Thursday. December 27, 2001

I'm starting to feel less festive than when all the presents were on the table with the bendies...

"Art is unthinkable without risk and spirtual self-sacrifice."

Boris Pasternak, Speech at Writer's Conference

I stay in bed while FFP gets his shower, shave, etc. (Yes, we have two bathrooms. We rarely use the other one. We don't have commodious Master Suite with a shower for two, two sinks and a walk-in closet. And, you know what? It's really OK.)

I decide to review my list of things to do before the day begins and then see how I can do. I make a retirement card for a friend who is having us over for dinner Saturday night and then I make a packing list for New York. There is a long list of things that I want to do that require taking down the network. I vow to do those tonight while FFP is not using it.

Mom calls. She doesn't feel well. She wants me to come over. I can take a leaf out of her table and wash the tablecloth. Her maid is there. The maid could do these things. She says she had a sleepless night. The pain killer made the pain go away but she was sleepless. I think one should learn to accept sleeplessness occasionally as one grows older. Pain even. I'm not very sympathetic. I'm not sure how to tolerate my mom while I wait for the doctors to run more tests, give more drugs and, probably, not change anything.

I have an idea for an artisitc project that entertains me for a while. I eat a snack and read some newspaper and decide to take my medicine and go over and see about her for a while.

The maid is still there, running the vacuum. Mom has gotten her to help Dad change the bed. She is sitting in her office and wants to know why Spider Solitaire is not making these satisfying clicking sound effects. I boot. I decide to download new virus protection. That done, I boot again. The game clicks again.

I interest my mother in the jigsaw puzzle. It does distract her but she occasionally complains about tightness in her chest or moans a little.

Dad makes her some lunch. Later she says I should clean off the table and empty the dishwasher. I go in there but Dad has done it as he told her he would. I change the wash and Dad and I fold her tablecloth. (Dad and the maid also took the leaf out of the table.)

When the jigsaw puzzle is finished, I tell them I'm going home. I shoot a call to home and find out that FFP is out 'seeing about a TV.' I stop by High Fidelity and there he is trying to decide between two sets that will fit where the broken one is. One had a letterbox-type aspect ratio, the other was a conventional-looking one. We could (and will), of course, get the old one fixed. But we had decided to migrate it to the front room to replace a twenty-year-old Sony with none to great a picture anymore. This new one will be HDTV-ready. Which, we understand, you can only get on two Time Warner channels and only with a special box that you can't actually get. I comment that if they can't get it for the weekend and holiday viewing that there is little point in deciding. But we do anyway.

Then we buy wine for two upcoming events we are hosting at Grapevine Market.

This TV may not be in for New Year's Eve. Which means that we won't be watching DVDs. Rather, we will perhaps play games after our special dinner.

At home, I talk briefly to the bookkeeper and we decide to try to eat dinner at Jeffrey's. I receive an e-mail in my work e-mail. A friend wants me to know that another friend's wife is dead of lung cancer. I barely knew her, met her once or twice. But I hired and worked with her husband and admired his intellect and good cheer. At other jobs, I tried to recruit him.

We dine early at Jeffrey's in a mostly empty dining room, exchanging notes with Johnny. A couple of gals share the room briefly and ask to be moved to the other dining room. Then a couple joins, orders a bottle of chardonnay and ponders what foie gras might be.

The foie gras was, as always, an adventure in a duck's engorged liver but the thyme cake overpowered and it only delighted when one worked to get the right portions of the delicious fat and the cake and sauce and green in a mouthful. It was my entreé. A delightful dish of little blinis with scallops and cream and smoked salmon and a toasty tomato sauce was my appetizer appetizer. We had a Crozes Hermitage and the simple Rhone product slipped down gently. Life would be good. But it's so short, sometimes.

At home again, we have a message that the TV will be delivered on Monday. A tribute to a slow year, perhaps. Maybe we'll have a DVD movie-fest for New Year's Eve after all.

JUST TYPING
Illness.
Is subjective.
Until you die.