Many beautiful things

It's a book I'd gotten several years ago, by the food writer and actor Vincent Schiavelli (Ghost, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). I don't think I knew he'd died. Or maybe I did. He is a good writer, with a an old-fashioned sensibility and cadence. I hunted up two of his earlier books, Bruculinu, America and Papa Andrea's Sicilian Table, the latter for which he was feted in his grandparents' hometown and where he died. So I fished around on the internet, and found this snippet of a documentary. It seems his son and he were estranged when he died, in Sicily, not very old.

The past

haunts. I had dreams the other night, so vivid, of my uncle and my writing teacher. The memories were disconcerting and then upsetting the more I thought about them then and me now. They weren't upsetting; they were lovely. The me here without them is upsetting. Sometimes I wish it were this year instead of this year:

U.S. high school students, 1969. pic.twitter.com/LZE0w75YeZ

— History Lovers Club (@historylvrsclub) May 6, 2019

Recipes

do you miss Gourmet magazine? I do; back when D and I were still 'dating', we had lunch at the Harvest in Cambridge. Who should arrive, stately as a ship but with someone in tow, but Julia Child leading Paul in for lunch. I had a salad that was au courant: included flowers! the very next month, what was on the cover? Yes, a version of it. Ruth Reichl has created a list of her favorites from her time as editor, cruelly cut short by idiot Neuhouse who decided to keep the now-nonsensical Bon Appetit.

Better Things

cookbooks

A list and then some from the Lee Brother in the Daily Beast

Just a little something

from BBC Radio 4. Hadn't even heard of this until today, and am waiting to listen. Let me know what you think.

another go round at it

Well, better things (have you seen that? Pamela Adlon is a force) are what I'm hoping for this year. No one's told me recently to Stay out of the sun!! so perhaps that skin issue is subsiding. Still having to deal with house and financial things (some of which were a mighty big $$ surprise; who knew a home equity line of credit came with a convenient credit card? NOT ME!). Getting down to working, but worrying constantly that the last job was the last job. Two friends on fb have become sudden widows, and I find I absolutely cannot read what they have to say (which in both cases is considerable). I'm glad (am I?) that FB is an outlet for them, but reading their separate issues and problems several times a day is not a help for me. Onward. Next time: link to something interesting. I promise. Oh, and twitter.

Read this at your peril for depression, Or, you might as well join me

pretty depressed here. Not much to do about it. skin issues (major, frankly; no fun for ME). Also, the lovely town we moved to 20 years ago now is in the midst of unregulated growth in the unincorporated county areas, so still no fun. And house has major issues at this point because of climate change (shifting, settling and so on) plus the usual: needs to be painted, chipmunks have ruined the 'lawn', and so on. sick of it. ranting and raving should be in my diary, but what the fuck.

Is there a point

because if there is, I'd like to know what it is. This has been a very difficult year. rump and his merry band, plus my personal difficulties.

hello, remember me? maybe

you don't. It hasn't been an easy year. If L hadn't been here, it would have been truly horrible. Vermont; I don't think I'm ready to let that go. I was just thinking about the old spaghetti and steak house (really!) on 103 that was there when we arrived; Mom hired the daughter (what was her name? I can see her). Learning to swim in Spring Lake. Ranch Sarca (wasn't it called that? you tell me) and the bear roast they had every summer; the ice house. The siblings of Mia F, so impossibly thin, swimming in Spring Lake, one of them up at the ranch to recuperate from whatever. The person who ended up living there, who always wore a tie with a paperclip as a tie clip. You tell me how I can let this go.

Here's a phrase

that doesn't cut it, doesn't 'do' it, doesn't express shit, really: Sorry for your loss. Really? This is when it's been used in the past month(s): I'm sorry for your loss. You're entitled to only 70 percent of his Social Security monthly payments, even though you've been married for 30 years. Sorry; you're not retirement age yet. I'm sorry; contact your congressman and complain to him/her. Those are the rules. Also? You can't earn more than a pittance before your SS monies must be returned. I'm sorry for your loss. Sign here so I can load up the hospital bed from the living room, and the oxygen tank, and the roll-away table. I'm sorry for your loss [said while looking over my shoulder], although I'll post a Facebook meme in which I claim to clasp any and all depressed persons to my personal bosom. I've even lost FB friends because I've expressed that 'sorry for your loss' doesn't cut it. They're actually offended. "What are we SUPPOSED to say?" they whine. How about: "I don't know what to say. What can I do, or not do?" There; I wrote that in September. Here it is now.

BE

BE – Nottingham Arts Theatre Performance Excerpt from Wolfgang Buttress on Vimeo.

Something elser

The Green Line from Clay Pipe Music. Other news: figuring out what to do next if the heating system is kaput. Don W is on it, with screening, some kind of glue for woodstoves, and an ancient part for this 30+-year-old Lennox system. Then he told me that he and D had hitched up a garbage can to act as some kind of venting system last year. Oy. What I don't know can fill a, well, venting garbage can. What a summer; what a year. What will I do?

Something else

to keep your mind off of everything, including, but not limited to, the dog's worrying herself over fleas she shouldn't have.

FB

Face book is now like a crowded elevator, with everyone breathing on you, sneezing, and trying to read your copy of the New Yorker, while standing on your foot and pretending not to notice. AND: it's always going down when you want to go up.

Revelations

Just a minute ago the phone rang, and on the other end was an older widow lady (not unlike me, actually, when you think about it) who offered to comfort me by reading me a Bible verse, this one from the book of Revelations. I listened to her, after being asked whether I believed in the Resurrection; to which I said yes (but don't really). But then I cried after I hung up.

D we hardly knew ye

Mad, sad, everything is wrong around here, even as we right the ship, mend the sails, look at the tidal pools. D died. that's it, really.

SAD!

to watch someone who knows no joy and doesn't understand his context. Macron, on the other hand . . .

Trump and Macron react very differently when this band plays a Daft Punk medley at the Bastille Day parade. Turn your sound on for this one. pic.twitter.com/BOibX3X8tx

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) July 14, 2017

Such is life

I spent a good part of this weekend worrying about a health crisis in our little family. I'll probably be able to write in more detail at some point, but for now I'm in shock. To push it all aside for a while, I turned to Netflix, more specifically to the oddest series I've watched in a long time: soft porn meets shrill psychodrama in the form of Gypsy. Here's one review.

Blythe Danner, Naomi Watts, Billy Crudup: what are they doing here?

After episode 10 (no, I couldn't look away; I finished the damn thing), however, as the credits were rolling, the song "Jean" played. Glenn Yarbrough? Rod McKuen?

Rod McKuen, of course. I was instantly back, sitting with my mother, listening to her Rod McKuen LPs. I have Listen to the Warm somewhere around here . . .

I searched for the version that played over the credits: It wasn't gravelly Rod McKuen's voice. I had forgotten that Oliver had a hit (I had forgotten about Oliver, in fact). I think it was Oliver, but frankly the singer sounded more like Glenn Yarbrough.

Here's Oliver:

Here's Rod:

I think if you order

a hot dog pizza, you deserve whatever kind of hot dogs come atop that pizza. Episode 2.