LB's journal 04/24/00

April 24, 2000

four seasons inside out

I don't like to admit that anything is really wrong with me. If I do, I don't like to admit it won't be better in a second. I will admit skin problems like this case of poision ivy only because I hate something worse than the admission. And that is having people say, "What's that on your neck?"

I attribute my relatively good health to this refusal to admit illness into my consciousness. This is unreasonable I know. As if I can hold off illness with my will. (Although there is some evidence that this type of effort can improve health to some degree.) In any case, I'm just healthy, by and large, and lucky to be.

Back to work today. I'd like to say that the long weekend gave me renewed vigor for and interest in my work. Actually, in a way, it did.

Last year, at a March of Dimes fund raiser, we bought a chef's table with Elmar Prambs at the Four Seasons. This year we couldn't make the event where this was auctioned off because of a conflict. When we scheduled this event (for four people), we invited Anne and Les. They went to the March of Dimes fundraiser this year, purchased the dinner and invited us. We have lots of friends who would accept our invitation to the dinner, but not many who would reciprocate in this way.

Anne and Les were having their wedding anniversary actually. So they stayed in the hotel tonight.

We started the evening having a bit of cheese and champagne in their room.

They'd been upgraded to the governor's suite which was very nice indeed.

So now that I've spoiled your appetite with my chins, here is the inside view of the Four Seasons kitchen. (Actually a counter large enough for four stools.)

Elmar and his staff made a wonderful dinner.

"What do you want?" Elmar says.

"Tuna!!" says I.

As luck would have it, he'd planned a tuna tartare for the first course. Next I would have said "foie gras" if he'd asked. He didn't. But it was. In phyllo. On and on it went, every course better and better and better.

Our lives, as these pictures show, are too impossibly wonderful. We've had more than we deserve, doubtless. Many times over. Moderation? Nope.

Meanwhile, Rob has fallen prey to Bendos as this entry shows. For him, it starts with bendos. For me, it was Gumby and Bendos are the final stage of addiction as this photo clearly shows. You think you can stop, think you have them all. But on any given day, I can find something new on ebay, something oh so bendable, posable and collectible. Something I don't have. How would I know, you say? I know.