 

June 20-26. Food Insecurity and Democrat Weariness

 Saturday June 20

Woke up early, had breakfast, and then went back to bed again. 

Did some diary editing but it was too hot to go out until late afternoon. 

Continued reading Kindle novel from thriller series by Chahm McDonnell with appealing drunken Irish protagonist. Good writing. Realized after reading a couple chapters that I had already read four books in the series but totally forgotten them. 

Took a walk to the pond and was wistful about not being able to swim. Drought has brought the level even lower than the broken outlet had achieved. Algae is scattered all over and pond weeds are growing up beneath the surface. 

Out on the deck with Michael. Watched Mother turkey striding down the path with seven chicks! I think she may be the one from last year. An excellent mom. Black eyed Susan’s and milkweed starting to bloom. 

Had leftover pasta for dinner and watched Agents of Shield—final season.

 

Sunday June 21

Hot again. Hate drought. I revert to my childhood when we seemed to run out of water every year, with at least one summer our inadequate well going dry so that we had to lug water in buckets down from our neighbor's spring. Dad was too worried about the cost of digging a new well.  Mom performed witchy divining with a cherry branch, targeting waters all across the front yard. When I tried it I could feel the weird pull of the tip down to the earth. Very peculiar.  Still, Dad never got up the nerve to pay a well digger.  After we moved the new owners did, and six feet down they found all the water they ever needed. Here we struck water gold--an artesian well. Still I hate a drought.

 

Went to Kingston so that Michael could deposit Art Science Code checks for Geoff. Willie was with us and we decided to drive home on the west side of the river and fine some place for lunch. Going through Saugerties we passed The Tavern, a restaurant that overlooks the Esopus Creek and a waterfall. A sign claimed outdoor dining so we stopped. The place had a wide veranda and the waitress placed us in a section with no people, so it felt protective.  The food was pricey but good and it was so cheery to eat near other people next to a waterfall. Our first restaurant since the quarantine.  It made me very happy. Willie ordered an absurd cocktail and was woozy all afternoon. 

 

Back home I emailed the ridiculous food insecurity group and described the Harvest Long Table, an organization that already exists collecting and distributing farm produce to pantries and kitchens. I also sent a draft of a survey I thought would be useful to send to various pantries to identify the extent of need in the county, but got no response. Annoying. 

 

Had wine on the deck and watched mother turkey and her seven chicks. Grilled chicken breast and I made a salad. Watched Agents of Shield.

 

Monday June 22

 

Patty called this morning from a horse show that she's working and wanted advice for a friend of hers who has stage four liver cancer. She also then went on to describe difficulties with Jim, who is having trouble dealing with the house full of quarantined invaders, actually just Dominique and her boyfriend, who is apparently very easy, so the problems mostly lie between Jim and Nicky. The conflicts seem to center around food—who cooks, what they cook, what they can't eat—and what spaces they can use to avoid each other.  Patty isn’t happy with his response to the imposed household, and says he’s being narcissistic. In any case, Jim has escaped and spent most of the past few weeks with his family in New England. We are lucky because there’s a lot of space here, and Michael and Willy get along really well. So no comparison.

 

Played a new cyberpunk game with Willie. Pretty good one. 

 

Very hot again so no gardening. Walked down to the pond and the algae was banked up against the far shore. Of great surprise Michael decided to swim in it. Over 30 years I’ve seen him swim once, and that was very early on in the relationship when he wore a speedo, which I always thought was creepy and generally worn by assholes.  The ostentatious display of his equipment seemed very discordant with my belief in Michael's modesty and lack of vanity and it still does. But I guess he is pretty vain.  He likes his skinniness and probably that bundle of manhood.  He stripped down on the deck and put on his bathrobe. Walking down the path toward the pond the mother turkey and her chicks fearlessly crossed in front of him.  He looked like St Francis.  Animals and babies love him.  When he came back he said he only went out a few feet but couldn’t remember the sidestroke panicked a little. “It’s bigger when you get in than it seems from the land.” Total desert creature. 

 

Michael grilled sausages and I made chopped red cabbage and onion with red wine and gochachang BBQ sauce. I thought I might be able get Willie to eat cabbage, but no.

 

Watched Shield.

 

Tuesday June 23

 

The Today Show is shooting in Hudson's this morning, right under Richard Wallace's window. We don’t have television but Richard sent clips of the nice owners of Oak and la Gamin, where we used to go regularly. Nice boost for businesses. Of course after this dry hot month it’s supposed to rain all weekend. No justice. 

 

Read a study reporting a much higher risk of complications from the virus in people with cancer on immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors. 

 

Don’t know why I am so exhausted. I have absolutely no energy. Did some editing in the afternoon. Michael was off to the Greenport planning board meeting in the evening. I defrosted and heated up something mysterious labeled bean stew, which tasted OK but was pretty much pabulum. 

 

We watched Perry Mason a new HBO series that is pretty dark. It rained during the night. Hooray

 

Wednesday June 24

 

Had a 9 o’clock call with the food insecurity group, which consists, as far as I can tell, of Pam Kline and Carole Clarke from the Recovery Kitchen, Carla Sadoff a nice expat from the city, and Sally the British person, who sounds like an Oxbridge politician out of Monty Python. She is also from the city and she and Carla had a fairly high level jobs and are now retired.  Like me, they are looking to be noisy frogs in our little Columbia County pond. The problem, of course, is the hundreds of aging big frogs have moved up here, all booming at each other in attempts to dominate small organizations. I told him what I had found with in my survey, essentially that the Long Table Harvest was serving the demand for farm produce for most of the pantries. I suggested that someone in the committee get hold of Audrey Berman who is running the organization and identifies herself as "them" on the website.  She is another large amphibian from NYC, but she is doing major work in providing food in the county. I suggested that before the committee drafts the proposal for a county job that is doing what she's doing, that they talk to Berman and check that their efforts aren't redundant and also likely to fail. The British woman is going to go ahead anyway, because as she croaked, the many jobs she's had during her career involved doing this kind of thing. But she’s very busy and she’ll need two weekends to draft this proposal letter, which actually another member has already drafted is on Google Docs. She reminds me of Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh. So I'm planning on sliding out of this group, but before I volunteered to run off 1000 leaflets describing how to apply to the SNAP program, which many families who need food stamps don't know how to do.  A number of pantries that I surveyed would like to hand them out to their clients.  This seemed about the only useful thing our group could do for them.

 

Called into the CCDC officer's meeting, which was all about the absentee voting. My phone kept failing and finally I just hung up, because it was pretty boring and, as the classic robotic secretary, I have nothing to contribute anyway. 

 

Willie and I started a new game, which show promise for being fun.  

 

Then, after lunch Michael and I went to Albany for my appointment with Dr. Luyun. When I got home, I lay in bed totally exhausted again. I think I’m also depressed about Jill. We seem to be not communicating again, and I think the relationship just adds to my exhaustion. I’m just worn out by it.

 

Thursday June 25

 

Took Willie to my haircutter Ken, who cut his hair and, to Willie's delight, described his Assyrian community, growing up in Yonkers. Little interests Willie more than an obscure group of exotic Catholics. 

 

I had an appointment with Dr. Marici, my primary care doc, for an annual physical at the same time. I was, as always, relieved to get 100 on the mini mental test, which is always a stressful reminder of Dad's mental disappearance. The most interesting part of the visit was finding that the nurse and I shared the mixed dominance trait and with the exact handiness (left writing and batting, right cutting, both unsettled about bowling). First person I ever met with this exact trait. I was narcissistically thrilled. 

 

Met up with Willie and we picked up lunch and dinner from Relish. 

Home to weed the vegetable garden bunker from my tractor scoot. Successful and gratifying but hot.  

 

Got an angry call from Stephanie Sussman, who guess is now my former Democrat friend, for not including her presentation in my Executive Committee minutes, which I had distributed to the whole CCDC committee.  Stephanie typically makes a impassioned presentation on something at every meeting.  This last time it involved a battle over the Taconic Hills School Board election process, which her husband Dave is part of. I apologized, made the correction, and Michael sent it out again to the whole committee. It was immensely aggravating. 

 

The full CCDC meeting was tonight on Zoom, and I took the minutes there as usual, but I’m so tired and bored with my political life. So much petty sturm and drang and so many puffed up speeches about the obviously. The only truly useful thing I’ve done since I retired was to cook at the Army, and now I can't. Any current work is dreary and repetitive. Am reading Dorothy Day's biography tonight. I feel like I can walk through her mind but wasn't good enough to live her life. 

 

Friday June 26

Read the Dorothy Day biography this morning. I’ve asked Ginny and Willie to ask her intercede for me so that if I'm cured she can become a saint. I connect with her in some peculiar way as if she already were one. Her own search for a faith and her desire to do good mirrored mine but she actually succeeded because she was willing to make huge personal sacrifices and I never was. 

 

I had my infusion in the early afternoon, a non-event with my nice nurses. 

 

At home, I finished weeding the vegetable garden on my tractor scooped, which was very satisfying. 

 

I have been feeling very dissatisfied with politics and my own banal role as secretary of the Columbia County Democrat Committee.  I wish I could do something with substance, as I did at the Army. I think it’s the only direct way I’ve ever done some good in my whole life. Then in the afternoon I got a call from Carole Clark who asked me to be on the board of the Recovery Kitchen, and I immediately said yes. It felt like an omen.

 

We had burgers for dinner with Willy having the vegetable version because it’s Catholic Friday. Then Michael and I started a forgettable HBO series called Run, and I stayed behind when he went to go to bed and watched a Dorothy Day documentary. It was not impressive but did provide images of her and her friends that made her biography more real.

 

No word from Jill and I’m still reluctant to make any overture myself. I think I’ll just wait for some kind of moment when I’m not feeling conflicted.

June 13-19. Zoom Sam Reunion, Pantry Survey, Garden Weeding

 Saturday June 13

Another gorgeous day. Went out with my Fiscar to incur death on the plantain and dandelion roots. Feeling guilty but all that devastation but must carry on. The herb section of my garden is actually approaching sanity. And the wildflowers that we seeded over the last two years are showing up (even if as specimens or in tiny socially distant pods) in the meadow! Some foxglove has appeared by the vegetable garden joining the coreopsis and daisies already popping up, soon to be accompanied in the meadow by lots of yarrow and milkweed. Maybe there will be enough flowers this year to pick for the house without threatening the species! Their new lives here may make up for my unswimmable algae-matted pond.

 

Did some minor weeding but mostly wasted the day on Facebook.

 

Talked to Faye. We both miss cooking. I’m beginning to hope that I may be able to go in again. Faye has signed up on lists for low-income apartments and is preparing to leave her nice apartment on Warren where she has lived for 30 years. Her building has become a divorce snarl, with the wife wanting ownership and the husband, a NYC developer, fighting her. During the process nothing has been fixed in the building for months, include Faye's broken oven. Nor is he cashing the rent checks. Faye is not sending him cashier checks to make sure there's a record of her payments. The wife has said that if she wins the building custody battle Faye can stay at the same rent and that everything would be fixed. Meanwhile, however, it isn't, the grass in the yard is overgrown, and there’s no one to call for repairs. 

 

 I made a credible Moroccan chicken cooked with sweet potatoes and rhubarb, served with supermarket naan. I picked out tiny mold spots that looked like my radiation tattoos. 

 

Watched two Money Heists.

 

Sunday June 14

Willie at a public mass this morning, which makes me a little nervous. Didn't go with him. New York is waking up and walking out. I’m not sure I'm ready. 

 

Had a Zoom reunion with a dozen old friends from Scientific American. How I like them! All smart and kind and funny. And all doing well. Toby at the New York Times and with a new partner, Nancy at Reuter’s Health writing their by weekly newsletter on Covid, Maureen working at pharma, and Betsy Klarfeld grandmothering! Susan Weismann is the Director of Cardiovascular Medicine at Penn and her husband Doug Reiffler, is the Associate Dean at Temple. They were one or our two successful office romances. The other were Dick Pizer, our printer, and Dana Burns, our art director, as different from each other as sticks and rocks, Dana being Democrat, dyslexia and brilliantly creative and DIck a staunch Republican (although not voting for Trump) and complete linear thinker. Janet Zinn, my brilliant former assistant, who ended up producing our electronic tests at SAM, has since chose to freelance and travel the world with her husband Alan photographing birds and tigers. And Harry lives in the woods in northern Vermont with his father after first moving to Utah and then returning East with the llamas he had raised there, most of who did not survive the East coast ecology. We saw each other’s spaces and everyone looked to me the way they did thirty years ago. How fortunate I was to know these wonderful people and participated in their clever and affectionate lives. 

 

Dawdled in the flower garden in the afternoon, encouraged by the fledgling seeded specimens (liatris, aster, rudbeckia) poking up through the not-seeded fleabane and goldenrod. 

 

Heated up pea soup for dinner. Michael couldn’t stay awake through the Heist so he went to bed and I then wept through Michelle Obama’s documentary about her Becoming tour. Our current follow up First Couple is Incomprehensible. We are such a weird country. Fretted about Jill. I didn’t get to sleep until four and had a vivid dream about Cindy. 

 

Monday June 15

So depressed today about Jill. Her resentment of me will continue beyond my lifetime and any conversations we have until then must be entirely superficial. The love I have for her has no meaning, doesn't connect for her, just as my mother’s has no connection for me. There is no way I can compensate for the two broke marriages and throwaway fathers, nor the career that grew around us all. I don't think I hurl slings and arrows the way Mom did with her impulsive out of the box commentary, but there's enough of her in me to shoot out a few random thoughts that reach through the boundaries. This experience has impelled me to ask my dead mother for forgiveness for my rejection of her, which I expressed in neglect rather than in confrontation, which I knew she would never understand.

 

Toddled about on my tractor scoot pulling weeds and then sat on deck with Michael and wine, having a cheerful talk with Sarah who had badgered a wasp into stinging her on the neck. She seems to be in good spirits in spite of the attack.

 

Willie has moved from the back room into the little house, now that the warm weather no longer makes his head cold. He has in effect disappeared, but he helped make the turkey burgers, which were really good. It's a great recipe, adding a pinch of baking soda, gelatin, soy sauce, parm, and some panko. 

 

Watched The Heist, which Michael more or less stayed awake through.

 

Tuesday June 16

Decent sleep last night. Not as depressed as yesterday although Jill remains unresolved, maybe forever. 

 

Took a walk this morning, another beautiful one, to check on upcoming flowers. The pond is still an algae disaster, so sad to see it all muddled. 

 

Worked most of the day on a press release for getting my Recovery Kitchen press release submitted to various local papers. Also trying to get an interview from local public radio station. Will see. 

 

The evening was cool and beautiful. Michael and I sat on the deck and watched the two turkey moms and four chicks dart around the meadow (one with a very small chick and the other with three larger ones). 

 

Will came down from the little house after we got back from picking up Wunderbar food. 

 

Watched an Eric Rohmer short movie with an unappealing male lead, the first of his six moral tales. We then turned to The Heist, which killed off one of my favorite characters.

 

Wednesday June 18

Off to the supermarket with Willie, who was helpful, but I was knocked out for rest of the day. 

 

Worked on a survey for pantries, which involved dreaded phone calls, and recruited Willie to split the list. A few pantry volunteers actually answered the phone who of course were pleasant and enthusiastic about giving out information on any increased need in demand for food due to the virus. A pantry in new Lebanon actually saw a decrease because of subsidies and unemployment checks. Some people have complained that people won't go back to work because in some cases unemployment checks are higher than their salaries. It would be useful to point out that the moral to this is that these people aren't betting paid enough. 

 

I managed to get my arugula planted next to the house, with Willie hauling good dirt in the wheelbarrow from the compost heap near the vegetable garden. Michael and I were excited to see the delivery of our Mini-Dragons—steel wands that use propane to direct a thin stream of flame onto the weeds. The reviews were great and it looked really easy to use so we ordered two. Michael attached the gas tank to one and set off to fight the intruding vegetation. Unfortunately, after the thin flame stream targeted the offensive weed, the resulting fire then threatened the surrounding field. Michael put it out, and then burned a couple outcroppings in the driveway, which is basically the Mini-Dragon's only safe prey.

 

Michael grilled steak for dinner and I made smashed potatoes and fresh spinach. Watched The Heist, which Michael slept through it so I had to give him the whole plot rundown the next day. 

 

No resolution on whether to write Jill.

 

Willie has an elaborate plan to go back into the city weekend after next, with side trips to Wappinger falls and Scarsdale for two ordinations and to the Bronx to pick up some stuff from the seminary and his apartment. The whole thing makes me nervous. NYC is just opening up. Other states and countries that have been open for a while are seeing a resurgence of cases. Ugh,

 

Thursday June 19

First post-quarantine today. Ken seemed in good spirits and had set up a reasonably secure set-up. One other customer on the other side of the room and everyone in masks. Nice not to be so scraggly.

 

Talked to Lee this morning. She and Tom had dinner with friends last night (so strange that dinners with friends are now exciting and precarious). They are trying to figure out how to sing in spatially safe groups. 

 

I cooked a monster omelet for lunch. Afterward\ Michael brought the wheelbarrow filled with compost to the half assed flower garden and tossed it on the places that I wanted to seed. I panted around with the water hose and lurched about on my tractor scoot to finish up planting. It was very hot. Everything I do is slow and punctuated with frequent pauses. 

 

One break was in the kitchen when Jim Dolan called. I set myself for the inevitable fight over the protests and police reform, as a former cop, I knew he would be opposing. It turned out not to be much of an argument, because of the nuanced motivations that muddle these difficult events. I’m nearly as tired of the super progressives who are as rigid in their thinking as anyone on the right.

 

Now sitting on the deck. Saw a doe with a single fawn dancing across the meadow. I hope it’s the nesting fawn and not the doe that has two fawns and now only one. 

 

Also saw one of the turkey moms wandering around alone, who then disappeared and popped up close to the deck followed by three chicks emerging from the grass near the garden. Don't know where the other mom is. Coyote? Lover's quarrel? Nature is always so worrisome.

 

Friday June 19

Another hot dry day. I mostly stayed inside and worked on the food pantry survey. In the mid afternoon I got a voice message from a woman who saw the survey asking what organization I’m representing. Of course, it's not an organizations. It's a handful of well-meaning people who want to "Do Something About Food Insecurity." I called her back and roughly described our group and its goals, including the survey to determine if we needed a central hub for food distribution. She pointed out that we didn't need to reinvent this wheel. The Northeastern Food Bank is a good source of this date. And the Harvest Long Table from Hawthorne Valley Farm collects and distributes produce from local farms to many of the pantries. Some of people from the pantries who I called mentioned them. I don't really think this group is going to add much to the current challenges. 

 

Talked to Harris, who was just the victim a well-known scam that affects artists. He got an email from a guy who saw Harris, sculpture online and said his wife really liked one. He wanted to buy it but they were moving to Vietnam, so he offered to pay Harris for the sculpture plus he would add an extra $1300 to pay his shipper. So Harris was sent the check, which he deposited in the bank and waited for it to clear. He then sent $1300 to the putative shipper. The bank then notified him that the check was no good and they had reversed the deposit. Now the con isn't the only scam artist. It seems to me that when a bank clears a check before investigating it and then reverses it is also scamming the bank customer. Harris should fight this, but of course no one does. 

 

Finished with my seeds in the flower garden. I am so slow because of the heat and my joint pain but I managed to water everything. 

 

I supervised Willie's pasta tonight. Since this was Catholic Friday dinner, we used the vegan Beyond Sausage, which is pretty good. 

 

We all watched another Eric Rohmer short movie and another unappealing male protagonist afterwards. I'm less reverent about Rohmer than I was when I was young.

 

My thoughts continue to struggle over an approach to my daughter that doesn't trigger her underlying anger. We stopped corresponding after the last email run. I’m having a hard time starting that engine up again. Any mention of past events or her siblings risks triggering that wound of betrayal. In my head, I went through a litany of visual memories of her, beginning with her wonderful birth through her list visit with the thrill of suddenly seeing her coming down the escalator at the airport. It made me really sad.

June 6-12. Gardens Planted and Weeded

Saturday June 6

 

Really tired today but a lot of nice things happened. I managed to get a brisket defatted and chopped up and put into my stockpot with potatoes and carrots for dinner. Michael and Willie worked in the garden getting the plants dug in under a very very hot sun. I went out briefly and scraped one path of the garden so that I could sow some basil, cilantro, and lettuce. But I couldn’t do much and went back into the house. Collapsed on the bed and listened to a conversation between two black professors about the protests, which are still ongoing. 

 

Michael and William came in and I gave them lunch. Geoff and Kim arrived after lunch and went directly to the little house. They were very careful about being at safe distances and for a while they wore masks until I told them to take them off. They played guitar and sang out on the deck, which was very pleasant and the afternoon was beautiful with a mild wind that took away the heat. 

 

We ate dinner separately and then met back on the upper deck where Geoff and Willie pointed their phones at the stars and a smart app delivered their names. Geoff and Kim were able to witness both the baby fawn nesting outside the north wall and the lone Turkey who wanders the meadow and who, it turns out, is a mom with two chicks. Now I’ll be anxious all summer. Kim said she'd be anxious down in Bayside. 

 

I need to respond to Jill’s last emails, not the angry and betrayed one, but the second Khrushchev one, a lesser confrontation with a snide comment on Dominique’s response to her white friend's sympathy over George Floyd.

 

Sunday June 7

 

Dead mouse in the bedroom this morning. Michael unable to rescue it from cat fiends.  

 

 By the way I don’t think I mentioned this but I’ve had Jeremy call me every day since the virus attack, which he’s done, and I’m liking these brief calls giving me snippets of his day and making it easy to be in touch with him. 

 

The fawn didn’t show up today. Kim had heard night screams during the night.  Worried. Geoff and Kim collected their plants and took off at around noon. 

 

Was unable to plant my beans so Michael did. 

 

Spent the afternoon composing releases for the RK and the Sally Army to send out in the CCDC newsletter to raise money for both. Don’t want the Army upstaged by the more glam RK.

 

Hamburgers for dinner. We then watched Monty python and the Holy Grail. Much funnier than it was 40 years ago,  

 

Monday June 8

My Khrushchev approach didn't work.  Jill hammered me about my betrayal 25 years ago when Michael and I had dinner with her ex friend Experience and her nice Tasmanian husband. Furthermore, I hired her to do some work for our business. So I spent a miserable night tending off her email accusations that I failed to unfriend Experience on Facebook after Jill discovered this non-relationship and asked me during our time in New Orleans to reject her. I came home and unfollowed Experience, which I thought was fine but Jill did some additional stalking and discovered that the social friendship continued.  It isn’t Experience of course. Jill is looking for an excuse to shuck me again. I can smell it in the words of her attacks. She feels unloved at her core and searches for causes, and as her mother I’m the chief suspect. Got an email later in the day that was more or less conciliatory, but still maintains the basic belief in my betrayal of her. It makes me sad. Nothing I can do.

 

We need to get the Volkswagen fixed today in Kingston, which also involves driving the Beemer down, so we can drop the E-Golf off at the dealers and hang out with Harris and Neville for a few hours.  This meant pinning down my anxiety and driving the second car beyond my Columbia County comfort zone. As it turned out the drive was very pleasant and easy, with only one queasy lane change. Harris and Neville made a great lunch with haddock and various roasted vegetables, and I brought my favorite chopped salad. The weather was beautiful and it was fun as always to see them. Harrison and Neville need to leave their wonderful apartment overlooking the Roundout Creek and one of Roebling's mini-Brooklyn Bridges. The rent is doubling and they can't afford it as it stands. A lousy new banking law requires that people who are self-employed and looking for a mortgage need to make the same amount of money in the first six months of this corona laden year that they averaged over the past four years. If they don’t, the bank drops their net income to zero and rejects the mortgage. Just terrible I hate banks. Fortunately Harris did well in the beginning of the year thanks to the Los Angeles Real estate guy who bought so many of Harris' sculptures.

 

At home, I didn't see the nesting fawn, but two were dancing in the meadow over by the solar trackers.   

 

Had wine on the deck in the evening. Really nice. Feeling much better today than I did in the past couple days.

 

Tuesday June 9

Hot and muggy today but got tractor scoot out and did some weeding in the flower garden out back.  It hardly deserves to be called a garden; it's so littered with random plants but it does promise Echinacea, coreopsis and bee balm, 

 

I think I saw the doe mother out beyond the vegetable garden but no baby.  She may have tucked him away somewhere else.  Two stately turkeys were leading three chicks across the meadow. 

 

June is so gorgeous and luxurious; it’s like living in a tapestry. The pond however is very low and scummy with algae. Swimming prospects are dim. 

 

Ordered take out from Relish. Restaurants are opening this month if they have outside dining. Dana is doing take away lunch and dinner, with a little market inside.

 

Our dentist wrote and is reopening but it's hard to see maneuvering New York City any time soon. Even a semi normal life is uncurling slowly and I’m reluctant to join back. Seeing people again seems like an effort, particularly the Democrats, for whom I harbor a constant low-grade annoyance, like an itch. I'm so happy that Willie is quarantining with us and will worry when he goes back to the city.

 

Watched Dave and Money Heist. 

 

Wednesday June 10

Hot water fuse blown out again this morning. I had a snarky back and forth with Michael while I sat in the tub.  I growled about why our HVAC guys couldn’t fix the hot water system, this being the fourth time they've come to fix it. Michael asked, “Have you ever fixed anything?” A snarky reply and unfortunately valid, I believe I could learn to fix things if I didn't have Michael around, who goes into action when anything breaks down and has no interest in me helping out. So, I deal with food, cooking, grocery shopping, and planning the garden, which I used to also plant until last year. Michael deals with everything else. In fact, we are a terrible team if he requires any help.  Typically I start to do something and he’ll stop me because I'm not doing it right and take over. And this is actually to my advantage, so right I can’t fix anything.

 

Nevertheless, this is a day of accomplishment. Called into the CCDC officers meeting and had a moment of comradeship with Brenda Gevertz, who's previous attack on the Army I had called horseshit.  Later, I attended virtually a meeting on food insecurity meeting, which consists of a randomly collected group of well meaners. I joined thinking I could represent the Army's interest if the work of the group involved fund raising and publicity. An English-accented woman dominated the call, whose persistent assertive messaging annoyed me. Turns out to be a useless committee. The meeting started out promising, with the idea that the county needed a hub— a place to collect farmer products and redistribute them to pantries and soup kitchens. However the discussion degenerated into a feeble action plan to convince the County government that it needed to hire someone to coordinate, which is highly unlikely given the prospective 20% cuts in the corona devastated county budget.  

I did receive approval for the GoFundMe campaign for the Recovery Kitchen, which I posted and promoted. So felt I had done something worthwhile.

 

Nice evening with Michael and Willie and wine on the deck. I made a soup from random ingredients; sausage bought the meat automat, oyster mushrooms that Harris and Neville had given us, a bag of white beans from the freezer, radicchio. Onions, garlic, and stock I just made from curried chicken. Yum.

 

Not a lot of arthritic pain today thanks to new regimen of two Advil and two Tylenol. It makes such a difference.

 

Watched Money Heist and Dave. 

 

Thursday June 11

 

Broken sleep with twitchy legs, with only a two-hour snooze and final wake up at 10:30. 

 

I watched what I thought might be the mother deer but no visible fawn hanging out with the turkey Mom duo and their chicks by the vegetable garden. 

 

Worked on a few edits for Carl’s very thorough healthcare report for the CDCC Issues committee, which he approved and submitted. 

 

I squatted down onto my tractor scoot and continued the edits on the flower garden, with its creeping Charlie snaking across its base and mint, goldenrod and fleabane jutting out.  But I also saw great hunks of bee balm spreading across all the garden sections from its original planting space. And the occasional jewel showed promise in emerging from the jungle: liatris’ blazing prairie star, sedum, lupine, and sedum. Looked like there might only be single specimens but happy to see them. 

 

Ordered Mexican from le Mission, a new restaurant in town that was fortunately built with take-out capabilities. We ate on the deck under a fabulous sunset cloud movie. -Willie had ordered a Gramma's blueberry coffee cake, so we even had desert. 

 

Watched two Daves.

 

Friday June 12

 

We did a bit of gardening in the morning, but it was too hot. Michael and I went to Agway for wooden stakes for the chilies and tomatoes and Neem oil to fight the creepy insects that bite my eggplant leaves. 

 

Made lunch and then wrote out my CCDC minutes, which was less arduous than I feared.

 

In the afternoon I pushed my trusty little electric lawn mower around the Augean flower garden, which is slowly making a little sense. The Little Mower That Could was valiant but couldn’t get very far into the thick without being stunned to a halt. I then transformed into weed avenger, wading into the meadow to attack stands of dreaded knapweed. All in all, very satisfying. 

 

Friday catholic dinner was pasta with broccoli rabe-oyster mushroom-preserved lemon-parmesan. Michael and I liked it, but Willie not fond of mushrooms. I suggested he cook Friday’s and come up with recipes ahead of time so I’ll have ingredients. 

 

We watched last Dave, which got better and better, and another Money Heist, also satisfying.