Suzy Says

My Dad used to say:

“The feeling that we treasure
That we treasure beyond measure
Is the satisfying feeling
That our duty has been done.”

Now, I’m assuming this is a quote from somewhere, though I don’t know where. I used to get it as a child when being recalcitrant about doing homework or chores or other boring/annoying yet necessary things that had to be done. It still pops into my head when faced with the b/a, even now. Today, it’s the impending visit to my mother on Saturday.

Mom called me today to tell me that I will have to do the following things during my visit:

1. Vacuum her apartment. Even though I pointed out that I don’t even vacuum my own apartment.
   
2. Wash her quilt, which she can’t lift into the washer (and I’m assuming anything else that’s lying around).
   
3. Go to the feed store and get cat food.
   
4. Walk the dog, at least twice.
   
5. Go over the information she got from Social Security about her medical coverage, even though both of my sisters have seen it and they both say everything’s in order.
   
6. Move her bookcases.
   
7. Find somewhere to get fertilizer and snail killer for her garden.
   

If that’s all, I’m lucky, I guess.

The thing is, even as a kid, I never found doing my duty particularly satisfying, though I never had the nerve to admit it, even to my Dad. And I don’t find doing it now any more satisfying than I did then.

But you all can laugh, picturing me being Suzy Housekeeper for a day!

Two years ago today I wrote my very first blog, thanks to (or blame it on) Candi, loyal friend and designer extraordinaire. So, as of today, I can justify [almost] any bad behavior. I have the terrible twos!

And speaking of terrible: our cat Jack is terrible two, but I think she’ll keep being terrible no matter how old she gets. Here she is, playing at night as an adorable kitten. You can see why we forgive her bad behavior. It’s hard to stay mad at the truly cute.

Note the demon eyes and hyperactivity. Really, we should have had a clue.

What with the grey skies and the girl grossness along with general, post-company blahs, the idea of walking home yesterday up the vertiginous slope of California Street was even less appealing than usual. I gave in to my innate laziness, which lurks very close to the surface and is never far away, much as I try to hide it with work and going to the gym and running errands.

Instead of dragging Self up the hill as usual, I jumped on the cable car. It seemed well worth the $2 not to have to expend the unnatural effort required to climb Mt. California, and as visitors on the street and on the cable car merrily took pictures of each other, I wondered how many vacation pictures of total strangers I appear in, just from giving in to my laziness and taking the cable car and/or living in such a pretty place.

As we were pulled up the hill by the giant underground cables, we passed a cable car going the other way. The brakeman on the other cable car was wearing an Oakland A’s baseball cap along with the standard uniform. This really seemed to disturb the brakeman on my cable car, because he leaned out and shouted, “Take off that hat, brother! This here the Giants’ town!” He did this no fewer than three times in the short time it took for the other car to pass us, and I think he was serious. However, the A’s fan paid no attention at all. His indifference was really quite superb.

Fair warning: the following entry contains graphic girl content. Guys, go away and do something else right now, especially if you harbor any illusions that girls are delicate, dainty creatures who don’t swear, think evil thoughts, or have any of the same bodily functions you do. I’m afraid we do, and then some.

Now that the faint of heart are gone, I am just going to say that I can’t wait for menopause. My stepmother’s daughter got it at the age of 47 and is thrilled. Not only is the threat of pregnancy removed once and for all, but she feels great all the time, instead of approximately two weeks out of every month like those of us who are pre-menopausal and post-pubescent. You’re either getting ready for the horror, enduring the horror, or recovering from it, and that leaves, as previously noted, about two weeks of feeling good before it starts all over again.

Faithful readers know that I wonder about whether there is a God, or some kind of higher power. I really don’t know, but for the past few days, I have leaned heavily to the side that if there is in fact a God, it has to be a man or man-like being, because no female would have set things up this way for her sisters. The process is so gross and disgusting and painful. Yes, I realize it’s a natural function, but if you think about natural functions, you realize that they are pretty much all gross and disgusting, if not painful, which is why most of us choose to endure them in privacy. In other words, their naturalness does not exclude them from being icky. And despite what TV commercials would have you believe, the whole thing has nothing to do whatever with doves or butterflies or flowers. Imagine if the commercials even bordered on accuracy. {shudder}

This month’s installment has been particularly hard for me to endure. Usually, this magically cures the worst of it (after all, the plant would hardly be named that if it didn’t do that), but this time, the symptoms merely laughed and resumed their beating. They kept me up at night, laughing evilly at my weak attempts to dislodge their hold on me. Finally, I went home yesterday and applied vodka and vicodin until they were the ones beaten into submission. Better living through chemistry, indeed. But shouldn’t we have evolved past this kind of thing by now? Shouldn’t there be a better system? It really must be a man’s world after all.

Beth and Cat are heading home today. And what a long, horrible journey it will be: airport shuttle bus from Petaluma to SFO (2+ hours); the interminable wait in line for security, check-in, etc., during which you have to remove any item of clothing deemed questionable – when I went to Boston, this was: my coat; my sweater; and my boots – (2+ hours); the wait at the gate, and then 11 fun-filled hours to London. Once they get to London, they still have to drive to their town in Leicestershire – yet another 2+ hours. Which makes it all the more impressive that Beth has done this no fewer than three times in the last 6 months.

Cat and I had a great day together last Friday. We shopped and lunched in North Beach, before turning our acquisitive attention to the shopping to be had in the Haight. Now, I’m not normally a big fan of the Haight. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hate the Haight, but I have a low tolerance for faux hippies and grubbiness. However, the fabulousness of the shops made up for it.

I picked up an adorable glittery Marilyn backpack, while Cat got an embroidered black skirt with built-in crinoline. Further down the street, Cat picked up some perfect souvenirs, including exactly the kind of thing you’d think, and some you wouldn’t. I bought her the perfect shower curtain for her dorm room.

The shopping was educational, as well as fun. In the course of souvenir shopping, I learned:

1. Candles last longer if you trim the wick every time before you use them.
   
2. Southern Comfort is now available in Black Label, which is 100 proof and apparently not available in England, though absinthe is. Choose your poison, I guess (or have your government choose it for you).

We weren’t shopped out, but we had to go home and drop off our purchases before heading to Pier 39. The cats promised to take care of everything in exchange for being fed, which seemed like a reasonable deal. Usually they just eat and nap.

Unlike most people, we weren’t going to Pier 39 to shop. We were going to sail! My friend Chris, who has a sailboat and who lives aboard another boat at Pier 39, had offered to take us out for an afternoon sail on the Bay. It was a perfect, sunny afternoon, with just enough wind to send us skimming over the water. It’s a wonderful feeling of freedom, especially when you have a licensed captain doing all the work. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Here’s what’s been going on the past few days in la vida loca di Suzy:

1. US clock repair guy came on Thursday evening and set up the clock for me, other than the necessary repairs. He also bolted it to the wall so it will be earthquake proof (or as earthquake proof as possible). Turns out the bell got broken off, in addition to the door being pushed in, so all that has been taken away to be fixed. CRG is a tiny, elderly man who loves his job so much that he won’t retire, though he does have a young apprentice who came with him. Unusual to see that these days. Both thrilled to work on such an old clock, which is rare in these young United States. Also turns out that the two non-working clocks in the living room are collector’s items which should also be repaired. But could I stand three clocks chiming at once?

2. Mom’s birthday dinner at Greens was great. We had a stunning view of the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge as the sun set. Food was outstanding, particularly the asparagus and leek tart. Frog’s Leap sauvignon blanc was the perfect accompaniment (and you have to love the corks, imprinted with “Ribbit!”). A good time was had by all, and she loved her many presents.

3. Spent very nearly all day on Friday getting Jonathan’s car, a 1997 Subaru Legacy Outback. Unbeknownst to me, these cars are apparently very hard to find, and almost impossible to locate for under $10,000. But locate one he did, way down in Redwood City. So we went down there and spent hours doing paperwork. If you have never financed a car before, let me tell you: it tries the most patient patience. But we were finally done and ready to head back to the city, just in time for rush hour. Yay. Made worse time than on the milk run bus to the airport.

4. By Sunday morning, my low reserves of niceness were running on fumes. I decided not to go up to the country with everyone else, so now my popularity with much of my immediate family is much like that of Saddam Hussein’s with much of the world. But I just couldn’t stand the whole idea of going all the way up there to uncivilization and having to be nice for three more days. Something would have had to give, and my guess is it would have been the niceness.

Beth and Cat are here for another week, so I’ll make up for the country bail by spending next weekend with them, even though it’s John’s birthday on Saturday. I suspect he won’t be surprised. I wonder why it’s so hard for me to be nice for extended periods of time?

Public transit, you know, never works well for me. I might as well face the fact that I am a taxi or limo kind of girl (God forbid I should actually drive myself). Yesterday I decided to take the SamTrans bus to the airport to pick up my sister Beth and niece Cat. When I got to the bus stop, the bus was there but all of its signs said “Out of Service”. However, there was: a. a bus driver; and 2. several passengers, so I asked the driver if he went to the airport. He said yes, so I got on board. Off we went. After a while, I began to suspect that this was not the express bus to the airport as originally thought. Lots of stops. Complete avoidance of freeways. For once in my life, I found myself looking longingly at onramp signs. 101! 280! I have misjudged you! All is forgiven!

Fortunately, I had given myself an hour to get the airport, because that’s how long it took. I got there about 10 minutes after the plane had arrived. As usual, I couldn’t find the (huge glass) International Terminal. I had to ask for directions to Arrivals no fewer than three times. I think the same mental block that makes it impossible for me to learn the times tables after 5 also makes it impossible for me to locate the International Terminal and the arrivals hall in it. However, I did discover an actual benefit to all this going to the gym: it has given me the ability to run on two inch heels through an entire (domestic) terminal. Woohoo!

So I arrived finally at, well, Arrivals, only to wait for half an hour before sis’n’niece emerged from Customs. Much screaming and jumping ensued. Cat hasn’t been here for 10 years, so she has essentially never been here. Beth, on the other hand, has been here 3 times in the past 6 months. She ought to get a prize.

Today’s agenda:

– Go to gym;
– Go with my brother to hopefully buy a car for him;
– Go out to dinner for Mom’s birthday;
– Try and stay calm and polite for entire day.

Last one’s the hardest. Stay tuned.

Love/hate for Friday, April 4, 2003
Dawson’s Creek

Since the series is going to end in May, this is as good a time as any to admit that I love it. Even though I’m considerably older than the show’s protagonists or its target demographic.

It probably has something to do with how I never really grew up, and despite the advancing age of my outer husk, the inside Me has pretty much remained somewhere around 18 years old. So I get completely caught up in the character’s romantic entanglements and musings on what to do with their lives. I mean, I’m still wondering what to do with mine.

Granted, there have been a few mis-steps lately, notably with the character of Pacey, played by Joshua Jackson. (I confess that Pacey is my favorite and that I have a crushling on Joshua Jackson, though that goatee and ‘do have made it hard to maintain lately. And while I’m still in the confessional, I think Kerr Smith, who plays Jack, is a total hottie, too. Just call me Mrs. Robinson.) Pacey becoming a stockbroker makes no sense. It couldn’t happen in the real world (yes, I know it’s TV) and it’s completely against his character (yes, I know he’s fictional). They should have let him stay a cook – that lifestyle is much more in his nature, and there are endless story possibilities.

However, I have thoroughly enjoyed Dawson’s entr&eacutee into the film world (despite his affair with the bizarre-looking and annoying actress Natasha) and Audrey’s gloriously over-the-top meltdown this season.

I have every episode on tape and am anxiously awaiting its appearance on DVD (get a move on, willya?!). I recently watched the whole thing again from its very beginning and thoroughly enjoyed it. I still think there’s a lot going on there and that it could have gone on longer (I see no reason why it couldn’t have followed the characters out of college, for example), but I guess it’s better to bow out when you’re still doing a good job than drag it on until the public is begging you to retire. As Neil Young said, “It’s better to burn out/than it is to rust.”

In keeping with my policy this year of either not being home or having company, my sister Beth and niece Cat are coming all the way from England to visit. They arrive this afternoon, and I will be there to meet them, assuming I can actually find my way to the International Terminal and then find them in it. When I picked up my mother there in January I got totally lost and had to rely on the kindness of strangers.

It’s Mom’s 71st birthday on Friday, so all four of her children will be here to celebrate. In deference to Cat being a vegetarian since the age of 12 and the fact that the food and view are kick ass, we are having Mom’s birthday dinner at Greens. This also means that someone other than John has to do the dishes. So everyone, other than the person doing the dishes, should be happy.

If you didn’t already feel sorry for John, being married for all these years to someone who is not only Me (the kind of girl for whom Cockney rhyming slang was probably invented), but who seems to be magnetic north and/or the catalyst for every possible disaster and annoyance, you will when you think that he is coming home tonight to all three Peakall sisters and one and only Peakall niece/granddaughter/future custodian of the Suzy collection, probably on their second bottle of wine! Outnumbered four to one by giggling, drunk girls – who likes them odds?

As if that wasn’t enough, Clock Repair Guy (US version) is coming over around 6 to bolt clock to the wall (after all, this is earthquake country); set it all up; remove the door and take it away to be fixed.

On the bright side, John will be rid of us at some point over the weekend, when we all repair up North for a few days in the country. Beth and Cat have never been to Jonathan’s and Megan’s, so it’s about time.

Right before I woke up this morning, I had an extraordinarily vivid dream. In the dream, I was walking through my childhood home in NY State. It was exactly as we left it when we moved to Canada: the window seat that Dad built for me in my bedroom where I used to read; my bed tucked under the eaves; the swing in the elm tree; the lilacs in bloom. When the alarm went off and I woke up, it took me several seconds to realize where I was, and for a moment reality seemed much less real than the dream. I guess dreams can be as mind-altering as drugs sometimes, and I still have a dream hangover so everything seems slightly unreal. I am awake, right?

So the clock was in fact delivered on Saturday. The front door is pushed in, though still on its hinges, and much of the veneer edging it has come off, though we seem to have most of the pieces. I think I deserve credit for keeping it together in the face of the damage inflicted on it. I didn’t cry or yell. Instead, I was filled with quiet despair at having spent $4,000 on it and still not having it in good order; feeling that I have not lived up to my father’s expectation that I would take proper care of it; and finally, having it all is just so depressing, because it should still be in Dad’s (unburned) house.

I have to admit that in this process, the UK end went fine and the US end was an unmitigated disaster. Come to think of it, that’s not unlike my heritage, with the UK side (Dad) being great and the US side (Mom) a nightmare. Hmmm. I keep feeling like the Universe is trying to teach me a lesson but am not sure what.

Anyway, the UK Clock Repair Guy found a US counterpart conveniently located just across the Golden Gate Bridge, who I hope will prove the exception to the US disaster rule and who can hopefully fix the damage to the clock and get it set up once and for all in its new home.

How to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Cast your minds back. Way, way back. Back to last December. That’s when I was deciding what to do about the 250 year old grandfather clock I had inherited from my father. In the end, I decided not to restore the lost height. Partly because the cost would have been prohibitive (and it already cost me, all told, close to $4,000 to have it restored, appraised, insured, and shipped), but mostly because I was ultimately more interested in preserving it the way my father and grandmother had known it than in historical accuracy. After all, I’m not a stately home or a museum, though my niece, who will inherit it from me along with all the other good stuff like my jewelry, is planning to buy herself a multi-storey house with a floor dedicated to the Suzy Collection. And in a manner after my own heart she intends to have a full-time staff to take care of it. She really is the daughter I never had.

The ancient timekeeper was shipped to me on a brand-new jet, something completely unthinkable when it was first made. In those days, it would have had to be shipped around the dangerous Horn, and besides, there wasn’t much San Francisco in 1750. Even Mission Dolores wasn’t built until 1776 (the first Mass was celebrated there five days before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and it remains the oldest building in San Francisco – Registered Landmark Number One). The clock arrived in South San Francisco a month ago, but I still don’t have it yet. I bet I would have gotten it faster by horse and cart in 1750 than by truck in the 21st century.

The saga of not getting the clock is positively epic. I’ll try to make it short. Involved in the tale are the Clock Repair Guy; English Shipping Firm; US Shipping Firm (they received the clock on its arrival) and US Delivery Firm.

1. US Shipping Firm tells me I owe them $952 in Customs, duties, local taxes, etc. I don’t , because the clock is a family piece and essentially my property – they were charging me Customs based on the (astronomical) value of the clock. So they had to go back to Customs and get the charges changed, etc. Imagine the bureaucracy. It was something like the part in “Casablanca” where the voiceover says, “And wait…and wait…and wait”.

   USF also claimed to be completely unaware that the clock was an antique or anything, despite the paperwork included in the shipment by Clock Repair Guy, which explains why USF kept calling me with did questions like whether the clock runs on batteries.

   And PS: the $4,000 already paid included all charges on both sides of the Atlantic. Reconfirmed this with CRG, who faxed me all the relevant documents. If I were a nicer kind of girl, I probably would have just paid yet another thousand dollars. Being a pain in the ass finally paid off after all these years.

2. US Delivery Firm calls to arrange delivery of the clock. They can barely speak English. They claim they were unaware that there were stairs and no elevator at our house, once again despite the paperwork included by CRG. They also say they can’t carry the clock up the stairs anyway because it weighs 220 pounds. I explain to them that CRG was able to carry it out of my stepmother’s house and put it into his ordinary car by himself, so it must be the crate that is so heavy. Suggest they remove crate. They agree to do it for $35. Whatever. It’s already cost me a small-size fortune and also will save me a trip to the dump to get rid of the crate.

3. At this point, they tell me there has been some damage to the clock and want me to come down there and look at it. I have no way of getting there and they seem to be unable to explain exactly what the damage is. Go back to English-speaking USF and ask them about it. Turns out that the crate was equipped with a sort of dye pack which is activated when the crate is damaged. The dye pack had been activated and when USF received the crate off the plane, they got the airline to sign a letter saying they were responsible for the damage. Yet no-one thought it noteworthy enough to mention to me.

4. I tell the delivery firm to just deliver it to me the way it is. I take an afternoon off while Margaret is visiting to wait for the clock to arrive between 12 and 2. They don’t show up. They don’t call. At 4:00, I call them and they say they have left me messages at my office saying they can’t deliver it without a letter from me releasing them from any liabilityfor damaging the clock. I explain that I have been at home waiting for them to deliver the clock, and not at my office, obviously, and further there is no way for me to get them a letter that day. They say it’s too late to deliver it, etc. I get so furious that I hang up on them and burst into tears. My stepmother says, “Rrrrright, you must take a tablet” [meaning valium], but I call John and hand it over to him instead.

5. I fax them the @#@%^$@$^ release letter. John takes an afternoon off work to wait for them to deliver the clock. Amazingly, they call an hour or so after delivery time to say their truck broke down and they can’t deliver it. Can we be there the next day to receive it? John calls USF and tells them they have to make these clowns deliver the clock on Saturday – today – at no extra charge. End of story.

So we’ll see if/when we get it. And yeah, I realize I totally failed to make it short.

Love/hate for Friday, March 28, 2003:
Keeping in Touch

I have noticed that I have stopped apologizing when we don’t do a love/hate, for example, last Friday. Am I getting as rude as the rest of the world? Perish the thought. Usually it just means that life has gotten even weirder than it normally is around here, not that I am willfully holding back on you. I trust that I am forgiven, both in the past and in the future (how’s that for a great deal? Blanket forgiveness)!

Even for me, it’s unusual to start with a digression.

OK, back to our more or less regularly scheduled program.

One of the many things I inherited from my father, along with a talent for cooking, a love of art and beauty, and a really short fuse, is the ability to stay in touch with family and friends. I will never match up to his standard: he remained life-long friends with two men, John and Brian, with whom he literally grew up. Their parents lived in the same street and the three boys all knew each other since they were, as my father put it, “in their prams”. Both attended his thanksgiving service, where John presented me with this photo of himself (on the left) and my father at the age of 10 in 1941, holding guns they had salvaged from downed planes, and which John assured me weren’t loaded!

While I don’t have any friends whom I have known since I was a baby, I do have four friends from high school with whom I am still close. Given my age and antiquity, this means that we have been friends for more than 20 years, or more than half my life: Alice, the former model turned math PhD who lives in Amsterdam; Mary-Lou, author and journalist and my bridesmaid, who lives in Toronto; Peter, my long, long ago ex-boyfriend who also lives in Toronto; and Richard, who lives in San Francisco and approaches my Dad’s standard by having been friends with Peter since they were 5 years old (their birthdays being one day apart).

I guess you could say that I was brought up to feel that friends were important. My father used to say that it’s easy for people to slip out of your life, so you have to make the effort. Call, email (he had email before I did), send birthday and Christmas cards, whatever it takes to keep in touch. Make time to see them. Notifying his literally hundreds of friends all over the world of his death was a huge task, and letters, cards, emails, etc. kept coming in for more than 6 months after his death.

I have “inherited” several of Dad’s friends and added them to my Christmas card list so they know what’s happening with Dad’s children, and it makes me feel like I’m keeping up the tradition. When I’m in Ottawa in June, one of Dad’s friends is giving a reception in Dad’s honor so his many friends who live there – including some who got on the next plane in order to attend his service – can all get together with me at once.

Not surprisingly, I’m the one who buys all the cards and presents for John’s family as well as my own, and remembers the birthdays and anniversaries, too. One of my few actually useful talents. Now, if I was only better at wrapping those presents!

I tend to think of myself as a fairly experienced traveller, even though I have never been to Asia and there are still some states I have yet to visit. But I can go to Europe for three weeks with carry-on only, even in these restrictive days, and I can get packed pretty fast, especially for a girl of my high maintenance. And I don’t think a year has gone by in the past 15 years or more that I haven’t flown somewhere, in spite of my horror of flying. So much for facing your fears making you get over them, at least in my case.

So I don’t know why, but for the past three trips I have taken, I have managed to forget something somewhat essential. In October (look out, guys, girlstuff ahead), it was tampons, and I ended up having to buy a brand and type I don’t like at exorbitant hotel shop prices (very similar to airport shop prices). In January, it was my cell phone recharger. Cell phone took one look at the Chicago winter and promptly went to sleep, and I can’t say as I blame it. While I rarely, if ever, have my cell phone on – making it the phone of my dreams: i.e., I can call out, but no-one can call me – this was one time I actually wanted it. Figures. In Boston, I arrived with no camera, digital or otherwise, hence the complete lack of pictures of anything. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Another mystery facing the traveller is hotel bathrooms. There is never, ever enough room to unpack all of one’s toiletries, make-up, hair accessories, etc., no matter how great the room is*. Though I must say the Drake had the best bathroom of the past three trips, and by importing a luggage stand I could actually unpack most of my girlish accoutrements. The Boston hotel room was huge, but the bathroom was tiny and shelf space non-existent. Yet another architectural mystery.

Final mystery: coffee. In room or not. The Drake had no coffeemaker in the room, so I resorted to my dog-walking attire (coat over pajamas; feet shoved into shoes) to sneak down to the lobby, grab a cup from the buffet and sneak back upstairs before frightening the general public. I am completely paralyzed sans caffeine, and this was not a good way for me to start the day. Also find it odd that a place as swellegant as the Drake didn’t have in-room coffee, other than room service. Now, I’m a big, big fan of room service, but in this case, it entails waiting and still confronting the general public in the form of the unsuspecting waiter.

Boston had an in-room coffeemaker. But on the second day, I woke up to discover that they had given me a clean mug and cleaned out the coffee grounds, but failed to replace the coffee. So there was everything to make the coffee with but the coffee. I stared at the useless machine for a while and considered my options. Finally I decided to actually get dressed and go to Starbuck’s, where I had a triple espresso and went on my caffeinated way. I haven’t done that since the Coffee Emergency of 1999, when Dad and I were in in Italy in a rented palazzo which also had a coffee maker but no coffee, whereupon I got dressed and repaired to the nearest caff&egrave begging for espresso. The Italians understand these things.

*I might as well admit that the amount of stuff I require to render me fit for human consumption is somewhat considerable (which is why I get 75% of the space in the closet and bathroom at home). It was the topic of conversation between my niece and her friend Claudia when we went to Amsterdam together until I pointed out that they were exactly half my age and when they get to this point in their lives, they, too, will require enhancements to their natural appearance. I hope.

The family curse is doing just fine, thank you.

While I was flying home from Boston on the 18th, and my stepmother, Margaret, was visiting her cousin in sunny Palm Springs, Margaret’s house burned down.

Fortunately, no-one was hurt, and the house was properly insured, but all her clothes are gone, along with my father’s study and the personal things of his which Margaret chose to keep. How grateful I am now that she insisted on my taking with me or shipping all of his remaining things last Fall! If I had left them there, they would be dust and ashes, as he is. Little did I imagine that when I left that familiar house just five months ago that I would never see it again.

I have been celebrating Spring, Suzy-style. And color-coordinated, too. Would you expect anything less?

Though it may not appear to be very vernal where you live – and in fact, winter seems to be giving what I hope is its final farewell performance in my fair city with fog and rain and general dreariness – Spring is, at least technically, here.

In honor of the Equinox and with nostalgia for my long-ago childhood, I bought an armful of lilacs, both white and purple. My mother’s parents lived near Rochester, NY, an area famed for its lilacs, and they always remind me of my grandparents. They are my favorite flowers and make the whole apartment smell wonderful. The florist gave me a gardenia, too, which you can see floating in a little dish to the left of the lilacs.

Remember the Manolo Blahnik shoes I resisted buying a couple of weeks ago? Lilacs in hand, I went to see if the shoes were still in need of a loving home, and they were. I had to give in to their entreaties to take them home, especially since I have rarely, if ever, seen cuter orphans, and have never been able to resist sincere pleading in an Italian accent. Just look and see. And as so often happens, one thing led to another and I ended up getting a long, lavender matte satin Nicole Miller skirt with a sort of train thing happening in the back which perfectly matches the shoes. I will wear it to the reception in my father’s honor in June, so that justifies that. I can justify anything I really want, it seems.

Much like the Duchess of Windsor, she for whom Edward VIII famously gave up his throne and who is quoted as saying “A woman can never be too rich or too thin”, I am choosing to focus on the trivial as usual instead of the chaos around me. Wallis gives me a run for my money in the shallowness department. The Duchess’ personal correspondence during the abdication crisis and WWII mostly centered around fashion and social events, and mine is going to be a wrap-up of my trip to Boston. I’ll leave the current events discussions to those of greater intellectual depth. Though I will say it’s somewhat surreal to be walking up California Street and suddenly find oneself in the midst of police in full riot gear running the other way, making me feel like a salmon swimming upstream and in peril of imminent arrest.

Saturday: Woke up luxuriously late in palatial hotel room to bright sunlight. Took the clean and efficient subway system (known to Bostonians as the “T”) to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The house is a glorious fantasy and looks like a Venetian palazzo. It reminded me of the old Getty Museum, which was a replica of a Herculaneum villa, in the sense that they both are gorgeous houses containing small but excEt art collections. The buildings themselves are an additional pleasure, beautiful jewel boxes holding priceless treasures. And you have to love Mrs. Gardner’s motto, which is over the front door: “C’est mon plaisir” (It is my pleasure). Words to live by. The house, gardens, and art collection are all her personal creations and her enduring legacy.

Saturday night I had Museum Feet, that malady caused only by walking around museums and galleries. I can walk for miles with no adverse effects, but for some reason, walking around museums, which is done slowly, almost always causes Museum Feet. So I decided to eat in the hotel’s restaurant that night. Both Dickens and Emerson were frequent diners there, and it was lovely to be off my museum feet and fussed over by an attentive waiter in such elegant, historic surroundings. I learned that Parker House rolls were invented in that very restaurant, and also Boston Cream Pie, so of course I had to try them. They were, as Mr. Burns would say, eeexcEt.

Sunday: Reading the local paper informed me that jazz legend Dave Brubeck was playing that afternoon. Called and reserved one of the remaining 50 tickets and took the ever-useful “T” to Hahvahd’s Sanders Theatre, which is housed within the wonderful Gothic excess of the Memorial Hall. Digression: I’m sorry, but I love that Boston accent. It kills me when they say “Pah’k the ca’h”. It charms me almost as much as the Edinburgh one.

Brubeck is 82 and the other three members of the quartet can’t be much younger, but they kick ass. It was a joy and a privilege to hear them, and also to see how they interact almost subconsciously after so many years of playing together; how they totally enjoy each other’s performances; how it all comes together. They are truly gentlemen. Brubeck introduced each piece, and one of the most delightful anecdotes he told was of his wife begging him to go on vacation and just relax, not work. They went to Hawaii, and in the middle of the night, he woke up with a new tune in his head and wrote it down. But he dedicated it to his wife as an apology. They have been married for 62 years.

He has a new CD coming out next week and is starting a European tour. That’s the way to grow old.

Monday: Dad’s birthday. A perfect, sunny day and close to 70&deg. I was happy to check my coat at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston before seeing the Impressionist Landscape exhibit. The exhibit was blissfully uncrowded, and arranged chronologically, so viewers could see how the earlier artists had inspired and led to the Impressionists. Included in the exhibit were landscape photographs from the 1850’s and 1860’s, which had a wonderful, dream-like texture. It was the perfect way to honor the day my father was born: he who gave my love of art and beauty. Maybe, in some way, he was there with me.

You can blame the glacial slowness of dial-up in Boston, combined with its Diana Ross level of temperamental diva-ness, which manifested itself by suddenly disconnecting after a minute or so for what Forrest Gump would call no particular reason. And since you get charged a dollar for each call, that pretty much equalled forget about missives from the road. Or the hotel, anyway.

Seems like I really am one of the world’s slower learners, because once again my equation of theory and practice did not turn out to be correct. Too much theory and not enough practice led to my hanging out in the admittedly elegant lobby of the Parker House hotel for a length of time that was probably only endurable to a girl of my impatience due to a far more successful equation: 1 night’s lost sleep+1 five-hour flight+4 vodkas+2 valiums = zombie-like and uncharacteristically amenable state. When I made the reservation, I told the hotel receptionist that I’d be there by 8 a.m., having taken the oh so accurately named red-eye on the theory that it would give me a day to check out Boston.

But no, the room’s previous occupant, who can apparently give me a challenging run for my money in the slothfulness department, had failed to check out, so there I was. It was ass-freezing cold, so it didn’t really encourage me to venture outside. Instead, I finally answered lots of emails which had been sitting hopefully in my inbox, waiting for my love and attention. So that was good. Feeling virtuous, I decided to brave the cold, go outside, and soak up a little history.

When I had reached minimum core body temperature, I returned to the hotel to find that they had taken pity on me and decided to give me a more splendid room than the one occupied by the Sloth King of America, and at no extra charge. Really, it was almost too good for me, huge and along with the usual amenities, an office alcove (which would have been fab if only dial-up hadn’t been so Ross-ish), practically a living room with a sofa and chairs, and, get this, a treadmill. It may be the oldest continuously operating hotel in America, but it has definitely kept up with the times.

Love/hate for Friday, March 14, 2003
Tidiness

I really am a control freak. Overly organized and overly tidy for most people’s taste. I buy birthday and Christmas presents throughout the year, whenever I see something that someone on my list would like, and rarely, if ever, am forced to endure the last-minute shopping that is apparently the norm. I already have all the birthday and anniversary cards for April, for example. Our trip to Canada in June has been planned since February.

So it will come as no surprise to you that our apartment is pretty damn tidy. My brother says it looks like no-one lives in it, but this is coming from someone whose living room is full of Tesla coils and a refrigerator containing nothing but home-brewed beer and cider with spigots in the fridge door. For me, part of the pleasure of coming home at the end of a long day of duties is coming home to a clean, tidy, and pretty apartment.

The cleaning lady takes care of the clean part mostly, but I am forever tidying, it seems. It makes John laugh to see me straightening pictures and stacks of magazines, pushing in drawers, alphabetizing the spice rack. When I have been gone for a few days, as I am now, the tidiness standard definitely devolves. John has a good time “batching it”* while I’m away: eating crap, staying up late watching horror movies, not doing any domestic chores whatever, including tidying up. He doesn’t go as far as smoking in the house while I’m away, but other than that, all girl-induced behavior pretty much goes out the window. It’s a little vacation for both of us.

But once I’m back, the reign of tidiness terror begins all over again.

*To quote one of the genial Quilici brothers. They used to have a butcher shop within a little market near us which sadly lost its lease after 75 years and has been replaced by an antique shop. We still miss the market, which was family run for the whole 75 years and was like stepping back into the past. When I was away, John would stop in and get a BBQ chicken or gloriously messy sandwich, and the Quilicis would always ask him if he was “batching it”.