Yesterday

Thinking about things:

A list for remembering:

Early morning at the RSF: Riding the life cycle for about 45 minutes. Reading my book The Tiger's Wife and having to stop reading because the story is so trenchant. When I read a book I am in love with like this one, I believe every word I read and feel so very deeply about what is happening to the characters. In this book, at times like yesterday, the stories about a character's past impale my mind's ability to comprehend such lives lived as they were.

Noon: Sitting in the sun in the back yard with Eleanor--the two of us smiling and laughing and talking about our adored and very dark mystery movies that we watch even though we are terribly frightened at times and have to stop watching [mostly BBC] and books [mystery and fiction] and our children and grandchildren and religion and a bit of gossip about our neighbors while we watch our sweet girl dogs Desie and Zoe chase each other around and around.

Making spinach lasagna in the afternoon for dinner with Shanan and Heather: Oh dear me. Everything seemed to be going well. I was following directions and layering like I was supposed to--albeit amid a very messy counter filled with so many ingredients to keep track of. When I finished, I literally stood back for a moment and admired my work: three layers each of lovely cherry tomatoes and artichoke hearts and mozzarella and ricotta and lasagna noodles [and please note: not the no-boil kind] and pasta sauce. It was then that I noticed the fresh spinach that was supposed to be one of the layers but instead was still in its bag somewhat hidden behind the bowl I had used for grating the mozzarella. Oh my goodness, I had forgotten the eponymous ingredient. And so, I undid the top layer, flipping one side over at a time, and placed [stuffed], as best I could, large amounts of the forgotten spinach, and then, again as best I could, repositioned everything.

Evening: Dinner with Shanan and Heather. SPINACH Lasagna and salad with romaine lettuce, lemon vinaigrette dressing, feta cheese and currants. And champagne. And Hanukkah lights, too. After dinner we took our sweet dogs Goose and Desie for a neighborhood walk. We ended up at the Claremont Hotel [Shanan's suggestion] and took a little tour of the place. Then back home for dessert.

In the living room: Enjoying Heather's very delicious [Red] Velvet Cake with cream cheese and butter and sugar and vanilla frosting [which Shanan and I could not bear to watch her make] topped with pomegranate seeds. And, I will remember this part always, the three of us reading aloud about making fruitcakes and finding one-of-a kind Christmas trees and friendship and home made kites with good conduct stars in "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote.

Truman Capote and his "Friend"

In this excerpt from A Christmas Memory, Capote describes the people who will receive the thirty-one fruitcakes he and his friend have made and how this photo came about:

Who are they for?

Friends. Not necessarily neighbor friends: indeed, the larger share is intended for persons we've met maybe once, perhaps not at all. People who've struck our fancy. Like President Roosevelt. Like the Reverend and Mrs. J. C. Lucey, Baptist missionaries to Borneo who lectured here last winter. Or the little knife grinder who comes through town twice a year. Or Abner Packer, the driver of the six o'clock bus from Mobile, who exchanges waves with us every day as he passes in a dust-cloud whoosh. Or the young Wistons, a California couple whose car one afternoon broke down outside the house and who spent a pleasant hour chatting with us on the porch (young Mr. Wiston snapped our picture, the only one we've ever had taken). Is it because my friend is shy with everyone except strangers that these strangers, and merest acquaintances, seem to us our truest friends? I think yes. Also, the scrapbooks we keep of thank-you's on White House stationery, time-to-time communications from California and Borneo, the knife grinder's penny post cards, make us feel connected to eventful worlds beyond the kitchen with its view of a sky that stops.