one more apolo­getic, pho­to­less update

My good­ness.

Life has been sim­ply crazy of late. The last two weeks have sim­ply SPED by in the com­pa­ny of my beloved moth­er-in-law who always makes every event three times as much fun, just by being there. And there have been SO MANY events. 

The bur­glary has also set me back as I just can­not retrieve pho­tographs from our old iPho­to sources with any ease. I depend on poor John to teach me to do every­thing, since my old sys­tem was stolen out from under me.

For my own san­i­ty, may I list: “Six Degrees of Sep­a­ra­tion” was a mixed bag, the­atre-wise. Strong per­for­mances, the most thought-pro­vok­ing notion just in and of itself: how many degrees sep­a­rate you from any­one you can imag­ine? Us from the Queen? Not so many as you’d think. John worked once at Gold­man with some­one who is now a Gor­don Brown staffer. There you go: three degrees. Angeli­na Jolie? Avery had a school chum whose moth­er was best bud­dies with Elton John. At most, three degrees? Moth­er Tere­sa? Just add one from the Queen to Princess Diana, and there you go. We could­n’t come up with ANY­ONE for whom we need­ed six actu­al degrees. And nei­ther do you, if you know me. That’s just one extra degree.

The play itself? Mem­o­rable most­ly for the two naked male bod­ies fresh from a gay encounter, leap­ing about the stage. “Con­ceal­ing a gun? Look at me! I don’t think so!” Poor Avery did­n’t know where to look. Today, as I was recount­ing the sto­ry, she said, “I was FINE about it, it was just sit­ting next to YOU when it hap­pened that was embarrassing!” 

Dit­to “The Last Sta­tion”, a film about Tol­stoy, with my adored crush James McAvoy in the sup­port­ing actor role. Well… one of the major plot lines was his deflow­er­ment, by a young Tol­stoyian maid­en. Again, avert­ed eyes, and “if you had­n’t been next to me…!” A bit too much edu­ca­tion, all of a sud­den. But as my dear friend Jo said today, none of it is the first, nor will it be the last, so get used to it all!

There have been count­less fab­u­lous shop­ping trips (Ben­e­fit for Avery, food for me in many dif­fer­ent places, the Apple store for John to replace our stolen com­put­ers)… and meals, my good­ness! Last night’s fried had­dock with fresh olive oil-rose­mary bread­crumbs from Gail’s in Hamp­stead, home­made tartare sauce on the side! The East­er ham and its accom­pa­ny­ing dauphi­noise… fil­let of beef with mush­room dux­elles… pork medal­lions with sage, cream and brandy sauce…

Most of all, it’s been the com­pa­ny of one of my favorite peo­ple on earth, plus two oth­er of my favorite peo­ple on earth. Togeth­er, the four of us hud­dle down wher­ev­er we are, enjoy­ing each oth­er, rais­ing a glass as many times as we can to John’s beloved, much-revered, com­plete­ly-missed father, feel­ing that as long as we can remem­ber him to each oth­er, laugh over our mem­o­ries, he is still here.

Right. Tomor­row I shall con­sol­i­date pho­tographs and tell you about Wilt­shire. Specif­i­cal­ly, Sal­is­bury. Its Cathe­dral Close formed our home for six days, and its peo­ple were a com­plete delight. One in par­tic­u­lar… but that’s anoth­er story. 

I promise I’m get­ting back on track and tomor­row? A recipe.