WINE DINNER

Plus Snyder's Pretzels, Jarlsberg cheese slice, and 8 lemon and garlic olives from Whole Foods. Odd had boiled potatoes and shrimp and hot smoked salmon and cucumber. I was antisocial and let him eat in the den. Peg called in the middle of it. She keeps saying "See you tomorrow!" to him so all I hear is "Aw, I can't wait, Peggy! Marvelous! I will think about it all night!" and then I have to be the bad guy and say no, you're not going in tomorrow, I don't have the right car. Which of course he can't process, because what is a "right" or "wrong" car. Christ those olives are good, just had to go put them away.

So listen to this. Tractor Supply in Dalton. They carry cowboy boots. Who knew? My new favourite store. Spent half an hour trying on 4 different kinds, nearly bought all of them I was so excited. This is after surveying all the various thicknesses of black rubber horse matting they carry, equally exciting, don't get me wrong, and have my eye on a 4 x 6 foot piece of the 3/4 inch deep one for the area between the sink and counter. And which, like my father, does not fit into the borrowed Saab, so David Jenkins will collect it for me tomorrow morning in his truck. I think everyone should know someone who owns a truck. The mat costs $36. Ted, the manager at Tractor Supply, warned me that anyone walking over it could--not necessarily, but could--leave skid marks on the surrounding wood, much like cars in do in auto showrooms (the mat, Ted says, is in fact MADE of crushed tires). None of this has turned me off to the product, mind you, but it's early days yet. Check with me when the kitchen starts looking like Le Mans.
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STAFF ON CALL:

Bonny Bonnie being the best. 
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John Fontaine from Fontaine's Auction House in Pittsfield popped by to value Peg and Odd's silver and see if anything in the house was suitable for flogging at Fontaine's, which is high end. Which Peg and Odd's stuff, for the most part, ain't. He left with a musket made in the Tower of London which has hung over every mantle in our houses since 1951 ($1500 tops), a French brass gilt fire screen ($600?) and two solid silver items, a bowl and a nut dish (25p?). Every other piece of silver turns out to be plate. I gave Bonnie a pair of candlesticks and a platter. Not sure what to do with the rest. Maybe distribute back home to all the gardener-grower types in the village to keep the birds away from their raspberries. Look nicer dangling than those old CDs they use.

Speaking of silver, I am reminded again of a number of pieces, real silver, which have been given as gifts, by a certain lady of a the house, to a certain Old Time Radio fan in Seattle, Tom. Along with about six thousand other things over the past eight years, both valuable and sentimental, at least to me. It seems all you have to do is write her and say you've been a fan since you were fourteen and suddenly she's giving you her father's watch. I like Tom, I do, very much, but I don't like him, say, having the silver Viking Ship from David Andersen's in Oslo which I could sell on eBay for at least $700, which is a good few weeks Staff Salary, and I don't like him having all the Norwegian wood carvings I grew up with and wanted. Apparently one box a week was going out of here to Tom--I'd get the heads up from Staff no longer working here (disagreed with Peg on you name it, such as YET ANOTHER FUCKING BOX TO TOM). 

Look. On one hand, I get it. It's her stuff. She has the right to do with it what she likes. But on the other hand, if it were your stuff, and you had only one child, whom you loved and admired and appreciated, wouldn't you at least ASK HER before you spent almost what it cost to send her to Vassar on postage?

Never mind. Except now, last week, no, before she got sick--she made Bonnie take her to Staples to buy 12 more of everything she has already--paper clips, binders, tape and so on--and while she was there she spotted something she thought I'd like, and bought it. A watch, diamante face and leopard print strap that winds around your wrist three times before snapping shut. I actually like it. Plus it came from Mama, Mama who hasn't bought me anything in over ten years because she hardly goes anywhere and doesn't understand the internet. So. I love this watch. LOVE it. And my eyes fill up when I put it on.

Or did. Until yesterday, when I was under instructions to mail the 2 boxes to Tom which had been sitting in her office under her typewriter for I kid you not, a year and a half--plus a new box, packed only a few weeks ago and still needing taping shut. And in this new one, along with half a dozen unread NY Times Review of Books (which she subscribes to so she can MAIL TO TOM), a National Geographic with Eskimos on the cover, and a navy blue fitted jersey sheet--are two watches, like mine, for DONNA, Bonnie says, Tom's wife, and one for their daughter. 

So. I'm not special after all. So. Now I'm pissed off but hiding it because Bonnie's helping seal the box and then helps lug  them all into my car but I can tell she doesn't trust me--and off I go to the post office in Lee where I open the boot and with my car key slash into the already sealed Boxes 1 and 2 and find it's just more magazines and a book and another sheet and some battery candles. And for one brief moment, there at Lee Post Office, I was very very close to taking those three boxes and depositing them in the large green trash barrel by the front door BUT, I didn't. I mailed the suckers ($46) and then emailed Tom and told him to expect them.

If anyone would like a watch, it's very nice, honest. I know, Staples, but still. You'd like it.