Donald, the diabetic cat, ate
the ribbon from my Moleskine notebook during the cat
shelter board meeting last week. He attends board
meetings because he lives in the office. He usually just
sits on my notebook or in its vicinty. We tried to elect
him Clerk despite the fact that he doesn't know how to
write. We all watched him play with the ribbon marker,
thinking it was pretty funny. None of us realized he was
actually eating it until he let go and there was only the
mere stub of a ribbon left to mark my place. Funny, the
feature I like the most about the Moleskine is that it
has both a ribbon to mark the page and an elastic band to
keep the notebook closed. Usually I find notebooks have
one or the other but not both. Sigh. The good news,
besides that he apparently passed the ribbon
uneventfully, is that I got email earlier this week from
one of the board members announcing that she had adopted
Donald. Yay!
Do Moleskine notebooks sell better
in blue states? Has anybody analyzed the political
leanings of people who favor Moleskine notebooks
and like cats? The coffee is stronger and the
divorce rate lower in the blue states so I'm getting this
mental image of hordes of long-married couples at the
breakfast table with steaming mugs of New England
Breakfast Blend or French Roast in one hand scribbling in
their Moleskine notebooks with the other while their cats
doze in their laps. 'Tis fascinating that Massachusetts,
the only state that allows same sex marriage, has the
lowest divorce rate in the country. Somehow I knew it
wasn't gay people that were out there threatening
marriages across the land. So it's either the coffee or
the Moleskine notebooks.
So, when not feeding my notebook to
the shelter cats:
- We had the first meeting of the
Thoreau and Emerson (all transcendentalists all the
time) book group in Ned's basement.
- I've been off to Our Nation's
Capital and thereabouts for intensive family relating
like it's going out of style.
- Nancy and I ate fabulous
Transylvanian eggplant in a Hungarian restaurant in
Manchester, NH (extra points for the photos of the
Chain Bridge and St. Matthias Church on the
walls).
- Nancy and I totally binged on
used books at McIntyre & Moore in Davis
Square.
- I didn't see any short-eared
owls.
Somehow I think each day must have
been at least a week long this week.
After spending Monday evening
discussing Letters to a Spiritual Seeker by the
fireplace in Ned's basement until well past Tom's
bedtime, I slept in on Tuesday despite my plan to look
for owls at Salisbury Beach before parking my car at the
Beach Boys' house and carpooling to the airport with
them. Instead I ended up standing online at the hardware
store waiting while someone got 5 copies of each of her
keys. I wanted one measly key for the cat sitter (his
royal orangeness needs his thyroid medicine every day and
he prefers human company while he eats -- I did not want
to come home to a doubly skinny version of Wilbur). So
key but no owls. We picked up La Madre on the way to the
airport and all flew to Reagan National together. Oddly,
this is my first time flying in to National (that's what
it used to be called when I used to go there all the
time) that was not to visit Huge Customer of Cosmodemonic
Telecom. It felt weird. People fly to Washington for
other than business? There isn't $14 million worth of
business depending on this trip? Do I know how to deal
with this?
The Ex-Ex-Pat met us as the
airport. I think he has a cellphone growing out of his
ear. Everybody knows Thanksgiving is a huge week-long
festival of family gatherings, right? Tuesday night's
festivities took place in Georgetown at Filomena's, an
Italian restaurant with Italian Mamas in the window
making fresh pasta. Well, I suppose they could have been
Greek, or Armenian, or Bosnian actresses portraying
Italian pasta-making Mamas, but the pasta is authentic. I
had a multi-mushroom sauce on mine (pasta! what were you
thinking?). This was Szilivia's first experience with
anchovies. La Madre tried to warn her... Absent only the
Grotonites, scheduled to arrive on Wednesday, it was
definitely a family gathering. On the way back to the
hotel, my brother-in-law introduced us as his husband,
mother-in-law, and sister-in-law to the Pakistani cab
driver who claimed to have three gold medals for Olympic
field hockey and to have come to America for greater
opportunity. We did make it clear that we were from
Massachusetts at the outset, so he couldn't have been
too shocked. Driving a cab in Georgetown must be a
heck of an opportunity, after all not only do you get
tips but you get to meet people from the bluest of the
blue states.
On Wednesday the Beach Boys, La
Madre, and I took a tour of the National Cathedral. I
last saw it when I was 14 so I was eager to see it
"finished". Even on a rainy day in Our Nation's Capital,
the stained glass windows are magnificent. My favorite is
the Space Window, although the war and peace ones in the
Woodrow Wilson chapel are very moving as well. But lest I
get through a journal entry without mentioning Franklin
Pierce -- Wednesday being Franklin Pierce's birthday
after all -- when our guide showed us the needlepoint
kneelers depicting personages from American history, the
first one I laid eyes on was Franklin Pierce! I turned to
the guy next to me and told it was Frankling Pierce's
birthday. He was from Georgia. He allowed as to how I
must be from New Hampshire if knew that. Anyway, having
spotted Pierce, I quickly found Sojourner Truth, Herman
Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stow. I looked for Thoreau
and Emerson but didn't spot them. Interesting combination
of religion and history, not to mention engineering --
flying buttresses and all.
Wednesday dinner was pizza and
Chinese takeout at the Ex-Ex-Pat's house. Yes, said house
in the woods of Virginia really exists. Szilvia gave us
the grand tour. Much fun was had by all. Memorable
moments included La Madre showing off photos of her with
the World Series trophy (the Bosox Club had a fundraiser
at the hotel where she works). Szilivia showed us her Red
Sox cap autographed by Johnny Damon (she got him to sign
it at the last regular season game in Baltimore) and my
brother-in-law stopped all conversations around him by
asking her "Who's Johnny Damon?" "Did you just ask 'Who's
Johnny Damon?' ?" came the chorus. "I didn't think it was
possible to have married someone who knows less about
baseball than I do," says the beach brother. Much
laughter was had by all. Talk turned to books (what else
is there in life besides baseball, coffee, books and
birds?) La Madre is reading The Kite Runner for
her book group and Andrea is reading the lastest Tamora
Pierce fantasy, having reverted to fantasy after a
diversion into historical fiction and biography. She
asked what I was reading so I told her about Letters
to a Spiritual Seeker and Emerson's Harvard Divinity
School address (Tom gave Ned and me homework). "Do you
have a book group too, AJ?" "Yes, but we only discuss
Thoreau and Emerson." "Thoreau and Emerson? That must be
very spiritual." (Smart kid.) Lizzy is reading Thoreau
too: The Maine Woods, which I gave her for her
birthday back in August. Apparently she read
Walden and Civil Disobedience in school
this semester and that got her to pick up The Maine
Woods.
On Thanksgiving Day, the Beach
Boys, La Madre, and I walked from our hotel in Dupont
Circle to the WWII memorial in the rain. There were a
surprising number of people there despite the rain and
the holiday. It is a truly moving memorial, especially
the way it lines up with the Washington and Lincoln
monuments on The Mall. The rain let up but the wind came
up to practically gale force. Amazing weather. On the way
back to the hotel we visited the Renwick Gallery of the
Smithsonian for a wonderful exhibit of studio furniture
and an overwhelming exhibit of 19th century American
painting. Then it was off to the woods of Virginia for
the Thanksgiving feast, prepared by Szilvia, Thomas, Tim,
Andrea, and Lizzy. Lots of cooks. Lots of food,
especially pies. Lots and lots of gratitude. After all,
this year the Ex-Pat returned from the non-peace zone AND
the Red Sox won the World Series AND the Beach Boys are
legally married in the eyes of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. We are positively delirious with
gratitude.
Friday we flew back to Boston. Back
at the beach, the boys prepared to host my
brother-in-law's family for T'giving II and I looked for
short-eared owls unsuccessfully. I read more of Emerson's
divinity school address -- radical stuff for the 21st
century (especially in red states) let alone the 19th!
That was about all I could manage on Friday. On Saturday
I ransomed Nancy from her family in Nashua and whisked
her to LaLa's Hungarian restaurant in Manchester for
lunch. There were no short-eared owls in the restaurant
but the eggplant was very good. The guy didn't know where
I could buy Eros Pista 'round here but suggested I try a
similar paprika called Arany Paprika available at Tom's
Deli in Worcester. New excuse to visit the Hermit Potter
I guess. And as if I hadn't done enough this week and
don't already have more than enough to read, Nancy and I
spent hours in McIntyre & Moore and came away with
enough books to pass as grad students in some obscure
cross-discipline thing involving paleontology, Mongolian
music, and American Civilization. It's official, I have
way too many books. Not that there's anything wrong with
that :-)
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New
Hampshire (amazingly enough), and DC (though not a state)
blue. Virginia red. Incidents of travel and adventure?
Priceless.
